Capturing the Future: BLACKMAGIC and APPLE Redefine Immersive Video

At APPLE’s WWDC this June, a landmark partnership was announced. The worlds of technology and digital cinema are merging, with Blackmagic Design developing a camera specifically for APPLE’s mixed-reality headset, Vision Pro. It will be the first truly immersive video capture device. Our era of the moving image is at a crossroads. Virtual reality, as in today’s VR headsets, is an immersive bubble, and the user’s senses are imprisoned in that world. We see only what we’re fed, as the camera is inside the headset – like a head that cannot move its eyes. Although it’s possible to turn your head inside the headset by swivelling it, the effect is surreal rather than virtual: it looks like a head has turned, but we try to make it feel like we have moved.

The Dawn of a New Era: BLACKMAGIC's Partnership with APPLE

Because the virtual realm will always be in flux, and the appetite for greater verisimilitude will always be insatiable. It’s no surprise then that at its WWDC presentation, APPLE unveiled its partnership with the company that made APPLE products accessible to video professionals: Blackmagic Design. This partnership aims to streamline workflows for immersive videos for the Vision Pro, and takes mixed reality into new realms.

Introducing the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive Camera

At the heart of this leap forward is the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera, which was announced with the APPLE Vision Pro, and which is designed to work seamlessly with it, to raise the standard for immersive content creation. With a resolution of 8160 x 7200 per eye and 16 stops of dynamic range, it is designed to capture immersive cinema content at 90fps stereoscopic 3D, for an unparalleled viewing experience.

A Glimpse into the Future: Features and Potentials

But the URSA’s versatility is equally impressive as its specs – it’s not just a technological marvel, but the start of something new. Images from Blackmagic show the camera on an unmanned aerial system, or drone, and demonstrate how a tech-savvy world could capture and distribute ever higher-resolution, ever more dynamic content across industries ranging from filmmaking to virtual reality to real-estate and a whole lot more, and thereby change how we come to know our world.

Anticipation Builds: Release and Pricing

It won’t be out until later in 2024 – you’ll need to be patient, eager audiences and potential users! – but considering that the history of Blackmagic leans towards the immense value-for-money that the company already offers (IE, its 12K model is one of the best Hollywood productions cameras out there and can be bought for about the price of a good suit) the immersive video world awaits a disruptive product, and we’re fully on-board for the ride.

CANON Joins the Fray with a New Lens for APPLE Vision Pro

CANON’s new lens wasn’t simply featured at APPLE’s WWDC 2023 event. It was made by CANON specifically for use on the APPLE Vision Pro. Its purpose – the CANON 7.8mm f/4 spatial lens – ‘is optimised for creating content designed for APPLE’s next-generation MR [mixed reality] ecosystem’. The fact that this lens was expressly made shows that APPLE is carefully considering that it needs to provide creatives with the means to experiment, and explore, and exploit the full capacities of the Vision Pro.

Exploring The Core: Understanding APPLE's Vision

Tied to all of it is the APPLE Vision Pro, which is the beating heart of the company’s efforts on this creation. The Vision Pro is another iteration of APPLE’s bring mixed reality to the masses approach, creating a new form of immersion that looks to blend the digital with the physical, and where all the parts and accessories are designed to work in harmony.

Unveiling the Future: APPLE's Bold Leap into Immersive Technology

In this exciting new world of content creation and consumption, APPLE’s partnership with Blackmagic Design and CANON functions as an invitation to rethink what constitutes reality itself. The Vision Pro is fueled by world-first inventions like the URSA Cine Immersive camera and CANON’s spatial-purpose lens. It’s a next-level collaboration involving innovation, creativity and technology that heralds a future where immersive can truly mean reimagined.