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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

ARRI 4K Super 35 Camera Will be Launched Next Month

IHMO the only selling point for me is the increade color rendition in the greens.

Wich until now only a few highend camera where "good enough" to capture the subtility of the green leaves / nature. Green saturation where allways rendered as yellow.

DR is absurd (film was at best 12 stops) and resolution is disapointing.

Pat


PS: Just curious why there ins't a DCI 1.8963 aspect ratio in their 4.6k recording formats but only 16/9?
 
It does seem an odd choice to release a 4.6K camera in an 8K world. Granted, resolution is not important to everyone, but at this price point it’s sort of expected. There is always the option to use lenses, filters and post processing to add softness, but little can be done to add detail.

The decision to debut this new generation of sensor in a S35 format also appears strange. Especially, since once again, the industry push is towards large format. The body seems no smaller than the large format Mini LF, so no advantage on that front.

Arri seems convinced that they can dictate to the market which features are important. It remains to be seen if this strategy will be successful.
 
dan shay said:
The Alexa was released in 2010. The design and planning for the camera took place in the years before that. Arri's D20 and D21 didn't have much success. You are reading history backwards as if people knew the rapid transition from film to digital in the movie industry would take place just a few years later. They didn't know. The Alexa was initially targeted for TV and commercial production, with cameras only having internal Prores recording for quick turnaround and were limited to 16:9 2880x1620 for a 1.5 down sample to HD. It was a couple years until Arri released cameras specifically targeted for the film industry(The first 4:3 Camera was the Arri Studio[2012] and internal RAW and Open Gate came with the second generation XT models)

And if you don' believe me here's Arri's perspective from Frans Kraus in 2015 "However, even we were surprised by the speed of the switch from film to digital. We thought that TV and lower-budget feature production would go digital first, and that high-end movies would take another ten years before switching away from celluloid."
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I lived through this stuff, your memory is flawed. and your logic is flawed as well. I've been around this forum since the early days of Red so I've seen this stuff happen, I've seen the discussions. Kraus is surprised because they were primarily known for film cameras at the time and the Alexa caused a shift in their business that they didn't expect. This isn't representative of what was happening in the industry outside of Arri. People were predicting this transition wihen filmmakers started adopting the 2/3rd inch cameras back in the early 2000s. Nevermind that a lot of Arri's marketing over the past 10 years has been that 4k is unnecessary and that dynamic range and a more filmic image is more important.
 
Being respectful of my NDA still, but look forward to discussing Arri's new camera in detail as I've had hands on experience. I have a lot of thoughts actually.

dan shay

That said, to the point of how we got here. Some of us were very much "there" at the time when the early days of digital cinema cameras. In my specific case, before RED was an the scene I was entangled with Kodak and Arri. The D20 and D21 streamed out 12-bit RAW Bayer data, ProRes wasn't even around yet. If I'm not mistaken it was 2010 whe ProRes was announced for the Alexa internally. Working with Arri at the time the major reason that the D20,21, and eventual Alexa came into existence was to provide a better solution for 2K and 1080p delivery as these were the most common delivery formats of the era with a Super 35mm sensor. This was at a time when an actual digital Super 35mm format sensor was still a fairly radical concept, which is one reason why RED made such a splash in 2006 with their announcement.

During this particular era the Panavision Genesis was the best you could get really for a hot minute. We tapped into it for Superman Returns and a few other projects. Also semi-common and being explored was the Thomson Viper, but that also left a lot to be desired in a variety of factors.

I find it funny looking back at things now just due to how extremely small the industry was. I somewhat miss the days of camera tests in studio parking lots discussing the potential of a system. Let alone the ability to moderately safely go out at night with an unreleased camera to shoot some footage on a bridge in DTLA to see what the hell a night shot would even look like.

