Blackmagic Design Introduces 4K B4 Mount URSA Broadcast

steve phillipps said:
Presumably plenty of space back there to make one, third party manufacturers if not BM?
Steve
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I dont know much about the B4 mount or its flange depth or how the optical optimisation would affect it - maybe it is possible

Overall I still struggle to know a 'light' camera system that can flip between an ENG zoom and something that one can do 'artsy' interviews, or Broll when the pressure is off.
 
steve phillipps said:
I was hoping for their sake that what they did with the Mini Pro, i.e. have it basically shipping as soon as it was announced, was to become the norm with them, hopefully that will be the case with this one and not back to the old ways of months and months of waiting?
Steve
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Core Microsystems had 2 in stock last week...they are close to a BM warehouse (or something like that).

Everyone else should be getting them this upcoming week (at least in the USA).
 
morgan_moore said:
I dont know much about the B4 mount or its flange depth or how the optical optimisation would affect it - maybe it is possible

Overall I still struggle to know a 'light' camera system that can flip between an ENG zoom and something that one can do 'artsy' interviews, or Broll when the pressure is off.
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But the whole turret comes out doesn't it, so wouldn't need to adapt b4 to MFT, which wouldn't work. But take the whole turret out and you';ve got loads of room I'm sure.
Steve
 
The turret removal is very easy. Less than 5 minutes.

But the original big URSA had the turret with the lens mount and sensor block that was interchangeable/removable.

This URSA Broadcast is the mini body and only has an interchangeable lens mount, no turret. And it has ND filters, which I guess could complicate having a MFT mount (not sure).
 
NorBro said:
The turret removal is very easy. Less than 5 minutes.

But the original big URSA had the turret with the lens mount and sensor block that was interchangeable/removable.

This URSA Broadcast is the mini body and only has an interchangeable lens mount, no turret. And it has ND filters, which I guess could complicate having a MFT mount (not sure).
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Yes, I meant lens mount turret, wrong terminology, sorry! What it means though is that you can insert a whole new mount and so have much more depth to play with rather than putting on an adapter that wouldn't give ou infinity.
Steve
 
No not at all many of my jobs will to be cover an event or activity and then do some interviews at the end - no time for a 5 min change or guarentee of a clean environment for that.

I just seem to work different from everyone else maybe? It seems obvious to me.
 
morgan_moore said:
No not at all many of my jobs will to be cover an event or activity and then do some interviews at the end - no time for a 5 min change or guarentee of a clean environment for that.

I just seem to work different from everyone else maybe? It seems obvious to me.
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Can you not do an interview with a 2/3" lens? I must confess I don't really see the issue - if you have a 2/3" chip why would you want to use anything other than b4 lenses? You can get anything from 4.5mm to 1,200mm, surely that covers everything - what am I missing? Is it so you could use Speedboosters or something? Most wide ENG zooms are f1.8, do you need any faster than that?
Steve
 
He mentioned 'portrait', so I'm assuming he's thinking of shallow DOF...and that's much easier with something like a 50mm/85mm @f/1.4 than zooming in (and losing light) with a B4 lens. But it of course also depends on the subject, location, placement of camera, etc.
 
On the BMD forums, BMD provided this info regarding camera sensitivity:

"On the URSA Broadcast -6dB is 200ISO, 0dB is 400ISO, 6dB is 800ISO and 12dB is 1600ISO.

That is the current range. We are driving the sensor differently to how it has been done previously, more similarly to a traditional broadcast camera, and are happy with the results we have been getting out of it at each of these settings.

You will need to update your ATEM switcher and software to 7.3 and the camera to Camera 5.0 Update so that these line up correctly between camera and switcher."
 
steve phillipps said:
Can you not do an interview with a 2/3" lens? I must confess I don't really see the issue - if you have a 2/3" chip why would you want to use anything other than b4 lenses? You can get anything from 4.5mm to 1,200mm, surely that covers everything - what am I missing? Is it so you could use Speedboosters or something? Most wide ENG zooms are f1.8, do you need any faster than that?
Steve
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Its a fair point - maybe my thinking is a little wooly. If the lenses are actually sharp at 1.8 then one can get a reasonably narrow focus plane.. probably enough not to bother swapping out just to gain a stop.

S
 
NorBro said:
The lens mount is fortunately interchangeable if you don't want to use B4 lens.
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Yes an interesting camera.

