Tag Archives: ursa mini

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2021!

 

We have passed another year in slow motion land and while camera releases were more plenty than expected considering the chip shortage and teh COVID disruption, it’s time to take a look back through the year’s camera releases, and see which delivered on the price/performance scale when it comes to slow motion frame rates.  Phones are stagnationg while high end cameras are getting more frame rate options in higher resolution. Our Best Slow Motion Cameras Of 2021 have been selected and ordered by recommendation! → Continue Reading Full Post ←

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2020!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2020

As the end of 2020 nears, it’s time to take a look back through the year’s camera releases amid the COVID 19 chaos, and see which delivered on the price/performance bracket with slow motion frame rates as the primary goal.  Phone slow motion took a back seat this year as the interest of the feature in phones was subdued or even eliminated. Our Best Slow Motion Cameras Of 2020 have been selected and ordered by recommendation!

We saw some surprises including a mostly affordable 4k slow motion solution and the adoption of 4k 120fps on many cameras which makes us think 240fps at UHD should be something to think about in the coming years as a regular option once 8k video is commonplace on consumer recording devices and TVs. The increase in resolution should theoretically allow for a lot of 4k frame rates to be offered as 8k delivers 4x the pixel count of 4k for any given frame rate. Keep on reading for our 2020 picks!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS of 2020:

Without further ado here are what we believe are the best value slow motion cameras in their respective categories for the year 2020:

Best Slow Motion Phone Category:

3rd Place) Sony Xperia 5 II:

The Sony Xperia 5 II is all about capturing the best video possible on a smartphone and in HDR. The kick here is that the phone is capable of 4k 120fps in full HDR which is pretty much class-leading.

The footage below will give you a taste of what the phone can do. In good light, it will let you capture excellent quality 4k 120p footage with the possibility to grade as it records a gradable flat profile.  In low light, it will be a pretty unremarkable image with grain and artifacts as could be expected from the light requirements when shooting at high speed.

Sony Xperia 5 II: 4K 120fps video footage by CNET Highlights:

Sony Xperia 5 II Slow Motion Specs:

  • 120fps 4k
  • 60fps 1080p

This is one of the first phones to offer 120fps in 4k which will probably become a standard spec in 2021 for flagships. However absent is the slow motion at 1080p which considering the 4k oomph, it should have been capable of 480fps at 1080p or similar. It is a shame that the spec was completely avoided considering HDR in 120fps 4k requires 240fps full pixel readout before merging.  In theory, 240fps non-HDR is possible on this phone but not available for unspecified reasons. Phones are becoming more powerful by the day and this is one that has our attention. The just under $1k price tag is not ideal but some of the best phones are going to cost you.

2nd Place) OnePlus 8T:

One Plus continues to offer compelling slow motion features on their phones with 480fps 1080p and up to 480fps at 720p.  It gives you a quad 48MP camera module which is literally insane considering the phone sells for under $750USD and has 120hz refresh rate. Feature-wise it has probably everything under the sun and then some and will not disappoint in the performance realm.

Fireworks in Slow motion – OnePlus 8T 480fps in dark by sternking: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K is Frame Rate Beast!

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K

The Black Magic Design URSA camera line has been one of our favorite high frame rate options for many years now as it is a blend of excellent quality at a relatively low price with the added bonus of RAW recording and ProRes options.  Now the company has announced the latest iteration of the camera with a monstrous pixel size of 12k or 80 Megapixels per frame. All of this in an APS-C super 35mm crop from Full Frame sensor that is built to satisfy the requirements of their Black Magic RAW codec or BRAW for short which is in this camera the only recording format available.

What interests us as always are the high frame rates and this camera does not disappoint when it comes to this spec. The only real problem we see is that recording is made only from 4k resolution and up, completely avoiding 3k, 2k and HD resolutions which could yield even higher frame rates with probably a huge crop in the 80MP frame which will probably yield a noisy and artifact prone image hence why they probably avoided recording down on those modes.

