Here’s a beautiful and correct review, made by an independent filmmaker, or should I say production company ‘Of Two Lands’, about the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K. The camera is the first cinema camera that is capable of shooting pristine 12K imagery. However, it seems that it’s a bit underrated. And for that, watch this stunning footage to be convinced otherwise.
Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 12K
The Blackmagic URSA 12K cinema camera is the first and only cinema camera (announced in July 2020) that is capable of capturing 12K resolution produced by a Super 35mm sensor. The camera has been used by professionals in high-end productions and by independent filmmakers when ALEXA-style imagery is desired. Recently. the price of the camera was dramatically dropped which made the URSA 12K the best cinema option for the price. Moreover, several productions have used the URSA 12K in order to create imagery with enough resolution for IMAX theater.
URSA 12K Review
Luckily, the production company ‘Of Two Lands’ reminds us how great the URSA 12K really is. As stated by Flo, which is a French filmmaker from ‘Of Two Lands’: “For the past 10 days I have been testing the Ursa Mini Pro 12K and so far I am really impressed! This is not a camera that I would probably get for myself as a solo shooter but I wanted to try it out since I had owned the Ursa Mini Pro and love my BMPCC 6K Pro. And of course, I was super curious about the 12K. I absolutely love the image and the camera is a joy to use. I shot a mix of content ranging from landscape to wildlife. Content that I thought would be a good test for the 12K”. The footage was shot in 12K 23.98 and 8K 120, and the codec was a mix of BRAW Q5, 12:1, and 18:1. Watch it below:
Pros and Cons
According to Flo, these are the advantages and disadvantages of the URSA 12K:
Pros:
- The image is amazing. “I don’t know if it’s the resolution, but everything is stunning,” said Flo
- 8K 120P is just incredible.
- For the price, it’s really hard to beat this camera with image and specs
- Very comfortable shooting handheld
- Built like a tank
- No cropping (excluding 4K 240p mode)
- Super easy to use (intuitive menu and interface).
- The viewfinder is amazing and works flawlessly with the camera
Cons:
- Lack of ProRes option (“although the BRAW is amazing”).
- Only SDI connection (no HDMI)
- Not a low-light camera
- Limitation of mounting options
- Shooting 12K eats a lot of battery power
- Huge file sizes: 5minutes of 12K on a 256GB
- A high-quality CF card is maxed out after 4 seconds of 12K 60p
Can you edit 12K RAW footage?
Well, Flo used solid computer power, however, it’s not M1 (Apple Silicon) that is optimized for the BRAW. The post tools for 12K editing were:
- MacBook Pro 16-inch
- 8 Core i9 2.3 GHz
- 32GB RAM
- Radeon Pro 5500 8GB
- 1 TB SSD
The NLE was DaVinci Resolve. Flo has reported that the playback of the 12K BRAW was smooth with no dropped frames. Furthermore, the files were exported to 8K ProRes 422 and further editing was performed in FCP with no issues. Watch the whole review below:
Final insights
By judging from the footage, the URSA Mini 12K shoots stunning imagery. Many filmmakers claim that the URSA has the ALEXA look. They might be right about that. For some reason, the camera is not approved by Netflix. I reached out to Netflix regarding the approval process of the URSA 12K. This was their answer: “We are working with Blackmagic Design to address the known issues affecting its status as a Netflix approved camera”. So there you go. Not approved, but produces a beautiful look. Moreover, editing 12K is quite doable in the era of NVIDIA Studio and M1 chipset. Have you tried the URSA 12K? Let’s know your thoughts about it.
Product List
Here’re the products mentioned in the article, and the links to purchase them from authorized dealers.
- Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 12K Camera
- Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 17 Studio with Speed Editor (Activation Card)
I’ve been using the BMD 12k underwater and also with a Sigma 300-800 lens for a six months and love the colour and resolution. I record to a fast SanDisk extreme USB-C SSD and find that the battery usage is much less than with my RED Dragon. I can easily play back the 12k files, sometimes 500gb++ at a time, on my maxed out new Macbook Pro which in connected by HDMI to a 65″ 8k LG TV I use as a monitor. Amazing camera and pulling a 80 mb still from my footage looks awesome as long as my shutterspeed is at least 1/500. I transfer my footage from the Sandisk to a WD Black 2tb ssd and edit from that and the render times are very very fast. Both Resolve and FCP-x work well but I find Resolve loads faster.
Hi greg,
What housing do you use for the ursa ?
„The Blackmagic URSA 12K cinema camera is the first and only cinema camera (announced in July 2020) that is capable of capturing 12K resolution produced by a Super 35mm sensor. The camera has been used by professionals in high-end productions and by independent filmmakers when ALEXA-style imagery is desired. Recently. the price of the camera was dramatically dropped which made the URSA 12K the best cinema option for the price.“
Aside from that is clearly a sponsored post for Blackmagic cameras, there is no hint of „Alexa style imagery“ whether in your tests, nor in the link to the Independent filmmakers post you are mentioning. The footage looks oversharpened, videoish and is the contrary to an actual Alexa look. There are cameras on the market that are much more similar to Alexa colorwise, like Canon C300mk iii in example. Nothing against other blackmagic cameras, which are great, but the 12k was a failed product in many ways. Therefore the price drop.
Just one fact to add: This is NOT a sponsored post for Blackmagic.
This is not true. The 12K isn’t a failed camera. It’s a camera which pushes the boundaries of what we know of a traditional bayer sensor.
Since firmware 7,7 (and more recently 8.1), this camera is a completely different camera. All of the issues seen in many reviews has been fixed now.
No more magenta skin tones, no more artefacting at 18:1 compression and the shadows are much more detailed now.
I don’t find the 12K to be oversharpened because this camera uses no sharpening whatsoever, it simply uses photosites to capture information.
The image is pure and rich. I call it an “IMAX” type quality, it’s that good.
And the low light is underrated since the noise has a ton of detail and if you were to use noise reduction in post at ISO 3200 in low light, then you’ll notice the detail holds with no hint of noise reduction at all.
This camera is on another level indeed.
Approved Netflix camera are a false problem. If you prove to the Netflix mangement clowns that the production workflow is not affected by using an not approved camera you can use it.
Producing for Netflix is a such pain on the a.. that the approved or not approved camera is the last of your problems.
thanks for this great, very concrete, article.
6K S16 120fps crop mode is awesome as it retains 12K pixel density