Ursa Cine 12K now available as camera body only with option for recording to dual CF Express for only $7,000

[eatstoomuchjam]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Don't forget to edit your reply on how many cameras you need.

The stuff I'm selling for it will include the E2-F6, the C70, and the Zenmuse X9-6K (since I upgraded to the 8K) - as well as a bunch of accessories that I'm not using anymore.  

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Out of curiosity, because I haven't been following this camera too much, what are people using it for? Do you shoot and sell stock footage?

I'll be using it for short films and my upcoming first feature.  I do nothing with stock footage.  The appeal of it is that reviews seem to put it in a category similar to Venice and V-Raptor, but the body-only config costs $7k (plus $100 for the battery plate - and I'll get the $200 top handle and I expect to buy the $1600 media module at some point since $200/TB is actually better than high-performance CF Express cards, etc).

 As of right now, I expect that I'll be using 8K mode most of the time since that's already overkill.  12K... maybe for some scenic/nature stuff or for VFX?

[mercer]

On 3/19/2025 at 12:29 AM, eatstoomuchjam said:

The stuff I'm selling for it will include the E2-F6, the C70, and the Zenmuse X9-6K (since I upgraded to the 8K) - as well as a bunch of accessories that I'm not using anymore.  

I'll be using it for short films and my upcoming first feature.  I do nothing with stock footage.  The appeal of it is that reviews seem to put it in a category similar to Venice and V-Raptor, but the body-only config costs $7k (plus $100 for the battery plate - and I'll get the $200 top handle and I expect to buy the $1600 media module at some point since $200/TB is actually better than high-performance CF Express cards, etc).

 As of right now, I expect that I'll be using 8K mode most of the time since that's already overkill.  12K... maybe for some scenic/nature stuff or for VFX?

I saw there was a price drop on it. It seems like a steal if you need the resolution. I'm still trying to figure out how to get 1080p and 4K footage to look good, and I'm poor, so I'm not the demographic for it.

However, I think there's probably a real cool opportunity for an inventive filmmaker to make an entire film in their garage with a small green screen set. I'm not much of a crop in later kinda guy, but being able to shoot limited coverage and build the scene in post sounds interesting. Have been tempted to pick up an XH2 for that purpose. But then I realize I already own a couple cameras I don't make films with, I probably don't need another.

Good luck with it. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

7 minutes ago, mercer said:

I saw there was a price drop on it. It seems like a steal if you need the resolution. I'm still trying to figure out how to get 1080p and 4K footage to look good, and I'm poor, so I'm not the demographic for it.

I'm going to go on a limb and say that almost nobody needs 12K resolution for anything, ever.  If working on a 4K timeline, people say there's a bit more DR with 12K footage vs 8K, but for most scenes, there's almost no way it's worth 2X the storage space to get it.  12K gives more ability to punch in too, but again, that's more of a special situation usage vs standard - being able to punch in 8x on a 4k timeline is really more parlor trick than frequently-used tool.  Nearly everybody I've seen using the camera says that they consider it an 8K camera most of the time.

I also poked at it a bit with my S35 Nanomorphs yesterday after realizing that the camera is also one of the best S35 cameras on the market, given that it has a 9K S35 mode that has the same DR/quality as the 12K modes and it supports 3:2, 16:9, 17:9, and 6:5 ratios in crop mode as well as in the FF modes.

Now I just wish there were a way to get a Leica M mount on it - none of the mounts made for the camera (EF, PL, LPL) can take M mount with an adapter.  I'm halfway tempted to just buy a cheap adapter for E mount to Leica M, measure the lens mount from the camera, and build myself an E mount to put on it.  Or the same with RF.

10 minutes ago, mercer said:

I'm not much of a crop in later kinda guy, but being able to shoot limited coverage and build the scene in post sounds interesting.

Especially if handing off the footage to someone else to edit, I find that it's very useful to frame things a little wider than I think is needed so that they have freedom to reframe in post.  Plus on my most recent short film, there was a bunch of handheld footage and being able to punch in from the 6K master was huge.  Camera op didn't track the actor perfectly while they moved?  Punch in 20-30% and move the window within the frame, movement now looks much better.  But again, 6K is plenty for that sort of post reframing.  12K is silly.

20 minutes ago, mercer said:

Good luck with it.

Thanks!  Now that I'm starting to get it rigged to a point where I think I won't be too annoyed using it, I'm antsy to get out and shoot!

