From the course: Shooting with Blackmagic Cinema Cameras

Choosing the right camera for your shoot

From the course: Shooting with Blackmagic Cinema Cameras

Start my 1-month free trial

Choosing the right camera for your shoot

“

- With all these different choices how do you know which camera's right for you? Well, hopefully in this course you'll see some of the benefits of each model. It really comes down to your type of shooting style. I strongly suggest that before you buy a camera, you rent a camera. There are a lot of great companies out there that offer rentals. For example, the folks at Lens Rentals helped us out, and we were able to rent some of the extra cameras that we didn't own, as well as try out some gear. This is a great way for you to test equipment and make sure that you really like it before you make the purchase. The big distinction is really going to be do you work in a studio environment or a field environment? If it's a studio environment, then you're probably going to be taking a look at the studio camera or the micro cameras here which offer excellent controls in the ability to integrate with Blackmagic Studio switchers. This'll make it easy to control the camera and make adjustments on the fly. Now, if you work in the field, it really comes down to the features that you need. I find that the pocket camera works great when I'm traveling and I'm doing documentary type work. It really has a good balance of low light sensitivity, small size, and good quality. But if I was doing a higher end production, such as a feature or a commercial, the URSA is going to give me so much more options with built-in ports for additional connections to professional devices, higher quality lenses, and just more control across the board. But another thing that may affect it are those lenses. Do you own a lot of lenses already? If you've got a lot of Canon glass sitting around, the URSA obviously makes sense because you could take your Canon lenses and use it out of the box. Or if you need some of those optional mounts to work with digital cinema type lenses, well, the URSA is the camera for you. Otherwise it's all Micro Four Thirds. And this is a great lens system with lots of affordable lenses. But if you already have made an investment in good glass, that may have an impact on the cameras overall. And then it really comes down to size and weight. These micro cameras are small enough to attach to a drone, and give you great flexibility to use modular lenses. The studio cameras, really affordable and work great in smaller studio environments or controlled environments. And I like the pocket camera because I could pack it into a backpack and easily hit the road with a couple of lenses and a stash of batteries and some memory cards, and go shooting for a week out in the field. On the other hand, the URSA isn't that light. And while this is called the Ursa Mini, and it's significantly much lighter than it used to be, it's still weighs like a good kettlebell. And the old models were significantly heavier. But it just comes down to your shooting style. A camera like this offers more professional options and has a better profile on a professional set. You wouldn't likely show up with a pocket camera to a big budget production But this does work better. Similarly, while the studio cameras work quite well the URSA can be run in a studio configuration. You can save some money by removing options like the viewfinder and take advantage of some of the connections to remotely control some of the camera settings as well. So it just really comes down to your budget, and your shooting style. All right, with this in mind, let's start to learn how these cameras work, which might help you better understand which one is the right one for you.

Contents