NOVEMBER 2018
Vol 252
Email: finnzed@xtra.co.nz
ARRI Camera Factory The Germans are well regarded internationally as makers of precision equipment and that is certainly true for what takes place in the Munich premises of ARRI. Set in the busy Tuerkenstrasse in the university district of Munich, the building was undergoing some significant restoration both inside and out. The bad news was that my visit had to be in the afternoon due to my other commitments, and that was when the day’s production was winding down, but the good news was that it allowed me time to talk with some of their key personnel. My main guide was Andreas Weeber who works in camera assembly taking care of quality control. Andreas: I’m one of the colleagues who first checks the cameras when they are assembled and I look at the first images. Accompanying us is Heiko Meyer, corporate communications manager. Ed: Now we’re starting in the ALEXA Mini section and it’s just one room; it’s a very clean room and there are lots of bits but they’re Andreas and Heiko. very nicely arranged as one would expect from any German factory. Andreas, you have changed the assembly process over the years. How is it now different?
Andreas: ARRI has produced analogue cameras for quite a few decades, and up to 2009, we manufactured analogue professional cameras, 35mm film cameras with motors, moving parts, a spinning mirror as part of the optical system and so on. It took about a week to build one of these cameras and they were quite highly priced. They lasted forever … Ed: What, and now your cameras are cheaper? Andreas: A little bit less expensive yes. That was really the demand with the digital cameras – they had to come down in price. We had to make more numbers and the challenge for us was that we still had to keep that same quality as was built into the analogue cameras. To make that possible, we came up with this assembly setup here where the camera is not assembled by just one person, but that the assembly process is split into sub-processes – like you see here. One of the doors for the CFast card and the connector panel are assembled here. This would be a workstation for putting the printed circuit boards onto the core. The core you see here is really the central piece in the camera and takes care for cooling things. It could be done by one person going from one workstation to the next one, but it could be also done by having a technician sitting here and doing one process in parallel with others. This way, we can be very flexible in the number of cameras we need to assemble in a day. Ed: For every camera, do you keep a log of who’s worked on it so you know these are the people who’ve actually assembled that camera? Andreas:
Yes, we do this.
Ed: Are there any particularly tricky parts to the assembly of the Mini – you’ve crammed an awful lot of technology into a much smaller space, so is there any part that’s harder than assembling a standard ALEXA? Andreas: No, to my knowledge, the smaller camera doesn’t really pose a specific challenge. However, each camera is not just a bunch of boards which are put together in a box, but they have to be very carefully arranged around this cooling core. I really want to point out that this is where the mechanical expertise of ARRI comes into play. First of all, in manufacturing this part, there are about 4 components and each piece of metal is machined very Page 2
assembly facility which belongs to ARRI. They do this milling and machining very, very carefully. This little stamp here is intended to meet other components on the boards, because there has be a good thermal con-nection to make this cooling design work. We have to be very careful assembling this because this is really an asset for image quality because when you are controlling heat … Ed: So core temperature actually affects the picture? Andreas: It definitely affects the picture by producing noise. We run our sensor at 40 degrees, that’s not a secret, and we can control it so that it is kept at 40 degrees – you won’t even see a deviation of half a degree. We are very careful to take care of controlling that mainly by careful mechanical design. Ed: Okay, that’s the central part of it and then this has got to be assembled on to what look like rods? Andreas: No, that’s just a handling frame for assembly. Ed: Okay – now a very important part of this of course is putting the sensor into the block? Andreas: They do this in a completely clean room. People run around in white spacesuits and they do assembly, they do bonding. First of all, they place the chip very carefully in the sensor carrier, because it has to be centred in relation to the PL mount and it has to be flat – it cannot be crooked in any way. They do bonding, wiring up the sensor on to the sensor board – that’s done with about 900 wires at the machine. In the case of the ALEXA Mini and the AMIRA, they assemble the filter slider. It’s a sealed bag mounting; it’s an ND filter slider, you can slide in these ND filters into the optical part and that’s also assembled in the clean room, because it has to be completely clean. It runs in a little compartment, a little section where no dust and dirt comes in. This is the front end and it’s tied closely to the back end. Page 4
Ed: And that’s done here, that doesn’t have to be done in a clean room? Andreas: Exactly no. Ed: Because the sensor is covered at all times? Andreas: It is already enclosed – so during assembly it’s open, but once we get it like that, then it’s enclosed and there’s a protection foil on here. Ed: Now in general, one of the benefits of owning an ARRI, certainly up until now and specifically the ALEXA, is that the basic camera stays the same, but over the years, you have improved the firmware of the camera and that has meant it’s got a new life and fits the modern usage which is unusual for cinema cameras. Is this also the pattern with the Mini? Andreas: I cannot really speak about the Mini because I cannot remember if there was a software update which introduced a new feature. Heiko: It’s a good way that we are able to update cameras with software updates. The same with lighting – SkyPanels can be updated with software too. Andreas: It’s recently happened with the AMIRA, that was a software update – it can write RAW files now. So the design is the same and the option is the same. A lot of things happen in