Blackmagic dropped the price of their flagship 12K camera, the URSA Mini Pro 12K. The new price is $5995.00, a significant drop from the original price of around $10K. How is a price drop this deep able to happen? According to Blackmagic Design, the price reduction is possible because of efficiencies in manufacturing combined with an improved supply of 12K sensors. I guess all those needed car sensors were bought up by Blackmagic Design pre-pandemic, just kidding. Bad Dad joke there.

As if a massive price cut for a 12K camera wasn’t enough, Blackmagic Design updated the rendering engine in DaVinci Resolve 17.3, showing speed improvements up to 3x when working in 4K and 8K resolutions. The new speed boost and price reduction make 4K, 8K, and 12K more accessible for filmmakers. 

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K is available immediately from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide for US$5,995.

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K is a revolution in digital film with a 12,288 x 6480 12K Super 35 sensor and 14 stops of dynamic range, built into the award-winning URSA Mini body. The combination of 80 megapixels per frame, new color science and the flexibility of Blackmagic RAW makes working with 12K a reality. Oversampling from 12K gives customers the best 8K and 4K images with the subtle skin tones and extraordinary detail of high-end still cameras. Customers can shoot at 60 fps in 12K, 120 fps in 8K and up to 240 fps in 4K Super 16. URSA Mini Pro 12K features an interchangeable PL mount, as well as built-in ND filters, dual CFast and UHS-II SD card recorders, a SuperSpeed USB-C expansion port and more.

URSA Mini Pro 12K’s extreme resolution goes well beyond traditional motion picture film. Customers get the benefits of shooting with film including incredible detail, wide dynamic range and rich, deep color. Perfect for feature films, episodic television and immersive, large format IMAX. The incredible definition around objects makes it ideal for working with green screen and VFX including compositing live action and CGI. Super sampling at 12K means customers not only get better color and resolution at 8K, but also a smoothness that comes from making aliasing invisible.

The Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K features a revolutionary new sensor with a native resolution of 12,288 x 6480, which is an incredible 80 megapixels per frame. The Super 35 sensor has a superb 14 stops of dynamic range and a native ISO of 800. The new 12K sensor has equal amounts of red, green and blue pixels and is optimized for images at multiple resolutions. Customers can shoot 12K at 60 fps or use in-sensor scaling to allow 8K or 4K RAW at up to 120 fps without cropping or changing their field of view. URSA Mini Pro’s interchangeable lens mount lets customers choose from the widest range of vintage and modern cinema lenses, so customers can capture every ounce of character and detail from their favorite optics.

The URSA Mini Pro 12K sensor and Blackmagic RAW were designed together to make 12 bit RAW workflows in 12K effortless. As an incredibly efficient next generation codec Blackmagic RAW lets customers shoot 12K and edit on a laptop, a capability that simply isn’t possible with other codecs. The massive resolution of the sensor means you can reframe shots in post for delivery in 8K and 4K. It’s like a multi camera shoot with only one camera. And it’s perfect for great looking vertical and square video, too. The advanced design of the sensor and Blackmagic RAW means that customers can work in any resolution in post production instantly, without rendering, while retaining the full sensor’s color accuracy.

Only Blackmagic RAW makes cinema quality 12-bit, 80 megapixel images at up to 60 frames a reality. Constant quality Q0 and Q5 options and new Q1 and Q3 lock the quality level, allowing compression to adapt, matching the detail of the scene. Constant bitrate encoding options 5:1, 8:1, 12:1 and the new 18:1 are designed to give customers the best possible images with predictable and consistent file size. Customers can record RAW to two cards simultaneously so customers can shoot 12K or 8K to either CFast or UHS-II cards, even at high frame rates. Blackmagic RAW stores camera metadata, lens data, white balance, digital slate information and custom LUTs to ensure consistency of image on set and through post production.

Shooting RAW in 12K preserves the deepest control of detail, exposure and color during post. Oversampling means customers get extremely sharp 8K without harsh edges. Best of all, Blackmagic RAW is designed to accelerate 12K for post production, making it as easy to work with as standard HD or Ultra HD files. It is highly optimized, multi‑threaded, works across multiple CPU cores and is also GPU accelerated to work with Apple Metal, CUDA and OpenCL. So customers can always work with their camera RAW files without having to make proxies. Blackmagic RAW 12K images provide unprecedented resolution and quality for color, keying, compositing, reframing, stabilization and tracking in 4K or 8K.

Blackmagic Generation 5 Color Science features a new film curve designed to make full use of the massive amount of color data from the new URSA Mini Pro 12K sensor. This delivers even better color response for more pleasing skin tones, and better rendering of highly saturated colors such as neon signs and car tail lights in high contrast scenes. Generation 5 Color Science informs complex Blackmagic RAW image processing, with color and dynamic range data from the sensor preserved via metadata for use in post production. Compatible with all previously shot Blackmagic RAW files, Generation 5 Color Science lets customers take advantage of the new film curve even with their existing work. Here is an example of 12K footage from a Foggy Fall Morning

URSA Mini Pro 12K is multiple cameras in one, shooting standard resolutions and frame rates in 4K, 8K and even insanely detailed 12K. With a massive 80 megapixels per frame at 60 fps in RAW customers can capture perfect stills and motion shots in a single camera at the same time. Customers can shoot up to 60 fps in 12K 12,288 x 6480 17:9. For higher frame rates, customers can shoot 120 fps at 8192 x 4320, 160 fps at 8192 x 3408 and even window the sensor to Super 16 to capture 4K at an incredible 240 fps at 4096 x 2160 DCI. URSA Mini Pro 12K has flexible frame rate and resolution options, and captures with improved motion rendering which means that customers get smoother edges in 8K and 4K even at lower frame rates.

Different projects require different lenses which is why URSA Mini Pro features an interchangeable lens mount. Customers can quickly switch between PL, EF and F mount lenses on the URSA Mini Pro 12K. That means customers can work with high quality large PL cinema lenses, EF or F mount photographic lenses making URSA Mini Pro compatible with the widest possible range of professional lenses.

URSA Mini Pro includes a full version of DaVinci Resolve Studio. Customers get the world’s most advanced solution that combines professional editing, color correction, audio post and visual effects all in one software tool. DaVinci Resolve is used to finish more Hollywood feature films than any other solution, so users will get the best possible post production tools to edit native video from their camera and retain every bit of quality. Whether users are working on major Hollywood feature films, episodic television, music videos, commercials or even the latest YouTube shoot, DaVinci Resolve Studio gives customers a completely lossless workflow for native editing, color correction, effects, audio and delivery.

“Since we released Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K last year, we have been working hard to increase the supply of sensors and make improvements in our manufacturing processes to help reduce costs”, said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “This new lower price, combined with the incredible 3x faster speed of DaVinci Resolve makes high resolution 4K and 8K workflows more accessible. It’s totally mind blowing that you can edit high resolution 8K in DaVinci Resolve, on an Apple M1 notebook!”

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Features

• 12,288 x 6480 12K Super 35 sensor.
• Use for feature films, VFX and high end TVCs.
• 14 stops of dynamic range and native 800 ISO.
• New Blackmagic RAW for real time 12K editing.
• Blackmagic RAW optimized for Metal, CUDA and OpenCL.
• Generation 5 Color Science with new film curve.
• Shoot up to 60 fps in 12K, 120 fps at 8K and 240 fps at 4K.
• Dual card CFast recording at up to 900MB/s.
• PL mount included and optional EF and F lens mounts available.
• SuperSpeed USB-C for recording to external disks.
• Includes DaVinci Resolve Studio for post production.
• Compatible with new Blackmagic URSA Mini Recorder.