New James Bond will not be EPIC. :(

[Satsuki Murashige]

I agree, stick a ND1.2 on a SR3, and suddenly the world goes very dark But the Alexa Studio has a new viewfinder, so we'll see how bright that is, plus Arri is working for a "behind the glass" slot for filters (plus, there's this solution from Clairmont cameras, though I guess it'd be different for the Alexa Studio)

Big difference in brightness between an SR3 16mm optical finder and a 435/Arricam 35mm finder... Also, isn't Alexa S sensor 400 ISO? I don't think we'll need to carry those ND 1.5+ filters any more.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Clearly, for some people (i.e. a lot of camera operators) an OVF is still better than the best EVF available, and I don't think you can have an optical reflex system without a spinning mirror.

They also could have gone with a beamsplitter, trading brightness for continuous SDI out with the mirror down. Digital HUD overlay on the aerial image off the ground glass could have been amazing, oh well.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

Big difference in brightness between an SR3 16mm optical finder and a 435/Arricam 35mm finder... Also, isn't Alexa S sensor 400 ISO? I don't think we'll need to carry those ND 1.5+ filters any more.

Yeah, Satsuki, of course you're right, that's why I referred to the SR3 viewfinder as being "not the brightest"
The Alexa OVF design is based on the Arricam, so it's gonna be a lot brighter, and obviously there's no need to send light to the a videotap via beam splitter, so it could be the brightest OVF ever.
As for the Alexa Studio's base sensitivity, I've just checked the Arri website and it says it's 800 ASA. I guess we can't throw the ND1.5 away, yet.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Seems to me that an old trick from film acquisition using 85N9 and 138 Pola filters (tungsten to daylight conversion) will work fine with OVF instead of clogging more NDs on Alexa (set to 300-400 ISO, 160 ISO is the best but...) or any next digital cine camera that will have OVF.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

(set to 300-400 ISO, 160 ISO is the best but...)

Drop the ASA at 400, and you lose 1 stop of latitude in the highlights.
Drop to 160 ASA, and you lose 2 1/2 stops. That's why a behind the glass filter slot becomes important to lower the camera's asa in EXT/DAY situations, without touching the ASA settings and keeping the full latitude in the highlights.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

The F65 also incorporates a mechanical shutter to eliminate the rolling shutter artifact as well the explanation being "The Rotary shutter eliminates rolling shutter artifacts. The Rotary shutter takes the form of rotating blades and supports variable shutter angles (shutter speeds). With the Rotary shutter, the geometric integrity of on-screen objects is preserved. And flash banding is not an issue."

It could be a simple matter of CCD vs CMOS. That is my understanding at this point after having watched the Zacuto camera comparison.

P.S. It would have been cooler if the new Bond was being shot with Arri cameras... 35mm ones. Simply IMHO.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

It could be a simple matter of CCD vs CMOS. That is my understanding at this point after having watched the Zacuto camera comparison.

P.S. It would have been cooler if the new Bond was being shot with Arri cameras... 35mm ones. Simply IMHO.

I don't think so, the web site tells us the camera has a CMOS chip and if it did have a CCD there would be no need for a mechanical shutter as it is there for little more then helping with skew which is apparently already pretty good without.
The Alexa on the other hand uses it's mechanical shutter to relay the light coming through the lens into the optical viewfinder.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Word.

Roger has been an Arri guy for a while hasn't he? He's one of the greatest out there, it doesn't matter what he shoots with, you know it'll be fantastic.

Top level pianists are top level, whether they play on a Steinway or a Bösendorfer. Respect the masters is my motto.

