A talk with Blackmagic about the Ergonomics of the URSA Mini

by Sebastian WöberApril 14^th, 2015

Yesterday we reported about the new Blackmagic URSA Mini that appears to be a big step up in terms of ergonomics to the previous Blackmagic cameras. We were particularly interested in how Blackmagic thought about the evolution of their cameras and we’re happy to see how they’ve put an effort into the new camera design.

In this interview we talked to Simon Westland who took us through some of the ergonomic features with a special focus on the new OLED viewfinder they produced. I got a quick look through the viewfinder and while I’m surely reserved in the interview, I can tell you that the image is very impressive with no disturbing elements of the eyepiece or distortion as seen on other finders. For $1500 the Blackmagic OLED viewfinder will surely kill many other products in this market. It’s a steal and it might also work with other cameras (not confirmed).

We then went on and also looked at the Blackmagic Video Assist. This is a small 5 inch monitor that takes SDI and hdmi signals, loops them through and records in ProRes onto an SD card. Fascinating, because other solutions of this kind cost 2x the $. For $500 Blackmagic seems to have another hit in terms of the specs at least.

We’ll test all these products in depth when they’re out. For now we’re waiting for the items to be delivered as scheduled in late July.

The Blackmagic URSA viewfinder is available for pre-order for $1,495 HERE

The Blackmagic Video Assist is available for pre-order for $495 HERE