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Main Specs:

High Speed Frame Rates:

  • 12K 17:9 full sensor up to 60 fps
  • 8K DCI full sensor up to 110 fps
  • 4K DCI full sensor up to 110 fps
  • 8K 2.4:1 and 4K 2.4:1 up to 140 fps
  • 6K Super 16 up to 120 fps
  • 4K Super 16 up to 220 fps

Shooting Resolutions:

  • 12,288 x 6480 (12K DCI)
  • 11,520 x 6480 (12K 16:9)
  • 12,288 x 5112 (12K 2.4:1)
  • 7680 x 6408 (12K Anamorphic)
  • 8192 x 4320 (8K DCI)
  • 7680 x 4320 (8K 16:9)
  • 8192 x 3408 (8K 2.4:1)
  • 5120 x 4272 (8K Anamorphic)
  • 6144 x 3240 (6K Super16)
  • 4096 x 2160 (4K Super16)
  • 4096 x 2160 (4K DCI)
  • 3840 x 2160 (4K 16:9)
  • 4096 x 1704 (4K 2.4:1)
  • 2560 x 2136 (4K Anamorphic)

Built in ND Filters: Four position ND filter wheel with clear, 2-stop, 4-stop and 6-stop IR ND filters

Effective Sensor Size: 27.03mm x 14.25mm (Super35)   80MP

Lens Mount: PL mount included. Interchangeable with optional EF and F lens mounts.

Lens Control: 12pin broadcast connector for compatible lenses and electronic control via EF mount pins on optional EF lens mount.

Dynamic Range: 14 Stops

MSRP: $9,995.00 (PRE ORDER HERE at Adorama)

Blackmagic Design Camera Update by Blackmagic Design:

https://youtu.be/sV8iFzpuecA?t=1808

The camera looks very familiar because it shares the exterior with other URSA Mini cameras but the inside components are completely revamped. This makes sense as DPs and other BlackMagicDesign camera users want to jump straight into a tried and true design without having to re-learn muscle memory or new controls. The cameras work well and are ready to shoot. Simply put if you have shot with an URSA Camera you are easily ready to shoot on this new 12k beast within a few minutes.

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Test Footage and Highlights by Love What You Do: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2019!

As 2019 comes to a close its that time to take a look back through the year’s camera releases and see which delivered the goods at an affordable price in slow motion.  Phone slow motion continues to be a strong category, so strong in fact that we made a Best Slow Motion Phones of 2019 list that you can see here.

Stagnation in many camera segments aside from phones is still ongoing, the semi-professional and pro markets stay at 120fps and 240fps with the occasional 320fps camera that delivers just a tad better quality but at a price.  For professional slow motion, there were announcements but not a shipping product yet, however previously released cameras like the Chronos 1.4c and edgertronic still own the affordable quality market. Read on for our best of 2019 results!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS of 2019:

Without further ado here are what we believe are the best value slow motion cameras in their respective categories for the year 2019:

Best Slow Motion Phone Category:

We had 5 finalists for slow motion phone of 2019 and while the Mate 30 Pro below got the top marks, the iPhone 11 and OnePlus 7 series had great showings, go to the dedicated article for the rest of the phone options.

 Huawei Mate 30 Pro:

Coming out of left field from a company that has been in the news as being in trouble with the US government, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro which is not shipping in the US officially but can be found from online import sellers, is the slow motion phone champ of 2019.

Huawei Mate 30 Pro Slow Motion Specs Dissected:

  • 120fps 1080p Continuous
  • 240fps 1080p Continuous
  • 960fps 1080p for 1 full second (960 frames in total)
  • 1920fps 720p for 1/2 second  (960 frames in total)
  • 7680fps 720p interpolated 4x (lasts for 32 seconds on a 30p timeline.)
  • All super slow motion modes at 960p and above last 32 seconds of playback at 30fps regular speed.
  • The entire buffer for the slow motion feature is 2GB and gets filled by data then dumped and encoded on the fly by the Kirin 990 chip.

This is the first phone that truly records 1920fps slow motion in 720p mode for 1/2 a second or 960 frames and then does excellent interpolation to a whopping 7,680fps 720p to create mind-bending images.   It is especially good for people, animals, and hard non-deformable objects. It will of curse fail as any algorithm with fluids, powders, and heavily detailed objects and will create a soft mushy in-between frame in those cases.  If you do not choose interpolation mode then you can get real slow motion for up to 32 seconds of playback on a 30p timeline which is excellent for a phone.

If you decide to buy it, the phone has a few issues to keep in mind. Due to US government restrictions, it will not ship with a  full version of Android with the Google Apps and not have access to the Playstore.  However several workarounds have been worked out in forums to make this phone usable. The other is that it is a Chinese phone which may need you to get help from someone who understands/reads Chinese to make the setup and get to work in English after.    We do not recommend this phone as your main handset as the support of updates will probably be negated in the US but if you are in China, this is a great flagship phone.  If you are outside of China, make sure you can live with the limitations in the software.

