First pics and leaked specs of Arri's new Alexa 35

NorBro said:
Both cameras can coexist. At this point the LF is too popular to dump overnight.
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Um I know which one I'd rather shoot on if given the choice. The sensor is the key ingredient

I was under the impression that using the LF was primarily about getting 4K out of ALEV III photosites

I would imagine that people will shoot on a MILF if they can't get their hands on a 35. If we see a LF ALEV IV camera then it will be a better test of which sensor size is actually preferred
 
Key ingredient?

The LF was already used at the highest level money could buy; it doesn't need any more ingredients or competition with ingredients.

Just going to come down to preference, availability, and contracts, per usual. Sometimes you're obligated - or at least encouraged, they say - to shoot a certain amount of work for a studio on a specific system because of relationships or familiarity.

https://www.arri.com/en/camera-syste...ini-lf/credits

https://www.arri.com/en/camera-syste...exa-lf-credits
 
Izod Foldger said:
Arri and AbelCine said shipping in July, which is pretty soon. Gotta make sure I’ve got $78k of spare change (plus $20k for accessories) by ship time. Wonder if they’ll meet that estimate and if it will be shipping in bulk or slowly out to pre-order ques. I got my order in by 12:30pm and orders started at noon, so I should be pretty high on the que. Wanted to get my order in at noon but AbelCine site was down as a result of traffic from Arri orders, and their sales phone line was busy and not answering, so eventually I was able to get my call through via their customer service line rather than sales who were bogged down and could place my order there. Someone I know who placed their order at AbelCine last night said AbelCine told them they’d gotten around 200 orders by then.

B&H wanted a $78k hold on the payment until the camera shipped, while AbelCine just wanted a $5k refundable deposit, which is obviously much better than tying up $78k for potentially months.

I feel I prefer the seven stops of the Amira ND over six stops. If you put your ISO down all the way and still are overexposed for desired f-stop, then you’re out of luck without additional external NDs, but if you’re dealing with the jump from 4-stop to 7-stop can always set ISO to compensate. Even on older Arri with less dynamic range as long as your shot isn’t clipping the highlights can always go below base ISO, which tends to be often. Also get a cleaner image then.

One work around for long boot times is leaving the camera on. 290w batt on Amira gets around 3.5-4 hours of battery, so in a 10 hour day that’s only turning the camera off about three times. Some of the b-mount batteries and accessories have a stackable hot swap option so another way to avoid turning the camera off. I’m hoping they’ll release a shark fin for b-mount as I’m not seeing one yet.

I saw an LPL to Hassleblad V-mount and Mamiya speedbooster. Would be cool if the can make an LPL to PL and EF speedbooster to get faux full frame on Alexa 35. Guess right now you can already get faux full frame if using those Hasselblad or Mamiya lenses.
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It’s always the accessories that get ‘ya… I was going back and forth earlier with a buddy that has ordered one, too(he already has an Alexa mini and Amira, among his RED’s and Sony’s), trying to figure out the battery and media situation. A three pack of 1TB CODEX mags and reader is over $7300. That’s probably the BARE minimum and you’ll have to be dumping/recycling the drives throughout the day if you’re shooting 4K. I’m used to having at least 5 or 6 cards per camera. Then there’s the 26V+ batteries. Jeez…. This is actually going to be the hard part. They are all stupidly expensive vs. 14.4v and the selection is pretty slim, especially in B mount. Bebob makes a 294, but it’s just shy of $1K and even the smaller ones are currently about a 50%-100% premium over 14.4v equivalents. So, I figure it’s gonna be probably a minimum of an extra ~$10K-$15K, for me just for power and media.
 
rob norton said:
It's pretty difficult to see this camera being anything other than in extreme demand.

If you feel like sharing, it'd be great to find out why you may or definitely will buy the Alexa 35.

I don't mean for you to defend your purchase at all, rather, I'm curious about the potentially varied applications from three different owners.

What features excite you the most? Do you view the investment as risky or a sure thing?



Would you anticipate a similar outcome the mini LF owners experienced, where there was no safety in numbers and the rental price drops rapidly?

Or is this more about having access to the tool, and a timely return would be nice but not top of the list?



