FS7: 5 reasons the URSA Mini is better than the Sony FS7

I'll say one thing about the 4.6k. It's nice to be able to record RAW to internal cards instead of having to use a bulky external recorder, when space is at a premium. I really wish Sony would offer this feature on their cameras.
 
starcentral said:
A 5" screen even in HD might be hard to pull focus from but I've done it off 7" with only 1280x800 screens without any problems, and the 1st AC's I've worked with. Maybe the 4.6k non-mini with 7" screen is better way to go?
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Briefly played with the Mini last June at Cine Gear/LA. The camera felt good on the shoulder, & the EVF was very nice. Wooden Camera thinks enough of the EVF to offer a mod for using it on other cameras, though I don't think it works with Sonys, at least not the FS7. The LCD was decent, but I'd mostly reserve it for framing.
 
Interesting Bern.

I think I've also just put two and two together and realized that the 5" 1080p HD screen is probably the same one from the previously released Blackmagic Video Assist monitor/recorder. (cut down on R&D and manufacturer costs).

The Blackmagic Video Assist at least is quite feature rich after a couple firmware updates, and although I haven't seen it in person a guy on Sony forums was raving about the BlackMagic Video Assist who's been using it with his F5 as his primary monitor. He says is very sharp and it has 2x magnification.... I guess I'll have to ask him about pulling focus but I think it would do fine. Folks are doing it on 2.5" EVF's and often you're feeling where that point of focus is not necessarily "seeing" it, at least that's how it is for me. I don't even use peaking anymore. Just too distracting.
 
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IronFilm said:
Most of them however you can tell are reviews from idiots, which makes me highly skeptical about the other issues are claimed on the B&H reviews.

Plus remember all these reviews are of the 4K camera, which is a totally different sensor to the 4.6K sensor. I'd be careful about what conclusions you draw from them.
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Just to be clear I'm not referencing issues with the sensor. Those were well documented on the original URSA & I have little sympathy for anyone who didn't do their research.

I'm not comfortable bashing Blackmagic, & even have a non-refundable deposit down for the 4.6K. But not everyone complaining about the 4K Mini are neophytes & some are having severe issues on multiple bodies.

Here's one that stands out, but there are many more.

" I have owned almost all of Blackmagics cameras at one point. I am currently the owner of the Ursa, and all I can say is this is the worst camera that Blackmagic has ever made. The quality control is extremely lacking, this is not a camera that will last years but merely months. I've went through 3 of them and just decided to stop exchanging and just return it. At first glance the build quality seems good, but I was mistaken. On my first camera it just simply wouldn't turn on, with the 2nd camera the screen went out after around 15mim, and with the 3rd camera I had everything go wrong, it had dead pixels, the camera would turn off, and the fan began to become extremely noisy. I still can't believe that after receiving 3 cameras that none of them worked. Blackmagic needs to be investigated this is ridiculous."







 
starcentral said:
Interesting Bern.

I think I've also just put two and two together and realized that the 5" 1080p HD screen is probably the same one from the previously released Blackmagic Video Assist monitor/recorder. (cut down on R&D and manufacturer costs).
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It is. But it was mostly chosen because it's a very very good panel (for the cost). Beleive it or not the VA and the camera are kind of designed and built by different departments that don't have a lot to do with each other.

starcentral said:
The Blackmagic Video Assist at least is quite feature rich after a couple firmware updates, and although I haven't seen it in person a guy on Sony forums was raving about the BlackMagic Video Assist who's been using it with his F5 as his primary monitor. He says is very sharp and it has 2x magnification.... I guess I'll have to ask him about pulling focus but I think it would do fine.
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Most people that use them are surprised at how good they are, even in daylight, for the price.

JB
 
NorBro said:
I'm sure this was mentioned somewhere here, but in the BM video that addresses the public, Grant said that the delay was because of the failure to implement the global shutter (to their standards). So they could have most likely shipped this camera sooner (like in July 2015).
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Pretty much.....

It's honestly not as simple as everyone thinks..just do some firmware and it "works"....even though the sensor was designed to have this feature.

JB
 
Been working a documentary for a few years thats taken me to 20+ countries. It's been primarily shot on Panasonic cameras (GH3 & GH4) due to the ease of traveling with them. At first I hated the camera choice, but it's worked out fine, & skipping the Carnet dance has been a dream.