960fps,1920fps and 7680fps test – Huawei Mate 30 Pro incredible Slow Motion by Slow Experiment:

As you can see from the sample above and these other samples at HSC, the quality is quite good and the time is usable easily as a sports and experimentation high speed mode.  It will of course not replace a dedicated slow motion camera for quality work but it is still an amazing development to get real 1920fps 720p and 960fps 1080p even with some artifacts in a portable device.

Huawei may be in hot water with the US government for some time but they have consistently delivered amazing hardware that is probably the cutting edge worldwide.  We are excited about the future of phone slow motion and considering the giant leap that happened here, it is not unrealistic to think that really good 1080p 2,000fps or similar could be very close.  At least for a small-time recording but it will really be magical.

Huawei has made an incredible slow motion phone on the Mate 30 Pro and if they read this, send a handset our way to test and offer samples of reference.  As of now, their new handset is the one to beat. -HSC

Mid Range Professional Cameras:

This year the semi-pro camera market had some very good surprises when it comes to cameras that can shoot RAW files at very high quality and also allow for windowed slow motion modes.

Two of our picks are from Blackmagic design which is a known name in the affordable quality camera market. They have been able to deliver RAW and compressed RAW with BRAW format for very little investment compared to many other brands.  The quality delivered by these cameras are really cinema-quality so the trade-offs when stepping down are more to do with changing a camera system for producers rather than giving up the footage grading ability or low light performance.

Third Place: URSA MINI PRO 4.6K G2

The URSA Mini Pro G2 had a firmware update mid-year that allowed for 300fps in a windowed 2k pixel mode that has great quality and can be stabilized for excellent 1080p production quality.  For under $6k for body only the price is not that high for a camera that can really bring your production values up.   It gets a third place because the cost of owning the camera goes up with accessories like media, lenses, batteries, monitoring, and storage for editing. A good kit can easily get in the 15k range. The BRAW format is excellent but not for everyone.  ProRes is also a possibility and probably what many producers will shoot in when need to deliver in a rush.

High Speed Frame Rates on the URSA Mini G2:

Blackmagic RAW 8:1

4.6K Full – Up to 120 fps
UHD Windowed – Up to 150 fps
HD Windowed – Up to 300 fps

With 4k UHD at 150fps it makes for a killer feature rarely available on other cameras and the 300fps in HD or 2k allows for that extra oomph within your creative shoot.

300fps UMP G2 test 190629 by Reel Eagle Studios: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

URSA Mini Pro Offers Pro Features and 120fps!

URSA Mini Pro

Blackmagic Design has announced a new camera today.  The URSA Mini Pro is a marriage of their higher end URSA camera with the still in the product line URSA Mini.  It offers built in ND Filters, 15 stops of dynamic range “which is huge for filmmakers”, tons of ports, in body buttons and controls and easy interchangeable lens mounts.

For our slow motion fans there is not a whole lot offered by the camera but there are some built in features.  60fps in 4k DCI and also at 4.6k full sensor resolution is very useful and keeps the trend with the 4k over-crank frame rates debuted in 2016 on several cameras. The other is 120fps at 2k windowed resolution which is passable but not ideal. However the slow motion on these cameras is high quality and seldom does it have artifacts.

Camera Features

Effective Sensor Size

25.34mm x 14.25mm (Super35) – “Not micro 4/3 as rumored”

Lens Mount

EF Mount (Interchangable with PL and B4 mount)

Lens Control

Electronic control via EF mount pins or 12-pin broadcast connector for compatible lenses

Dynamic Range: 15 Stops.

Shooting Resolutions

4608 x 2592, 4608 x 1920 (4.6K 2.40:1), 4096 x 2304 (4K 16:9), 4096 x 2160 (4K DCI), 3840 x 2160 (Ultra HD), 3072 x 2560 (3K Anamorphic), 2048 x 1152 (2K 16:9), 2048×1080 (2K DCI), 1920 x 1080

Frame Rates

Maximum sensor frame rate dependent on resolution and codec selected. Project frame rates of 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 fps supported.

Off-speed frame rates up to 60p in 4.6K, 120p in 2K windowed.

Built in ND Filters: Four position ND filter wheel with clear, 2-stop, 4-stop and 6-stop ND filters.
FocusFocus: button turns on peaking, auto focus available using compatible lenses.

