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  • Design & Handling

  • Features

  • Conclusion

  • Design & Handling
  • Features
  • Conclusion

Most of the time, laying out money on new gear is a gamble that those "What if?" questions won't come back to bite you. But with the new Blackmagic Ursa (MSRP $5,995.99 for EF mount), you can upgrade now and potentially upgrade down the road if your circumstances change.

But the Ursa is not just a camera built to be functional in the future; it's also one built to stand up to high-end professional cinema work today. Topping out at 4:2:2 UHD 4K/60p in either Apple ProRes or CinemaDNG and with perhaps the best ergonomics we've seen in a camera at this price point, the Blackmagic Ursa is one of the most exciting cameras we've seen in some time.

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Design & Handling

The Ursa isn't just a camera—it's a platform.

At first blush, the Blackmagic Ursa looks like most high-end cinema cameras. It's got a 5-inch 800x480 touchscreen monitor on the right side with physical controls for major features such as iris, focus, the menu, and power. On this side is also where you'll find the audio level display/control, and dual XLR input with phantom power. You'll also find oodles of ports: SDI in, 12G-SDI out, 3G-SDI out for monitoring, 12V power output, headphone/remote jacks, timecode in/out, REF in, and a 12V-20V power input with support for V-mount or Anton Bauer batteries.

Blackmagic calls the 10.1-inch LCD the "largest viewfinder" on any camera of this type.

Blackmagic calls the 10.1-inch LCD the "largest viewfinder" on any camera of this type.

On the left side, things start to get interesting. The Ursa has a giant 10.1-inch, 1920x1200 LCD monitor with various playback/record functions both on the left side and on the outside of the panel. With the monitor flipped open you also gain access to a second 5-inch touchscreen LCD. Most of the major controls for adjusting focus and exposure make a second appearance here. Either this 5-inch monitor or the one on the right side can be used to view current setup information (exposure, format, timecode, etc.) or as a live histogram showing focus, exposure, audio levels. Both can also be be used for live view depending on your needs.

The Ursa includes very visible levels, along with channel-specific volume and muting for full audio control.

The Ursa includes very visible levels on the right side of the body, along with channel-specific volume and muting for full audio control.

The beauty of this setup is that you can conceivably operate the camera with a one-man crew, monitoring exposure, focus, audio, and framing, and even making adjustments to various settings all from the left side of the camera. The large LCD allows you to easily frame, with live audio/exposure monitoring and focus peaking to ensure you've got good depth of field. If your solo crew becomes two or three people (or you operate the camera remotely) you can monitor all these things with the 5-inch LCD on the right while also taking finer control over audio.

While shooting you can see live histograms tracking focus, exposure, and audio.

While shooting you can see live histograms tracking focus, exposure, and audio on either 5-inch monitor.

And the Ursa is just dead-simple to operate—no matter what kind of crew you have. The touchscreen interface is excellent. Touchscreen support often feels shoehorned into a company's traditional menu system. The Ursa's menu was clearly designed from the ground up to be operated via touch. It's refreshing and makes accessing even complex features as simple as you could ask for.

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Features

Top-shelf 4K today, and possibilities down the line

Cameras are generally designed as complete, fixed systems. This means that the camera's firmware has been tuned to take full advantage of every piece of internal hardware.

The Ursa EF will ship with an active Canon mount with full focus and aperture control.

The Ursa EF will ship with an active Canon mount with full focus and aperture control.

But it's not the only solution. At their core, cameras are a web of discrete systems—a sensor, a processor, power management, and perhaps secondary focus, exposure, and drive systems.

The Ursa takes advantage of this fact, separating several major pieces of hardware—the lens mount and image sensor—into a separate module that is bolted onto the front of the camera. This gives the Ursa an amazing amount of flexibility. With the mount and sensor separate from the rest of the camera, you can swap in a new mount and sensor with a few bolts like you're changing a tire.

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The future potential is tantalizing enough, but the EF- and PL-mount Ursas that will be available at retail first are already shaping up to be bleeding edge cinema cameras. Both come with a Super 35mm-sized sensor that promises 12 stops of dynamic range and shoots up to UHD 4k/60p with a global shutter. In the clip above you can see not only superb, sharp slow-motion footage shot in 4K, but also near-filmic dynamic range and excellent highlight control. A 4K broadcast mount with a different sensor is expected soon, as is a version that has no sensor or mount, letting you hook up DSLRs and record 4K footage via HDMI.

Blackmagic has already revealed plans for selling an Ursa with no sensor or mount, instead recording footage from DSLRs via HDMI.

Blackmagic has already revealed plans for selling an Ursa with no sensor or mount, instead recording footage from DSLRs via HDMI.

The Ursa records all that footage to new dual CFast 2.0 cards in open formats like CinemaDNG RAW for UHD or Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) for UHD and HD resolutions. This lets you lay down 4K footage that can be immediately put into major NLEs rather than a proprietary format that needs to render overnight before you can edit and grade it.

The use of CFast cards will require you to pick up newer, expensive cards. That's a big drawback, but as an extension of the Compact Flash standard, we expect prices to fall as more cameras begin using these faster cards.

Conclusion

Okay, Blackmagic. You officially have our attention.

The first wave of Blackmagic cameras—the Cinema Camera and Pocket Camera, in particular—are fascinating curiosities, mirrorless cameras focused exclusively on high-end video. While we liked those cameras, the Ursa is something completely different—and far more ambitious.

This is a new platform, perfect for any production group that wants to invest in higher-end gear but doesn't want to be locked into one type of setup. The reality of video production is that your circumstances can change on the fly. Technology advances, budgets expand and contract, and sometimes your audio guy calls in sick. The Ursa is meant to adapt to be whatever you need it to be, now and in the future.

The Ursa is a bold move from Blackmagic Design, doubling down on the company's reputation for broadcast-quality gear.

The Ursa is a bold move from Blackmagic Design, doubling down on the company's reputation for broadcast-quality gear.

It certainly should be appealing to any up-and-coming video production setup that wants to be able to use DSLR glass but still have broadcast-quality options down the line. We could also see it adopted in schools, in-house production teams, and houses of worship—We're especially amused by the thought of a church DOP having to explain why he is filing an expense report for "Blackmagic" with the local diocese. For all those purposes, it's a great option. It's easy to use, the footage we've seen is excellent, and it should slot into most workflows without any real trouble.

We're especially amused by the thought of a church DOP having to explain why he is filing an expense report for "Blackmagic" with the local diocese.

Best of all? The Ursa is relatively cheap for what it offers. You've basically got a 10.1-inch monitor, 12G SDI out, dual XLR, two low-res 5-inch monitors, a copy of DaVinci Resolve, and a CFast 2.0 external recorder that can do ProRes 422 (HQ) and CinemaDNG up to 4K/60p. That alone would be a good deal for $6,000—but oh, by the way, that price also nets you an EF-mount camera that does 4K/60p with a global shutter.

The only clear drawback is that CFast 2.0 cards are brutally expensive at the moment. But beyond that, everything we've seen from the Ursa suggests that it's a game-changing camera. If you've got a budget of under $10,000 and want a high-quality camera that is great today and flexible for tomorrow, the Ursa is looking like a very attractive option.

Meet the tester

TJ Donegan

TJ Donegan

Former Director, Content Development

@TJDonegan

TJ is the former Director of Content Development at Reviewed. He is a Massachusetts native and has covered electronics, cameras, TVs, smartphones, parenting, and more for Reviewed. He is from the self-styled "Cranberry Capitol of the World," which is, in fact, a real thing.

See all of TJ Donegan's reviews

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