“Bear” may be a fitting name for the beast that's Blackmagic Design’s Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K G2, the company’s flagship cinema camera. But it’s a well-trained bear. Where other such machines appear terrifying in their complexity, the Ursa is docile. I’ve never been so dumbfounded by how easy a camera makes professional-caliber shots
It seems like cheating, really. Turn it on, point it at something, press record, and out comes an attempt ready for the large screen. If you recognize the way to use a DSLR, you'll find out the Ursa in minutes.
Well, OK, it takes a touch more work than that. you've got to first decide which record button to press — there are, like, four of them. But once you’ve settled on your favorite, there’s nothing else within the way of living out your directorial dreams. From a technical standpoint, anyway.
Despite my techno-lust, the Ursa remains out of my league — and yet, not outlandishly beyond my budget. At a fiver under $6,000, I won’t be buying one anytime soon, but it’s a heck of tons cheaper than similar cinema cameras from other manufacturers.
I’m unsure what makes a Red or Arri, the cameras of choice in Hollywood, worth tens of thousands more. But as someone who shoots video on a hybrid mirrorless camera, I can see the worth in moving up to the Ursa. Six grand may be a lot of cash . Yet here, with the Ursa, it seems like a bargain.
Design and interface
The original Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K was Blackmagic’s first camera that felt finished. After a couple of years of striking and bizarre designs, Blackmagic landed on a well-known shape that straddles the gap between cinema camera and ENG camcorder.
The G2 refines the formula with small but important improvements to the electronics, without changing what already worked. The result's not only a pro-level video camera that puts my aging-but-trusty Fujifilm X-T2 to shame, but the simplest value within the cinema world, period.
Blackmagic hits a coffee price by selling you a bare-bones camera. A viewfinder, battery, and handle are all add-ons which will add hundreds or thousands to the worth . which will make cameras like Canon’s C200, at $6,500 with viewfinder and battery included, cheaper . But the Ursa features a hardware edge, with 15 stops of advertised dynamic range compared to the Canon’s 13, higher frame rates, and a more versatile RAW format.
Although not new, a key feature of the Ursa — and lots of dedicated video cameras — is that the built-in neutral density filter control. you'll select 0, 2, 4, or 6 stops of density by turning a dial, meaning you never need to fuss with a screw-on lens filters. Think sunglasses for your camera. ND filters reduce light and permit you to take care of a slower shutter speed for smooth motion and/or a wider aperture for a shallow depth of field when shooting in bright settings.
While the viewfinder might not come standard, a touchscreen monitor does, and it’s the foremost approachable interface you'll get on a camera. Blackmagic made some extent to unify its UI across camera models, so if you own a Pocket Cinema Camera, you’ll feel reception with the Ursa. The interface is straightforward to find out if you haven’t used a Blackmagic camera before.
The Ursa has many physical buttons and toggle switches for accessing commonly-used functions like ISO, shutter angle/speed, and white balance. One complaint? The iris dial is difficult to succeed in when the monitor is open, a design flaw that Blackmagic may need overlooked because cinematographers using actual cinema lenses will use the iris ring on the lens.
Not me. i used to be using standard photographic lenses within the Canon EF mount. Quirky iris control aside, i really like this about the Ursa. Photographic lenses are far more affordable than their cinema counterparts, but often of no less optical quality. (The Ursa’s autofocus capabilities, however, aren't good — persist with manual focus.)
For this review, Sigma loaned me its 18-35mm and 50-100mm f/1.8 lenses, a pair of zooms that make a robust case for being the sole lenses you would like . They’re worth about $1,900 together. Sure, that’s a piece of change, but it’s a far cry from the $8,000 required for the cinema versions of these lenses. (In truth, that’s still quite affordable within the realm of cinema glass.)
What’s more, the Ursa Mini Pro has swappable lens mounts. additionally to the active Canon EF mount, you'll accompany PL (the cinema camera standard), B4 for broadcast lenses, or maybe a passive Nikon F mount. That last one opens the Ursa up to a legacy of photographic lenses going back decades. I even have alittle collection of film-era Nikon glass i might have loved to check on the Ursa. Next time.
