Blackmagic Design has announced a new high-end digital film
camera with a user-upgradable sensor and lens mount, larger-than-normal 10-inch
fold-out monitor, and a multi-screen design that should make it simpler to use.
Its feature set and upgradability cover many of the most common requests on
user’s wish lists.
The Blackmagic Ursa EF model will retail for $5,995 (about
£3,800/€4,500 + VAT), the Ursa PL (pictured above) for $6,495 (about £4,100/€5,000 + VAT), with
both expected to ship in July.
The replaceable part is a modular camera turret attached by
four bolts, and includes the sensor, lens mount and lens control connections,
so that it can be easily upgraded in the future when new types of sensors are
developed, for a lot less cost than having to buy a new camera.
The Ursa Broadcast B4 model (pictured above) should be available late 2014,
and will have a broadcast video Ultra HD four-thirds-size (13mm x 7.3mm - 3840 x 2160) sensor and B4 lens
mount used in broadcast (as also seen on the amazing new Blackmagic StudioCamera 4K). For live broadcasts, especially sport, having the smaller sensor is a
good thing, as it is very difficult to keep fast moving objects or players in
focus with the shallow depth of field of the S35-size sensor, although the
4/3-inch sensor is about twice the size of the normal 2/3-inch sensors (of
which three are usually used in a broadcast camera).
There will also be an Ursa HDMI model (pictured above with DSLR) with no sensor where
the lens mount is replaced by a “cheese plate” of mounting points (pictured below) and a HDMI
input, allowing any third party camera (such as a DSLR) to get the benefit of
the Ursa camera body features and recorders.
The Blackmagic Ursa should be suitable for a wide range of production,
from high-end feature film work, commercials, episodic television production, to
documentaries, news, music videos and more. For film-style production, with a
large crew, users can fit it with cinema lenses, rails, follow focus and matte
boxes.
It will also have built in scopes for exposure, focus and
audio levels, plus dual CFast 2.0 card recorders (allowing recording at up to
350MBps to continue on the second card when the first is full), with support
for ProRes HQ, ProRes 422, ProRes LT, ProRes Proxy recording at resolutions up
to Ultra HD, and CinemaDNG RAW. The SATA 3 based
CFast recorders are faster than currently available cards, making them another
part of the camera that has been future proofed.
Ursa is larger than the previous Blackmagic cameras, essentially a shoulder-mount broadcast camera, which means it has space enough for better
cooling (using a liquid cooling system), which will allow higher frame rates
(when sensors emerge to offer them - the initial sensor will only go up to
60p), while keeping the chassis cool and the fan quiet. The machined aluminium
design should be robust.
For use by large crews, each area of the camera has been
divided into separate DoP, camera assistant and audio engineer workstations.
The DoP segment has the tiltable 10-inch monitor, which should make critical
focus a lot easier, plus a separate 5-inch screen for settings, camera status
and scopes. The camera assist station has yet another screen showing the same
information (but independently), while the audio section has audio meters,
controls and audio connections.
It should have 12 stops of dynamic range, which is less than
an Arri Alexa, Red, or the new Panasonic 4K camera, but is good by broadcast
standards.
It will record 12-bit lossless compressed Cinema DNG RAW and
Apple ProRes, to allow for easy post production workflow while keeping storage
requirements manageable. It supports Ultra HD and 1080 HD resolution capture in
23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 up to 60 frames per second.
“Our goal when developing the Ursa was to build a camera
that had all the cooling capacity for higher frame rates, and a large on-set
monitor as well as built in scopes so you had everything you need built into
the camera itself,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design.
“The problem with spending so much money building in such
incredible accessories is that they become outdated as sensor technology moves
on. So, we designed the ability to upgrade the sensor so customers can simply
bolt on a new sensor and turret assembly in the future. We think this is a
revolution and this upgradable design means we have been able to put a lot more
effort into the design of the camera body itself and the quality of the
screens, recorders, cooling system and processing power than would normally be
offered.”
The camera has a wide range of standard connections,
including: dual XLR mic/line audio inputs with 48v phantom power (plus a built
in microphone); 12G-SDI 10-bit 4:2:2 output, 3G-SDI
output down converted for external
monitoring with camera status graphic overlay; separate XLR 4-pin power
output for viewfinder power; 12G-SDI input; headphone jack; timecode I/O; LANC remote control;
and standard 4-pin 12v - 30v DC power connection (plus mounting points for V-Mount
and Anton/Bauer Gold Mount back plates and batteries onto the rear of the
camera).
The Ursa comes with a full copy of DaVinci Resolve
software colour grading and editing software, which has been much improved in
the new version 11, particularly for editing, providing an all-in-one
production and post-production package - perhaps it should be called Ursa Major, as it has a full constellation of features....
By David Fox
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