ARRI Launches ALEXA Mini LF

puredrifting said:
I'm betting the price tag on that new Codex Media ain't going to be cheap. Simply because it's Codex.
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Prices from Newsshooter...surprisingly cheap for Codex.

A 1TB Codex Compact Drive will cost €1,940 (around $2,185 USD)
Codex Compact Drive Reader (USB-C) €560 ($629)
Codex Compact Drive Adapter €450 ($505)


Arri Cfast is $700 for 256 GB, $1460 for 512 GB, about $3,000 for 1TB (2 512s or 4 256s). So, per GB Cfast is actually more expensive than Codex. Now you can get Sandisk at $500 which is approved for (but not tested by) Arri and a bit cheaper, but still at $2k for 1 TB pretty similar price again. A 1 TB Red Mag is $2950, so cheaper than that.

Compared to the Alexa XT or C700 Codex media and reader at about $20k-$25k for a working package, this new Codex media for the Mini LF is quite cheap.


If you're mainly planning to shoot ProRes and need three cards at $6600, then you'll likely spend more than if you'd bought three Cfast 256 GB cards, so I do imagine average spending on media to be more than with the original Mini or Amira, but not a huge difference.


Still, my biggest gripe with the Amira (and Mini) is no dual record, and even though I would imagine Codex is about as reliable as it comes, I still want dual record, at the very least a proxy to an SD card, but more ideally a backup of the same quality recording (or even better, like the C300 Mark II, a full quality backup AND an SD card proxy backup). A reliable card doesn't protect you against accidentally formatting a card, damaging a card, losing a card, theft of a card, etc., not to mention even a reliable card can still get corrupted. I just don't see how recording to just one card can be considered professional for high end cameras and productions.
 
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combatentropy said:
T
After I did the grade, I used an eyedropper tool on the man's blue shirt, and the highlights were still below pure white. I didn't have much room to work with, though, using an 8-bit screenshot of a Youtube video of a bad grade. As someone said earlier, about the original:
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It seemed to me you posted two sets of curves - one with a normal histo and the top on with a load of clip.
 
jcs said:
I noticed a lot of camera operator shots holding a wobbly camera that cut to obvious gimbal/steadicam footage; only one wobbly handheld cut to actual footage (chandelier shot). You'd think they'd be super careful when doing a demo video that DPs (and similar folks) would notice these things (which aren't helpful in promoting a product).
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I loved the early LF demos :)

THat cut between the operator shaking the camera like a leaf and a smooth shot.. I wondered if it was demoing some form of internal stabilistation!

THats how close camera people watch and understand these vids :)
 
Clearly they were showing how with higher resolution you have more room to stabilize in post. But yes, IBIS, they must have forgotten to mention that in their press release.

It looks to me like they hired a model who doesn't know squat about cameras, then the director who doesn't know squat about cameras directed the model to act like he was filming stuff, meanwhile the DP was probably shaking his head while filming footage that is actually stabilized.
 
morgan_moore said:
It seemed to me you posted two sets of curves - one with a normal histo and the top on with a load of clip.
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The one I think you're calling the "normal histo," which doesn't run up hard against the right, is actually only the green channel (if you look close, you will see that the green channel is selected). The others had the default white, all channels, selected. Sorry, I wasn't even looking at the histogram when I took the screenshots. They were meant to show the shape of the curves.

Here are the Curves taken again, with a bit more of their windows visible, one channel at a time, of the original image, before it was regraded by me:

histo-w.jpg

histo-r.jpg

histo-g.jpg

histo-b.jpg

As you can see, it looks like the red channel is responsible for the clipping.
 
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@morgan- I'm not a DP, just someone who shoots mostly their own stuff and has gone through a lot to get stable footage! Waiting for Olympus (whatever camera that was) level super IBIS to come to FF cameras (Sony's IBIS doesn't do much except remove micro-jitter). Also fun to bust ARRI since they're top dog ;)

@Eric- pretty accurate I'm sure haha. What's with the yellow beanie indoors?

This is kinda cool:
 
All of this gear is out of my price range, but I loved that follow focus. I looked it up and it's the new WVR-1s wireless video receiver paired with the WCU-4. It works of camera integrated antenna and can be paired with the monitor of your choice. I have a new object for my gear list.

https://www.arri.com/en/company/arr...arri-wireless-video-system-an-on-set-favorite

I love ARRI's naming conventions: WCU-4 (Wireless Control Unit 4), OCU-1 (Operator Control Unit 1), WVR-1 (Wireless Video Receiver 1), and WVR-1s (Wireless Video Receiver 1 small). There are no pretensions, just simple naming conventions from a company who thinks their products can stand on their own.

