It was February 2016 when I started to look for a cinema camera to use on my first feature documentary. It had to be comfortable on my shoulder, heavy enough for stability, have spectacular image quality, record in 4K and of course film in at least 120 frames per second (fps). It was a tall order, which meant that those requirements combined with an independent films’ budget had me soon purchasing the Blackmagic URSA Mini 4K, and so began my love affair with the URSA Mini cameras.
Fast forward a year later and I finally had my hands on the new URSA Mini Pro (UMP). It was as if the 4K had grown up and I couldn’t be more excited to use it on my feature documentary here in Southern Africa. So over the past month, I’ve been filming with the UMP all over Southern Africa. I’ve put it through the roughest conditions imaginable; from filming in thick dust directly under Huey helicopter blades, light rain with high humidity, insane heat (45+ degrees Celsius) where the camera was also running constantly for five hours at a time and being dragged around the lowveld through the thorniest of bushes. The ease of use and images that came out of it were simply incredible, all in all I was extremely happy to be the new owner of the UMP.
So lets get down to the nitty-gritty of the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K.
Talking Points
Internal ND’s: The internal NDs are a huge improvement and an absolute time saver, as well as being cheaper for your hip pocket! With the URSA Mini 4K, I had to attach my R10 000 Lanparte Matte Box and schlep around a case full of NiSi filters which at R3 200 a piece weren’t cheap. With the new UMP, you won’t need to fork out money for any of these extras. The internal ND filters cut the Infra Red (IR) light waves so your greens will stay green, and that beautifully suggestive purple shirt your talent is wearing will remain that bright shade of purple frustration (It’s a South African joke).
This is what the Blackmagic customers have been asking for and it is great to see a company listening to their end users. Some people, including myself, have experienced an interesting flare that appears in certain lighting conditions. I have spoken to the team at Blackmagic about this issue and they can confirm they’re aware of it and are currently working on a solution. From what they’ve told me, it’s only a handful of users who have experienced this type of flare so it may just be a certain batch that was affected.
Menu system: Menus – they are there to make your life easy, to change and adjust the camera the way you want. The UMP menu system is simple, yet powerful, giving you access to all the camera settings quickly. This is essential for the fast paced work I’m currently faced with when filming my documentary.
Buttons: The buttons on any cinema camera are completely subjective, depending on what people have previously used and the layout of the buttons on those cameras, it will influence your likeability of the UMP button arrangement. However, once you use the buttons a few times you will find that their placement is intuitive and extremely easy to use.
The team at Blackmagic have really thought about the most used buttons of their users and have now included external controls for the ISO, shutter angle, on/off, white balance, slow motion and frames per second. This makes it much easier to quickly shoot those 120 fps slow motion shots us camera operators love so much. The addition of lock switches for the audio section of the controls also eliminates any accidental gain increase while your busy adjusting other controls.
Preamps: From my experience so far, the audio signal is noticeably louder which means the preamps are doing their job well. I use the Rode NTG-2 microphone and there is a slight bit of hiss, however the most basic noise removal software removes it easily. I’ve been using Izotope Audio Editor and it effortlessly removes any slight hiss that is recorded. Any decent project will involve audio post processing, so don’t be worried that you have to tweak yours a little to get it sounding crisp.
Smaller Screen: Personally this was not an issue for me as I spend most of my time looking through the viewfinder. I can however see how some might not enjoy this smaller design, but it is most certainly not a deal breaker. For those who do not appreciate its smaller size, just remember this, size isn’t everything. If you want the bigger screen then you will be without all the bells and whistles such as the external B&W panel, which is great for displaying critical information while also being easy to read in direct sunlight.
There has been a slight issue with a visible grid on the internal screen, however I believe there is a firmware update coming in the future that will remove this.
Sensor- ISO and Fixed Pattern Noise:
Pushing the ISO to 1 600 on some UMP’s has resulted in FPN. Luckily, the camera I received is incredibly clean and from the forums I’ve read other users also have very little to no FPN.
Bit Depth: What is bit depth you ask and does it even matter? Yes it matters, well at least it does if you are filming for anything other than uploading your daily vlog to YouTube. This is why the portable DSLR and mirrorless cameras are so popular with the YouTube community as YouTube compresses all videos to an 8 bit file regardless of what bit depth you filmed in.
To put it simply, as you increase bit depth, you also increase the number of colours that can be represented. 8-bit colour is equivalent to approximately 16.7 million colours and 12-bit colour is comparable to having 68.7 billion colours to work with in post. Increasing the bit depth results in better colour rendition. This is why the UMP with 12-bit colour is so incredible. Combine it with the DaVinci Resolve software and your film is ready for a cinema screen.
Frame Rates: The UMP is capable of filming up to 120 FPS at 2K resolution on a cropped sensor mode. What is really amazing about this, is its capability to shoot 60 fps at 4.6K 12 Bit lossless RAW. Just to give you and idea of how crazy this is, each RAW frame is between 11 Mb/s and 13 Mb/s – that is about 320 Mb/s at 25 FPS.
Now when you shoot that crisp image at 60 fps, lossless 4.6K RAW, that is a whopping 780 Mb/s. My Lexar C-Fast cards are not quick enough to record this on one card, however there is an option for duel recording in the UMP menu system.
C-Fast & SD Cards: This is one of the most useful feature updates, especially when you are strapped for card space and have some SD cards lying around. Now you can quickly change between C-Fast and SD cards with the literal switch of a button. However, there are limits with SD cards with one of those being that they are unable to record at 4.6K lossless raw. So to get the most out of the UMP I definitely recommend buying at least 2 C-Fast cards.
Overall User Experience: It’s been great to upgrade to the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro and at the price point they are selling it at, it’s hard to find a better cinema camera that comes with all the included features that the UMP has to offer. From my personal experience, it’s held up extremely well in the harsh conditions that Africa can throw at you. The image quality from the UMP is spectacular, the new design looks great and the external layout is intuitive to use. The other thing that sets Blackmagic apart is their support and online forums which is easily accessible to all their customers.
By Garth de Bruno Austin, documentary filmmaker
