Andrew Reid

Indeed. I thought Blackmagic had a nice unique product line going, providing for a genuine market that existed and needed the products... and then suddenly here they are putting all they R&D and best software features into a couple of high end cameras aimed at Arri and Sony, at a price tag too low for pros and too high for 90% of the previous user base.

A clue is in the body. It is A7 based with same shutter. It doesn't have the more expensive trimmings of the A7R body.   Therefore I am expecting the price to be around about the A7 level, which would be a steal.   The recorder is likely to be the more expensive part... but still considering the end spec you are getting - full frame 4K ProRes 4:2:2 with 14 stop dynamic range... it ain't bad.

  Why can't you have some empathy and stop forcing your world view on other people... what is right for you, for example, is right for you. It isn't right for The World. The filmmaking world is very varied, many flavours, many different techniques, sizes of crew and shooting styles.   I used both the Production Camera (aka URSA sensor) and GH4, preferred the GH4's image... and that is $1699.   And hey for your $1699 you even get audio meters. Imagine that!?

It's not too expensive for what it is.   But the size and weight are throwbacks to a bygone era.

It looks fine to me on the dynamic range front. Very little of it is blown out. The actual shooting could do with a bit more imagination but I'm not seeing any glaring problems.   Dynamic range does not look like LOG or CineStyle BTW... Nor does it look like the horrible HDR sick. Dynamic range for cinema really is how much of the shadows and highlights remain while keeping a ton of contrast in the image. Alexa and BMCC are good examples.

Try this for Copy instead - https://copy.com/EoeMcoA2T9L4

Hopefully Canon will react to A7S and GH4 with a 5DC / 4D with 1D C sensor (and image quality) - just not the pro photography features or as high build quality. Ideally it would be more up to date on the 4K side with more space efficient 4K codec than MJPEG. 10bit via HDMI would also be useful.   Price no more than $3k.

  BMC as in Blackmagic Cinema Camera?   The AJA is $9k so not the same market.

  And roll like it's the 80's all over again.

  Must say URSA looks better in the flesh.   UI seems to have a lot of features and works smoothly. Screen looks well built and overall camera is attractive to look at.   Still not really for my style of shooting though.   Make it smaller and lighter, put a more sensitive sensor in there and I'm in.   Also that UI, audio levels, etc. let's see them on the other cameras before too long hey!

  It will be nice for 1080p for sure. Especially for drones and gimbals where the weight and size needs to be kept down to a minimum.

Let's try to avoid harsh personal comments in this forum please bwhitz, no hard feelings but keep it classy!

What that Sony ad suggests is a physical impossibility.   Very strange!   If you read out every pixel from a 12MP sensor you get approx. 4.2k horizontally. This will be either cropped or zoomed to 3840 pixels in-camera. Cropped I hope, as zoomed would be pixel binning on the image processing side, if not on the sensor.   If you crop out an APS-C area from the 12MP sensor there's not enough resolution in that window to create a 4K image, so how are Sony doing 4K in APS-C mode? Like I say... weird!

GH4 certainly has the advantage of coming first. Sony were very unclear over availability and pricing for the A7S. I can only assume it is a few months of yet as a result, as usually companies of this size are pretty clear on such issues.

Good thing is we now have a choice. A7S for low light 4K under $2k. GH4 for internally recorded 4K under $2k.   Both make superb 2K solutions as well because of the benefits of oversampling 2K from a 4K image in post.   Bob you get it better than many....   And I love the GH4 for same reason I loved the GH1... at the time, stunning image, lots of features, for low prices and no hassle. Very creative.

  You see I prefer not to have that.   I'm happy to trade 1 stop dynamic range for some levels and an OLED screen / EVF so I can expose properly in the first place.   I'd trade 1080p raw for 4K 8bit, because of the more manageable file sizes, especially long term for archival of the master files. 4K on the GH4 grades extremely well as I showed in some of my production diary posts.   I still love colour in raw but again I am happy with colour on the GH4, and it makes for very smooth 10bit 2K 444.   1 and 2/3rd Speed Booster is nice on the Pocket but I would trade that 2/3rd of an extra stop for the better low light performance in the GH4 from the sensor.   Same goes for BMCC 2.5K MFT.   I am not all of a sudden a Blackmagic hater but I think the Ursa is not an appealing direction as far as I am concerned and I think the A7S and GH4 have more features as well as images which are a huge step up to what we had before from mirrorless cameras.

