This is big news, at least for people who like their movies big and in 6K resolution. Arri (formerly known as Arriflex), the Munich-based camera maker whose Alexa camera is considered by many to be the most-successful digital motion picture camera in the world for TV and filmmaking, just unveiled a new 65mm-sized camera, the Alexa 65: The cost of the camera is so great (reported to be at least $200,000) that Arri is initially only going to be renting the camera for people shooting large-format projects. The huge camera files are going to require massive storage -- said to be about 31MB per frame, over 2TB per hour. I'd expect that only really big projects will be able to afford to use a camera of this size, complexity, and price tag. There's long been several anti-digital stalwarts among filmmakers, including Christopher Nolan, Wally Pfister, Steven Spielberg, and Quentin Tarantino; maybe the Alexa 65 will be a practical answer to their concerns of preserving the quality of film while still making the transition to an all-digital world. To put this in perspective, here's the relative frame size of the Alexa 65 compared to 65mm film and various other kinds of film (including VistaVision) and digital: Lots and lots of debate about this camera all over the net. Here's the tech info, for those who want to check out the details: http://arrirentalgroup.com/alexa65/ https://codexdigital.com/alexa_65 http://www.fdtimes.com/pdfs/issues/65FDTimes-ALEXA65v6.0-150.pdf http://www.eoshd.com/2014/09/arri-goes-6k-65mm-alexa-65-cinec-munich/ http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/arri-reveals-6k-65mm-cinema-camera-alexa-65 I see only an upside to this: this can only improve the picture quality of movies, assuming big-name cinematographers and directors demand a camera like this for their future project. But I don't envy the post people who have to deal with files this large...
But think of all the overtime and Net surfing while your waiting to copy files! That's a beauty. You have to love Arriflex. I had a 16S at one point with a turrent of Angenieux lenses that I sold like an idiot. It wasn't until about 2005 that I finally said, "okay, who cares? Digital is the way to go." It just seems weird somehow seeing those classic bomb-proof casings around a DIGITAL camera. It must be my "twice-bitten" reaction that digital cameras become obsolete so quickly, that it almost seems silly to plant them in an Arri housing. But the parade has to come to an end someplace, right? How much better can image quality get?
Probably not much better in terms of resolution, we're already at the limits of human visual acuity. I guess the area of improvement will be in dynamic range, expanded color gamuts, light sensitivity, noise, that sort of thing.
Not a huge surprise. IIRC, a few years ago Panavision's 65mm cameras were in nearly-constant rent-out for filming for special venue presentation, so there's clearly a market for this. Surprise or not, I'm glad to see it happening!
Whoa! What a beast. Yeah, the folks at Arri (I had no idea they dropped the 'flex', which makes sense since it's an outdated mechanical reference but still kinda sad) really know how to make a true cinema picture with their digital equipment. They also prove that you can pack all the sexy buzzwords and technology in your cameras (Looking at you, Red!) and still not capture that elusive soul of cinema. The files on this thing are gonna be brutal to process and store, but I'd bet in a few years they'll be considered rather commonplace. dan c
Eh, 22 pounds. I've seen heavier cameras on sets before. The real problem is the lenses, which are not exactly lightweight.
True, dat. The 35BL with the mega-mag & a jumbo zoom on it must have been a good 40-pounds & about 3-foot long...something like this if memory serves.
Digital cameras might end up surpassing film, but they will never be as lovely to behold as a film camera. Mechanical industrial art is a dying beast. dan c
