In a press conference live streamed to YouTube, Blackmagic Design on Thursday announced three new pieces of hardware. The company not only took the wraps off its newest cinema camera, the Ursa Mini Pro, and also introduced two new DaVinci Resolve control panels which brings hands-on color correction to a whole new user base.
The $5,995 Ursa Mini Pro is Blackmagic Design’s most full-featured camera yet. Calling it three cameras in one, it is built to handle the unique demands of film, broadcast, and studio work. This flexibility begins with the interchangeable lens mount that allows for either Canon EF, cinema PL, or broadcast B4 mounts to be swapped in and out in a matter of minutes. Coming later this year, Blackmagic Design will also introduce a Nikon F mount — the first from the company — which will allow cinematographers to shoot with manual Nikon lenses and grant them stepless aperture control.
The camera’s button layout has also been designed with multiple users in mind. Buttons are made to provide tactile feedback for blind operation, and every control can be accessed in at least two ways. There’s even a redundant backup to turn on the camera, just in case the main power switch gets damaged.
The Ursa Mini Pro is built around the same Super35 sensor as the Ursa Mini 4.6K, granting higher than DCI 4K resolution and 15 stops of dynamic range. It can record 4.6K footage at up to 60 frames per second. Video is now saved straight to dual CFast or dual SD cards (the camera has four card slots in total). Users who prefer to shoot to SSD can now add an optional SSD dock that attaches to the rear of the camera between the body and the battery plate.
The Ursa Mini Pro offers a variety of recording formats, including Cinema DNG RAW and both 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 varieties of Apple ProRes at various levels of compression. Whatever the filetype, footage will play very nicely in DaVinci Resolve for both editing and color grading, and a full version of DaVinci Resolve Pro is included with the camera.
Other features include a built-in, four-stage glass ND filter, headset monitoring with talkback, and interchangeable battery plates for working with your external battery brand of choice. An external viewfinder and shoulder mount rig are available as optional accessories.
While camera is certainly not cheap, at less than $6,000 the Ursa Mini Pro continues Blackmagic Design’s legacy of offering powerful and versatile cinema cameras well below the cost of many competing options. That cost can rise, however, as users add on accessories, like viewfinders, that other brands often include in the box. The camera is shipping now to resellers, with B&H currently showing an expected delivery date of March 9.