The mount may be indeed be interchangeable but forgetting the mount for a moment if the 'sensor' itself has been designed and optimised to match the characteristics of a B4 lens, Blackmagic's own comments, it leads me to ask the following questions.

How is this B4 optimised 13mm sensor going to behave with other lenses designed to work direct to a single sensor?

The B4 to S35 MTF and IBE adapters have pretty sophisticated and expensive optics to compensate for B4 lenses being used with single sensor cameras. Okay understood.

If this 13mm B4 sized sensor, and BM are saying 'sensor' is optimised to work with B4 lenses along with with BM's own optical mount I can't see the sensor having the optimal design to work with non B4 lenses without optics. You can't have it both ways.

Apart from anything else the crop factor with let's say FF lenses is going to be pretty extreme. That's a crop factor of 3.3:1. Even with S35 lenses you are looking at a crop factor of about 2.1:1.

I see the optional mounts will be PL, EF and F. Another question. How will theses mounts work with regards to focus and iris operation? I feel the same dilemmas could arise as operators are finding out with the EF lenses on the EVA1 for example. Not really delivering optimal functional performance. For ENG work an F/1.6 B4 constant aperture, 18-22 x parfocal lens is a very hard lens to beat. Only a minor point but this 13mm sensor is going to impart a slight crop on any B4 lenses of about 1.2:1 as 2/3" B4 lenses are designed to operate on an 11mm sensor.

I think this camera will probably perform best with B4 lenses if both its sensor and optical mount have been designed to work together as an integral part of the camera's ENG objectives. The first thing ENG guys will ask is how good is the sensor with gain up. Much more expensive but Sony's current 2/3" sensors are surprisingly quiet so there is also a performance question to be asked here about this camera. Look forward to some real world reviews and footage.

Chris Young
 
Here's the manual with some more information if you're interested: http://documents.blackmagicdesign.c...1-6e9f0a/Blackmagic_URSA_Broadcast_Manual.pdf

Mount info starts on page 165 (haven't looked through it all).

An interesting note: "A B4 mount is available for Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro but this is not the same as the B4 mount on URSA Broadcast camera and is designed for a different sensor. Use only the B4 mount that originally came with your URSA Broadcast camera."

Sounds like some magic is happening via the mount, IDK.

You can definitely expect some EF lenses to not work. It's like this with every camera company...there are just too many of them out there. But BM provides FW updates for the more common ones and eventually IS/AF ends up working if it initially didn't.

Crop factor will be extreme...the sensor appears to be the same size as the other BM studio cameras, and a tiny bit bigger than the pocket (which has a crop of 2.88x).

I don't know much about B4 cameras or B4 lenses...before my time (even though people of course still use them today, but just never had an opportunity to use one myself and/or learn).
 
Wonder how Canon’s 8-64mm T2.4 S16 PL (aka “Hurt Locker” lens) would look on the URSA Broadcast? Couldn’t imagine anyone using it for ENG, but seems it might have just the right mojo for some commercials, music videos, documentaries, & perhaps even high-end weddings.
 
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cyvideo said:
Yes an interesting camera.

The mount may be indeed be interchangeable but forgetting the mount for a moment if the 'sensor' itself has been designed and optimised to match the characteristics of a B4 lens, Blackmagic's own comments, it leads me to ask the following questions.

How is this B4 optimised 13mm sensor going to behave with other lenses designed to work direct to a single sensor?
Chris Young
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As far I know the b4 mount has the optics in - the sensor is just a standard single chip just like any other. In other words, it's not that the sensor it optimised for b4 lenses, it's that the b4 mount corrects b4 lenses for the single chip sensor.
Steve
 
Bern Caughey said:
Wonder how Canon’s 8-64mm T2.4 S16 PL (aka “Hurt Locker” lens) would look on the URSA Broadcast? Couldn’t imagine anyone using it for ENG, but seems it might have just the right mojo for some commercials, music videos, documentaries, & perhaps even high-end weddings.
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Lovely lenses those Canons, I had the 8-64 and the 11-165. Not sure what the prices are like now, I know they crashed when Super 16 was in its death throes, but didn't they start to creep back up again once crop modes started to appear on many cameras?
Steve
 
I do not know how it translates but the old number was f11 at 2000 lux @ 0db for the standard light sensitivity in 2/3" pro cameras. Is that ~800 ISO?
 
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