It's obvious that having the best cinema cameras in the world isn't the only reason ARRI is at the top. In the video below where ARRI introduces electronic accessories for the ALEXA Mini LF it's obvious that Sony, Red, Panasonic, Canon, et al. are also competing against best in class accessories that seamlessly integrate on set. ARRI has you covered from lenses to the follow focus. I love that the OCU-1's override function allows the operator to temporarily take control of focus and then return control to focus puller. Arri gets it!

Filmmaking is hard, and I'm adding these fancy accessories as a reason why ARRI is a safer bet for high budget network and studio production. My guess is crews trained on this integrated gear are going to be much faster and more reliable with much less time spent testing/troubleshooting and more time shooting.

 
Gary T said:
... I love ARRI's naming conventions: WCU-4 (Wireless Control Unit 4), OCU-1 (Operator Control Unit 1), WVR-1 (Wireless Video Receiver 1), and WVR-1s (Wireless Video Receiver 1 small). There are no pretensions, just simple naming conventions from a company who thinks their products can stand on their own....
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That's pretty typical for the German company/tool-product naming conventions - either a brief description of a main product or the founders name : Bavarian Motor Works, Manufacturing Augsburg-Nürnberg, Siemens, Maybach, Bayer, Henschel and Sons, Carl Benz & Cie. Many seem to borrow and literally translate from the original German - Panzerkampfwagen - Armored Fighting Vehicle, Sturmgewehr - Assault Rifle, Karabiner - carbine, etc.

PS. Some translations like "Kraft durch Freude" did not take in and were replaced by Volkswagen, which remained Volkswagen rather than be translated as the People's Car, though its informal title of Käfer was indeed translated as Beetle.
 
Run&Gun said:
If you read the FD Times spread on it, the guy in the “yellow beanie” is the ‘first unit cinematographer’, Heiko Knauer.
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Yeah, saw that. In a movie (fiction), showing a wobbly camera then cutting to stable footage is fine; when it's an advert for a product, fakery tends to turn people off. Once one sees that, they look at other elements in the advert that seem off, like wearing a (hot) beanie when shooting indoors. Maybe it's all meta-meaning related to calling it LF vs FF, creating a kind of reality distortion wave of non-consistent consistency and they're just having fun? ;)
 
jcs said:
Yeah, saw that. In a movie (fiction), showing a wobbly camera then cutting to stable footage is fine; when it's an advert for a product, fakery tends to turn people off. Once one sees that, they look at other elements in the advert that seem off, like wearing a (hot) beanie when shooting indoors. Maybe it's all meta-meaning related to calling it LF vs FF, creating a kind of reality distortion wave of non-consistent consistency and they're just having fun? ;)
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And if you look at some of the pics and video, they have a full sized Alexa LF on a dolly and stix.

The beanie indoors thing, I just take that as normal now. I've lost track of all the hipsters(ESPECIALLY in the "film" industry) that wear them inside 24/7 AND outside even in the blistering summer with temps in the 90's-100's.
 
Examining frame per combatentropy's comment re: too much red:

Agree original appears a bit too warm/red with reduced color separation (approaching monochrome look):
LFOrig.jpg

Different stylistic approach with better color separation and more lighting emphasis on actors vs. the wooden counter (why is the counter so important- what am I missing haha?). Mr. Beanie could use more light on face.
Wooden counter only element masked and adjusted non-globally. Highlights in original were a bit peaky- not that smooth (fixed best I could before adding more contrast), if working from raw original could fix more easily. Perhaps they shot this in ProRes Rec709 to make point re: easy/fast workflow?

Pretty neat this much flexibility from a screen grab off YouTube! :)
 

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Run&Gun said:
And if you look at some of the pics and video, they have a full sized Alexa LF on a dolly and stix.

The beanie indoors thing, I just take that as normal now. I've lost track of all the hipsters(ESPECIALLY in the "film" industry) that wear them inside 24/7 AND outside even in the blistering summer with temps in the 90's-100's.
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Haha- so it wasn't even shot exclusively on the Mini LF? Well, that's part of filmmaking lol.