However transcoding, & joining the files, has been a nightmare for post, so the production recently picked up a couple Blackmagic Video Assists. It has a decent screen that seems to look better with SDI then HDMI, & the unit is probably best paired with Blackmagic cameras. If I were purchasing I'd likely go with Sound Devices 5" recorder, or Convergent Designs' 7", but the use of SD cards allows us to carry enough media that we never delete during the trip.

The built-in screen likely works well with the Mini, but in my brief experience the view thru the EVF was far superior.
 
Ben Scott said:
The Alexa sensor hit an absolute sweet spot and sweet time in the market when the majority of people (content creators AND consumers) were not even vaguely interested in resolutions above 2k except for a few key players and for archiving. I wonder if Arri can repeat the feat when it comes time to introduce a new sensor which will obviously have to be 4K at the very least, which can't be miles away. Certainly if the Alexa sensor was released today it most certainly wouldn't last 7 years.
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The sensor is actually over 10 years old. Pretty great achievement. They designed it well.

Ben Scott said:
I assume the Arri65 is just a larger slice of the Alexa wafer.
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It's actually three regular Alexa sensors stitched together.....

JB
 
Ben Scott said:
Wasn't this sensor designed years ago as well? It's the camera that is late not the sensor :)
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It's a new sensor that's been customised heavily and optimized for BM. It's based on the same sensor heritage as their first camera. It's also dual gain for higher dynamic range. (like the BMCC and Pocket and the Alexa). Varicam have something similar except they trade dynamic range for sensitivity. Inside the camera the image processing is well over 16 bit.

Ben Scott said:
do we have any findings from the pro res recording and how good/bad it is?
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It's been good for me. I've been using it on a SyFy series I was shooting last year that was shooting ProRes. I've shot more ProRes than RAW with it. They have a new curve that makes it easier in Resolve to get to a nice starting point.

Ben Scott said:
what is the audio like? Are the preamps good enough? Does phantom power work properly?
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I can't speak to this. I haven't honestly done much with the audio.

Ben Scott said:
Screen good enough for pulling focus?
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It's pretty good, but I much using an EVF, which is amazing and in my opinion almost better than anything else out there, including the Sony EVFs. You have peaking for the screen and a double tap magnify function. You also have these functions in the EVF.


Ben Scott said:
Decent monitoring lut implementation?
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There is no LUT implementation. At the moment it can output a LOG or 709-ish image. The EVF also has a built in transform to 709.


Ben Scott said:
How much flex is in the mount compared to the Fs7 or the Red Raven?
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I can't speak comparatively to those cameras. Is mount flex a known problem ? I haven't heard of such a thing. I've been using the PL mount version and it's been very solid for me and Ive had pretty mucht he biggest lenses you can get on there (24-290 optimo and PV 11:1)


Ben Scott said:
I know there's no internal ND and that the camera is very sensitive to IR contamination like the last generation of cameras were. How does it play with IRNDs? Is it neutral with the use of Firecrests?
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It has the SAME ir filter that previous cameras have had...that is...a lighter IR filter. There's a thinking behind this if you really want to know. But the firecrests have worked best. I've found in very high IR situations (the tungsten lit and sourced setup I shared publicly) that you can get some IR contamination with the Mitomo TRUE ND's, which for me have been the absolute best ND's across multiple cameras. They aren't specified as IRNDs though.

JB
 
Another great feature of Blackmagic's EVF is the inclusion of False Color. AKAIK the EVF generates this signal, & it's not available on the LCD.

Raw is a great option, but in my experience few productions are willing to float the expense. Last commercial I shot in Raw I believe cost $700 per 128 GB card to have processed to various flavors of ProRes by one of the big 'labs' in NYC. Considering we shot for a week, & had four cameras working on various sets, the costs were substantial.

So the lure of the Mini 4.6K was the inclusion of ProRes, & a high resolution EVF with False Color. Waveforms are useful, but False Color is so much more intuitive, & quicker to work with. On the ARRIs I rarely use waveform, & rely on False Color instead.
 
Bern Caughey said:
Another great feature of Blackmagic's EVF is the inclusion of False Color. AKAIK the EVF generates this signal, & it's not available on the LCD.
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Yes this is correct. Also the EVF detects which camera it's plugged into and displays the correct calibrated FC scale for the (BM) camera it's plugged into.

