Major Price Drop For The Ursa Mini Pro 12K

[BTM_Pix]

The price has been almost cut in two and it is now $5995.

No idea whether this is because it wasn't selling, or to bring into line with the newer Sony and Canon offerings or whether they are going to release a 16K version but it is now a very, very interesting option.

You can say what you want about no one needing 12K blah blah blah but the (extreme) re-framing and stabilisation options offered by the 12K image are very practical and it ticked an awful lot of boxes anyway with its internal ND, ProRes and BRAW, professional I/O

Its not going to be for everyone of course as the "I want a full frame camera with IBIS, e-ND, sentient Autofocus and small enough to shove up a mouse's arse" fantasies are in no way going to be met here but for those who do have a need for a camera of this type, its now put the cat amongst the pigeons in that area with this price drop.

Theres is a very comprehensive run through of it here from the good people at CVP :

EDIT <STRUCK OUT THE PRORES THING AS IT DOESN"T HAVE IT>

 

[Anaconda_]

It's the same price as the UMPG2. Wild! It's now in direct competition with the the C70 and RED Komodo.

 

 

[MurtlandPhoto]

Very exciting news! I feel like the price drop is similar to the OG Pocket fire sale. No immediate replacement imminent... just doing it to do it. Some may say the 12K is overkill, but BRAW made that resolution very manageable from what I've seen. 

[Emanuel]

What a hell of a deal! (E :- )

[Anaconda_]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

12K image are very practical and it ticked an awful lot of boxes anyway with its internal ND, ProRes and BRAW, professional I/O

No ProRes at all on the 12k model though - just to bring attention to that.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicursaminipro/techspecs/W-URSA-36

[BTM_Pix]

20 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

No ProRes at all on the 12k model though - just to bring attention to that.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicursaminipro/techspecs/W-URSA-36

Ah...oops !

[herein2020]

Incredible deal

Firesale price on an incredible camera: check

Clients who will pay for the incredible things I could do with this camera: ....hmm gotta work on that

[herein2020]

Actually after watching the YouTube video all desire for this camera evaporated. Definitely an incredible deal but the reviewer in the video used a $43K lens, $4K+ stabilizer, generated 990GB of data, etc, etc and IMO after YouTube got done with it, the footage honestly did not look any better to me than C70, S1H, or A7S3 footage. The image stabilization wasn't even close to what even my S5 delivers without a gimbal let alone with a gimbal.

Cameras like these are like sports cars. No matter how good the deal is for the car, you need to be prepared to pay for all of the additional costs required to get the most out of it.

I have no doubt that the 12K source footage looked amazing, but for me, my final delivery platform is Vimeo, YouTube, and Instagram for most of my projects where all of that extra quality would be wasted.

[newfoundmass]

I saw that this morning and was pretty surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be. You didn't hear a lot about it after it's release, as I think it was out of reach for a lot of people financially.

In many ways this camera came too early, as dealing with so much data just seems like a total nightmare for smaller productions.  

42 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

Actually after watching the YouTube video all desire for this camera evaporated. Definitely an incredible deal but the reviewer in the video used a $43K lens, $4K+ stabilizer, generated 990GB of data, etc, etc and IMO after YouTube got done with it, the footage honestly did not look any better to me than C70, S1H, or A7S3 footage. The image stabilization wasn't even close to what even my S5 delivers without a gimbal let alone with a gimbal.

Cameras like these are like sports cars. No matter how good the deal is for the car, you need to be prepared to pay for all of the additional costs required to get the most out of it.

I have no doubt that the 12K source footage looked amazing, but for me, my final delivery platform is Vimeo, YouTube, and Instagram for most of my projects where all of that extra quality would be wasted.

I've watched some stuff filmed with it on YouTube via my 55inch 4K TV and I think it looks spectacular, much better than A7S3* but not significantly better than S1H or the C70. It still looks really good, though. The cropping capabilities are out of this world, though I'm not a fan of doing that personally. I agree though, I don't have much interest in it for my uses. 

* I recognize the strengths of the camera and why people love it, I'm even considering it if I switch from M43 because of its ease of use, but I don't love the image. It's flat to me. 

[seanzzxx]

Guys this camera is not meant to primarily shoot 12K. It downsamples BRAW in camera, so the RGBW sensor enables full sensor full rgb over sampled 8k and 4k. THAT’S the selling point, not the 12k.