Beanie- didn't it used to be baseball caps? I'm a fan of form follow function for style, though my best sun hats are not flattering- giant straw hats and large-brim nylon with neck flap. Have been thinking of designing a stylish sun hat that's also aerodynamic, maybe with solar panels and a fan haha (already exist but not stylish).
 
I think the Beanie is just art direction. It matches the camera and the colour of the cafe. In ad world it would say he is suppose to be there.
 
I agree, and he could also be wearing it to keep his hair back and out of his face (very common).

And jcs...man, you're treating production like it's coding, haha.

I know that's what's done in post-production and on a forum, but that shot matches the entire video perfectly. It's all completely fine the way it is. Sometimes you mention we should all focus less on gear/tech details and be creative storytellers and such...they tried to be creative!
 
NorBro said:
I agree, and he could also be wearing it to keep his hair back and out of his face (very common).

And jcs...man, you're treating production like it's coding, haha.

I know that's what's done in post-production and on a forum, but that shot matches the entire video perfectly. It's all completely fine the way it is. Sometimes you mention we should all focus less on gear/tech details and be creative storytellers and such...they tried to be creative!
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Combatentropy didn't like the style- neither do I! Note the comment, "Different stylistic approach with better color separation and more lighting emphasis on actors vs. the wooden counter". I've read a ton of books on filmmaking- it's all about visual storytelling and emotion. Would like to start practicing what I've read and improve my visual storytelling skills. Every aspect of every frame is an opportunity to tell your story / evoke emotion with shape, form, movement, color, lighting, symbolism etc.

I think overall it was not a good example what a camera can do: weak color, and bad lighting. If you like it, cool, it's art so everyone's opinion is right from their own perspective. I'm also providing technical details to back up my opinion as to how I would do it differently, including an example showing what I'm talking about. If you don't like my reasons or art decisions- you're absolutely right from your point of view! For example, if you think lighting in an extreme orange/red tone with very limited colors, flat lighting, and putting lighting emphasis on elements that don't matter (and under-lighting things that do!), I'm open to hearing your logical reasoning to support your opinion. If it's purely emotional, not explainable by logic, that you like the original as is, perfectly cool too- that's not debatable. Arguing that point would be like someone arguing why you shouldn't like your favorite food (for taste reasons, not health reasons lol).
 
I personally think the demo video is rather irrelevant. We've already seen the better Alexa LF demo videos from months ago, and the Mini LF gives the exact same image (minus some higher frame rates), plus we've seen tons of Hollywood productions shot on Alexas of different sensor sizes. The color, dynamic range, etc., of the Mini LF is exactly the same as the other Arri cameras.

So, all the demo video is really showing (to me) is small and nimble configurations that the camera can be used in while using large format lenses, hence the BTS style of it.

The image quality isn't anything new, so unlike other new cameras to the market like the C700, Sony Venice, Varicam, etc., when their demo videos are poor, it's harder to tell if the camera is actually good or not, but with Arri we all already know what the Arri sensor can do, so I don't really feel the demo video is of importance.
 
jcs said:
I've read a ton of books on filmmaking...
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Less books, more filming, haha...but I hear you.

And I am indifferent to it; I have no comment about its direction.

For me, it's part of the big picture and just another passing video out of dozens for the day, hundreds for the week. I consume it and move on. Not everything needs a technical analysis because IMO at some point it honestly becomes a disorder.

But nevertheless...it is a forum. It just always seems like no one can do anything right anymore.
 
NorBro said:
Less books, more filming, haha...but I hear you.

And I am indifferent to it; I have no comment about its direction.

For me, it's part of the big picture and just another passing video out of dozens for the day, hundreds for the week. I consume it and move on. Not everything needs a technical analysis because IMO at some point it honestly becomes a disorder.

But nevertheless...it is a forum. It just always seems like no one can do anything right anymore.
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Lol did you miss all the videos I posted that I felt were done right earlier in this thread?

What else is there to discuss beyond what one likes/dislikes about products/films etc.? (+ how to go about creating?)

Part of creation is deconstruction- understanding how something was made in order to understand it, then create something new based on what was learned.

Reading books, studying film and stills and understanding theory is helpful to me. That said I've posted a ton of my work here (agree have much to learn)- never get much feedback- thanks for yours- you're one of the few who give it! My guess is the work is mediocre- not bad enough to be worth criticizing and not good enough for praise... Need to climb out of Mediocrity Valley :)
 
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