Izod, what work do you do? Can you share your thoughts behind purchasing?

Re battery life, one report about a 290Wh B-mount SWIT battery from this person says "two and a half hours comfortably".



Is this a long awaited F55 replacement for you as an owner/operator or are you shifting into different areas of work (possibly both)?

Regarding the Audio Extension Module AEM-1, Arri says it's the "best sounding microphone preamp of any camera on the market". If true, that's pretty funny they've gone from audio as an afterthought to best preamps out there!
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I’d say it’s an addition and partial shift. The 55 is still a workhorse. But I’m also facing my first real repair with it, so we will see…. At least right now and in the immediate future, I think I would actually lose some business if I didn’t have my 55.
 
The F55 could cost more to repair than to replace if you could find one that was low hours, 100% perfect like mine. :thumbsup:
 
Run&Gun said:
It’s always the accessories that get ‘ya… I was going back and forth earlier with a buddy that has ordered one, too(he already has an Alexa mini and Amira, among his RED’s and Sony’s), trying to figure out the battery and media situation. A three pack of 1TB CODEX mags and reader is over $7300. That’s probably the BARE minimum and you’ll have to be dumping/recycling the drives throughout the day if you’re shooting 4K. I’m used to having at least 5 or 6 cards per camera. Then there’s the 26V+ batteries. Jeez…. This is actually going to be the hard part. They are all stupidly expensive vs. 14.4v and the selection is pretty slim, especially in B mount. Bebob makes a 294, but it’s just shy of $1K and even the smaller ones are currently about a 50%-100% premium over 14.4v equivalents. So, I figure it’s gonna be probably a minimum of an extra ~$10K-$15K, for me just for power and media.
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it would seem that these costs matter not.. if you are making a multiple million feature. for other things this might not be the camera for a year or two.
 
Tom Roper said:
You nailed the problem for LF. Ego at the highest level doesn't want second best or second hand.
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I agree with that, and going back to S35 will also not feel right for some.

I'm actually excited about this camera because I am hoping Amiras drop down even more so I can grab one for fun.
 
Tom Roper said:
You nailed the problem for LF. Ego at the highest level doesn't want second best or second hand.
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I'm not sure that it's really about bragging rights. The ALEV IV is a substantive improvement over the predecessor. Why would you want to use the older sensor once the new one comes out? (unless you want a vintage look jk). It's like saying Intel Macs and M1 Macs can coexist because the Intels were good enough yesterday. I feel like the only reason to stick with an Intel vs upgrading to an M1 model is budget
 
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rob norton said:
What features excite you the most? Do you view the investment as risky or a sure thing?

Would you anticipate a similar outcome the mini LF owners experienced, where there was no safety in numbers and the rental price drops rapidly?

Or is this more about having access to the tool, and a timely return would be nice but not top of the list?
Click to expand...

The latitude is the really the biggest deal for me (and the gamut-wrangling they've done). I'd suggest taking a look at Potato Jet's video to see why - they shot some stuff with fire-dancers that illustrates it pretty clearly, it's footage that was basically impossible to do before this camera existed. And the possibilities of it are really exciting. I think it's genuinely the biggest step forward in camera tech since the original Alexa arrived 10 years ago, everything else we've seen has really just been incremental.

This new sensor (through the sheer brute force of it's latitude) is going to let me do things I haven't been able to do before (or have had to REALLY light to achieve). It's going to make life easier.

With Arri essentially announcing precisely what I thought they might - that the MILF is going nowhere for a while (to protect the many people who've just forked out for it), I think this is going to be a pretty safe investment (particularly if you can get in early).

I made the mistake of not buying the original Mini three separate times (at release, two-years-after release, and two-years-after-two-years-after). And this camera leaves me with far fewer question marks than the orginal Mini did at its release.

All of that said... I do anticipate a similar outcome to what we've seen with the MILF - i.e. rental rates dropping rapidly due to saturation. And with the cameras being essentially the same price, I'll be surprised if the Alexa 35 is able to command much of a premium over it's Larger Format brother (even at the outset).

