Blackmagic Pocket 4K/6K cameras now natively shoot vertical video

Blackmagic recently announced the Blackmagic Camera 8.1 update. The major addition contained within the new update is native support for vertical video. Yes, sure, you can rotate any camera to give you a vertical orientation and then rotate your footage in post, but not quite like this. The new feature automatically detects the orientation of your camera and rotates the camera’s display to match.

This is a great feature that makes it much easier to see and tweak your settings on the Pocket 4K, 6K, 6K G2 and 6K Pro cameras when shooting vertical footage for social media. We stopped by the Blackmagic Design stand at NAB 2023 to chat with Technical Sales Director, Craig Heffernan, to learn more about it.

Blackmagic Design says that the new Blackmagic 8.1 update allows you to more easily shoot vertical content for social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube Shorts and more. All you need to do is rotate your camera to shoot 9:16 or 4:5 vertical aspect ratios. The display’s HUD automatically rotates along with the camera, keeping it in the correct orientation for easy reading and adjustment.

When you’ve shot your footage, all you need to do is import it into DaVinci Resolve, and your footage is automatically oriented the correct way round. You can even use it to mount cameras upside down and have them automatically come into DaVinci Resolve with the correct orientation. You can even upload directly to TikTok and YouTube from within DaVinci Resolve, too.

Price and Availability

The Blackmagic Camera 8.1 update is available now and you can download it free of charge from the Blackmagic website.