Iris Control

Iris wheel and touchscreen slider for manual iris adjustment on electronically controllable lenses, iris button for instant auto iris settings on compatible lenses so no pixel is clipped in film mode. Scene average auto exposure in video mode.

Screen Dimensions  – 4″

Screen Type :  LCD capacitive touchscreen.

Metadata Support

Automatically populated lens data from electronic EF, B4 and i/Technology compatible PL lenses. Automatic recording of camera settings and slate data such as project, scene number, take and special notes.

Camera and DaVinci Resolve Press Conference by Blackmagic Design –Skip to Minute 42 for the URSA Mini Pro:

Controls

Touchscreen menus on 4” screen. Push buttons for other controls. 2 assignable shortcut keys.

Timecode Clock

Highly accurate timecode clock. Less than 1 frame drift every 19 hours.

Recording Formats

Lossless CinemaDNG RAW, RAW 3:1 and RAW 4:1 with film dynamic range at 4608 x 2592, 4608 x 1920, 4096 x 2304, 4096 x 2160, 3072 x 2560, 2048 x 1152, 2048 x 1080 and 1920 x 1080. Apple ProRes 4608 x 2592, 4608 x 1920, 4096 x 2304, 4096 x 2160, 3072 x 2560, 2048 x 1152, 2048 x 1080 and 1920 x 1080 with either film or video dynamic range.

Storage Type: 2 x CFast 2.0 + 2 x SD UHS-II cards

Pricing and Availability: $5,995.00 and it is available now For Pre Order at Adorama!

A New URSA Mini!

The press conference above does a pretty good run through of what the camera is capable of but doesn’t go deep into the frame rates. In past cameras the URSA has delivered excellent slow motion quality up to 150fps and we expect the 120fps 2k – 2048 x 1152 (2K 16:9) mode which will be windowed in the Super 35mm sensor should give a heavy crop but it should retail pixel and line quality without sacrificing detail or incorporating artifacts.

Other cameras show these artifacts when doing higher frame rates. The Panasonic GH5 for example has near excellent 60fps 1080p slow motion but it has 150fps and 180fps 1080p frame rates that decrease detail severely while adding aliasing to the shot.  You get 720p resolution in the end with some line skipping which can cause shimmering and can ruin shots.

The URSA Mini Pro is not a camera geared for the slow motion crowd. It is a camera that offers 15 stops of dynamic range with no compromise RAW DNG recording and completely targeted to the mid range film maker crowd.  The kind of image quality you get from these cameras rivals the ARRI Alexa and RED Dragon cameras and that is why it is so important.  You get digital film quality for $5,995 USD body only.  Other rivals start in the mid range five figures which puts these options out of the majority of mid-range and small video producers and filmmakers.

You get a highly capable production A camera with large batteries, uncompromising quality and SSD storage options if you do not like SD or CFast cards of which it has 2 ports for each format; 4 in total. You get 60fps up to 4.6k in RAW and 120fps in 2k resolution by windowing the center of the sensor. It is adequate for many productions but we cannot recommend it as a slow motion tool when there are some real options out there for much less money.

You could get a Sony FS7 for 8k , Sony FS5 for $5.9k or FS700 with lens for $4.6k which offer pretty good production quality footage on a capable body. Or go for an edgertronic SC1 700fps for $5.5k You will not get RAW quality without an external recorder on the Sonys or the 15 stops of dynamic range offered by the URSA Mini Pro but you get better slow motion features.

Final Word: If you need a 15 stop RAW camera for film making and 60fps 4.6k and 120fps 2k is your bread and butter you really cannot go wrong with an URSA Mini Pro camera, it is an excellent production all in one camera package with the added benefit of offering DaVinci Resolve included. If you need higher frame rates there are many more options out there in several price ranges including the surprisingly good Sony RX100 V which offers 4 seconds at 1080p 240fps among other high speed frame rates for $999.   See our HSC Camera Guide or the best slow motion cameras of 2016 for more info!

The URSA Mini slow motion example below from the non pro camera should give you a good indication of the slow motion quality the URSA Mini Pro can deliver:

Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K – Slow Motion Test by Adam Roberts:

Blackmagic Design Teases New Camera!

Blackmagic Design has teased the camera enthusiast world with an announcement due in just 21 hrs. Some expectations call for an updated pocket cinema camera while others talk about a new modular design that could be portable or studio like depending on configuration. We will have to wait and see. The live press conference video  tomorrow 12.00pm PST is going to end the speculation, see below: