Are we CRAZY for buying 6 of these!? - Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
1,743 words · ~8 min read
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- Six cameras. We bought six of this single camera.
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What camera? The Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K.
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An 80 Megapixel cinema camera. Let's see what's in the box.
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You have the DaVinci resolve studio SD card
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that gives you a full copy of resolve.
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A black magic sticker. A little welcome quick start guide.
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This foam is really solid. That's good.
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Ah, there she is, beautiful. So, it comes with a power supply.
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Though in this box, I believe, it doesn't feel like--
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you have some cables for a DIY V-Mount plate
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and then this power brick. However, the power brick doesn't come with a power cable.
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So, hopefully, you have a spare at home because Blackmagic doesn't include it.
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And here is the main event.
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The Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K. It feels Toshiaki.
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Definitely feels 12K. I haven't looked at the URSA Mini since the first generation
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'cause we never had a G2 LMG but when I saw the specs
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for the G2 and the way it was built I was pretty impressed with what Blackmagic was doing and there was a point in time
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where we considered picking up a few of the 4.6K G2.
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I'm glad we didn't 'cause now we have six of these.
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Before I do a physical tour, I'm sure many of you are asking does anyone need 12,000 Pixels in a camera?
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And the answer to that is absolutely not.
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Is it really cool? Yes. Is resolution everything? No.
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We've been using RED cameras here at LMG for about three years and those are already 8K
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which is in itself already almost too much resolution
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and here we are Blackmagic has made a 12K camera.
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I think because they really wanted a marketing spec to push
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and beyond the resolution this thing has a lot going for it.
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So, on the left of the camera you have a display
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for time code and your audio meters. This is pretty much standard ENG camera style
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which I personally love.
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Blackmagic has done a really good job of taking everything good about news gathering cameras
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or documentary cameras and just laid it out exactly
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how you would if you were building a camera like that. You have your ISO dials shutter, all the buttons
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that you would need, audio adjustments right here without even opening the display.
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It also has built-in ND filters why don't we actually have a look at those while looking at the 12K sensor.
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There it is 80 Megapixels. 12,288 Pixels by 6,840.
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I have never seen a higher resolution sensor.
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It also comes standard with a PL Mount which is a standard cinema professional mount.
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So, the URSA has two, four and six stops of ND
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not the highest ND you've ever seen but the fact that it has it in such a affordable camera
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is pretty awesome. On the inside, we have two CFS card slots
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more menu buttons, record buttons, more audio stuff.
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Top of the camera has the standard URSA four quarter
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20 ports along with two XLR ports
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which we will test in a second. The rear of the camera has SDI out, SDI in
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a timecode in and the 12 volt power.
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The right of the camera has another SDI out. This one's only 3G and then 4-Pin XLR and a Rosett.
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So, you can use the Blackmagic control grip
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or a side plate. Also on the front and the top is the built in microphone
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which in my experience has been quite good
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for scratch audio. Like every camera that I've been checking out lately
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it also has a flip out screen. So, the URSA comes in with no battery mount at 4.87 pounds
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4.8 pounds, is it gaining weight? It's gaining weight. Did you see the number? The number is growing.
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It was 87, now it's now .88, now it's .89 settled in 4.89 pounds.
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Now, in comparison, our RED Epic-W completely stripped down of all the mounting just has the lens mount
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and the battery plate weighs 4.67 pounds.
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So, they really are very similar in weight.
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However, the URSA has built an NDS, built in audio
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you wouldn't necessarily need to add that much more besides a top handle and maybe a side grip and some rods.
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Whereas with our RED, especially our RED setup gets quite a bit heavier because it doesn't have any belts
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and audio doesn't get it. It doesn't have built-in ND filters.
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So, you ended up having to rig this quite a bit more and it will end up weighing quite a bit more.
