NAB 2014 – Blackmagic URSA upgradable 4K digital film camera for $6000

News

by Johnnie BehiriApril 7^th, 2014

BM press release: NAB 2014

Introducing Blackmagic URSA, the world’s first high end digital film camera designed to revolutionize workflow on set. Built to handle the ergonomics of large film crews as well as single person use, URSA has everything built in, including a massive 10 inch fold out on set monitor, large user upgradeable Super 35 global shutter 4K image sensor, 12G-SDI and internal dual RAW and ProRes recorders.

Because the sensor and lens mount assembly can be changed, you can choose EF or PL lens mounts, or even a broadcast video sensor with B4 mount. This means you can upgrade to the latest sensor technology in the future and keep your investment in the camera body!

Blackmagic URSA is designed to be used on high end feature films, commercials, episodic television production, documentaries, electronic news gathering, music videos and more. When used on jobs with a large crew you can easily dress the camera with high quality cinema lenses, rails, follow focus, matte boxes and more. With built in scopes for exposure, focus and audio levels, it’s easy for DOP’s to get perfect results every time. The dedicated screen for camera assistants lets them check and update camera parameters independently of the DOP. If you’re shooting solo then the large fold out on set monitor, built in scopes and internal recorder means you don’t need any extra on set equipment because it’s all built into the camera. That’s a whole film set of equipment built into the one extremely portable design!

URSA is a true professional digital film camera with a 4K sensor, global shutter and an incredible 12 stops of dynamic range. The wide dynamic range blows away regular video cameras or even high end broadcast cameras, so you get dramatically better images that look like true digital film. The wide dynamic range preserves detail in dark shadows as well as bright highlights so you have a wider range of brightness levels to work with when color grading in post production. The extra large Super 35 size allows for creative shallow depth of field shooting and the high resolution Ultra HD 12 bit lossless Cinema DNG RAW means you get incredible quality! You can also shoot Ultra HD or HD in Apple ProRes™ for easy post production workflow with minimum storage requirements!

Blackmagic URSA features dual recorders so you never need to stop recording to change media. That’s critical if you are shooting an historical event, important interview or where you just cannot stop shooting! Simply load an empty CFast card into the second recorder and when the current card is full, the recording will continue onto the second card, allowing you to change out the full card and keep shooting! The built in recorders use new CFast card technology that allow recording up to 350 MB/s for incredible speeds, perfect for high frame rate RAW recording! Imagine shooting RAW and then playing back for the crew on the massive 10 inch screen!

The Blackmagic URSA features a modular camera turret that can be simply removed by removing 4 simple bolts! The camera turret includes the sensor, lens mount and lens control connections and can be upgraded in the future when new types of sensors are developed. This means your next camera will be a fraction of the cost of buying a whole new camera! There are currently 4 models to choose from!