Hands-On With Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini 4.6K

With the URSA Mini, Blackmagic delivers cinema camera features on a DSLR budget. 

Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini 4.6K is one of the only cameras in the professional market that offers a true digital cinema camera experience at an accessible price point, which is surely why it became one of the most anticipated cameras in recent years. Listed at only $4,995 for the EF-mount model or $5,495 for the PL-mount version, this camera offers a tremendous amount of value and a wide array of features—including full 4.6K resolution, up to 120fps recording, 15 stops of dynamic range and much more.

(After this review was filed, Blackmagic released a new operating system for the Mini. The new OS pares back the number of menus and submenus that you have to scroll through to get at your desired setting. The updated OS adds custom white balance and white balance presets, plus tint control settings, the ability to load look-up tables and more.)

Image Quality

There is no denying that the image quality on the URSA Mini 4.6K holds its own against some of the more recognized cinema cameras in the industry—such as the Arri Alexa or RED Weapon. While the URSA Mini 4.6K may not have quite as many functions as some of its competitors, from strictly an image quality standpoint, it can absolutely compete with the best of them.

The dynamic range (DR) alone makes this camera an absolute treat to work with, as it’s very easy to avoid blowing out highlights and clipping shadows. The DR is in fact so strong that in post-production, I often found myself adding in significantly more contrast to my images to avoid a near-HDR look.

The resolution on the URSA Mini 4.6K is also one of its strong points. Not only does it deliver incredibly sharp 4K footage (by oversampling at 4.6K), but it captures tack-sharp shots at standard 1080p resolution as well. 

The color science on the URSA Mini 4.6K is also impressive, as the camera is capable of producing very organic and natural-looking colors under a variety of lighting sources. The files themselves are extremely flexible in post, not only when working with Cinema DNG RAW, but even with compressed ProRes files.

While the low-light capabilities of this camera are certainly not going to beat out cameras like the Sony A7S II, the Mini is still capable of delivering very clean images, even at ISO 1600. It cannot shoot at ISO 3200, but increasing your exposure in post by about a stop only introduces a moderate amount of noise, so for any reasonably lit environments, the URSA Mini 4.6K will be just fine.

Design

Over the years, some of Blackmagic’s other cameras have been scrutinized for their ergonomics. That said, the URSA Mini 4.6K has really hit the mark with regards to overall design, and it provides users with the most functionality of any of Blackmagic’s previous offerings.

At only 5 pounds, this camera is lightweight and comfortable to hand-hold or shoulder mount for long periods of time. At the same time, it still feels incredibly strong, and the metal finish on the body makes the camera feel right at home on professional film sets. Unlike its bigger brother (the URSA), the Mini only has a single 5-inch LCD display on the operator’s side, but additional monitoring can easily be rigged up to the camera using one of the mounting points on the top handle. The side handle (which is included with the camera), is quite comfortable to use and can easily be removed and mounted to an extension arm for more complex rigging setups.

When set up with the Electronic Viewfinder and Shoulder Kit from Blackmagic, the camera becomes unstoppable for ENG-style shooting or run-and-gun work. 

The dynamic range alone makes this camera an absolute treat to work with. Photo © Noam Kroll

What We Liked

If the URSA Mini 4.6K will be known for one thing, it will be its dynamic range performance. Having the ability to shoot with less light control on location means more shots can be captured in a smaller amount of time, and the resulting images will look that much better.

What makes this camera great isn’t any one single function for every situation, but the URSA Mini 4.6K is proving to be an all-rounder that can suit a very wide variety of productions, from narrative films to event videos.

What We Didn’t

While there is little to complain about with this camera, there are some minor improvements that could be made over time either with firmware updates or body design changes.

There is no power button on the outside of the camera, so if you are using it with an EVF, you need to open and close the LCD screen every time you want to power down the camera. There are also no built-in ND filters, and that would certainly help to make this camera an even more viable tool for the run-and-gun shooter. It would also be nice to see a version with swappable mounts (like the URSA) to enable user upgrading in the future.

How it Compares

Other digital cinema cameras like the RED Weapon, Arri Alexa or Sony F55 are going to offer more functions than the URSA Mini 4.6K, but they will come at a very steep cost. For instance, RED cameras give the user the ability to choose an exact compression ratio for their RAW files, while Blackmagic offers only 4:1 or 3:1. The Alexa will offer look-up table management, and the F55 will have better low light performance and so on. That said, these cameras are many, many times the price of the URSA Mini 4.6K, so it is only logical that the URSA Mini 4.6K can’t offer the exact same level of specs across the board. The fact that the URSA Mini 4.6K at $4,995 is even being compared to RED and Arri is pretty remarkable, and deserves to find a home with many filmmakers. 

Noam Kroll is an L.A.-based filmmaker and founder of production company Creative Rebellion.

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