Of course, Cinema lenses have some advantages — mostly, they create you appear as if a badass — but Blackmagic’s willingness to allow you to natively mount unspecified DSLR lens may be a huge plus for the indie and student filmmaking crowds. From news gathering to film production, the Ursa Mini Pro are often configured to fill a spread of roles. Digital Trends’ video team even used it on the ground at CES 2020.
Performance and image quality
The updated electronics within the Ursa Mini Pro G2 are all about speed. Most notably, this suggests new high frame rate (HFR) options for movie . 4.6K footage are often recorded up to 120 frames per second, while 1080p can hit 300 fps. The 4.6K/120 footage is recorded from the complete width of the sensor and automatically plays back in movie (up to 5X when shooting 24p).
It looks absolutely gorgeous. I also appreciated how the camera records audio in HFR mode, something many lesser cameras don’t do. this enables you to either slow the audio down in post to match the footage (think of the dramatic “Noooooo!” being yelled by a personality approaching certain doom) or ramp the footage copy to real-time speed and use it more-or-less sort of a regular clip, if you would like to.
The updated electronics push the utmost ISO up a stop to three ,200. That’s nothing compared to modern still cameras, with ISOs within the many thousands, but it makes the Ursa usable in indoor locations. Importantly, that prime ISO comes in handy when shooting HFR footage, which necessitates a faster shutter speed and requires you to compensate by either opening the iris or raising the ISO.
Footage shot at ISO 3,200 can look grainy, especially if you are trying to lift the shadows in post, but at no point did i feel it looked bad. it's what it's , and you ought to attempt to stick with lower ISOs when possible, but I appreciated having that extra stop once I needed it.
Faster processing means sensor read-out time is decreased, helping control the “jello cam” effect of the electronic rolling shutter. In practice, I didn’t notice it in the least , except in very quick pans where i used to be purposefully trying to find it.
File quality and adaptability
When I tested the first-gen Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K, it had been before Blackmagic had released its RAW video format. It could shoot Cinema DNG, an open RAW format by Adobe, but I didn’t have the space for storing or processing power to handle it. With the G2, I finally need to experience the facility of Blackmagic RAW first hand, and it’s nothing in need of revolutionary.
This is a RAW video format for the remainder folks . With selectable levels of compression up to 12:1, .braw clips are often recorded to plain SD cards. In fact, at 12:1 compression, the bitrate is less than the 400 megabit-per-second non-RAW codecs in cameras just like the Panasonic Lumix GH5s and Fujifilm X-T3. You’ll still need a fast V90 card to be safe, but you not need to be knowledgeable studio or have an enormous budget to figure with RAW video. That’s awesome.
If you’re worried about editing performance, the Ursa can record proxy files alongside RAW footage, saving you the difficulty of getting to make proxies during import.
I am by no means an expert colorist, or maybe a proficient DaVinci Resolve user, but coming from the planet of still photography — where RAW files are common for several years — working with RAW video feels familiar. In some ways, it's easier than working with other codecs, like h.264 or maybe ProRes, which is usually recorded employing a flat, logarithmic tone curve to preserve dynamic range, and appears like garbage before color correction is applied.
By contrast, Blackmagic RAW footage is usable right out of the camera. It’s also flexible. Even at 12:1 compression, i used to be amazed by what proportion detail I could pull out of the shadows.
Not everybody needs RAW video, but as Blackmagic explained it to me, Blackmagic RAW offers the simplest quality-to-file-size ratio at every level of compression compared to any non-RAW format. There’s no reason to not use it. Well, unless you would like to import straight into movie Pro X, which currently doesn't have a plugin to support .braw files. (A plugin does exist for Adobe Premiere Pro.)
Conclusion
The Ursa Mini Pro G2 is proof we sleep in a fantastic time for photo and video gear. i'm envious of today’s film students who may need access thereto . they will produce big-screen-caliber movies in their dorm rooms, and never know the pain of shooting and editing standard definition footage on MiniDV tapes.
Of course, for several folks , $6,000 may also be $60,000. If it’s out of your budget, it’s out of your budget. But a number of the Ursa’s key features — like Blackmagic RAW — are available within the cheaper Pocket Cinema Camera series. The Ursa Mini Pro should be an aspirational product for people like me, but unlike a Red or an Arri, it’s not a dream. I can a minimum of afford to rent it.
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