software. Ed: Theoretically, could you also change the chip … if you say this whole chip assembly has come from one part of the factory and is married to the base part, could you also do a physical upgrade of the Mini with a new chipset? Andreas: That’s never been done. It’s not really designed in a modular way. You probably could do this physically, that you put another sensor in, but then you would have to do a lot with the image processing chain. Ed: So that’s really it … it’s a workflow, it’s not just replacing one component because that component has a flow on effect to the rest of the assembly? Andreas: Exactly, and the image processing happening here happens on FGPAs, so you could possibly reprogramme these FGPAs if they’re capable and then that one different image processing software. Ed: But this is not something for the cinematographer to try himself? Andreas: ( with a suitably horrified look ) No exactly, absolutely not no. Ed: Okay, so we’ve got the chipset in and now? Andreas: Before we even put the sensor in, we do a so-called “core test”. So what we have here with the back and the core assembly, we do a first test because we test as often as possible and as early in the process as possible. Page 5
So with this dummy sensor, they make the camera believe it’s a complete camera and they can already do certain tests. The core test is important for us because, once the sensor comes to the back and you put the first operating system on, then you can get images out – not very good images because the sensor calibration will be done at a later stage as part of the testing procedure. Now the camera is mechanically complete with the carbon fibre housing. I think it’s a first for cameras that the camera body has a carbon fibre housing and it’s a technology we are doing more in-house. You see it’s a very carefully crafted thing. Ed: Is it 3D printed? Andreas: No, it’s not a 3D print, it’s really like a cast where you put several layers of sheets around this cast and you have to cut them very carefully so that in a way you don’t see there is a cut; it looks really like one piece, but it’s actually more sheets in more layers and then it is glued
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together with epoxy. There’s also a zinc paint here to make sure the electric radiation is shielded in the camera; there are certain legal requirements for this. Ed: Okay, and a little side thing here – right next to the ARRI Mini assembly part is a lens section. Andreas: Exactly and they are all tested here very carefully, so all the ARRI Zeiss lenses for example, or the Alura lenses or in this case now, the Signature Primes, they are all tested here. They’re put on a device like that which checks whether the lens data system works, whether the readout of lens and IOS, focal length and zoom ( if it’s a zoom ) works correctly. That’s done here. Heiko: These are the new lenses, they are a Signature Prime series which is also for the ALEXA LF, our latest camera system. Andreas: This larger LPL mount, large format PL mount for the LF camera, the full size or large camera are also tested here. All these lenses get put on this collimator. So the MTF the modulation one switch function is tested; the test is very technical giving a series of numbers that must match the design specifications. However, what’s important for a lens is obviously that it looks nice onscreen. Heiko: Each lens is also put on to this projector. Ed: So, not only are you going by the numbers, but you’re also going by the look to the human eye. Somebody actually looks at the image and says “yes” or “no”? Andreas: Correct, yes. That seems to be quite important. Ed: And where are we now Andreas?
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Andreas: This is the department where the viewfinders are assembled for the ALEXA Mini and the AMIRA cameras and therefore there is an AMIRA to calibrate these viewfinders. The small box is where the eyepieces are assembled, the optical elements for the eyepiece. The other line here is the EVF-2 the new viewfinder for the ALEXA – for the big classic ALEXA and ALEXA LF viewfinder. Ed: Okay, so all the viewfinders are in this particular section? Andreas: Exactly. And what I like to point out about viewfinders, what people tend to forget – a viewfinder is a quite important part for a camera system. It poses a certain design challenge because an electronic viewfinder is only good and usable if it works without delay with very little latency, and the signal processing in these viewfinders is really optimised for maybe one or 2 frames – it’s a twelfth of a second – so still a time an operator can work with. So that was really a big challenge. Ed: And what resolution do you think you need in a viewfinder? Andreas: The EVF-1 had a full HD1280 resolution … it was 1280 720, and now the new one has the 1920 x 1080 resolution. Ed: But of course, then you have to have a larger size viewfinder? Andreas: No, not necessarily. I remember this story from the first ALEXA viewfinder we had. The product manager told me this story … they looked at different displays and it turned out that the full size, the 1920 display, was not as brilliant as the 1280 display, so they went with the 1280 display. But now the new one has a better full size display. In the viewfinder, there’s also a lot of temperature control going on because you don’t want the display to heat up and shift colours. There’s also feedback loops in terms of the LED backlighting aging and changing its colours, so this is all taken care of in this viewfinder. Ed: What about the debate about a colour viewfinder or black and white? Andreas: This is something you would have to ask the product manager, but so far, this question didn’t come up here. I don’t think you could bring a black and white viewfinder into the market anymore. Ed: I’m sure there are some purists out there who still think looking at a black and white viewfinder is better than a colour one? Andreas: Oh okay. Well there are still the purists out there and I was one of them for a long time, thinking an optical viewfinder is better than an electronic Page 8