And for Patrick, though 12 stops is a safe number for film's DR. Generally with Vision3 Kodak stock you're looking at 13-15 stops maximum DR. Not really the whole story as the medium reacts differently to light as a whole, but yes, that is the actual measured range. Same number I've been writing here for 15 or so years now.
 
sam karr said:
2 years ago I had my Alexa checked in Germany. I went to Arri to fetch it. They made me enter in the workshop, it was looking like a Doc Emmett Brown place. And outside in the street, on the grass, 3-4 people from Arri were peacefully trying some camera and discussing it. I went to Red pinewood once to upgrade a cam, it seemed like the Area 51. The reception lady took my camera and I was not able to ask my questions to any tech person.
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Pinewood isn't exactly an HQ. It was/is mostly a retailer with moderate service capability when I visited in the 2010s. Arri Germany is the HQ.

I haven't visited RED's new HQ, but when Irvine was around it was a nice building to visit, picked up a couple cameras and accessories I've ordered down there over the years. I enjoyed a full tour of the facility once and that was pretty cool to see. Nicer to visit is RED Studio Hollywood, the RED Store, IMO as they have product on hand you can test out and footage you can look at, but that's not a service center by any means.

Regarding the big 4 manufacturers, you'll see in major markets more of a presence when it comes to sales and service with degrees of service being able to be achieved on site depending on the level of the technical support offered. Severe repairs nearly always need to be shipped to a major service location. In the past if you had a busted SDI port due to a camera drop or whatever, lots of local repair places could handle simple things like that.

In the case of RED and Arri as a whole, they do offer drop-ins for repair at their various establishments.

Not to hit the nail too squarely on the head, but RED and Arri are both relatively small companies compared to say Sony or Canon. Sony's marketing staff (all divisions) alone is about 9-10X the size of RED's and Arri's entire employee pool. A subtle difference between companies who make millions rather than billions. And that's not diving into external marketing, which is a whole other level.

Service is hard when expansive growth is at hand. I don't envy any of these companies when it comes down to it. When the industry was smaller and cameras were less in demand, it was par for the course during a major repair to get a loaner potentially if the ability was there to provide that servicek, i.e. a loaner actually being available. DP's now are angry with all the companies when they don't get this level of service if there's ever an issue, moderately understandable even. I'm certain there's times and exceptions, but we're not exactly in a world now where there's a couple hundred cameras out there, hell even a couple thousand for that matter. The whole game has changed, but it's still all basketball to us if you catch my drift.
 
Phil Holland said:
Being respectful of my NDA still, but look forward to discussing Arri's new camera in detail as I've had hands on experience. I have a lot of thoughts actually.

dan shay

And for Patrick, though 12 stops is a safe number for film's DR. Generally with Vision3 Kodak stock you're looking at 13-15 stops maximum DR. Not really the whole story as the medium reacts differently to light as a whole, but yes, that is the actual measured range. Same number I've been writing here for 15 or so years now.
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Zacuto did a comparison of Kodak film to Digital Cameras way back in 2011. The following latitude scores were measured at 800 ISO.(5219 is 500 ISO and 5213 is 200 ISO).


Kodak 5219 -5/+9.5 14.5 stops (approx -5.7/+8.8 at 500 ISO)

Kodak 5213 -3.8/+10.4 14.2 stops (approx -5.8/+8.4 at 200 ISO)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-hqzw5MEa8
 
dan shay I'm cool if that's their results. 14.5. They are within 1/2 a stop of the tests I did for Kodak over the years. I would say that's a reasonable margin considering all the variables at play.

I posted a great deal of stuff regarding digital versus film during Dragon's launch that can still be searched for here on REDUSER. Worth looking into IMO. Still relevant, I'd dare say even more so as manufacturers are now making decisions well beyond film's capabilities in their design and implementation on new cameras.

All of the current digital cinema cameras btw are exceeding the DR of motion picture film negative by a margin while being more sensitive as well. Film has unique characteristics that don't exactly make this and apple to apples sort of thing as clipping and overexposure as well as underexposure work differently, but that's the gist really.

