Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera User Manual Shooting using a Vertical Aspect Ratio

Your Pocket Cinema Camera supports vertical aspect ratios so you can craft cinematic content for platforms like YouTube and TikTok with the color and dynamic range of digital film. Simply rotate the camera to record in a vertical aspect ratio such as 9:16 and 4:5. The on screen HUD rotates so critical information, such as frame rate, shutter angle and frame guides, are easy to view. Pressing record locks all overlays for the duration of the shot so you can change angles and the on screen information will remain in place.

Your camera tags vertical video in the clips’ metadata so it appears correctly on your edit timeline

Locking Vertical and Horizontal

Locking the display to vertical or horizontal stops the on screen information from rotating automatically. For example, when vertical is locked, your camera will maintain the vertical on screen HUD even at extreme angles. Refer to the ‘vertical recording’ section under ‘record settings’ for more information.

Using Frame Guides

Frame guides are overlay markers that can be enabled on the camera’s LCD. These are helpful to make sure important details stay in shot and items you don’t want are kept out. They are also effective for when anticipating overlays that you might want to use in your presentation. For example, graphics, titles, icons and visual effects.

Grids

Grids are another helpful overlay for composing shots and balancing the frame for a vertical format.

For more information about frame guides, grids, plus other helpful overlays and on screen features, refer to the ‘touchscreen features’ section.

Editing Vertical Clips on a Timeline

When recording vertical video using Blackmagic RAW and Apple ProRes codecs, clips are tagged as vertical in their metadata. DaVinci Resolve version 18.5 or later will recognize the tag and display your video correctly in an edit timeline. This is also true for other editing applications that support the Blackmagic RAW SDK and ProRes, for example Adobe Premiere and Avid Media Composer.

Using Vertical Aspect Ratios in a Horizontal Project

If your project is using a horizontal format, for example 1920x1080 HD, clips tagged as vertical will be scaled to fit. This is important when using vertical clips in a news or television broadcast. You can fill the sides automatically using solid colors or even using DaVinci’s ‘blanking fill’ effect. For more information refer to the ‘Resolve FX overview’ section in the DaVinci Resolve manual available at the Blackmagic Design support center at www.blackmagicdesign.com/support