viewfinder, but meanwhile, they have become really good and they’re not tiring the eye as much as they used to, so I think most of the people and the new generation DPs also accept electronic viewfinders – at least viewfinders of this quality. Ed: But then most DPs would have a monitor off to the side – they would have a full size monitor rather than use the viewfinder. So it tends not to be a critical view to use the viewfinder; the critical view is in the monitor? Andreas: I’m judging the image and colours there, but I still know that the operator, the one who handles the camera and has to have a good image right, and has to be able to judge focus … Heiko: With the AMIRA, which is also made for documentary films, you don’t have a big team, just one or 2, you don’t have another operator than you, and so it’s very important to get a feeling about the quality of the film you shoot. Ed: We are now in the ALEXA LF section and … Andreas: I want to show you these cameras, these back ends for the cameras without front ends yet, and it’s clearly to see how the camera concept is different; how these cameras are setup differently. Ed: As you say, it’s a sandwich? ( Due to security reasons, we are not showing a photo here but it did look impressive.) Andreas: I call it a sandwich right – the boards attached to these aluminium plates and heat pipes running through these plates. About a third of the camera body is really for ventilation – it’s a fan which sucks air through these radiators and gets the heat off. Ed: I’m sure that’s an area that you continually look at in terms of your Research & Development – how can we reduce the heat, but unfortunately the first law of thermodynamics is against you? Andreas: That is always it has to go somewhere. Ed: Well when you’re converting one sort of energy to another, you’re going to get heat. Andreas: But the good thing is that all these components run increasingly more power efficient, so you don’t have to power them with such a high current which also helps our users because they don’t need bulky batteries, and it helps us and the camera because it doesn’t develop as much heat. But that’s a slow process, and you are right, we constantly look at that. Page 10
We move on … Right, now we’re in a section where we first assemble the AMIRA camera and secondly, the other half of the room is testing for all our cameras – and that is important for us. Here we do very thorough tests; it takes longer to test than to assemble the camera; there’s also time in the basement. All these cameras, once they are mechanically assembled, go to the basement, they’re put in a climate chamber, cooled down to minus 20 degree Celsius and then we heat them up to plus 50 degree Celsius and that takes about 6 hours. So this test is already 6 hours, then the cameras are put on a mechanical shaking device which stresses them mechanically. It simulates a rough ride of about 800 kilometres … Ed: Or a heavy day’s use for a rental? Andreas: Even more. I don’t think a rental company can stress this camera … Ed: Ooooh I don’t know! Andreas: We don’t get angry if these cameras fail here, because as long as they fail here, we have the whole department to find out why there is a failure. It’s a really important process because we know the camera is not allowed to fail on a set. Ed: What determines a failure – is it that it doesn’t go, or do you have a statistical measure for each component that it has to reach that critical state? Andreas: A camera, for example, which doesn’t boot anymore after cooling down to minus 20 degree, that’s a failure. Ed: Well that’s a catastrophic failure, but I’m talking about “slightly off”? Andreas: When we do readings of the temperature of the sensor in minus 20 degree, if the sensor doesn’t stay at this 40 degree Celsius it’s supposed to stay at, then it’s a failure. So the limits are very narrow. A lot of tests here, the functional test and the image test, they are very specifically designed by our quality assurance department. We do these tests but they design them and we write protocols or have our automated software write protocols for certain tests. They analyse these images, measure the black values for example, and if it doesn’t reach a certain value, then it fails. Ed: And the time through the process roughly from start to finish? Andreas: We have a number in our heads – you know, if everything goes right, the ALEXA Mini is allowed to take 3 days, but that includes the climate test Page 11
and the camera is not always moving, it’s waiting for a workstation to be available and so on. Sometimes this takes longer – as I said, not all cameras make it at the first pass, then the camera goes to another department and this might take longer. We are now here in the ARRI camera servicing department. I know that for NZ and Aus, Brett and the team do servicing in Australia, but some problems will come here. We have Peter Geheb, ARRI service technician to tell us more. Ed: Peter, what can be done in Australia and what has to come here? Peter: Basically, Australia can service almost everything but if a customer wants to have the camera shipped to Munich or an insurance company says the camera has to go to the Munich factory if it’s a bigger damage, such as impact damage, then it comes here. But, in general, Australia is equipped to perform any service on the cameras. Ed: So this is not an ARRI decision, this is a decision by customers, but you’re absolutely 100% sure that, whatever happens in Australia, they can repair professionally to full ARRI standards? Peter: Yes of course but still, I have to tell you, if there is an issue they cannot fix for any reason, we can say “okay, ship the camera over to us”, we have to put the camera into our climate chamber or into the R&D department, things like this. But this is very rare, very low numbers. Ed: What about ALEXAs that have been dropped by drones into the sea – have you had one of those yet? Peter: No. Ed: I think they’ve had one in Australia. Peter: We’ve had water damage, but I don’t think from Australia. If the camera went into saltwater, even sweet water, we’d throw everything out which is electronic – boards and components - because if we repair the camera, we have to give a warranty for the repair and the board might work now but you never know when it will fail, and if it’s somewhere on a shoot and the board fails, the camera breaks down, then it’s a bad reputation for ARRI, so in cases like this we’d rather go on the safe side. Ed: Now I see in the corner over there, some film canisters. repairing film cameras?