Last major generation of cameras through now is where things are getting really interesting. And I'd dare say somewhat controversial to a degree looking at the strengths of each system.
 
Adrian Jebef said:
Arri in 2010: Welcome the ALEXA. RU: Lol only 2.8K? DR isn't everything.

Arri in 2022: Welcome the ALEXA35. RU: Lol only 4.6K? DR isn'y everything.

lol
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Exactly.

RU - "The new Arri camera isn't 8K, it's going to be a failure!"

Meanwhile, when was the last time you saw a Red camera on set? I'd say less than 10% of the time...
 
Actual question for those at higher end studios: back in the day, it was too costly (in terms of render time) to render huge environments at 6K or 8K.

I'm assuming something like Ambulance is more practical or 2D than it is CGI-heavy (to its credit) but on a show shot on 8K and finished at 4K..... is the CGI and compositing done at 8K and reframed or on plates that have already been reframed and downscaled to 4K for delivery?

Not talking about small boutique houses that might be rendering a few CGI elements at 8K, but the giant environments you see in Marvel movies etc.

Funny that the Red guys in Hollywood (Bay, Fincher) aren't really "CGI" guys by today's standards when once vfx were kind of their thing.
 
Matt W When I was at R&H and doing freelance for other major VFX houses in the 2000s the day to day was to scan material in at 4K or 6K for S35 projects to either work on them at 2K, 4K, or 6K. When we would shoot out projects back out to film on the Lux, Solitaires, or Arrilaser everything went out at 4K and even 2K material was upscaled and sharpened via a rather complicated sharpening/rezzing kernal we created in house.

Some projects filmed at on the Solitaires at higher than 4K resolution as that platform allowed for it. We also scanned at beyond 6K for some projects as well.

Generally the normal dish on the daily would be 2K VFX with occasional 4K and 6K work.

As of last decade, the 2010s, we've done VFX up to 32K in resolution which I think is a testament to how far things have come, but those are special projects when you're doing exhibition content. Feature films with 2000-3000+ VFX shots have a lot of considerations to take in which is why studios will still go to 2K for huge VFX films. But in the last 6 years I'd say there has been a major uptick in 4K VFX and minor uptick in 8K VFX. In my particular world 4K VFX have been a regular thing for a long, long time now.

Big pictures shooting larger format film like 15-perf IMAX are typically scanning in at 11/12K and scaling down to working/delivery resolution which is usually 8K-2K depending on things. VistaVision 8-perf and 65mm 5-perf anywhere from 8K to 14K scanning.

Just a note on the film scanning aspect of that, it's pretty much a standard thing now that everything is over sampled beyond the actual resolving power of the negative and then scaled down. Improvement in image quality, less at resolution aliasing, etc.

The worst case scenario is some scenes in modern films even properly captured and finished for 4K may include VFX sequences tackled at 2K, which happens a lot less now, but certainly can occur.

TL;DR, It's all about desired delivery resolution in my mind, which has been what's actually set the pace for VFX targets. With digital delivery and many streaming entities as well as theatrical entities who own streaming entities aiming for 4K finishing, this is setting the course. No matter what acquisition format your VFX filesets are typically scaled to the delivery resolution in the pipeline whether you are filming in 8K, 6K, or 4K+. And yes it's nicer to composite in higher resolution if you can afford that workflow, but not exactly necessary all the time. Sometimes VFX houses will even tackle tricky shots with tight lace or hair at a higher resolutions for specific shots or sequences.
 
Yeah, I'd heard that a lot of Marvel movies etc. were still rendering CGI at 2K but lately it was 4K. IMDb lists No Way Home (Alexa LF 4.5k I believe) as finishing at 2K, same with Avengers: Endgame, which I think was mostly shot at 6.5K, but IMDb is often wrong.

And from what I understood 4K S35 scans were originally intended to oversample for 2K delivery, but obviously some film stocks out-resolve 2K and the grain structure is also quite different. Even S16 scans look quite different at 4K to me.
 