Interesting tidbit from his site :




From here :

http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1440&sid=6ca1fdd9eaf81ff24c6f826df4672bc9

(please omit some of the fanboys on that page, loudly irrelevant as they often are)

deakins = my favorite DP.. he's no dummy.. he knows exactly what he wants and he achieves the best picture possible

 

[Adam J McKay]

This thread seems insane to me. The amount of people on here who have just drank the RED kool-aid is nuts. Let me ask this. How many of you have quasi flamed Deakins for not shooting in 5k have seen in person Arri Raw footage from the Alexa Studio projected in 4K? Furthermore, just because your sensor can record in 4k etc, doesn't mean your getting that. I have seen numerous DP's shooting RED throw on multiple SOFT FX filters to take some of the gawd awful edge off the footage. Are they still resolving 4k? Has anyone read any of the reviews from CES? Apparently the LG 4k T.V up converts blu-ray to 4k and it looks astonishing. So please for the love of all things that are good, stop insulting the man's intelligence. I will guarantee he has tested the footage at 4k projection, and I will guarantee it looks phenomenal, because Big D won't have it any other way.

 

[Tim Morten]

This thread seems insane to me. The amount of people on here who have just drank the RED kool-aid is nuts. Let me ask this. How many of you have quasi flamed Deakins for not shooting in 5k have seen in person Arri Raw footage from the Alexa Studio projected in 4K? Furthermore, just because your sensor can record in 4k etc, doesn't mean your getting that. I have seen numerous DP's shooting RED throw on multiple SOFT FX filters to take some of the gawd awful edge off the footage. Are they still resolving 4k? Has anyone read any of the reviews from CES? Apparently the LG 4k T.V up converts blu-ray to 4k and it looks astonishing. So please for the love of all things that are good, stop insulting the man's intelligence. I will guarantee he has tested the footage at 4k projection, and I will guarantee it looks phenomenal, because Big D won't have it any other way.

Few have seen Arri raw because so few are shooting it (haven't met one yet). No one here is insulting Deakins; we all know he's a demigod. We also know that he's got a special relationship with Arri, and has been outspoken against Red from day one. I still haven't heard if he's ever tried a Red camera. I stopped following his comments on cameras because it's clear that he is polarized. As for the final swipe about "gawd aful edge"... seriously? Your gripe is that Red has too much resolution? Somebody call Arri before they waste any more money on their 4k sensor program! Tell them Adam says up-converted 2k is plenty!!

 

[Jack Shanahan]

Roger Deakins could shoot with a Kodak instamatic and it would still look great.

Totally. Plus he is an old school film guy. I'm not surprised at all to see him shooting Alexa.

 

[Anders Holck]

I keep hearing people in this thread says how mechanical shutter would eliminates rolling shutter. You actually know or dont know that the shutter speed is independent regardless on whatever shutter speed that you set on, right ? The CMOS read and reset time has got nothing to do with shutter speed even it's electronic or mechanical. How do Alexa elimnates rolling shutter by using mechanical shutter while they are still stuck with CMOS liimation of read and reset time ? Perhaps there are things that i missed out from Alexa ?

Rivai

Rivai, they trigger the readout/reset of the cmos while the mechanical shutter is covering the sensor. Then the readout/reset is not occurring while the sensor is exposed to light and the speed doesn't matter.
A rotating mechanical shutter is NOT a focal plane shutter, which means the shutter effect is not a line by line wipe but instead more like a global sensor attenuation. It is still not perfect, but much better than a pixel by pixel electronic shutter. While reducing the shutter distortion it also reduces the apparent image flicker by creating an ease in/out of the motion blur.

Regarding the Alexa studio it will include an electronic toggled ND9 filter between the shutter and the sensor, so the OVF stays bright but the sensor sensitivity is lowered to be "at ISO100 level".

 

[Dave Blackham]

Im just bemused of all that extra kit in the floor to support the camea head. It will look great though.

 

[drew sandoval]

I would love to find a frame grab of a 4k film scan from an old 35mm movie so we can do an actual comparison. It's easy to talk numbers but a visual would go a long way towards clearing this up. I was arguing yesterday with a camera guy on Twitter yesterday who was convinced that the measured resolution of S35mm film was 50MP...