You’re still
Peter: We’re still doing film cameras in low numbers, but we are still servicing them and we have almost every spare part still available let’s say for the Page 12
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ARRICAMs and for the 535s, 416s and SR3s. For older models, we are limited in spare parts, but we have a few used parts available so we can help the customer quite good. Ed: Do you see the role of 3D printers coming to your assistance there, that some of those very old parts you could actually have printed? Peter: Up till now, I have not got any information that somebody did it like this. Most likely, they are looking then for used parts. The customers don’t want to spend too much money on film cameras anymore, so most likely it’s just a minor thing you know, and then if it’s more than let’s say €1000 or so, then they say “okay, let me think about it.” Ed: What about lenses – do you do any lens servicing here? Peter: We are setting up a lens service right now. Ed: So the servicing is going to be here, near where the camera serviceing is – two service groups? Peter: Yes, one group is the dispatching team and the other group is the repair team. So if a customer has a problem, he sends an email to service@arri.de for Europe or a phone call to our hotline number 2121 and he will end up in this team. Over there, there are guys on computers helping customers – possibly it’s the wrong setting, possibly we can fix something by doing a software upgrade, doing a remote session, things like this. If they cannot help then they are giving the customer a service notification number and, with this service notification number, the customer can send in the camera to us. Ed: What’s critical here, is that ARRI has set up 3 time zones, so if you call during Australian office hours, you’ll get the Australian department, but if you are outside that time, your shoot’s at midnight and that’s when things have happened, you will come here? Peter: Yes. We try to help the customer immediately. If it takes longer, we give the email to the Australian colleagues. Ed: Okay Peter, where do you get your people from, because the skillsets that your service staff must have, must be higher than assembly staff, because they’re problem-solving. So they’ve got to know the cameras inside out and they’ve got to know problem-solving skills and they’ve got to be engineers. It sounds as though it must be hard getting people, or do you train them yourself? Peter: Basically, all technicians you see here, they trained in ARRI. They started the apprenticeship in ARRI between, let’s say, 15 and 35 years ago, they Page 14
started an apprenticeship in ARRI and one colleague is here for 37 years. So after the apprenticeship, you do a final test, the job title is “fine mechanic” and this final test is not up to ARRI, this is up to a professional academy who issues a certificate. Afterwards, the company can choose to employ the graduate or not. In our case, most of our technicians did their apprenticeship with ARRI and then they learn all the camera models and how to repair them. The best way to learn is always side by side on the workbench with the long experienced technicians. Ed: Now I know ARRI has a long and a very proud history of Research & Development, you obviously invested a lot in your technical services here – do the two teams talk, do you get together so that Research & Development talk to the Service people and you share ideas? Peter: Yes, we have frequent meetings between our developing teams. This happens I guess once a week or even 2 times a week – it depends on the process from the new camera system. And also, in the meantime, the service department has to give their okay for the release of the new camera pack. Ed: Wow. Peter: Because, if they make a connector which breaks easily and they install this connector on a place which is very complicated to replace, so it cannot be done from the customer’s side, we say “okay, that’s not good, we have to change this.” So the service department is already involved in the early process and they have to give their okay before they start making prototypes. Ed: Right, so the first stage of the process is that the camera comes in …
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Peter: With every camera we perform an income test where we try to replicate the error the customer reported to us, and besides this, we do also a full test with the camera to see if there are any other issues that the customer might not have noticed yet. We check what kind of licences are installed on the camera, because if it comes to a board change, possibly the licences are gone and we have to redo the licence. If we don’t know what was on the camera, we cannot redo the licence afterwards. After the income test and, if we have found the fault, then we put in our computer system a report, because most likely the customer firstly wants a cost estimate from us. In the meantime, the camera goes onto the estimate shelf – on hold until the customer gives the green light, then the camera goes out from this shelf into our workplace and we proceed with the repair. If we have the error here and the customer says “fix it right away” then, after the income test, the technician goes to his workplace, is changing the board or whatever’s needed. Afterwards, we do a new sensor calibration, that’s the same process you’ve seen on the assembly line, we do it in this room here, but it’s the same setup. Here we will do the sensor calibration and also the image quality check, and this is the same criteria like a new camera on the assembly line. So we are working up to the same standards with the similar standards like a new camera. Of course, from the outside it’s not looking new anymore, but from the quality standards, from the image quality we have the same tolerances every single time. Ed: Do you have an insurance programme where the customer can purchase forward servicing – apart from dropping it of course? Peter: We do offer an extended warranty. You can purchase this for every camera model where everything is covered and you can do this every year automatically until you decide to cancel it. Ed: But I guess they can’t come to you after 5 years of use of the camera and say “we’d like to buy …”? Peter: They can … but he has to get a certificate first. We have to check the camera, the condition of the camera, and then we can give him the extended warranty if he wants to have this. Now Peter’s just telling me that here they’ve got what is called a flow box, but it actually blows the air out so that you don’t have any dust, etc getting into the sensor – so if there are any scratches on any of those surfaces, those parts can be replaced in here. Ed: Stone the crows – we’ve found a New Zealander in the ARRI camp. Allan Stocken, where do you hail from? Allan:
I’m from Northland. Page 16
