From the course: Shooting with Blackmagic Cinema Cameras

Adjusting settings via Bluetooth

From the course: Shooting with Blackmagic Cinema Cameras

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Adjusting settings via Bluetooth

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- Newer cameras from Black Magic actually offer Bluetooth. And like many manufacturers, the adoption of cell phone pairing or tablet pairing with the camera opens up some pretty cool options. When it comes to controlling the monitoring for the camera as well as recording options, the use of a smartphone app is really useful. Now, to get this turned on is pretty straightforward. You're going to want to first go to the store and download the application. Just do a search for Black Magic Design and download the application I'm showing here. It is an extra purchase but I think it's worth it, so you could decide for yourself. Next, you need to enable a few settings. Start by going to the back of the camera and press the menu button. Then make sure to choose the setup tab. Now you can cycle through the different pages until you get to the one here where you have the option to turn Bluetooth on. Now the camera has a unique name that you'll look for with Bluetooth. On your device, simply fire it up and connect. Now it will search for the camera. You'll notice that both the Ursa Mini, that we were using earlier, and the Pocket cinema camera show up, because Bluetooth is enabled on each. I could tap the camera that I want to connect to and then tap the connect button. It'll take a moment and send a handshake request. On the back of the camera, you'll notice that a code is displayed. You'll need to type this code into your smartphone to pair. Now you'll notice that things are properly connected. Now what I can see is what's going on with the camera itself. Let's go ahead and we'll exit the menus here, and instead rely upon the smartphone to make adjustments. For example, I can easily adjust the white balance for the camera right here on the phone, or choose from simple presets for different lighting conditions. If I want, I could tap auto focus and it will invoke an area-based auto focus, finding detail and locking it in. Now, there are multiple pages here, so with a simple swipe I get additional controls. I could choose to change the frame rate if I'd like. I could adjust the iris here, and you can see how it's refining exposure. Now, this is a DSLR style lens, so you can actually hear the clicking in place, so it's not a smooth transition, rather, it's a series of click stops and you see it jumps. If you were using a de click lens that had the electronic controls here, you could smoothly transition those. Let's dial that in and get a good exposure. I can also change the shutter speed, which will affect both motion and the overall exposure, And with a quick tap, I see all of my ISO settings, so I can dial in the correct ISO. for the sensitivity for this particular scene, making it very simple to get the perfect exposure. Let's swipe. You'll also see options for zebra stripes to check for overexposed areas, and the use of frame guides makes it very easy to turn on different overlays here, so you can see protected zones for shooting. And we'll explore these options more later. We can control options for focus assist, which we'll explore later; adjust our record quality settings here, as well as resolution, and even get into advanced options for focus. Now I can choose which memory card I record to, and even trigger a record directly from the remote app. As you see, the use of the remote control opens up some interesting options and prevents you from having to go digging around in the camera menus to make easy changes. Later, when we talk about using the built-in slate which can add metadata to each shot, this is particularly useful; because it allows a producer or an assistant to put log notes right into the footage on set.

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