Blackmagic Design Announces New URSA Mini Pro G2

[Django]

 

[thebrothersthre3]

7 minutes ago, AlexTrinder96 said:

4.6k 120fps is the biggest upgrade imo....

Oh wait I thought the original had 4k 120fps, my bad. That is a good upgrade then. Maybe the OG ursa mini 4.6k will get down to $2500 used

[andrgl]

Wow 150fps! But I remember the issues I had with the OG 4.6k with nasty noise at 40-50 IRE. And that was only at 60fps.

I heard it got better with the pro and braw, but I’d wait for tests before ordering the new URSA.

Price is also higher than what I paid for a used FS5II and Odyssey 7Q.

Any word if the SSD module is capable of recording those high frame rates?

 

[AlexTrinder96]

6 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Oh wait I thought the original had 4k 120fps, my bad. That is a good upgrade then. Maybe the OG ursa mini 4.6k will get down to $2500 used

Hopefully ?! In the UK, the Ursa mini Pro is £5k with the viewfinder from certain retailers! Such a good deal! 

[mercer]

9 minutes ago, andrgl said:

Price is also higher than what I paid for a used FS5II and Odyssey 7Q.

 

OT - but how do you like the FS5ii Raw? Is the Odyssey CDNG only or can you shoot ProRes Raw with it? 

Also, how’s the Venice color with the internal 10bit 1080p?

[andrgl]

37 minutes ago, mercer said:

OT - but how do you like the FS5ii Raw? Is the Odyssey CDNG only or can you shoot ProRes Raw with it? 

Also, how’s the Venice color with the internal 10bit 1080p?

No ProRes RAW, does ProRes HQ and CDNG.

Shogun Inferno is the better choice for shooting ProRes, as it does ProRes RAW.

Unless shooting RAW or you can grade SLog, the baked in Sony look sucks. It’s not as bad as the original A7S but I haven’t seen anything special with the supposed “Venice” colour. Maybe the highlight rolloff is improved? It’s a Sony camera, and the straight off card image leaves you feeling underwhelmed.

The FS5 is a poor man’s Red. Does HFR well enough. Plus coupled with a cine metabones adapter and Oddysey 7Q you get a complete cinema package.

The Mini Pro G2 is looking like a good challenger. But I’m skeptical that it will do HFR with a single SSD. Also, the EF mount doesn’t lock the lens. A remote follow focus will torque the **** out of the lens and cause a visible jump, ruining your shot over and over.

I also had an awful time with noise in the mid tones with the original URSA. So when I properly “exposed” I was left with like 6 stops of latitude when shooting 60 frames and above. I want to see how well this new sensor handles UHD at 150.

Never got a chance to work with braw, so maybe that will fix the issues you usually get with capturing cdng.

[lissa]

15 hours ago, Adam Kuźniar said:

Blackmagic Design today announced URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2, a second generation URSA Mini Pro camera featuring fully redesigned electronics and a new Super 35mm 4.6K image sensor with 15 stops of dynamic range that combine to support high frame rate shooting at up to 300 frames per second. In addition, URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 supports Blackmagic RAW and features a new USB-C expansion port for direct recording to external disks.

 

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/release/20190305-01

 

 

Hopefully the price of Ursa Mini Pros G1 will go down now ? 

Hope so about price....!!

[Ehetyz]

10 hours ago, andrgl said:

I also had an awful time with noise in the mid tones with the original URSA. So when I properly “exposed” I was left with like 6 stops of latitude when shooting 60 frames and above. I want to see how well this new sensor handles UHD at 150.

There must've been something seriously wrong with your copy of the URSA, unless it was the 4K version (in which case sure it was a piece of shit). I can even underexpose pretty heavily on the 4.6K (Running on old pre-manual-blackmapping firmware) without issues with noise. No FPN at 800ISO, you get some fine grain on extreme underexposure but even that's fixable with a little NR. This is the first time I've heard there's noise on the midtones.

The 120fps windowed mode is pretty lackluster on the OG 4,6K though, and you really need to ETTR to get a clean image because any noise gets heavily pronounced by the crop.

[Django]

very impressive RS numbers on the G2 thanks to about double readout speed :

4.6k - 7.59ms
4k crop - 6.32ms
2k crop - 3.16ms

[kye]

23 hours ago, currensheldon said:

You could just use Black Magic products from start to finish.

Judging from their moves over the last few years, I'd say that's their business strategy right there.

[currensheldon]

35 minutes ago, kye said:

- "You could just use Black Magic products from start to finish."

Judging from their moves over the last few years, I'd say that's their business strategy right there.

And I think it's a pretty good one. I still prefer other manufacturers' cameras, but the Ursa G2 + Pocket 4K is pretty close. For me, most of my headaches come in the form of workflow now, with different codecs, resolutions, bit-rates, etc being all over the map on other manufacturer's lineups. Black Magic is really streamlining things - I'd love to have those two cameras, shoot 8:1 or 12:1 BM Raw, which has amazingly smooth playback in Da Vinci on my Macbook Pro (tested it yesterday), and then hand off to a colorist or do a quick grade myself. Brilliant. And all in 12-bit raw capture and native editing. 

