Blackmagic Forum

Hello!

I'm wondering if my BlackMagic Ursa Mini 4.6k G1 is bright enough for my use for the image to be brought up in post. I have been shooting CRT monitors, and capturing the footage via SDI with a DeckLink 8K.

I would like to buy an anti-aliasing filter to help with the moire, but they are $450 and before I invest that kind of money, I'm questioning whether or not this camera is ideal for my purpose. It has always been very dark with some monitors, even at 1600 ISO. A lot of my contemporaries use a Lumix GH5S to shoot CRTs. I've read that Sony and Panasonics have better low light performance. However, from my research, it doesn't appear that the affordable "prosumer" Sonys or Pannys have genlock, which is integral for my use. It seems like I'd have to spend $5k or more to get a Sony that has genlock, and that's just not in my budget. However, I already have an Ursa Mini 4.6k, and it does have genlock.

Don't worry about the rest of the scene, only the CRT really matters for this purpose. I would like to put a little more light in the room but that also hurts the contrast on the screen, so for now the room is very dim. Still, the CRT will be the limiting factor, and even in an ideal situation, I wouldn't be able to make the surroundings brighter than the screen.

I am new to this and I haven't gotten around to building a LUT yet, so this is just raw footage. I'm curious if the shots here are bright enough to reasonably use. I've included screenshots at 400, 800, and 1600 ISO.

Thank you for your help!

(Please ignore the lines in the images. Looks like I forgot to plug in the genlock for these shots and I don't want to retake them because it's irrelevant here)

I think if you let the CRT fill more of your frame, you won’t have to deal with moire as the resolution of CRTs isn’t that high and the dot mask is very soft compared to todays LCD pixels.

From your images it looks like you shot in film log, so they will appear quite flat and dark without a LUT.
Is the CRT setup correctly in brightness or is it so old that it only can shine dim anymore? I mean I had never a problem getting a bright image when filming a CRT screen.

And why would you capture the SDI output from the camera? Is recording in camera onto a CFast card no option here?

vintage.digital wrote:I am new to this and I haven't gotten around to building a LUT yet, so this is just raw footage. I'm curious if the shots here are bright enough to reasonably use. I've included screenshots at 400, 800, and 1600 ISO.

You don't need to build a LUT, there are several ways to bring the footage back to 709. Once you do you'll find that the image isn't dull and washed out. Here is the 4.6k film-709 2.4 CST with tone mapping off.

Good Luck