You shot raw, conformed out to what? . . . ProRes. After setting your gamma and grade what is the approx. processing time in Resolve, 1 to 1, etc. and if so were you using large graphic cards?
Hi, thanks for the kind words.
So, when you say REEL are you talking about the footage from the pier ? Or the first link with the short film that was done for Blackmagic? All of this was shot RAW uncompressed or 4:1 (for the pier). It was edited in Resolve (not by me) using the proxxies tool using a MAC based single GPU Resolve system. My early 2011 Macbook Pro can run Resolve and processes / render's single node grades at 2 FPS, so pretty slow and not fast enough to grade from, but Resolve has some pretty good proxy systems now. My macbook is 6 years old and "only" has an old 1Gb GPU. Resolve is very GPU dependent and many that want fast RAW will want to look towards PC based resolve systems with a couple of GPUS and drives fast enough to serve those large file sup.
So the film was edited in Resolve, and I then took the finished EDL to Company 3 in the US. They conformed the files in Resolve and we spend a couple of nights grading the film.
With the Mini how pronounced is the rolling shutter?
Like any RS camera it's there if you go looking for it and in the right circumstances. But you can also see RS on an Alexa in the right situation too.
Here's the integration times compared to a few other popular cameras.
Ursa Mini 4.6K 15ms
Sony FS 7 15ms
RED ONE MX 16.6ms
Canon C300 16ms
Sony A7R II 33ms
Canon 5D Mark II 26ms
What is the real world sensitivity of the sensor in iso and the suggested base iso? (just guessing on the SM Pier images but it looks quite high, around 2,000?
ISO 800 is the base, and I mostly don't change that. On the short film EVERYTHING was shot ISO 800, including the night footage. On a few shots at the the pier in Santa Monica at VERY END of the day I went to ISO1600. That's the highest in camera ISO you can choose, but you can also push it much further with a bit of noise reduction. 12.5 Resolve has some excellent noise reduction that competes well with other well known solutions like Neat Video.
The camera is good in low light because it has a huge dynamic range. That's the key really. It's not like a Sony or Canon and once you lift it a couple of stops in underlit or dark situations you'll start to see some FPN. You can see this in some of the night shots I shot for yourself if you download them.
How does it push and what is the highest sensitivity that is useable (I know useable is very subjective)?
I don't go past 1600. With noise reduction you could go further, but I don't need to in the work I do and it's diminishing returns for me past 1600.
How is the stability of the cameras operating system?
Never had it crash EVER. It starts up in about 4 seconds (depending on media size) and is ready to shoot. I find more instability from cameras like the Alexa, the F55 and especially RED. ONe thing that is solid is the camera's OS and start up times, and record latency.
How is the build quality? Is this a camera you would count on for heavy production?
Pretty good. It's a bit hard for me to comment because I tend to have hand made prototype cameras, not cameras that have come from the factory floor. They're not exactly indicative of the release quality.
Generally the body and physical stuff is good. A lot of people dismissed their first camera, the 2.5K BMCC has being a toy, but you could honestly bash in tent pegs with the body.
Where I've seen failing especially with the little pocket is connectors. Things like the HDMI port failing, but I think that's more to do with the actual connector rather than BM's implementations of it. I have three pockets and have had years of using them without the HDMI failing, but I also use a cage with cable locks religiously.
I've had the same UM4.6K body for over 6 months of DAILY work on episodic TV series and it's got a few honest dings but nothing's failed. It's had multiple assistants and grips handling it. So far so good.
So I HAVE used it on heavy production and it's been good so far. In fact it saved my arse on a show I was doing when we smashed our Alexa Mini to pieces when it fell from the roof on a rig shot. Luckily noone was killed. We were shooting a massive day with a very expensive location, an aircraft hanger with a 747 parked in it. I had a lot of hand held running backwards work to do which I didn't want to do with a regular Alexa. When the Alexa mini got smashed I changed to the Ursa mini and it worked great. A lot of that sequence went to air as UM4.6K.
JB