Since I have used the GH4 I wonder when I pick up my Pocket camera why I am not just shooting with the GH4 instead.   I didn't get the feeling with the GH3 because the image just wasn't as nice, but now...   Especially with 10bit 4:2:2 output and 4K it is nicer.

It can't do 4K in APS-C crop mode.

The integration of all the rig stuff you might use on a BMCC is a good idea on the Ursa but I think you are swapping one practicality mess for another.   The weight makes it impractical for a ton of stuff. How many times have we heard people sing praises of lighter cameras like the 5D or EPIC because it makes rigging lighter. Lots of stuff is shot form 3 axis gimbals and MoVi is pretty groundbreaking. I'd rather have that freedom of shot getting, than having to lug around 10kg on sticks like some nostalgic throwback to the film days.   Drones are great too... GH4 can go on one. This can't.   With the GH4 you can strip it down or build it up and buy 3, keeping each on set in a different configuration depending on the shot you need to get. Rather have 3 of those bespoke rigs than one big heavy Ursa that is only suitable for half the shots I need to do.   So much great work has been shot on location with the smaller cameras, without a large crew. I have tried shooting in a small crew with a heavy camera - the Kineraw S35 was very heavy - I hated every second of it. I was seeing shots and angles all over the place and the camera just wasn't nimble enough to go there quick enough.   Fact is big heavy cameras slow you down.   I am all for getting rid of the stupid spidery arms and bits hanging of DSLRs and BMCCs.   But this is wrong way to go about it.   All this time, effort and money - some of it ours - spent on two new cameras rather than updating the BMCC form factor to something much more usable. Like a Mini Ursa. It's a tragedy.   Just give us a BMCC in a small but integrated and capable cinema camera, that's all I want!

  Yes but look at what these guys are using already... C100, C300 and rental of Arri or Red.   What does the Ursa do that these don't?   If it has the same sensor as the Production Camera it will be unusable on a music video shoot because you can't point it directly at lights or flare up the lens. Black holes!

  It depends on the DSLR.   DSLR as in 1D C - horrible to use for motion.   DSLR as in mirrorless camera / GH3 - actually pretty good.   I think the GH4 has come a long way ergonomically.   Peaking, OLED monitor, very high res EVF, CineLikeD, pedestal, luma settings, zebra, large battery, weather sealed, stronger magnesium alloy body, video optimised live view and video info display modes...   I don't agree with lumping in all the DSLRs into the same boat when it comes to ergonomics for motion.

At the moment I don't see how it fits into the market.   Low budget filmmakers have rental options like C300.   They also have the BMCC and BMPC which give comparable images I assume to the Ursa.   For 4K they have the BMPC, GH4 and A7S for far less than $6k.   The Aja Cion - now this is how to design an indie filmmaking camera. It is like a poor man's Arri Amira. Lovely ergonomics and presumably same 4K sensor as is in the Ursa.   I just think that running around with a generator, lights, heavy bulky equipment, is so last decade though...   And so is native ISO 400.

  The jobs and projects that need Ursa already have Alexa or F55.   Surely productions that the Ursa is aimed at consider $6k as small. If they have the budget for a crew and all the other stuff necessary to operate the Ursa, then surely they can use an F55 or an Alexa?   The beauty of Blackmagic so far, for me, has been the high image quality for low prices in small boxes.   Very artistic tools.   The Ursa is more a workhorse in search of work.

  Shot at 4K and dropped onto a 1080p timeline, scaled 50% in Premiere.   Which copy link is broken? Let me know and I'll have a look.

  Frank has shot a ton of nice slow-mo stuff and I want to wait to see if any of it can be included on Day 5's diary because some of it is work for other clients and he has to get permission.   Also NAB has started and I need to focus on that, as well as finishing my A7/A7R/A7S lenses book.   So Day 5 will come later, kind of more logical that way rather than rushing something out that isn't ready :)