Ed: How did you end up here in Munich – you missed your plane after an allnighter at the Oktoberfest? Allan: Yeah, yeah, I didn’t make it home. No, my mother’s German, so I’m half-German and I came over here to study and was enticed into the apprenticeship at ARRI. They offered me a position here as an apprentice while I was doing an internship for my degree. I wasn’t too happy about doing the degree just yet, so I decided to do the apprenticeship first. Ed: It’s a pretty nice workplace I’d say? Allan: It is, yes, very good. Ed: And how’s your Deutsch? Allan: I’m fluent. Peter: He’s the best apprentice of the last year in the whole of Bavaria in his job. Ed: Are you saying that just because he’s a New Zealander? Peter: ( taking my question totally seriously ) No, we have it in writing, Allan you can explain this maybe … Allan: For my release on the apprenticeship, I got the best marks for Upper Bavaria and Munich as an industrial mechanic. Ed: Wow, did they give you a special rubber stamp for that? Allan: I got a little glass cube for it. Ed: So what are your plans, are you going to stay here for the rest of your life? Allan: No, I might be back to New Zealand at the end of the year, and I’ll be studying finally. I’ll be going back to my original path and then who know what happens in the future … I might be back after the degree. Ed: You’re missing Northland? Allan: Yeah I am a little bit actually. I’m missing surfing – not much surf in Munich. Our next stop is the showroom which is like a home – there’s a nice sofa here, mood lighting, desks, a lovely ARRI sign, a bit of a collection of historical ARRI items around and some nice drawings on the wall. Operating the camera whilst I take a rest is Jan Heugel, Application Engineer at ARRI. Ed: Jan, this is a company with history. Jan: One hundred and one years. Ed: So what happens in the showroom here, who do you bring in? Jan: Usually customers. We show off our cameras, we have a set … we can have a live shooting situation. We usually have different kinds of people Page 17
bringing in customers and not everyone is into lighting and stuff, so we pre-light everything and we just have to set up the camera the customer is interested in and we’re away. We have all our recent cameras for trying out in here, all the accessories, wireless remotes, the TRINITY stabilisation system – all the tools we make, all the lenses, we have all makes in the market, we have zoom lenses all for show in here. Ed: Do you sell direct to these customers or are you selling through dealerships? Jan: We can do direct sales as well as through dealer-ships. It depends really on the company and the country – where the customers come from, because we don’t have direct sales in every country. Ed: And of course here you’ve got access to all the products and all the accessories? Jan: Exactly, everything and also we have our R&D department right here, so if a customer comes with a special request, we can have the team come down and take a look at the request right here. Page 18
Just outside the showroom is the so-called ARRI museum. Arnold & Richter started out making their money with 16mm film copying equipment before producing both 35mm and 9.5mm film cameras in around 1926. Then, with some assistance from other engineers, they moved on to a very successful 35mm system which they developed still further … but we’re not here for film stories. Ed: Jan, this is the television section, and I see there’s a few awards on display as well? Jan: This is our digital part of the museum, starting with the D-21, our first digital camera. It was way before internal recording was invented and the D-21 is a hybrid of our 425 analogue camera combined with a digital back, recording externally on HD tapes at that time. The camera shares a sensor with our ARRISCAN film scanner at that time. Now we’re working on reselling the ARRISCAN 2. The ALEXA was introduced in 2010. When introducing a new model, we capture the first frames with some kind of sensor demonstrator or, as we call them internally, the common toasters. For the ALEXA 65, it’s not a toaster, it’s more like a microwave size, silver, same thing. That really kicked off our success right now, where we are in 2018, the ALEXA series kept on getting different models like the ALEXA M or the Studio version. Later on we added the recording modules on the XT and the SXT camera, changed some boards inside, completed our modular system on a different part of the camera.
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Ed: And right in the middle of the display there’s the ALEXA “Burnt” nicknamed T-800? Jan: Well you saw The Terminator? That’s T-800 because it got burnt to a crisp in a camera truck when the battery charger caught fire. Ed: Not an ARRI product? Jan: Absolutely not, no. Our rescue team was sent to the truck and had a look at the camera and it turns out it still works. We just had to exchange some cables and now you can switch it on in here and get a feel of the beast. Ed: But your advice is “don’t try this at home”? Jan: Exactly. For the final words, I deferred to Brett Smith to provide me with some questions related to our market to put to the Munich team. 1. What skillsets are needed to design a digital camera? Where do you find them? Jan: I would say that 50% is the ARRI DNA our engineering team brought with them from the analogue times, including all the people who know what images should look like. These people worked on our digital cameras in the beginning when we did a lot of side by side shooting with analogue and digital and compared them so we get the film look. However this might be defined to the digital domain, so as to get the digital to look as close as possible to the film because that’s the gold reference. Then of course you need new people; we needed to transform the company from a strictly mechanical staff to a computer company … Ed: Rather than mechanical engineers, you needed electronic engineers? Jan: Electronic engineers who know how to translate the film language into zeros and ones and who understand what the demands are from set to a device, not like “okay there’s an error, we stop and figure out what’s wrong.” Now the camera has to work 24/7 if needed. Ed: Okay, we’ve seen how you get your service personnel through that process, but how do you recruit people to be ARRI digital engineers? Heiko: As I told you before, it’s great to have experienced people here but it’s also good and necessary to get knowledge from external sources, so that’s why ARRI also hired a lot of software engineers. There are co-operations with universities but also internships as well, for example, some of our former university interns now work here. It’s really Page 20
