My Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K Rig Setup: Travel | Work | Ronin S

This setup comes in 3 main pieces: The Battery Solution, Camera Body, and Monitor/Top Handle

Battery Solution

Manfrotto Quick Release Plate

Smallrig Camera Base Plate

Smallrig Camera Extension Arm Connector

Haoge Arca Swiss Lens Plate

My Battery Solution (Sony NPF Battery Plate)

6inch 15mm Rods

Camera Body

Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Metabones Speed Booster for EF

Small Rig Metabones Lens Support

Lens: Sigma 18-35mm

Cable Clamp

Full Small Rig Cage

Samsung T5

Nucleus Nano

Peak design Anchor

Monitor/Top Handle

Atomos Shinobi 

Top Handle

Small Nato Rail to slide monitor on and off

Skinny Hdmi

Nato Monitor Mount

DC Cable Male to Male (Sorry no link I can’t find the one I used)

with all of these parts put together, I’m able to easily switch between gimbal shots, handheld, or steady tripod shots.

*Gimbal Pieces:

Nucleus Nano Quick Release Plate for Ronin S (This comes with the appropriate sized Allen Key to take off the original Follow focus knob)

Counterweights for Ronin S

The WHY:

After coming back from a long trip to Japan and trying to Vlog on this beast, I realized that I needed a smaller setup. Not only did I need a smaller setup, I needed something a little more flexible.

I started my trip with my camera, a cage, a top handle, a monitor, a samsung t5 mount, and a microphone mounted to the side of the monitor. All powered through a single Sony NPF battery. This was all held up by neck with a Peak Design strap. Needless to say, It was cumbersome and stressful on my neck. It made traveling a drag. If I’m constantly holding my camera and filming, then the load isn’t too bad. During my travels, this wasn’t the case. I would have to wait for things to happen and walk around with it around my neck or cross shoulder strap it and bump into people.

The Travel Setup:

Very early on in my trip, I decided to take off the monitor. I realized I wasn’t using it too much since it would take too long to power on when something spontaneously happened. The Atomos Shinobi’s visibility was much better than the stock monitor but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make to shed some weight and make a less conspicuous setup for filming.

At the end of my trip I found my self never using the top handle, I removed the external microphone and even took off the external battery source.

I had a bare bones setup with only a Smallrig Full Cage and the Samsung T5 HD mounted on. I just left the wireless follow focus on since it’s so light. Since my setup was way lighter, I found my self willing to take this camera around and film more. I packed a bunch of LPE6  batteries in my backpack and that was all I needed.

The Work Setup:

Whenever I would have video projects, it would be essential to weigh down my camera so that I could minimize the jitters and shake of my hands. I would need to be able to throw it on a gimbal or a tripod quickly if I had to. Having already taken off everything from my camera, I didn’t want to continuously be rigging and unrigging my setup. This is when the flexibility part of this setup came into play. I needed a way to quickly take off the parts I mentioned before and reattach them seamlessly. I used a quick release Manfrotto plate and a bunch of Nato rails. This setup allows me to fully rig up my camera, throw it on my cheapy tripod (hopefully upgrading soon)  and take off a few pieces to throw it on my Ronin S.

The Gimbal Setup

For the longest time, I tried to avoid buying counter weights for my Ronin S. After lots of testing, I honestly believe this is the best way to get the BMPCC4K to correctly balance on there.

The body of the camera is wide and with the full cage attached, it’s even wider. Because of that, I leave my Manfrotto Ronin S plate off centered

the beauty of that Camvate Manfrotto quick release plate I mentioned early is that with just a quick slide and plug, I can switch back to an external battery and hand held mode.

I only use gimbals for following, imitation sliders, and establishing shots. Since it’s not on there too long and It’s a super heavy setup, the Canon lpe6 batteries are more than enough time to get the shot I need.

To conclude, this will probably be my setup for a long while. Yes this was a very pricey build; however, I think the great part about this build is that if I ever chose to change my camera, I would only need to buy another cage. Everything is swappable!  It has everything I need: good battery life, great portability when disassembled, easily transferable to a gimbal, light when bare boned, and heavy when needed!