Last week Blackmagic Design announced that the URSA Mini 4.6K and the Micro
Cinema Camera have commenced shipping and that the specifications of the two
cameras have been changed.
The development of the global shutter in these cameras took longer than expected,
resulting in the delay in shipping. For the past six months, Blackmagic Design engineers have been working hard to resolve the issues. As the performance of the global shutter is not up to the standard that Blackmagic Design strives to give its customers, the company has decided to ship both cameras without the global shutter feature.
The prime reason for this decision is that over the last few months, professional
cinematographers and DOPs who have been beta testing the cameras on all types of different projects have reported incredible results. Their feedback states that the
cameras should not be delayed for the purpose of the global shutter feature as the
main benefit of the cameras is the wide dynamic range which is only available when
running without the global shutter. The beta testers working in high end digital film and television production are wanting to use cameras such as the URSA Mini 4.6K to
obtain the advantage of the 15 stops of wide dynamic range and high frame rate
capabilities of the rolling shutter.
With the release of URSA Mini 4.6K, customers will be able to choose between two
very different models of URSA Mini. Originally the URSA Mini 4K was intended to be the entry level model and the URSA Mini 4.6K to be the higher end model with more
features. However, now these two cameras are targeted for different kinds of work
as customers can choose between the URSA Mini 4K if they want global shutter for
fast action sports or the URSA Mini 4.6K if they want wide dynamic range for high
end digital film work.
Blackmagic Design understands and accepts that some customers who have back
ordered a URSA Mini 4.6K may like to change their order as a result of this feature
change.
“We’re deeply sorry that it has taken much longer than expected to ship the
Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K and Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera, and extremely
disappointed that we are unable to deliver a feature that we had previously
announced,’ said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “As an engineer, I have always felt that my job is to build a stage for customers to perform on, but until we ship a product we never know what kind of stage it is. This camera is truly amazing and images are just so filmic…’
For more information and for a full feature list visit the Black Magic design website.