Bern Caughey said:
Raw is a great option, but in my experience few productions are willing to float the expense. Last commercial I shot in Raw I believe cost $700 per 128 GB card to have processed to various flavors of ProRes by one of the big 'labs' in NYC. Considering we shot for a week, & had four cameras working on various sets, the costs were substantial.
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Indeed. I work in episodic TV and ProRes rules for this reason. Last shoot I did a typical day was 6 hours of rushes from main unit alone with a 100 day shoot plus second unit about 30% of the time.

Bern Caughey said:
So the lure of the Mini 4.6K was the inclusion of ProRes, & a high resolution EVF with False Color. Waveforms are useful, but False Color is so much more intuitive, & quicker to work with. On the ARRIs I rarely use waveform, & rely on False Color instead.
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Indeed. I like FC a lot too and I'm hoping they can roll this feature out to the screen in the near future.

JB
 
John Brawley said:
It has the SAME ir filter that previous cameras have had...that is...a lighter IR filter. There's a thinking behind this if you really want to know. But the firecrests have worked best. I've found in very high IR situations (the tungsten lit and sourced setup I shared publicly) that you can get some IR contamination with the Mitomo TRUE ND's, which for me have been the absolute best ND's across multiple cameras. They aren't specified as IRNDs though.

JB
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What's the logic behind the poor IR ND? I think that IR contamination is a huge issue, it basically fundamentally destroys your color. REDs earlier cameras had big problems with this too (many cameras still do, from what I've seen only Canon seems to be infallible when it comes to IR pollution.)

starcentral said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E3wWrvIh5M
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This looks pretty bad, looks like it was shot on a vintage lens, but the grade is terrible cyan everything.
 
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We don't know if that video was trashed during shooting or in post. Blow highlights and lack of contrast everywhere makes an odd aesthetic.

Searching Vimeo for 'FS7 Snow' you find copious examples that urinate on that URSA video from a great height.

If the URSA Mini 6K that'll be announced at NAB has internal ND filters count me interested.
 
IanTheM said:
What's the logic behind the poor IR ND? I think that IR contamination is a huge issue, it basically fundamentally destroys your color. REDs earlier cameras had big problems with this too (many cameras still do, from what I've seen only Canon seems to be infallible when it comes to IR pollution.)
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An IR filter is like a notch filter. it's not POOR, it's more like a "weak" IR filter.

If you make the cut too aggressive you risk also cutting useful wavelengths of light.

light doesn't just go from IR to visible, it's a continuous spectrum. By being less aggressive with the IR cut in camera, it's up to you as the user to make up the difference. Do you want it cut more aggressively or less. There are lot's of "tuned" IR filters out there now that specify their IR weighting.

JB
 
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IanTheM said:
This looks pretty bad, looks like it was shot on a vintage lens, but the grade is terrible cyan everything.
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Clermond said:
This is absolutely awful - why did you post it? My iPhone will create better results.
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There's some good shots in there showing very nice detail, but agreed the color is not that great. Likely it's REC709 default thrown on top without any tweaks to pedestal or whites, etc.

Here's a few of my favourite shots (a bit color tweaked)





 
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starcentral said:
Official rolling shutter measurement. Thanks to amazing Samuel & dia3olik http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?303559-Measuring-rolling-shutter-put-a-number-on-this-issue

BM 4.6K --------- 15.2 ms

This is on par with FS7 and close to F65, Scarlet, AF100. And better than a lot of DSLRs.
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I think there's been an update with official figures too. They're pretty good actually. Rolling shutter is a real issue but there's a point at which it's 'okay'. The FS700 is okay, and therefore this is okay too. In 4K though it's down to 12ms. And 2k to 6ms.

So i don't know what the fuss about global shutter is, i think BMD ought to make an official point of this.

So my remaining question is really about ISO performance... i've not found anything with decent high ISO examples

cheers
Paul
 
There's probably some high ISO stuff on BMCuser.com. I'll post something if I find any.

In the meantime it seems almost like there is general consensus that 1600 is kind of maybe max you want to go with this camera. But again "how bad is it" is what I guess we want to know. I'm definitely not after A7s moon light as key light performance, but still it would good to see where this thing starts to break, etc..
 
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