[newfoundmass]

18 minutes ago, seanzzxx said:

Guys this camera is not meant to primarily shoot 12K. It downsamples BRAW in camera, so the RGBW sensor enables full sensor full rgb over sampled 8k and 4k. THAT’S the selling point, not the 12k.

What are you talking about? It's literally called the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K. 

[seanzzxx]

That’s the naming convention for virtually all camera’s they have. And it’s a 12k sensor. But Blackmagic themselves stated upon release that they’re not expecting everyone to jump to a 12k workflow but that going with a 12k sensor allows for oversampled 8k in camera. 

[Emanuel]

These boards are more entertaining than a lot of Hollywood stuff ready for ; )

C'mon guys let's not forget this:

I feel myself tempted to buy one or suggest the beast at least every moment people ask me for the best standard capture device to go with on a set : ) I think this becomes now the cinema camera by excellence now!

[herein2020]

44 minutes ago, seanzzxx said:

Guys this camera is not meant to primarily shoot 12K. It downsamples BRAW in camera, so the RGBW sensor enables full sensor full rgb over sampled 8k and 4k. THAT’S the selling point, not the 12k.

Regardless of what it is meant for, it doesn't change the fact that the support system needed to get quality footage out of this camera costs many times more than the camera itself.

2 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I saw that this morning and was pretty surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be. You didn't hear a lot about it after it's release, as I think it was out of reach for a lot of people financially.

In many ways this camera came too early, as dealing with so much data just seems like a total nightmare for smaller productions.  

I've watched some stuff filmed with it on YouTube via my 55inch 4K TV and I think it looks spectacular, much better than A7S3* but not significantly better than S1H or the C70. It still looks really good, though. The cropping capabilities are out of this world, though I'm not a fan of doing that personally. I agree though, I don't have much interest in it for my uses. 

* I recognize the strengths of the camera and why people love it, I'm even considering it if I switch from M43 because of its ease of use, but I don't love the image. It's flat to me. 

I watched the CVP video on my 4K video editing monitor and I think my problem is the subject material that they filmed just wasn't the right material to really showcase this camera. Nature, water, fire, dim lighting, etc all are things that nearly any modern camera can handle.  A videographer friend showed me a video a few months ago filmed with the 12K (I don't know the link to it) that literally blew my mind.  It was more of a corporate setting with many different shapes, colors, etc. and razor sharp detail shots like nothing I've ever seen. 

I agree with you; I am not a fan of any Sony products, older or newer including the A7S3; but I do think for the specific scenes they showed in the CVP video, even the A7S3 could have produced the same quality.

[majoraxis]

Wow! Fantastic News! Thanks Grant Petty!

At $10k it had to be significantly better than lower priced alternatives. Was it?  Apparently, not significantly better.

Was it better? Depends on who you ask, but to my eyes there is something special about the sparkly highlights and skin tone rendering in natural light.

At $6k it only has to be equally good at most things and have a few features the other cameras it competes against do not.

• BRAW
• Resolved optimized for BRAW on the MI
• 240 fp at 4k in super 16 crop mode
• 12k resolution (at least on paper)
• etc...

I think they will sell a lot more, which will lead to more and better footage, which will lead to more sales, which will lead to larger projects and name brand endorsements, which will lead to more sales etc... this is the beginning of a cycle of dominance for the URSA mini 12k and we will see Grant Petty proving his genius once again.

Maybe the truth is that neither the 12k nor the 4.6k MK II were selling as much as expected, so they had nothing to lose by lowering the price of the 12k and in the long run it will pay off to have more people/productions on the 12k...

[seanzzxx]

6 hours ago, herein2020 said:

Regardless of what it is meant for, it doesn't change the fact that the support system needed to get quality footage out of this camera costs many times more than the camera itself.

I watched the CVP video on my 4K video editing monitor and I think my problem is the subject material that they filmed just wasn't the right material to really showcase this camera. Nature, water, fire, dim lighting, etc all are things that nearly any modern camera can handle.  A videographer friend showed me a video a few months ago filmed with the 12K (I don't know the link to it) that literally blew my mind.  It was more of a corporate setting with many different shapes, colors, etc. and razor sharp detail shots like nothing I've ever seen. 

I agree with you; I am not a fan of any Sony products, older or newer including the A7S3; but I do think for the specific scenes they showed in the CVP video, even the A7S3 could have produced the same quality.

How is it more expensive than on the 1295 Pocket 4K? Please explain.

[kye]

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

Regardless of what it is meant for, it doesn't change the fact that the support system needed to get quality footage out of this camera costs many times more than the camera itself.

I watched the CVP video on my 4K video editing monitor and I think my problem is the subject material that they filmed just wasn't the right material to really showcase this camera. Nature, water, fire, dim lighting, etc all are things that nearly any modern camera can handle.  A videographer friend showed me a video a few months ago filmed with the 12K (I don't know the link to it) that literally blew my mind.  It was more of a corporate setting with many different shapes, colors, etc. and razor sharp detail shots like nothing I've ever seen. 

I agree with you; I am not a fan of any Sony products, older or newer including the A7S3; but I do think for the specific scenes they showed in the CVP video, even the A7S3 could have produced the same quality.

Seems to me that a killer app for a camera like this is that "it can do it all, when you need it" so you'd shoot whatever resolution / frame rate / bitrate that was appropriate for the shot.  It's kind of a "just-in-case" camera.  So if you were shooting a corporate then you'd shoot 4K, but if you needed a green screen you might shoot 12K just for those shots to be able to get a super-clean key in post.

At that point, shooting 4K with it wouldn't require any better a lens than any other camera shooting 4K.  Compared to something like the P4K which requires external everything (power, audio, etc) this camera wouldn't be that much more difficult or demanding to use, wouldn't it?

Apart from the crazy demands of 12K files, what demands do you think this camera has that a R5 or P6K don't have?

[rdouthit]

I have an Ursa G2 right now (in addition to several other cameras), and damn if getting 4k at 240p in BRAW isn't tempting. 

[herein2020]

2 hours ago, seanzzxx said:

How is it more expensive than on the 1295 Pocket 4K? Please explain.

 

I wasn't comparing it to other BM cameras I was comparing it to the ones I already have which are not from Blackmagic. This camera needs proper lighting, more expensive lenses, more expensive batteries, and a much larger gimbal setup than the ones I use before it will be properly rigged for many different scenarios. Additionally the storage requirements for this camera also far exceed the ones that I have now.

My S5 with a 50mm F1.4 and dual native ISO of 640 and 4000 can practically see in the dark; its IBIS is so good that I can skip the gimbal and monopod most of the time, it is small enough to balance on a one handed gimbal, a single V-Mount battery will power it for 8hrs, and the storage requirements are a fraction of what this camera uses. 

To me the cost of the total ecosystem needed to prepare a camera for production use is just as important as the camera itself. The 12K would need a cage, multiple VMount Batteries, a case, a charging system, rails, handles, etc, etc to be as versatile as my current setup. My C200 started out around the same price and when I was done rigging it, the total was around $20K. I'm guessing properly rigging this one including a gimbal big enough to fly it would easily run $40K or more not to mention parfocal cinema lenses, focus pulling system, etc. 

 

2 hours ago, kye said:

Apart from the crazy demands of 12K files, what demands do you think this camera has that a R5 or P6K don't have?

I can't speak to the P6K since I am not that familiar with BMD cameras other than the fact they are not great at low light and I don't think they have IBIS or useable AF..but the R5 is a whole different story. Just like above, the cage, batteries, gimbal, case, lighting requirements, etc. for this camera would far exceed that of the R5. I look at cameras as simply the starting point to entering a specific camera ecosystem. The 12K is definitely the start of a much more expensive ecosystem than say the R5, C70, S1, S1H, S5, A7S3, etc.  For the same reasons listed above is why I have never considered any of the BMD cameras a viable solution to me; they need more rigging to achieve their full potential than the cameras that I own.

[seanzzxx]

Every camera needs proper lighting. If you’re only lighting stuff to get your exposure then maybe the 12k is in fact not the camera for you. I’m excited about the Ursa because the company I’m working at is currently moving to get a step above one man band types of shoots (which hey, if that’s your thing more power to you) to always control lighting, have a more narrative focussed approach, and to not show up handholding a S1h because the image is ‘basically good enough’.