Ursa mini 4.6k is this a good idea in 2025?

Hi!I found a good offer to buy for 600$ with a V mount plate.This version is not PRO just 4.6k
For me important,that the camera supports braw and has the ability to do highlight restoration in daVinci and I would like to know if there is braw support in the regular version in 2025?
What do you think, is there a significant difference between the Pocket 6K and this camera in terms of image quality? I have already watched many reviews and in this camera I like the high DD 12.6 and cadence, it seems more cinematic than the Pocket 6K. What would you recommend?

The original URSA Mini 4.6K is now more than 9 years old. It’s my Camera A to my BMPCC4K Camera B. The UM4.6K runs with firmware 4.8 and that predates BRAW. So you can shoot CinemaDNG uncompressed as I do regularly or Shoot CDNG 3:1 or 4:1 compressed. It can be processed in DaVinci Resolve as colour science gen 4. The BMPCC4K can also be processed as gen 4 so it matches the CDNG. I don’t know if your Pocket 6K can also run with gen 4 in Resolve.

The camera is large, but not as large as the URSA Cine 12K. I usually shoot on a tripod but it can be managed on your shoulder with the USA Mini viewfinder that is excellent for that purpose.

A feature that I have come to rely upon since buying the BMPCC4K is that the UM4.6K supports a B4 mount (designed for ENG style zooms). I have a Fujinon 20x7.8mm Cine Zoom that is a wonderful lens to work with in any situation as long as it’s mounted on a tripod. If you’re interested in using B4 zooms, then the UM4.6K or one of the modern BMD Broadcast cameras is the way to go.

Only you can decide if it’s a good idea to purchase the UM4.6K. At 9 years, it’s a gamble how many years you will use it. If this is your second camera, having two cameras in a shoot gives you two angles and that’s always going to improve the quality of your shoot.

As for exposure on the UM4.6K, don’t exceed ISO 800, its native ISO. There’s no point in going over 800 in camera; to get more light in camera, you can use a 360 degree shutter angle instead of the normal 180 degree shutter angle. Or in post you can raise the ISO perhaps a stop or two if your scene isn’t showing signs of a fixed pattern noise. You might find you need to add Noise Reduction in Resolve if your scene was not well lit.

You might consider upgrading your camera to the Pyxis 6K that is only $2,495 I believe on a brief promotion. That a good value. Or even the BMCC6K that is also good value if you want to continue with the SLR style cameras.

Thank you for such a detailed explanation!b4 excellent glasses I also have one! Do they have any weaknesses?

I have found memories of my URSA Mini 4.6K. I sold it 5-Years ago however. I had it from 2016 to 2020 and it served me great.

That said, I would be wary of aged models. I'd certainly check it through in person before committing. Especially if it is a 9-Year Old Unit.

It produced a wonderful image. It was only CinemaDNG RAW and ProRes, and ProRes was fixed to Gen 3 Color Science. The CinemaDNG was Gen 3 Color Science, but could be changed to Gen 4 in Resolve. I really did love working with the CinemaDNG footage in Resolve, but the issue with CinemaDNG was on the other end of file management. It was large and clunky files, mainly because the clip was a folder that contained all the still images for each frame and the audio wav file. It took a lot longer to copy or transfer the footage than Blackmagic RAW allowed. Yet, if you get past that then the images were fantastic!

Some of the reasons I sold mine had to do with: 1) upgrading to the URSA Mini Pro G2 in 2019. 2) Leaving EF Mount behind for PL Mount as I switched my cinema lenses out in 2020. 3) Preferring Blackmagic RAW for workflow over CinemaDNG. And, 4) getting a Pocket as B-Cam for the UMPG2 for easier matching.

Do I think the UM4.6K was a better image than the Pocket 6K? Yes. Do I think it had better frame rate options than the Pocket 6K? Yes. But the main thing that was important for me was ProRes files I could hand off to editors with lacking color experience that matched. I've now gone a new direction after getting frustrated with those editors who don't know a thing about color matching. But at the time it was a decision since both UMPG2 and P6K had Gen 4 Color Science.