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different, you can’t really pinpoint it; there’s no one way to come to ARRI here in that regard because we need people from so many fields. Ed: That’s it, if you have a diverse workforce, then you get ideas that you hadn’t thought that you actually would get from people who were just trained in one particular process or way of thinking? Jan: Exactly. And on the other hand it’s not only our staff, it’s also looking about the place and seeing what the market is doing, what are the trends, what do young filmmakers and DPs need to fulfil their jobs, what are the tools for creativity right now? 2. How important is it to retain ARRI’s ‘film look’ in its cameras and what does that mean? Ed: Well Jan chuckled when he mentioned “film look” as he read the question, so I’m really keen to hear your answer Jan? Jan: What is the film look … I would describe it as an organic image. An organic image does not necessarily have the most resolution, it doesn’t need to be an 8K image where everything is pinpoint sharp. It has to have a character and the feeling and a bit of grain if you want to call it grain. If it’s too clean there’s no soul in the image – can you say that? Ed: Can you say that with a straight face – that’s what I’m interested in? Jan: Yeah, sure. That’s also what we’ve learned from the ALEXA years now. It’s 2018 and we still base our sensors on a sensor we designed 10 years ago and that’s still our gold standard compared to what we think a film-ish image should look like. Ed: But surely, in your sensor design, you want to make the perfect sensor – you want that sensor to give you a sharp high resolution image. I think you’ve gone for a larger sensor with the LF and with the 65, and with your Signature Primes, you’ve upped the ante there with the lenses, but surely that film look can be created in something that you add on, either in a filter or in your choice of lens. I know there’s one particular English manufacturer of lenses who are very proud to say that their lenses are slightly distorted, which gives them a particular look? Jan: That’s a totally valid point to choose what tools you need to create the image you want to have. So if you want to use women’s stockings on your lens you can do that; if you want to use a non-ARRI lens you can do that in the end. The tools you use to fulfil your job as a cameraperson need to be the tools to tell the story you want to tell and that doesn’t have to be 100% ARRI. We like if it’s ARRI all the way through of course, but … Ed: But you want a 100% ARRI sensor, you want that part of it to be perfect and any of your film look surely should come with accessories because you can’t make a sensor that’s got errors in it so that it looks filmic? Jan: No, of course, we try on the first image capture part to be the best as we can. You can do everything to the image downstream and don’t let me talk about what happens when it gets compressed and delivered to customers in the end, so our terabytes of data gets reduced to megabytes in the end. Ed: Well I know one of the very first additions to the Adobe Edit Suite was the addition of a film look, which was basically, it added scratches and fluff in the gate? Page 22
Jan: ( laughing ) Yeah that’s a cheap film look, because that’s what you get in a poorly serviced cinema. 3. What boundaries does ARRI need to push with its next generation cameras? Ed: I guess that question must be about the LF because that’s really pushing a boundary that nobody has gone to before or is there something even newer on the horizon that you can talk about? Jan: The LF is a new way with regards to opening the PL restrictions to a newer format, to a newer lens design that has been long overdue in my opinion since, I think, PL was introduced. Yes, it’s time for a new sensor and lens mount and new lenses – that’s the thing, new lenses, new materials; we are in the 21 st century, why shouldn’t there be different lenses, other materials which can enhance the image in new ways, and opening the gate for a larger sensor definitely helps in that regard I think. Boundaries are in different directions now and, if you compare the first ALEXAs to what we have now and how many features we introduced to the ALEXA system over the years, there have been headaches internally regarding which feature we should bring into our timeline which carries the most benefit for our customers. Ed: Or what is just a plaything – something that might look pretty but in fact nobody really wants to use? Jan: Exactly, exactly. To judge between all the features and still provide the best artistic tool which we can realise with the hardware that’s out in the field. 4. What other areas besides Film/TV does ARRI get involved in, eg Virtual or Augmented Reality? Heiko: First of all, I would say that ARRI tries to find a solution for every demand in the Film and TV industry. Also we design whole TV studios, not only with our product alone. For the filmmakers in the field of virtual reality, we actually have a department which produces solutions for a car manufacturer to walk through the exhibition space before it’s made. As co-partner of Volucap, the first volumetric studio on the European mainland, ARRI is driving the development and marketing of recording techniques for virtual reality and augmented reality. Then, in the lighting field, there are a lot of new possibilities – the classical thing is lighting for film and TV but also lighting for studio photography and for theatres are big topics. 5. Is the live event and product launch market interesting to any ARRI departments? Page 23
Heiko: We have solutions for TV shows, AMIRA Multicam where it’s not only the image quality of, let’s say, the ARRI AMIRA but also a good workflow where everything fits together for the TV. 6. The ARRI wheels are back for the SRH-3 stabiliser. Was this a nostalgic re-use of a classic design, or the best choice for the job? Jan: That’s the “best choice for the job” kind of decision because, before we used the wheels, you had to steer the beast with a joystick and that’s not in any way as sensible as the wheels can be. It’s always kind of jiggly and the wheels are more organic I would say, more hands on. Ed: So the joystick was “fly by wire” was it as opposed to direct connection? Jan: The other one is also wired but it has more resolution and steering. Ed: I guess people are used to driving cars, not flying Airbuses. 7. You have the ARRI surgical microscope – are there plans for additional medical devices, through your lens or camera technology? Heiko: We call the surgical microscope ARRISCOPE and I’m sure there are plans but I think the main target now is to bring the ARRISCOPE into other surgical areas than currently only in ear, nose and throat surgery. Jan: There are some restrictions they have to go through before they even could physically get the okay for that microscope in ear, nose and throat fields. Ed: So the microscope is just dipping your toes in the water? Heiko: No, it’s very popular and quite a number of university clinics use the ARRISCOPE already, but of course there is always room for wider distribution. The last question is about the ARRI Academy and we are answering this by video conference with Harald (Hari) Schernthaner, head of global customer training for ARRI. Ed: Hari, you’re Mr Academy I understand? Harald: Yes, I’m the only permanent trainer, but we have a little network organised and set up in the last 3 years to support the guys who are our Academy trainers. Ed: Do you travel everywhere? Harald: Well we’re travelling a lot, that’s why I also train in Germany so that I can at least see my family on Sundays. I’m based in Munich, together with Florian Rettich, Harald Schernthaner, Jessica Krist. Florian Rettich and Jessica Krist, and we have one freelance event manager in Burbank and we have 2 other permanent event managers in Hong Kong and Beijing. They are organising the content and we will appear in Munich worldwide with the trainers Page 24