Despite neither camera being my favorite form factor, it's almost worth it for the streamlined workflow alone. 

[Django]

@currensheldon do you have any links to some of that 8:1 / 12:1 BMRaw test footage?

[kye]

1 hour ago, currensheldon said:

And I think it's a pretty good one. I still prefer other manufacturers' cameras, but the Ursa G2 + Pocket 4K is pretty close. For me, most of my headaches come in the form of workflow now, with different codecs, resolutions, bit-rates, etc being all over the map on other manufacturer's lineups. Black Magic is really streamlining things - I'd love to have those two cameras, shoot 8:1 or 12:1 BM Raw, which has amazingly smooth playback in Da Vinci on my Macbook Pro (tested it yesterday), and then hand off to a colorist or do a quick grade myself. Brilliant. And all in 12-bit raw capture and native editing. 

Despite neither camera being my favorite form factor, it's almost worth it for the streamlined workflow alone. 

I agree.  Having the tech just work and get out of the way is the ultimate situation.  We're making art after all, the last thing we need is to be trying to also deal with the technical stuff at the same time.

I really think that BM are playing the long game and have set their vision to be really high and are making bold steps to get there.

Some fun facts (via wikipedia?

• DaVinci had been making colour correction systems since 1985
• Resolve was released in 2004
• BM bought DaVinci in 2009, at which time Resolve was selling with dedicated hardware solutions for $200k-800k
• 2010 they released a software-only version for $995 and the hardware version dropped to $30k
• 2011 they introduced a free version
• 2013 version 10 introduced video editing
• 2014 version 11 introduced audio mixing to complete it as a stand-alone NLE
• 2016 BM buys Fairlight and version 14 includes an integrated version of it
• 2018 version 15 includes a version of Fusion

That is a pretty spectacular timeline.  In a decade it went from being $200-800K with hardware and colour only to having free, software-only versions available, and integrating world-leading colour with editing, audio, and VFX functionality.

Hardware is obviously more difficult to make those kinds of advances on, but the original BMPCC and now P4K kind of fit that description.  I remember Elon Musk talking about reducing the cost of things by 90% and that idea of radical change seems to also be occurring here.  Other vendors don't seem to really be dancing to the same tune.

[Mako Sports]

I think its a sick camera, I shoot sports so I use a ton of slow motion so it makes for me, unfortunately I don't own any EF glass so its not the camera for me. 

[thebrothersthre3]

14 hours ago, Django said:

very impressive RS numbers on the G2 thanks to about double readout speed :

4.6k - 7.59ms
4k crop - 6.32ms
2k crop - 3.16ms

insane!

[Mako Sports]

 

[tupp]

On 3/6/2019 at 4:28 AM, Django said:

very impressive RS numbers on the G2 thanks to about double readout speed :

4.6k - 7.59ms
4k crop - 6.32ms
2k crop - 3.16ms

What are the dimensions on the sensor of the 4k and 2k crops?

[HockeyFan12]

On 3/6/2019 at 7:28 AM, Django said:

very impressive RS numbers on the G2 thanks to about double readout speed :

4.6k - 7.59ms
4k crop - 6.32ms
2k crop - 3.16ms

That's pretty great. 120fps is, too (and of course requires that speed rs). Really impressive camera!

[thebrothersthre3]

Would rather have a G2 than the RED Dragon honestly. 

[majoraxis]

On 3/6/2019 at 9:47 AM, kye said:

 

• DaVinci had been making colour correction systems since 1985
• Resolve was released in 2004
• BM bought DaVinci in 2009, at which time Resolve was selling with dedicated hardware solutions for $200k-800k
• 2010 they released a software-only version for $995 and the hardware version dropped to $30k
• 2011 they introduced a free version
• 2013 version 10 introduced video editing
• 2014 version 11 introduced audio mixing to complete it as a stand-alone NLE
• 2016 BM buys Fairlight and version 14 includes an integrated version of it
• 2018 version 15 includes a version of Fusion

That is a pretty spectacular timeline.  In a decade it went from being $200-800K with hardware and colour only to having free, software-only versions available, and integrating world-leading colour with editing, audio, and VFX functionality.

Resolve 16 beta is fantastic - they are on the 5th 16 beta update.  So far the Resolve Studio updates have been free with no update fees - which is unheard of for the amount of time this product has been out.  Getting this type of power included with the camera is a huge benefit because they are designed to complement each other.  I think of the Blackmagic cameras and Resolve as part of an eco-system where the sum is greater than the parts.

In the camera comparison above the I think that glass, gaffing, and grading will make a bigger difference regarding which camera appears to have the better image than the actual camera it self - except for green screen work where all things being relatively equal, the better, sharper, higher resolution codec will make a significant difference.

Blackmagic will eventual release a relatively affordable 8k camera, so investing in the Blackmagic eco-system is a pretty good business decision for the long run.