Hope some of this input from experience helps with your decision. It was a great camera. Served me well for 4-Years. The UMPG2 served me well for 5.5-Years. The P6K less than 2-Years, and the P6KPro replaced it and is now roughly 4-Years. The URSA Cine 12K is now my main, and it's by far the best Blackmagic Camera to date.

Thank you I made my choice and bought one, of course it was hard for me to choose cDNG but I think it's worth it.

Shoot some detailed tests in all flavours of CinemaDNG and Resolve and I think you’ll find something you like.

The one drawback is media storage. Last night I was shooting 2K lossless CDNG and 4K BRAW Q1. The storage space is equivalent for these two selections but the 4K file is four times the size of the 2K file. So BRAW is more efficient and friendly to edit stations that are not so heavily spec’d as you may require for CDNG. You could compensate by recording CDNG 4:1 compressed but I don’t do that. Obviously I like lossless CinemaDNG.

Find a Sigma fp to complement it as your b-cam and for run-n-gun.

I bought an URSA Mini 4K brand new back in 2016 and shot a feature that's now on Amazon. If THAT camera can do it, the 4.6K can too! I had no problems with the Cinema DNG format. Bought two 8TB hard drives, kept them in sync with FreeFileSync and use TeraCopy for ingesting cards each day. I still have 1.5TB left on each drive now that the film is released.

Hope you enjoy your 4.6K!

Today I took my first pictures and I fell in love with the image quality and I think I'll be with it for a long time. I was even more surprised when I saw that there is ProRes 444.
Guys, could you show me the pipeline for best grading? prores444 or cDNG

Today I took my first pictures and I fell in love with the image quality and I think I'll be with it for a long time. I was even more surprised when I saw that there is ProRes 444.
Guys, could you show me the pipeline for best grading? prores444 or cDNG

I mainly used ProRes 444 in HD. 63minutes would be 128 GB, so it was a perfect measure. But in UHD it was better to shoot 4.6K CinemaDNG 4:1 compression as you’d get more recording time versus the UHD ProRes 444.

256 GB was 30-minutes of CinemaDNG 4:1. If I remember right UHD ProRes 444 was 32-minutes for 256 GB. It was so marginal in terms of extra recording time that using CinemaDNG at full 4.6K was more worth it.

So if you’re going to use ProRes 444 it’s best when using HD resolution as you’d still get full sensor without windowing. But once you go towards UHD switching to RAW 4.6K often was better unless using more compressed ProRes options for longer recording times.

This is why Blackmagic RAW became so appealing over ProRes. You could get 4.6K BRAW 8:1 to fit 76 Minutes into 256 GB and the quality was just as good.


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Now if you really want to run some tests comparing CinemaDNG and ProRes, remember that you can also record ProRes 444 XQ which really is a fast way to fill up your media storage!

As for testing recording and grading, don’t listen to Tim! He’s so practical and sensible about these things and recommends efficient higher compression that’s described as visually lossless (meaning if you’re not doing side-by-side pixel peeking at 300% blow-up, you might not know if there is any compression). That’s fine for real work in the real world when you can shoot terabyte in a day without breaking a sweat. But if you want to see what your old UM4.6K can do, crank it up to 4K CinemaDNG lossless (no compression) and ProRes 444 XQ (almost no compression) on very detailed scenes for a minute.

Tim will forgive me because he’s just a great guy!

Screenshot 2025-06-24 at 4.52.28 PM.png (453.57 KiB) Viewed 1313 times

If you really want to see how the UM4.6K "Uncompressed" CinemaDNG compares to ARRIRAW 4.6K from the Alexa 35, then you'll be amazed how much more recording time you get. It's pretty similar to the HDE compression option you get for ARRIRAW, which is a post capture compression. I put the BMD Uncompressed into quotation marks because it's actually not fully Uncompressed as it does use a 1.33:1 Lossless Compression. Only the original 2.5K Cinema Camera did Uncompressed CinemaDNG up until a firmware update that gave it the same Lossless Compressed 1.33:1 that was in the OG Pocket and Production 4K.

