SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA— DP John Brawley has posted what appears to be the first BlackMagic URSA footage online. The 4K URSA was introduced at NAB 2014, and won a TV TechnologyBest of Show award. The URSA was notable for having a swappable sensor, camcorder form factor, a 10-inch 1080p display and 60 fps 4K capture—for $6,000.
The first ones started showing up “in the wild” last week, according to NoFilmSchool. Brawley’s footage, of Bronte Beach in Sydney at sunrise, was posted Sunday.
“I filled three of my four 128Gb SanDisk CFast 2.0 cards and did it on two Vlock batteries. Many of the shots were done before sunrise. Pretty impressive for 400 ISO @ T4 at that frame rate,” he said on his website. “All shots are ISO 400, 60 FPS at 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) ProRes HQ except for just one which was 24 FPS, the shot of the sun actually rising in shot.”
Brawley noted that he used a Cooke lens that was more than 30 years old, was “quite soft on the edges,” and produced chromatic aberration. Vimeo, the site and player he chose to display the footage, did not do the ProRes files justice, he said.
The URSA was originally targeted for a June/July delivery. B&H Photo still shows it for pre-order only.