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we educate in those sites, with pretty much the same setup you have seen here in the creative spaces. We do have creative spaces in Burbank, Hong Kong, Munich and smaller ones also in Paris, Milan and Beijing. So with those creative spaces, we have the opportunity to do in-house courses, but we also have courses with our dealers, we just book a hotel somewhere in the city like in Dubai and then do training pretty much in every location you can imagine. Ed: I’m pretty sure Florian has been to Auckland? Harald: Yes he has. He has been to Auckland and also to Sydney. That first camera course we run a lot. We started with the AMIRA, we added the ALEXA Mini, then we had ALEXA Mini and ALEXA XT and SXT and now we have the 2½ day course covering all 4 current camera products, lenses and all the accessories. Ed: Are there any plans to do free online courses offering a basic level for camera operators out there who might not be using ARRI but, through that, they can be shown some of the special features of ARRI and might switch allegiances? Harald: Certainly ARRI Academy currently offers no free online courses. What we do have are tech kits and tech talks and we also do free webinars where either Florian or one of our product managers are doing a 1½ hour session online or even during film festivals or which we call “close up events”. Those are free, even though we think we might also have to add at least a little amount in future. As usual, when something is free, you will not always get the right people attending. So usually this is sold out within seconds and then you have a long waiting list. I like to educate the right people because we spend a lot of time using one of those programmes and also spend a lot of time staffing it. So close up events, even though it’s just 1½ hours it takes time to ship the equipment … so I’m not a fan of free. Ed: And the feedback – I’m sure that you had excellent feedback from the people who have attended your courses. In terms of value for money what do they say about them? Harald: Well we really get great feedback but we are not cheap. I’m sure a lot of people think twice about it because they can learn from those 3 days; they have to travel at least 1 or 2 days and they have to spend money on flights and hotels, so it’s a lot of money but I haven’t had one who said he regrets it or he wants his money back after the first day. Ed: Which are the most popular courses so far? Harald: I would say that the best-selling product is our Advanced Colour Science course. This course is very focused on DITs, colourists, also DOPs and they love it because they really get the insights of the physics we’ve applied to pretty much all the other sensors and colour science in general. The other one is the Page 26
camera systems course – it depends on the region. In Europe in general, I think paying for education is not in the culture. Germans are not really used to paying for education, so that’s sometimes a little harder to sell in Europe. We do have a new course now for lighting fundamentals with Mo Flam, who is a 35 year old lighting director – we’re doing our first course now in Berlin, 3 days course in the studio and also on location and this was also sold out within 1½ weeks and we have a long waiting list already and we are getting so many emails from all over the world when we are travelling to India, Asia and South America. Also, I think the online course was only promoted recently and this is the only course where we can more or less educate the world. I think it was still a little bit too high on the price point because it was live online for regions like India, Africa, South America, but we might also do a recorded session, not a live online session, but a recording of a live online session and then putting them online for a lower price. Ed: Thank you. I think the whole idea of the Academy is just like the apprenticeships that you have in the service department … it’s something where you’re reaching out to your customers and saying “you might know your job, but we can perhaps give you some little extra bits that just make you do what you do even better”, and to have a couple of comments from people to add to this would be great. Thank you Hari from ARRI. Harald: You’re welcome.
NZVN
ARRI Academy Systems course in Auckland. Page 27
Viewing Television in Japan through Ed’s eyes. Firstly though, a word on the Japanese camera crews we encountered and there were many as our plan was to see festivals in a number of towns around Japan. Not one crew had a DSLR or cine style camera – all were large or compact television cameras and the material was for local channels as we often saw it that night on the News. You may remember some years ago that I visited Japan and went on a tour of a Sony camera factory, but I also gave a report on Japanese television. When you’re in a hotel room of an evening, it’s common to have a look at what’s available on the local channels and this time was no exception. Generally, there’s not a lot on for an English speaking viewer. In a large city area, you can get News items overdubbed in English but they tend to be very short or, if you’re lucky, there’s international news and they leave the English voice and just put subtitles for the Japanese viewers. So you occasionally get some English, but it’s very rare. It’s also very rare to get anything other than game shows, cooking shows, panel discussions or some sort of Japanese soap opera. I think in the 12 days that I was in Japan this time, I passed over one movie which was an old black and white Samurai tale. That was it. At no time did I see any English language programme that was overdubbed in Japanese; all the productions were Japanese, but they were, as I said, mainly game shows, cooking shows, news, weather and the occasional soap. The one I took pictures of was some sort of panel discussion and you’ll notice that, in just about in every frame, there are very large graphics that pop on and off with rapid regularity. Here’s a young lady with what looks like some bondage S&M gear on, a wig and some sort of ears. What she was doing on the show, what she was talking about, I have no idea. She looks a bit like a pop singer, but who knows. You can also see in the frame, one of the cameras and a group of young ladies acting as an audience in the background. They didn’t seem to worry about showing the boundaries of the set; that seemed to be all part of the show. Page 28
Here’s a wide shot of the whole of the panel with 2 of the tripod cameras visible and one just to the right on a pedestal. Also, on the clear table, you can see a camera and microphones for each of the people. Often you’ll see one or two of the men with funny haircuts and glasses and they appear to be some sort of comic relief. In this photo you see one of the comically presented men close-up along with our B&D young lady. The floor staff seem to enjoy the show that’s going on. Again, they don’t seem to worry too much about framing, because the audience is cut off at breast level. The next photo shows the background of the set and, yes, the Simpson clouds were moving all the time through the window. Lastly, again the camera operator seems to enjoy the story that’s going on. What the lone lady at the rostrum in the back next to the “SP” of the graphic was doing all on her own, again no idea, but obviously something very serious was going on as the gentleman with the glasses explained the length of something. Who knows what! That tells you some of the story of Japanese television … entertaining for a short time, but as a Westerner with no understanding of the language, one comes out none the wiser, just slightly bemused as to what the Japanese viewers enjoy watching. I presume they have similar feelings over watching our programmes. What was useful though, was the constant weather updates on an evening. It was very good because these were quite local and as we travelled around Japan, the weather presentations on the channels gave you the whole of Japan, quite often for 7 days. There was also a more detailed explanation of the weather in the region that you’re in, with temperatures, and these had very good graphics showing sun and cloud, and if it was raining, yep, there were little umbrellas that told you it was raining, but also the percentage chance that it was going to rain in these areas. So as a tourist having a look at the television of an evening, is very NZVN valuable so that you know what you can expect the next day. Page 29