[eatstoomuchjam]

Looks like there are at least some 17K's in existence now and release must be imminent.  BMD updated their Camera App and Resolve with support now - and they've also released some short films and BTS footage shot on the 17K.  Let's see if this one also gets the body-only treatment (though I suspect that even the body-only version of the bigger one will run $15-20k)

https://www.cined.com/blackmagic-ursa-cine-17k-65-footage-bts-davinci-resolve-19-1-4-gets-prores-encoding-for-windows/

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

Also interesting things I noticed when I actually read the manual for my camera (after trying to figure out a few things that were opaque, like why plugging into the rear USB didn't result in the camera showing up in the firmware updater app, turns out that only the left USB port over the assistant monitor works for that!) -

- The 17K 65 doesn't have internal ND filters
- The 17K 65 doesn't support the same high frame rates as the 12K, even in the same resolutions
(Though the latter is a small complaint since the frame rates supported are fast enough for anything other than uploading videos to YouTube showing off your camera's 8K at 224 fps)

[Tim Sewell]

5 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

and they've also released some short films and BTS footage shot on the 17K

... which I, personally, thought were gorgeous.

[IronFilm]

On 3/21/2025 at 4:44 AM, eatstoomuchjam said:

Now I just wish there were a way to get a Leica M mount on it - none of the mounts made for the camera (EF, PL, LPL) can take M mount with an adapter. 

The "XPimage Locking adapter for ARRI LPL Mount lens to Leica M" adapter exists, US$365.75:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134641448107 

[Alexis Fontana]

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

The "XPimage Locking adapter for ARRI LPL Mount lens to Leica M" adapter exists, US$365.75:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134641448107 

No that’s makes it possible to use LPL-lenses on a M-mount camera. Guy needs it the other way around which can’t be done. Flange distance on m-mount is 18mm and on LPL-mount it’s 44mm so impossible to do. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

The "XPimage Locking adapter for ARRI LPL Mount lens to Leica M" adapter exists, US$365.75:

What Alexis said.

I'd need to measure and/or pop off the EF mount to confirm, but I'm not completely certain that an M mount is even feasible for the camera.  The film plane indicator is surprisingly far back on the camera's body and the EF mount that it came with is fairly flush with the front plate of the camera.

[IronFilm]

4 hours ago, Alexis Fontana said:

No that’s makes it possible to use LPL-lenses on a M-mount camera. Guy needs it the other way around which can’t be done. Flange distance on m-mount is 18mm and on LPL-mount it’s 44mm so impossible to do. 

whoops! My bad, you're totally right

[eatstoomuchjam]

Part 1 of a "first look" of the UC12K featuring Shane Hurlbut is up:

 

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

After a few tries to order the media module from stores who claimed to have it in stock, but didn't, I gave up and ordered a couple of CF Express cards that are on the recommended list when they went on sale.  My cheap scrub Sabrent cards were working fine in the few limited tests I did in the house, but I'd rather use some sort of approved media when on a shoot.

And then, suddenly, B&H had one in stock - and even better yet, it was used!  Usually I'd be pretty iffy about buying used memory modules, but given that the UC 12K has only been in user hands for less than a year, I was pretty confident it would be fine.  It showed up earlier today and as far as I can tell, it is!  I still need to check if there's a way to display the media age/lifespan on the camera, but to stress test it, I set the camera to something I'd be unlikely ever to use - 8K 16:9 at 168fps in 3:1 compression.  Then I set up the camera in another room pointing at a downspout in the rain and let it go.  After around 30 minutes, I had to change the battery (even my biggest 220Wh v mounts only last so long, especially with the 26v converter, and it didn't start full).  With the second battery in, everything recorded fine until I stopped it with 1 minute remaining.  Conformed (in camera) to 23.98p, this left me with approximately 7 hours of footage.

At the end, the media module was mildly warm to the touch and the camera's top handle (the fan exhaust vents upward) was uncomfortably warm.  Not bad for having spent about 40 minutes writing 3 GB/second of footage.  The heat sink on the media module (and on the CF Express module) is substantial and I'd guess the airflow is well-designed to flow over it.

I threw it on a timeline to have a play - looks really nice and while it isn't exactly a challenging scene, the raw files seem very flexible.

My biggest lesson learned was that unless BMD release a cheaper media reader, plugging the camera into 10gE is really the only way to edit stuff in situ - and the only reasonable way to offload footage.  I tried it via USB and what I learned is that instead of just working as a media reader, the camera exposes a fake network interface over USB.  Network properties in OSX show it as 100 megabit per second.  Trying to edit that way in Resolve means a delay of more than a second when you scrub anywhere on the timeline - and playback is like ~1fps.  Wifi was a little better with a slightly more responsive timeline and like 1-6fps.  When I plugged into 10gE, I could edit in real time.

If the cheap version of the camera (which I bought) came with a power cable, I could presumably just offload overnight with one of the slower methods, but since I'm running entirely on batteries, that's just not a good option.

Anyway.  Here are some water drops falling from my broken rain gutter with rain falling nearby.