Adrian Jebef said:
Arri in 2010: Welcome the ALEXA. RU: Lol only 2.8K? DR isn't everything.

Arri in 2022: Welcome the ALEXA35. RU: Lol only 4.6K? DR isn'y everything.

lol
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Seriously... Or how ALEVIII *still* has more (usable) DR than every other sensor, including competing ones that are ~10 years newer.

Legitimately curious how RED could spin their “17+ stops” claims if Raptor ends up being noticeably less (as much as ~3 stops) than Alexa35’s “17” flat without losing face (not trying to be gaslighty either). If ALEV4 numbers are as conservative as ALEVIII's have been, comparing real-world DR will be a blow-out/no contest.
 
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Matt W. We upgraded to the Northlight 6K scanner once it was available, they now can go up to 8K. My previous manager/mentor was indeed the guy who invented the 4K film scanner and won the Technical Academy Award for doing so in the mid 90s. Arriscan can natively handle 6K-ish resolution. Both Arri and Northlight have oversampling modes for 4K and 2K output. There's other scanners out there and even custom ones which get exciting.

I worked on Endgame and delivery target was 2K, but like I said in relationship to certain shots coming to life they may have been worked on at higher resolutions before down sampling I'm certain some shots benefitted from the additional resolution while others likely just were down sampled into the pipe. Some of the A65 was shot in 5K for sure. A couple RED's were used sporadically as well including the Dragon 8K VV and Helium S35.

To your other question regarding film's resolving power. Again, lots of posts about a decade old that I made regarding that and even comparing against scans. Film generally resolves between 4K and 6K resolution for S35 4-perf full aperture depending on the film stock itself. 50D for instance does actually resolve higher than 500T, but 500T may look sharper as it has toothier grain. I have those formats on my phfxTools formatCompare tool which is relevant to the film resolution and format size.

Again, not breaking my NDA even in the face of all the leaks, but the new camera for Arri is a step in the right direction related to that. RED nailed it with Dragon, Monstro, and Raptor's pixel pitch IMO, but there is a range I generally prefer between about 4-6 micron pixel pitch when it comes to what ideally would be considered a digital cinema camera. Mainly to maintain some semblance of film format and resolving power relevance. And I should underline this may mean something to some filmmakers or not at this point. To me it does for a variety of reasons.
 
Thanks for the feedback, Phil. I have seen in the past that S35 film out-resolves 2.8K ArriRAW. The Alexa35 looks like a step in the right direction to me. I actually figured Endgame finished at 4K before I looked it up, and even then doubted it was 2K, as it looked great in theaters. Obviously for shooting certain plates the higher res cameras must be essential regardless of finishing format. I think I read Game of Thrones shot background plates on Red for the extra resolution, for instance.

I bet with a combination of AI upscaling and faster computers more and more features will finish at 4K. So Arri might be right on time with this camera. I think Dune was 4k if I'm not mistaken?

Interesting that different shots have different resolution plates, some full res, some downscaled. Wouldn't have guessed.
 
Dune couldn’t have been real 4K cause they transferred to film, and then scanned that back for the DI. (Heh heh, I kid).

In all seriousness though, if you couldn’t tell what any of the Marvel movies shot and/or finished and/or delivered and/or displayed in (cause the 4K blu-ray or streams were scaled to that), then it really undermines the “resolution” metric (and gives credence to Yedlin’s thinking)… but I digress.
 
Matt W. Upscaling will be the solution for now in televisions and certain physical media releases. You may see the lengths of a full remaster when appropriate. Jurassic Park just got one actually, which looks pretty amazing except for a few shots. But I do strongly think from here on out for anybody attempting a 4K delivery the primary goal will be 4K VFX, similarly an 8K delivery will likely get 8K VFX if that's the goal. The hardware as a whole has advanced too far at this point to hold it back at this point. There's still the realities of labor, but it's barely a factor now for a decent studio.