Nonetheless, you can always follow Rick's recommendations. I like to think in more practical terms sometimes. Visually lossless is always good for me. Especially when not pixel peeping. If you need more visual detail at 300% then you should be capturing that for VFX in my opinion. More resolution and more detail always is helpful for VFX. In 2019 for a short film any of the VFX shots I shot in "Uncompressed" 4.6K CinemaDNG, while the rest of the shots that we know wouldn't have VFX were shot in 4.6K CinemaDNG 4:1. It all worked out perfectly fine.

Thanks for those details, Tim. Is the 1.33:1 compression just a simple compression like a .zip file so when it’s expanded it’s a similar size as the ARRIraw?

Thanks for those details, Tim. Is the 1.33:1 compression just a simple compression like a .zip file so when it’s expanded it’s a similar size as the ARRIraw?

No, the 1.33:1 compression is basically what Blackmagic started doing for Compressed RAW with the Original Pocket and Production 4K. There was no true Uncompressed option. I think I'm getting the 1.33:1 number right. Someone from BMD may have the correct compression number.

Basically the URSA 4K, URSA Mini 4K, URSA Mini 4.6K, URSA Mini Pro 4.6K, and Pocket 4K all did CinemaDNG "Uncompressed" in this Compressed RAW with the same ratio. Then once Blackmagic RAW came out in 2018 the cameras that transitioned to that format went into a new system. So the legacy cameras that didn't get the BRAW update stayed that way.

It was March 19, 2015 that the Firmware 2.1 Update came out that provided "lossless compressed CinemaDNG RAW recording for all Blackmagic Cinema Cameras." And, that was when the 2.5K got it. Basically a 240 GB SSD went from having 30-Minutes of CinemaDNG RAW to 45-Minutes of CinemaDNG RAW with the update. This was nice for a time, but it wasn't long after that the URSA Mini 4.6K was announced and not long after that I switched to the UM4.6K as my main camera. But everything I shot in CinemaDNG RAW with the 2.5K BMCC prior to that March 19th dates was in the original uncompressed raw format.

Excellent.

Thank you guys, you gave me too much time, I really appreciate it! I think I agree that 1:3 and 1:4 are more suitable for simple scenes, and cDNG without compression is for scenes where there will be VFX, I don't have that many memory cards lol.

… I don't have that many memory cards lol.

I only have three CFast2 cards so I know what you mean. I don’t want to buy more CFast2 cards. One of the nice features of the BMPCC4K camera is that it uses three technologies for recording: CFast2, SDXC, and external SSDs. I’ve been happy to save some dollars buying SSDs instead of cards. Unfortunately my UM4.6K camera only supports CFast2 so very long shoots can require use of compressed. video.

Thank you guys, you gave me too much time…

Our pleasure. Very glad you are enjoying using the older technologies.

Newer cameras can have some very impressive features, but the UM4.6K really relies upon the quality of its image as its primary appeal. With BMD moving away from ProRes recording on the newer cameras, the ability of the UM4.6K to record 12bit ProRes 444 XQ and 12bit ProRes 444 is a leg up on the cameras that are limited to 10bit ProRes 422 HQ etc. When I shoot ProRes, for a normal scene, it’s usually 12bit ProRes 444 to save some media usage.

Just shot with original Ursa Mini 4.6k I bought back in 2016...I was shocked to see images...
And it was shot in 2k ProRes 422HQ, just opened in Resolve on Colour managed workflow tab with DWG to 709A(on Mac)...

For some reason, this camera was collecting lots of dust on the shelf.
When paired with nice lens and Pro mist 1/4 filter, images are just gorgeous.
It really made me think, just how overlooked this camera is.

I will post some clips/screen shots soon.

Also almost 10 years now, sensor glass is still clean with no traces of any degrading.

I would not hesitate to use it on any budget shoot, after just seeing this images of now forgotten camera.

Happy for you to rediscover the UM4.6K, my Camera A. I get to compare the CinemaDNG image to the BRAW image on the BMPCC4K on most shoots and it’s so fine.

Thank you guys, you gave me too much time…

Our pleasure. Very glad you are enjoying using the older technologies.

