This tiny camera aims to be the GoPro for pros

People love tiny cameras. You need only look at GoPro to see that. But do people love tiny professional cinema cameras? Blackmagic is hoping they will with the company's new Micro Cinema Camera.

Blackmagic's latest has a lot going for it: a Micro Four Thirds (MFT) interchangeable lens mount, and a Super 16 sensor. But that comes with a $995 price tag when it ships in July — roughly double that of the top-of-the-line GoPro Hero4. Similar to the GoPro, The Micro Cinema Camera is small enough to be worn on a helmet, flown by a drone, and taken almost anywhere.

The Micro Cinema Camera shoots Full HD 1080p video using CinemaDNG RAW or Apple ProRes compression, and it has Blackmagic's customary set of frame rate options, which include 24, 30, and 60 frames per second.

With its impressive specs, you could call the Micro Cinema Camera a GoPro for pros. However, the Micro Cinema Camera is more of an investment. In addition to the grand you'll spend on the camera itself, you'll also need to shell out more for lenses, controls, mounts, and accessories.

Without a lens, the Micro Cinema Camera is essentially a little box. It's also very light, weighing just 10.65 ounces without a battery pack.
To be clear, that's about twice the weight of a GoPro Hero4 inside its waterproof case, making the Micro Cinema Camera somewhat hefty by comparison. But that heft is due to a strong magnesium shell and an active Micro Four Thirds lens mount—two features a GoPro lacks.

This little video camera can be used with any MFT lens (as well as lenses from other mounts, if you get the right adapter). Obviously, using the camera with huge, heavy lenses will affect its portability (drones can only lift so much), but there are plenty of light, compact MFT lenses out there.

The camera has three tripod mounts on its base and one on top, making it easily mountable to any device that has a standard tripod screw or plate. The battery slot on the back works with Canon-compatible LP-E6 batteries, which are easy to find online and give you up to 90 minutes of recording time, according to Blackmagic.

One of the Micro Cinema Camera’s shortfalls is that it has no LCD display, which means you can't monitor what you're shooting unless you connect the camera to an external device (via HDMI or the expansion port). It also lacks built-in WiFi, so you can't monitor recording on your smartphone like you can with a GoPro and virtually every other action cam on the market.

As a whole, the Micro Cinema Camera's connectivity features are unlike any other camera’s. This isn't necessarily a good thing—the strange setup is sure to appeal to some, but it's bound to annoy plenty of others.

Here's how it works. The camera has what Blackmagic is calling an "expansion port" that's based on a standard DB-HD15 pin connector. Each pin in the port controls a different signal (like power, video output, remote operation, etc.), which allows you to connect a wide variety of cables. If you can't find a cable for your specific needs, Blackmagic recommends building and soldering your own (seriously).

Through the expansion port, Blackmagic says you could attach, among other things, two remote control systems: PWM Analog Servo and Futaba S.Bus Digital Servo.

Those two control systems are both the most interesting and the most complicated of the bunch. PWM 4-channel Analog Servo Controls would theoretically enable you to map the Micro Cinema Camera's controls to a model airplane controller and operate the camera settings remotely, though you’d be limited to mapping just four camera controls to your remote.

Futaba's S.Bus is similar, but it's a far more advanced, 18-channel digital control system. That means you can map a lot more functions to a remote control than you can with PWM.

While these control schemes sound intriguing, and maybe even fun to construct, they sure won’t appeal to everyone. To be frank, this device requires a lot of tinkering and extra tools to unlock its full potential.

As impressive as the Micro Cinema Camera is, I can't help but wish it offered more. Built-in WiFi with smartphone monitoring would open it up to a broader audience—especially those who aren't excited about shelling out cash for a model airplane controller or embarking on another DIY project.

That's where the Micro Cinema Camera clearly butts heads with the GoPros of the world. With all its power and customizability, this camera lacks the ease of use of a consumer action cam. The Micro Four Thirds lens mount, the recording options, the design, and the build quality are all great, but all the extra supplies and effort needed to get the most out of the Micro Cinema Camera aren’t so welcome.

Ultimately, it depends on how much time and money you're willing to invest in this system (or how much compatible equipment you already own). Either way, it should be interesting to see how this camera sells, and I can't wait to see the videos people create with it.

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