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Blackmagic URSA Mini - $2995 - official thread


Andrew Reid
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My guess is that BM is banking on the costs of CFast media coming down dramatically -- Grant Petty said as much in one of the interviews (NFS?) from the NAB floor. His defense of the format was that CFast was built from the ground up for high-volume storage applications like video, and was better spec'ed for cameras than even SSD. But, right now, the media question on this camera is huge. Hope things change soon.

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I just realized that the URSA mini on display at NAB is behind a glass case, i.e., there is no hands on demo. 2 years ago the Pocket and Production cameras were introduced and both were available for hands on demos. Last year URSA and Studio cams were introduced, both had hands on demos. This year, no hands on demos. Do you think that means anything about their current state of development, and possibly shipping dates?

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I bet in 12 months time this will be the almost perfect camera for me! (but.... still a pity about the lack of ND filters, and no m4/3 mount)

As in 12 months after shipping, I'll be able to get it for a grand or two cheaper (either on a sale, or by that point in time there will likely be a few floating on eBay at a good price), and CFast media will have become cheap enough to consider. 
(plus I think it is too early days anyway for me to spend this much on a camera, need to build up myself and my work a bit more)

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I just realized that the URSA mini on display at NAB is behind a glass case, i.e., there is no hands on demo. 2 years ago the Pocket and Production cameras were introduced and both were available for hands on demos. Last year URSA and Studio cams were introduced, both had hands on demos. This year, no hands on demos. Do you think that means anything about their current state of development, and possibly shipping dates?

​Not so, this one isn't just behind a glass case, it also gets played with a hands on:

 


There is lots of videos like this. For instance also in this interview you can see the guy is actually using it, and looking through the EVF:
http://***URL not allowed***/talk-blackmagic-ergonomics-ursa-mini/

Plus there is the real world footage shot with the new sensor by Captain Hook which is online:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicursa

So ​while it is very tricky to predict exactly when they'll ship, I'm not seeing anything here which is making me doubt it any more than usual. 

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​Not so, this one isn't just behind a glass case, it also gets played with a hands on:
​There is lots of videos like this. For instance also in this interview you can see the guy is actually using it, and looking through the EVF:
http://***URL not allowed***/talk-blackmagic-ergonomics-ursa-mini/Plus there is the real world footage shot with the new sensor by Captain Hook which is online:https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicursa

So ​while it is very tricky to predict exactly when they'll ship, I'm not seeing anything here which is making me doubt it any more than usual. 

​Dooh! I had not seen that. Thats good.

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The Ursa Mini seems like a shot at KineMini. It will probably have the advantage of EF image stabilization support...while KineMini can now go full-frame with its own adapter...difficult choice...ultimately, footage will probably decide.

​There's more to a camera than footage. Yes I just said that. It must be a system that is within budget, and easy to get results with. For run and gun it needs to be forgiving in less than perfect lighting conditions. Battery life must be adequate for a days work. And media must be manageable. 

I have little doubt that the footage will look great under ideal conditions. But I feel for most a camera that comes closer to a complete solution will be what earns their dollars. I will be watching this camera with interest to see if it can be more than a niche device. 

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I was just reading on the BM forums, a similar post re. ISO ratings and the same response is on there, that when chatting to BM at NAB they've said the reason they've not confirmed any rating yet as because they are still tweaking the 4.6K sensor in the hope of getting a better base ISO than 800 and better ISO range at both ends than 200-1600. Hopefully it'll be able to get to 3200 and down to 100 and be useable.

I'm not going to be buying for 12 months anyway (earliest Jan 2016) so hope cFast2 prices have dropped by then to be much more manageable and I'll find the camera is good for use at things like weddings and other run n gun events.

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I am interested in what "Anamorphic ready" for this camera means? Pretty much every camera can use a slr magic anamorphic lens and the nle make the adjustment for Anamorphic in post.  I watched the BM explanation, but am still confused how BM makes it "anamorphic ready" over any other camera? Does this  mean it doesn't need an anamorphic lens? I don't think that is the case since BM references a $5k lens to use. so what does it mean?

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Guest Ebrahim Saadawi

okay Jed look at it this way: 

An anamorphic lens squeezes the the full image, making it less wide and taller than a regular lens image. Essentially projecting a more square-like image onto the sensor. 

Now, if you project a squeezed square image on a normal rectangular sensor, you will have to crop out the parts on both sides on the rectangle that have no image, there for you loose a ton of resolution. 

The anamorphic ready sensor is the same square-like size, so the unsqueezed projected image from the anamorphic lens fits exactly in it, and you just unsqueeze the full rsolution image with no loss in quality. It's basically a resolution matter. 

The URSA can shoot a square-like window (3072 x 2560) that matches the projected image aspect ratio therefore you don't have to crop the sides in post. 

Another feature in an anamorphic ready camera, is that it can show you the final unsqueezed image while shooting in the LCD & EVF and gives the shooter to see how the final image will look instead of shooting looking at a squeezed image. 

In short, anamorphic ready = can shoot 4:3 squarish aspect ratio instead of just 16:9. + Desqueeze in-camera evf & LCD

In the ursa example here, the only gain is that you skip the cropping process from 16:9 to 4:3, but some cameras like the alexa + gh4 gives you MORE vertical resolution so that you actually gain resolution over shooting in normal 16:9 mode & post cropping.

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Guest Ebrahim Saadawi

THERE IS MUCH MORE TO A CAMERA THAN IQ! Had to be in CAPs to!!!

The percentage of the importance of IQ in the overall package varies upon shooting genres.

Hollywood features, high end large crew films/commercials: 90% IQ + 10% system
Corporate, low-mid docs, commrcials, low-mid music: 60% IQ + 40% system
One man crew docs, films, low end events, web, news, broadcast: 30% IQ + 70% system!

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