Newer cameras can have some very impressive features, but the UM4.6K really relies upon the quality of its image as its primary appeal. With BMD moving away from ProRes recording on the newer cameras, the ability of the UM4.6K to record 12bit ProRes 444 XQ and 12bit ProRes 444 is a leg up on the cameras that are limited to 10bit ProRes 422 HQ etc. When I shoot ProRes, for a normal scene, it’s usually 12bit ProRes 444 to save some media usage.

I have always been attracted to the company blackmagic, and I bought it at an attractive price + it is approved by Netflix, has many different codecs, as well as a high dynamic range, which is even higher than that of the Canon C70 if you use the recovery highlight in DaVinci, today I was shooting a slightly overexposed sky and I was shocked how it can be used to return up to 2 stops. I am very impressed with this camera, it evokes pleasant emotions in me. I am really pleased to receive useful advice from you and quickly enter the new family of black magic

Since you weren’t on this forum since the beginning of time, you got to miss the whole expose-to-the-right ETTR mantra which recommended giving the sensor as much light as possible without clipping so much of your image populates the right half of the histogram. Then in DaVinci Resolve you could colour correct well. And there were many lovely images following that practice which avoids the dreaded fixed pattern noise FPN that is near impossible to correct fully in post.

In my shoots however, I tend to have the bulk of my pixels in the left side of the histogram. Rather than consistently have pink false colour faces, I have green faces or even darker sometimes. ETTL better ensures that I don’t clip any highlights where it counts. In a music video with intense variations in lighting, blowing a highlight can happen so easily.

Even films these days often show blown or no highlight detail on faces as if it’s an intentional cinematic style. I try to keep details on faces. I use scopes a lot, but even without scopes, if the faces look good on my camera monitor, I trust that to mean my faces in post will be good too.

All that said, I’m not shooting ProRes when I take this approach. With ProRes you want to be more careful. I rely on DaVinci Resolve to colour the final images. Sometimes shooters need to handover their clips to the client without any post work. That too makes it difficult to nail in camera. I don’t work that way thankfully so ETTL works for me. If needed I can boost most ETTL raw shots 2-3 stops safely.

If you find another good deal on a used Blackmagic 7” Video Assist 12G (BMVA12G7), you might want to add that as the detailed scopes are great to monitor as you shoot if you’re indoors. Outdoors in bright sun with high nits (2500) it can be difficult though as it drinks juice like it’s dying of thirst. Been there, done that.

Since you weren’t on this forum since the beginning of time, you got to miss the whole expose-to-the-right ETTR mantra which recommended giving the sensor as much light as possible without clipping so much of your image populates the right half of the histogram. Then in DaVinci Resolve you could colour correct well. And there were many lovely images following that practice which avoids the dreaded fixed pattern noise FPN that is near impossible to correct fully in post.

In my shoots however, I tend to have the bulk of my pixels in the left side of the histogram. Rather than consistently have pink false colour faces, I have green faces or even darker sometimes. ETTL better ensures that I don’t clip any highlights where it counts. In a music video with intense variations in lighting, blowing a highlight can happen so easily.

Even films these days often show blown or no highlight detail on faces as if it’s an intentional cinematic style. I try to keep details on faces. I use scopes a lot, but even without scopes, if the faces look good on my camera monitor, I trust that to mean my faces in post will be good too.

All that said, I’m not shooting ProRes when I take this approach. With ProRes you want to be more careful. I rely on DaVinci Resolve to colour the final images. Sometimes shooters need to handover their clips to the client without any post work. That too makes it difficult to nail in camera. I don’t work that way thankfully so ETTL works for me. If needed I can boost most ETTL raw shots 2-3 stops safely.

If you find another good deal on a used Blackmagic 7” Video Assist 12G (BMVA12G7), you might want to add that as the detailed scopes are great to monitor as you shoot if you’re indoors. Outdoors in bright sun with high nits (2500) it can be difficult though as it drinks juice like it’s dying of thirst. Been there, done that.

Oh, that's just right! Did I understand correctly that it's better to keep the images as close to the right as possible to the highlights, but not to go into them?

Yes, you can do that ETTR, but I don’t. It’s best if you can avoid clipping the highlights.