The pandemic has slowed down some things that were in motion prior to 2020 on the display and delivery side. But from my estimate, only about 2-3 years. You'll notice a hard skip from televisions manufacturers on new 8K models for this year, which didn't have much to do with 8K sales as they have been on the steady rise for a while now, but rather a matter of recovery and investing on new core technologies and also tending to the demand of 4K manufacturing in a bleak supply chain world.

If you've been reading my words here on REDUSER and abroad, you'll notice at the beginning of the viral season I referred to it as a pandemic pause. This was not just related to stopped of work in the entertainment industry, but also the subsequent delays, frustrations, and rebuilding many industries have had to go through or are still going through.

Side benefit for Arri in this case is they had about 18 months to hammer down the nails a bit further on the new camera. RED released both Komodo and Raptor during this time frame is a moderate miracle IMO. Even larger companies have postponed major releases.
 
Phil Holland said:
Side benefit for Arri in this case is they had about 18 months to hammer down the nails a bit further on the new camera. RED released both Komodo and Raptor during this time frame is a moderate miracle IMO. Even larger companies have postponed major releases.[/QUOTE]

OOOouuufff! I dunno, that could easily be misconstrued as "pushing a product out" is better than using the extra time to "hammer the nails in further"... Maybe that's why the split sensor issue wasn't caught with Raptor... or the SDI problem and sub-par autofocus of Komodo... or the Weapon/EpicW/Gemini/Scarlet-W/Raven vs DSMC2 Unified... or the necessity for Swappable OLPFs of Dragon... Hmm... Makes you wonder how much more solid both Komodo and Raptor would've been if RED had taken the extra (guilt-free/understandable) time the pandemic offered to squash more bugs and ship a more feature-full product (like you're implying Arri did).

I'm sure Alexa 35 will have it's growing pains too though... Maybe... ...
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Mike P. said:
Maybe... ...
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Gosh. It's almost like you're over looking the things like the drastically improved in the OLPF on Komodo and Raptor or over looking features that have plagued other systems for 4-10 years. Everybody got nuked by the SDI issue. $100K through $6K cameras. Imagine that. Sensor seam literally exists in several other cameras and either has been missed or whatever because it *gasp* doesn't always happen. And who else is doing autofocus in higher end digital cinema? Wait why does the Venice not have autofocus with that e-mount? Certainly at that price there must be a license. Wait EF Mount has been on a few cameras too, wait.....

Ironically one of my Monstros and two of my IR OLPFs are out on rental because of the swappable OLPFs right now. Making me wonder further if I should fully switch to Raptor as no other motion picture camera caters to stuff like that currently without major and costly surgery.

There's stuff to nitpick for everybody if you actually get down to it. Some more catastrophic than others even. Most omit even a major body recall even in the last few years early on because they didn't know a damn thing about it. Gosh imagine if that happened once there were a couple hundred cameras or more out there.

Gosh and if you're curious I've already made firmware feature requests on their new camera. Wild right?
 
Mike P. said:
In all seriousness though, if you couldn’t tell what any of the Marvel movies shot and/or finished and/or delivered and/or displayed in (cause the 4K blu-ray or streams were scaled to that), then it really undermines the “resolution” metric (and gives credence to Yedlin’s thinking)… but I digress.
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The problem is that there are some good 4k projectors that make a wonderful job upscaling to 4k. But will never be as nice as from a 4k DCP.


Phil Holland said:
Ironically one of my Monstros and two of my IR OLPFs are out on rental because of the swappable OLPFs right now. Making me wonder further if I should fully switch to Raptor as no other motion picture camera caters to stuff like that currently without major and costly surgery.
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Interchangeable OLFP is a blessing. I worked with IR Olpf a lot and daily use the LLO for my Monstro. This is my "texture mode"


Alexas allways performed poorly in low light. Let's see if they got it better now with their (denoise?) "Enhanced Sensitivity Mode"
 
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