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So, it is honestly impressive that in less than five pounds
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Blackmagic has packed in everything you need for a documentary camera
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with the exception of a top handle lenses
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and some bottom support. But you really, if you don't want to,you don't have
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to do that much in terms of rigging for this camera. For those of you who have never bought an URSA
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or RED or any sort of camera that is modular in any degree
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you have to choose what battery plate that you want V-Mount
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or gold mount, it does not actually come with a battery plate.
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So, technically out of the box the only way you would be able to use this camera is with the power supply.
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But no, one's going to do that. Before we wrap up with the physical tour actually
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one last thing I wanted to mention is the bottom plate of the camera.
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This is true on the 4.6kg to URSA mini as well
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but they're all quarter 20 ports. Whereas on our RED cameras, it's quarter 20
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and three eights, which is far more useful in my opinion
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and much more secure because quarter twenties while they work well for accessories and stuff
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the fact that this camera only has quarter twenties is a little bit annoying, not a huge deal
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but a small thing that might just be annoying for compatibility if you like put a plate directly
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on the camera and don't have any rod setup of any kind.
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Okay. So, with a PMO unlike the F Mount
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you don't just put it in and turn it and it locks you actually just line it up to the pin
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and then you lock it like this positively
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and then it is very tight.
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The boot time is not as long our RED cameras take forever to turn on.
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This was maybe like eight seconds or so. The menu in the URSA is similar to all Blackmagic's cameras.
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They standardized it among their cameras a couple of years ago and this particular URSA only shoots
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in Blackmagic RAW, which is their compressed RAW format similar to RED RAW, which is what we shoot on a daily basis.
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Blackmagic basically just has their own. You can shoot 5:1, 8:1
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12:1 or 18:1 compression ratio which is great because the 1801 is pretty similar
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to the 20 to one that we use on our REDs. So, in terms of frame rates this camera can shoot
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up to 12K up to 60fps
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which is insane because even our RED camera is the best one that we have can only shoot up to 60fps at 8K.
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It can shoot up to 8K 120fps and if the 8K somehow isn't enough for you
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it also has 4K with that you can go up to 240fps
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with a super 16 crop. So, you have to crop the sensor quite a bit
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but it has 4K and 240fps
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in a camera that costs less than $10,000. The two cameras in closest competition to this one
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are the Sony FX9 which is a full frame camera
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and the C300 Mark III. Both of those don't do frame rates over 180fps
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and their FX9 currently can't do it internally.
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It can only do up to 120fps in HD.
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Granted that is a full frame sensor but the C300, for example, can only do 120fps in 4K.
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So, the fact that Blackmagic has managed to shove 240fps at 4K, yes, it's cropped
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thank you, Blackmagic. Okay. Why don't we do the audio test? So, this is what it looks like with the URSA shooting
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directly at the ShortCircuit set in the same lighting that we were just looking at and I'm recording directly
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into the camera with a Sennheiser-416 Mic
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you guys can be the judge whether the audio is good or bad or acceptable.
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Still more testing to be done but here's the first impressions. We are also shooting only in 8K for this test.
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12K still has some post workflow stuff
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that we need to work out. So, you guys can be the judge of what you think of the audio and video quality compared to what
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you're used to seeing on ShortCircuit. So, this camera first impressions wouldn't be complete
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without showing you guys some footage and he actually took one of the cameras one of the six cameras that we bought out over the weekend
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and here is some footage that he got. (upbeat music)
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So, you might be asking why we bought six of these cameras.
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Now, the hope is that they can replace
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most of the cameras we have in the studio so, that we have a unified system where every camera
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is the same and all the parts and media everything is the same.
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It's gotten kind of crazy with the amount of cameras that we have.
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So, we are trying to simplify things. It remains to be seen if we're going to keep all six
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because we still have a lot more testing to do more post workflow stuff to figure out
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but on paper and in first impression
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this does seem like a great camera and we'll see if we ended up keeping all six.
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Watch out for the full review online detectives. If you guys have any specific questions
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please leave them in the comments down below and thank you for watching.
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