At the same time though, this camera has so few limitations, that I expect its usable shelf/rental life to last a comfortable 4-5 years (and probably a little further, to 2028 when Red's compressed raw patent runs out). So I think there's less stress in amortising the cost for this one, than there is for some others (I think Venice II is going to be similar, as it also has so few things you'd need to add feature-wise).
 
Grug said:
The latitude is the really the biggest deal for me (and the gamut-wrangling they've done). I'd suggest taking a look at Potato Jet's video to see why - they shot some stuff with fire-dancers that illustrates it pretty clearly, it's footage that was basically impossible to do before this camera existed. And the possibilities of it are really exciting. I think it's genuinely the biggest step forward in camera tech since the original Alexa arrived 10 years ago, everything else we've seen has really just been incremental.

This new sensor (through the sheer brute force of it's latitude) is going to let me do things I haven't been able to do before (or have had to REALLY light to achieve). It's going to make life easier.

With Arri essentially announcing precisely what I thought they might - that the MILF is going nowhere for a while (to protect the many people who've just forked out for it), I think this is going to be a pretty safe investment (particularly if you can get in early).

I made the mistake of not buying the original Mini three separate times (at release, two-years-after release, and two-years-after-two-years-after). And this camera leaves me with far fewer question marks than the orginal Mini did at its release.

All of that said... I do anticipate a similar outcome to what we've seen with the MILF - i.e. rental rates dropping rapidly due to saturation. And with the cameras being essentially the same price, I'll be surprised if the Alexa 35 is able to command much of a premium over it's Larger Format brother (even at the outset).

At the same time though, this camera has so few limitations, that I expect its usable shelf/rental life to last a comfortable 4-5 years (and probably a little further, to 2028 when Red's compressed raw patent runs out). So I think there's less stress in amortising the cost for this one, than there is for some others (I think Venice II is going to be similar, as it also has so few things you'd need to add feature-wise).
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I'm also excited to see how well the camera looks in night time shots. Even the older Alexas had trouble holding brightly colored stop lights and brake lights. The dual native ISO cameras, sacrifice highlight latitude at the higher setting and don't look that impressive to me in city shots. Lots of shadow detail but blown out lights
 
morgan_moore said:
If you have lots of shadow detail and blown highlights and it is not what you wanted.. you exposed wrong
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If you exposed for the highlights - say on traffic lights - you aren't going to see into the shadows.(unless you add fill) Also the deep reds of traffic lights and car brake lights are out of color gamut on most cameras.


Here's a still from the film Drive shot on an Arri Alexa. Notice the red light goes to white and only starts to get red on the outer edges. drive.jpg
 
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Yes - one chooses to blow the lights or not and when one has done that one worries if one needs to fill the shadows or not.

but one should never be suprised if they are blown - it should all be conscious and controlled set of trade offs one makes

as well as fill one can also consider paste on a little nd

clearly filling or nd ing a long driving scene is resource hungry

really i just took exception to “the highlights blow”

they don't blow they are blown by s choice made by the dop

of course there might be complete rationale to that choice rather than lighting a city block at huge cost

also of course the new cam will help.. but only if one exposes to protect them. .. with cleaner shadows you are more likely to get away without fill

generally i take exception to middle grey based exposure where one should be working back from what highlights you choose to protect
 
The gamut comment is interesting - here in the uk there are some eye burning teaffic lights - i guesd new led. And of course that blue clipping you see on blue light shows and bad wedding videos

how rhe camera handles thoae situations is very interesting
 
Anyone else pricing out AMIRAs? lol

Down the rabbit hole of unboxing tests on YouTube and every Joe and Jane who points the camera at anything looks amazing.

Ughh, ARRI - why couldn't you ever just make a Micro Amira/Alexa for like $20K. 5 lbs.
 
NorBro said:
... Ughh, ARRI - why couldn't you ever just make a Micro Amira/Alexa for like $20K. 5 lbs.
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ARRI is like their compatriots from Zuffenhausen - they make product at far above the market and are completely nonplussed about that.
 
morgan_moore said:
The gamut comment is interesting - here in the uk there are some eye burning teaffic lights - i guesd new led. And of course that blue clipping you see on blue light shows and bad wedding videos

how rhe camera handles thoae situations is very interesting
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Arri actually said that LED lighting has been taken into account with the Alexa 35.
 
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