Blackmagic Design Cameras Capture Artist Salavat Fidai's Micro Sculptures Brie Clayton March 15, 2026
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6K sensor and open gate capability bring intricate pencil tip sculptures to life.
Now widely known for his graphite micro sculptures, artist and filmmaker Salavat Fidai didn't get his start in the professional art world until later in life. After more than 20 years in the corporate world, he left it behind and began experimenting with different art materials and techniques. Fidai eventually settled on graphite micro sculpting, or carving intricate sculptures onto the tips of pencils, and has created more than 700 micro sculptures over the last 10 years, showing his miniature art at countless exhibitions, galleries and museums around the world.
For the first few years, I photographed the finished sculptures for social media, but my followers started asking to see the carving process, Fidai explained. My videos quickly went viral, racking up millions of views and a multimillion strong audience of followers, as well as gaining the attention of advertising agencies and major brands. This is how I transitioned from amateur filming to creating professional content and commercials.
As I dove deeper into video, editing and color grading, I quickly realized the limitations of my gear at the time. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to participate in a documentary film, and I first tested the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. I was very impressed by the cinematic image, film like flexibility, the natural color reproduction of skin tones, and all that at a very affordable price. I also loved the huge built in display, and the Blackmagic OS' very user friendly and well designed menu. I think it was love at first sight.
Since Fidai's work is so intricate and on a micro level, filming his sculptures also has very specific technical requirements. I began using the full frame Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K, and it's important for me to have such a powerful, compact camera in my arsenal. I shoot the primary material through the third eyepiece of my trinocular stereo microscope using an adapter, where the weight and size of the camera matter a lot, he noted. And when I need to shoot something super high quality, I rely on the full frame sensor's 6K open gate capabilities.
I immediately loved the practically unlimited color gamut of the Blackmagic RAW codec, which provides flexibility and ease in post processing the video material, Fidai added. The 6K sensor allows me to capture the smallest details of my work and do the necessary cropping in the edit without fear of losing image quality. I also found that material shot on the Cinema Camera 6K, followed by downsampling to 4K, significantly improves detail and micro contrast, which is crucial when filming miniature work.
It's hard to overstate the feeling of being confident in the reliability of the gear and the video quality that a Blackmagic camera delivers. It inspired me to take on new, interesting creative projects and brought me closer to the world of big cinema.
After participating in several film projects, Fidai started making plans to shoot his own documentaries. I started looking for an everyday cinema camera accessible for an independent filmmaker. Despite all the obvious advantages of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K, I really needed a box style camera and formfactor, he said.
Enter the Blackmagic PYXIS 6K digital film camera.
I immediately loved the cubic form of the PYXIS' body, allowing for various accessories and attachments for its multi purpose applications. Also, I was thrilled to use the URSA Cine EVF as it opens new possibilities for shooting documentaries in bright sunlight and dynamic handheld scenes. Now, I happily use my PYXIS 6K daily as my main camera for shooting commercials, documentary interviews and various creative experiments, he said.
Working with Blackmagic Design cameras and shooting in Blackmagic RAW led Fidai to experiment with DaVinci Resolve Studio. At first, I only used DaVinci Resolve as a developing room' for Blackmagic RAW conversion and noise reduction, but now I've progressed significantly toward color grading and audio processing, he explained. I'm still at the beginning of my journey mastering DaVinci Resolve Studio, but I can already highly appreciate the tools for working with audio, tracking, image stabilization, convenient video compression into any format, and my favorite node system.
I recently discovered the fantastic AI voice isolation tool. I was shooting an interview in a large room with high ceilings, and the lavalier mic recorded a lot of reverb/echo while the external boom mic picked up street noise. Fixing the sound would have taken me several hours with third party plugins or special audio editors. But I remembered Resolve's AI tool for such cases, and the result was an instantly crystal clear voice without background noise or echo.
Fidai concluded, Many people who see my miniature art for the first time say that what I create on the tip of a pencil is some kind of amazing magic,' and now, that magic has doubled its power with Blackmagic Design products.
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