I agree that on a nice 60" plasma Alexa looks gorgeous...Game of Thrones is one of the best looking TV shows I've ever seen.

This little side conversation is actually my favorite part of this thread... What does it mean to be "future-proof?"

When you compare a 60s 35mm image to a modern digital image, is there really any comparison? 60s film stock, with its massive silver halide crystals and 8-stop latitude, the soft optics, how can you ever say thar image is comparable to a modern RED (or Arri) image? No matter what resolutioon you scan it at, a sixties image is not "future-Proofed."

We think our 4k images will withstand the test of time, but will they feel modern a decade from now? My humble opinion is that the coolest trick out there right now is RED's HDRx, and when that becomes mainstream, that will make everythinh pre-HDRx, everything pre-2010 look positively old fashioned.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Are they shooting 3.5K for a 4K finish?

 

[Tom Lowe]

I would love to find a frame grab of a 4k film scan from an old 35mm movie so we can do an actual comparison. It's easy to talk numbers but a visual would go a long way towards clearing this up.

It's not just a matter of how a single frame looks. It's how they look at 24 frames per second. One of the advantages of digital is that the image is very stable, clean and free of grain. There is no "bouncing around" of the image, like you get with projected film.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

This little side conversation is actually my favorite part of this thread... What does it mean to be "future-proof?"

When you compare a 60s 35mm image to a modern digital image, is there really any comparison? 60s film stock, with its massive silver halide crystals and 8-stop latitude, the soft optics, how can you ever say thar image is comparable to a modern RED (or Arri) image? No matter what resolutioon you scan it at, a sixties image is not "future-Proofed."

We think our 4k images will withstand the test of time, but will they feel modern a decade from now? My humble opinion is that the coolest trick out there right now is RED's HDRx, and when that becomes mainstream, that will make everythinh pre-HDRx, everything pre-2010 look positively old fashioned.

Going by science, 3K-4K seems like the point of diminishing returns for our eye's resolving capability. Of course, it depends from person to person and their viewing habits. But unless you like staring at screens right up close (sitting in the first couple of rows in the theater , watching your monitor/TV from only a foot away, etc) 4K is all you need until you get bionic eyes.

I fully agree with the evolution of film stock. I see myself getting largely excited over those Criterion blu-rays, which I am sure are done immaculately, but the final result is often not much better than the DVDs! For more than 50 years of cinema upto late 60s. Even then, it would take 70mm films like Playtime or 2001. It is only post-70s/80s that I see 35mm films utilize the potential 1080p and beyond.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

I see myself getting largely excited over those Criterion blu-rays, which I am sure are done immaculately, but the final result is often not much better than the DVDs! For more than 50 years of cinema upto late 60s. Even then, it would take 70mm films like Playtime or 2001. It is only post-70s/80s that I see 35mm films utilize the potential 1080p and beyond.

What?! I've seen some old movies on both blu-ray and DVD and Blu-ray is worlds better than the DVD version, It's much clearer, has far less artifacts from the compression and text looks crisp and clean.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

What?! I've seen some old movies on both blu-ray and DVD and Blu-ray is worlds better than the DVD version, It's much clearer, has far less artifacts from the compression and text looks crisp and clean.

I just watched the Late Spring Blu-ray last week and while it was certainly a minor improvement over the DVD it wasn't anything notable. And much of the improvement can be attributed to the remaster. This is also fairly new - 1949 - and towards the end of the "first 50 years of cinema" I was referring to. Compare this to something from the 70s - Days of Heaven or Solaris - those blu-rays are much superior to their DVD counterparts. Even so, something from the last few years, let's say There Will Be Blood, appears to be a lot more detailed with much finer grain.

 

[M Most]

I just watched the Late Spring Blu-ray last week and while it was certainly a minor improvement over the DVD it wasn't anything notable. And much of the improvement can be attributed to the remaster.

You do realize that you're basically writing a post on RedUser that indicates that in many cases, higher resolution doesn't matter, don't you? :glare: