Blackmagic Design has unveiled its latest URSA Cine camera, a 12K camera with support for interchangeable Arri PL, Arri LPL, Canon EF and Hasselblad lens mounts. It features a large sensor, propriety memory and a slew of industry-standard connections.

At the heart of the URSA Cine 12K is a RGBW 36x24mm 12K sensor, which Blackmagic Design says can support resolutions from 4K to 12K. It also claims the sensor can capture 16 stops of dynamic range, the most ever for a Blackmagic Design camera. It can shoot open gate 12K from its full 3:2 region at up to 80p or from a 16:9 full-width region at up to 100p.

The Ursa Cine 12K uses the same RGBW pixel layout as the existing, smaller-sensor URSA Mini Pro 12K. This devotes half of its resolution to capturing luminance (detail) data and then divides the remaining pixels equally between red, green and blue. The array is specifically designed so that it can be sub-sampled to deliver 8K or 4K footage from 12K capture, without the need for cropping.

The other significant change is how the camera stores data. The camera comes with a propriety ‘high-speed memory module,’ a decision Blackmagic Design says they made to “eliminate all the problems of media cards” to ensure a more reliable and faster data pipeline. It comes with an 8TB module and can capture 4 hours of Blackmagic RAW in 12K or 20 hours in 4K. An additional 8TB modules will cost $1695, and a 16TB version is also being worked on. An optional ‘Blackmagic Media Module CF’ unit can also be used to add dual CFexpress slots.

Image: Blackmagic Design

To transfer footage from the module, there are docks for direct download, or you can utilize the camera’s 10G ethernet port, Wi-Fi with SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) streaming, or the industry-standard Lemo and Fischer connections. Using the latter options, Blackmagic Design says the transfer rates are near real-time, which should aid remote viewing and logging of footage.

On the capture front, the camera uses 12K Blackmagic RAW and captures Full HD H.264 proxies simultaneously allowing faster cloud sync and post-production workflows. Various settings are supported, ranging from 12K/80p open gate to 8K/224p (2.4:1) and 4K/240p. In addition to its 3:2 open gate mode, it can shoot 16:9, 17:9, 2.4:1 and 6:5 anamorphic. There’s also support for Super35 9K in the same aspect ratios, providing compatibility with older cinema lenses.

Not mentioned in the press release but teased in a video demo, Blackmagic shared it is working on a URSA Cine 17K. The new camera won’t be available until the end of 2024, and pricing has yet to be determined. The 17K version will use a 50.8×23.3mm sensor (essentially a wider version of the sensor in the 12K model), which makes it close in size to 65mm 5-perf film (23mm). The larger sensor rules out the use of the Canon EF mount, so the camera will likely use Arri PL and Hasselblad mounts.

All current URSA Cine 12K features will be carried over into the 17K version, except for built-in 2/4/6 stop ND filters. Blackmagic says the 17K sensor is too large for the ND filters to fit.

Pricing and availability

The Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K is now available for $14,995. Accessories, such as a viewfinder, lens mounts, grips and rails, can be added as add-ons to customize your build. Blackmagic says initial shipments will be limited to “high-end customers.”

Press Release

“Unfortunately, we have not made any significant progress since last year,” says Sigma owner and CEO Kazuto Yamaki, when asked about the planned full-frame Foveon camera. But he still believes in the project and discussed what such a camera could still offer.

“We made a prototype sensor but found some design errors,” he says: “It worked but there are some issues, so we re-wrote the schematics and submitted them to the manufacturer and are waiting for the next generation of prototypes.” This isn’t quite a return to ‘square one,’ but it means there’s still a long road ahead.

“We are still in the design phase for the image sensor,” he acknowledges: “When it comes to the sensor, the manufacturing process is very important: we need to develop a new manufacturing process for the new sensor. But as far as that’s concerned, we’re still doing the research. So it may require additional time to complete the development of the new sensor.”

“It may require additional time to complete the development of the new sensor”

The Foveon design, which Sigma now owns, collects charge at three different depths in the silicon of each pixel, with longer wavelengths of light able to penetrate further into the chip. This means full-color data can be derived at each pixel location rather than having to reconstruct the color information based on neighboring pixels, as happens with conventional ‘Bayer‘ sensors. Yamaki says the company’s thinking about the benefits of Foveon have changed.

“When we launched the SD9 and SD10 cameras featuring the first-generation Foveon sensor, we believed the biggest advantage was its resolution, because you can capture contrast data at every location. Thus we believed resolution was the key.” he says: “Today there are so many very high pixel-count image sensors: 60MP so, resolution-wise there’s not so much difference.”

But, despite the advances made elsewhere, Yamaki says there’s still a benefit to the Foveon design “I’ve used a lot of Foveon sensor cameras, I’ve taken a bunch of pictures, and when I look back at those pictures, I find a noticeable difference,” he says. And, he says, this appeal may stem from what might otherwise be seen as a disadvantage of the design.

“I’ve taken a bunch of pictures… when I look back at those pictures, I see the difference”

“It could be color because the Foveon sensor has lots of cross-talk between R, B and G,” he suggests: “In contrast, Bayer sensors only capture R, B and G, so if you look at the spectral response a Bayer sensor has a very sharp response for each color, but when it comes to Foveon there’s lots of crosstalk and we amplify the images. There’s lots of cross-talk, meaning there’s lots of gradation between the colors R, B and G. When combined with very high resolution and lots of gradation in color, it creates a remarkably realistic, special look of quality that is challenging to describe.”

The complexity of separating the color information that the sensor has captured is part of what makes noise such a challenge for the Foveon design, and this is likely to limit the market, Yamaki concedes:

“We are trying to make our cameras with the Foveon X3 sensor more user-friendly, but still, compared to the Bayer sensor cameras, it won’t be easy to use. We’re trying to improve the performance, but low-light performance can’t be as good as Bayer sensor. We will do our best to make a more easy-to-use camera, but still, a camera with Foveon sensor technology may not be the camera for everybody.”

“A camera with Foveon sensor technology may not be the camera for everybody”

But this doesn’t dissuade him. “Even if we successfully develop a new X3 sensor, we may not be able to sell tons of cameras. But I believe it will still mean a lot,” he says: “despite significant technology advancements there hasn’t been much progress in image quality in recent years. There’s a lot of progress in terms of burst rate or video functionality, but when you talk just about image quality, about resolution, tonality or dynamic range, there hasn’t been so much progress.”

“If we release the Foveon X3 sensor today and people see the quality, it means a lot for the industry, that’s the reason I’m still passionate about the project.”

This article was based on an interview conducted by Dale Baskin and Richard Butler at the CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan.

“Space,” according to Douglas Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “is big. Really Big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

It turns out the same is true of cameras made to map space. You may think your full-frame camera is big but that’s nothing compared to the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera recently completed by the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

You may have seen it referred to as the size of a small car, but if anything that under-sells it. SLAC has essentially taken all the numbers you might recognize from photography, made each of them much, much bigger and then committed to a stitched time-lapse that it hopes will help to understand dark matter and dark energy.

Unlike many astro and space projects, LSST is recognizably a camera: it has a mechanical shutter, lenses and rear-mounting slot-in filters. Image: Chris Smith / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

We got some more details from Andy Rasmussen, SLAC staff physicist and LSST Camera Integration and Testing Scientist.

The LSST has a 3100 megapixel imaging surface. That surface is an array made up of 189 individual sensors, each of which is a 41 x 40mm 16.4MP CCD. Each of these sensors is larger than consumer-level medium format and when arranged together gives an imaging circle of 634mm (24.9″). That’s a crop factor of 0.068x for those playing along at home.

The individual pixels are 10μm in size, making each one nearly three times the area of the pixels in a 24MP full-frame sensor or seven times the size of those in a 26MP APS-C, 61MP full-frame or 100MP 44 x 33 medium format model.

To utilize this vast sensor, the LSST has a lens with three elements, one of which is recognized by Guinness World Records as “the world’s largest high-performance optical lens ever fabricated.” The front element is 1.57m in diameter (5.1 ft), with the other two a mere 1.2m (3.9 ft) and 72cm (2.4 ft) across. Behind this assembly can be slotted one of six 76cm (2.5 ft) filters that allow the camera to only capture specific wavelengths of light.

One of the six 76cm (2.5 ft) filters that are swapped over, typically once the camera has shot a set of images of the 1000 regions of the sky it captures. Photo: Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

This camera is then mounted as part of a telescope with a 10m effective focal length, giving a 3.5 degree diagonal angle of view (around a 634mm equiv lens, in full-frame terms). Rasumussen puts this in context: “the outer diameter of the primary mirror is 8.4 meters. Divide the two, and this is why the system operates at f/1.2.”

That’s f/0.08 equivalent (or around eight stops more light if you can’t remember the multiples of the square root of two for numbers that small).

Each 16MP chip has sixteen readout channels leading to separate amplifiers, each of which is read-out at 500k px/sec, meaning that it takes two seconds. All 3216 channels are read-out simultaneously. The chips will be maintained at a temperature of -100°C (-148°F) to keep dark current down: Rasmussen quotes a figure of < 0.01 electrons / pixel / second.

But the camera won’t just be used to capture phenomenally high-resolution images. Instead it’ll be put to work shooting a timelapse series of stitched panos.

The sensor array under construction in 2020. Each of the sensors in the 3 x 3 array being installed is a 41 x 40mm chip. The final camera uses 189 of these imaging sensors, plus another 8 for positioning the camera, along with 8 wavefront sensors at the corners of the array. Photo: Farrin Abbott/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The camera, which will be installed at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, will shoot a series of 30 second exposures (or pairs of 15 second exposures, depending on the noise consequences for the different wavelength bands) of around 1000 sections of the Southern sky. Each region will be photographed six times, typically using the same filter for all 1000 regions before switching to the next, over the course of about seven days.

This whole process will then be repeated around 1000 times over a ten-year period to create a timelapse that should allow scientists to better understand the expansion of the universe, as well as allowing the observation of events such as supernova explosions that occur during that time.

The sensors, created by Teledyne e2v, are sensitive to a very broad range of light “starting around 320nm where the atmosphere begins to be transparent,” says Rasmussen: “all the way in the near-infrared where silicon becomes transparent (1050nm),”

The sensors, developed in around 2014, are 100μm thick: a trade-off between enhanced sensitivity to red light and the charge spread that occurs as you use deeper and deeper pixels.

No battery life figures were given, but the cost is reported as being around $168M.