High Speed Cameras – a good business direction? I got to thinking, “which technology would I invest in if I was just starting out in this media industry?” I think you know my views on 3D, and 180 appears to be more useful than 360 but I would actually punt for a technology that has been around for a while – high speed. What’s happened is that the technology has got lots better and cheaper – not only for the cameras but also the recording medium and lighting – and the applications are growing in entertainment and industry. So, here is a little taster for you that I cobbled together one wet Sunday from the internet using company information pages and Press releases so as not to plagiarise any reputable journalists who actually did their own research – starting with …
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUYING A HIGH-SPEED CAMERA Overview Here we outline the top considerations for buying a high-speed camera. This represents the key information required to make an initial informed decision. Check the technical specifications first, but nothing replaces using the camera itself. Before purchasing, schedule a demo to ensure that the camera works well for you: make sure the camera is easy to use, the specifications align with your specific application, and the results you are getting are exactly what you want to see. Every major high-speed camera distributor will allow you to "test drive" a camera before purchasing. For the rest of this story, click on this link below. https://www.ix-cameras.com/learning-center/things-to-consider-when-buying-a -high-speed-camera.php How Ultra High Speed Cameras Shoot Up to 25,000,000 FPS Tracking and panning a camera in time with a bullet seems impossible given that the bullet travels at over 1000 metre per second. Just like any good magic trick, it’s all done with mirrors. Mechanical systems are capable of moving a mirror at the same speed as the projectile so that the angle of reflection allows the camera to film the projectile at high speed. Developed by the British at the end of World War II, the C4 camera had a rotating mirror and weighed in at 2,000kg. At the time, it was the fastest camera in the world thanks to its ability to shoot 7,000,000 frames per second. This type of rotating mirror camera is still used today, but the film strip has been replaced by more modern technology. One such camera is the Cordin Moder 510, capable of a whopping 25,000,000 frames per second. The mirror itself runs at 20,000 revolutions per second. And amazingly it still has a resolution of 616x920px. Page 30
Now for some current offerings. The New FASTCAM NOVA By Photron | Aug 14, 2018 | Press Releases | Versatile High Performance High-Speed Camera System San Diego, CA – August 15, 2018 – Photron USA, Inc. of San Diego has launched a new versatile, high performance high-speed camera system. The FASTCAM NOVA brings together unique CMOS image sensor technologies and extensive highspeed digital imaging expertise that provide the camera with the flexibility to be used in a wide variety of applications. Available in three different models, the NOVA offer s 12 -bit image recording rates up to 12,800 frames per second (fps) at megapixel image resolution, and shutter speeds less than 300 nanoseconds. Recording rates to 1,000,000 fps are available at reduced image resolutions. All of these things are available from a camera that is rugged, compact, lightweight and provides the best light sensitivity in its class. Standard features of the NOVA include an internal mechanical shutter to allow remote system calibration, a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet interface for camera control and high-speed image download, memory segmentation that allows recording into one memory partition while downloading from another, and compatibility with a number of industry standard lens formats to allow the use of Nikon G-Type, C-mount and Canon EF lenses. The NOVA also features a “sealed body” design that prevents dust and corrosive particulates from contaminating and damaging sensitive environments. An optional FAST Drive SSD can be used for the download of images at up to 1GB per second. Intuitive and feature rich Photron FASTCAM Viewer (PFV) software is included with each NOVA camera. Also included is a Photron Device Control SDK that allows integration of the camera with user-specific software, and libraries for controlling the camera within a MATLAB® or LabView environment. NEW Phantom® v1840 Ultrahigh-Speed Camera WAYNE, NJ, May 30, 2018 – Vision Research, a leading manufacturer of digital high-speed imaging systems, has introduced the Phantom® v1840 – the latest addition to the Phantom ultrahigh-speed camera family. The v1840 provides the same very high image quality at 18Gpix/sec as the Phantom v2640, which was released in February. Together with the v2640, the v1840 camera offers the lowest noise floor of any Phantom camera and has a high Page 31
64dB dynamic range to provide unprecedented image quality at full 4megapixel 2,048 x 1,952 resolution. “The v2640, with up to 6,600 fps at full 4Mpx resolution, has been very popular since its February 2018 introduction,” notes Doreen Clark, Vision Research Product Manager, “and we are excited to introduce the Phantom v1840, which achieves up to 4,510 fps at full resolution, for even a broader range of applications.” The Phantom v1840 utilises a custom CMOS 4-megapixel sensor to capture 12-bit images at a speed of 4,510 frames per second (fps) at full resolution and 8,570 fps at 1920 x 1080. To provide users in research applications with the ultimate flexibility, the v1840 comes equipped with five operating modes. These include standard mode; high-speed (HS) mode, with 34-percent more throughput; binning in both standard and HS mode for higher sensitivity and frame rates; and now Bright Field (BF) mode for exceptionally bright, or shotnoise limited, backgrounds. In Bright Field mode, the Full Well is significantly larger, i nc r ea si ng t he m a xim um attainable Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). A higher SNR produces a much cleaner image, especially in bright background applications, such as daylight sky or LED back-lit applications. The Phantom v1840 integrates 72, 144 or 288 GB of memory that can be further segmented into 63 partitions for multiple, shorter cines. The camera also is compatible with Phantom CineMag® IV 1 or 2 TB non -volatile memory, which can save 288 GB of data in under five minutes. Key Specifications of the Phantom v1840: 18 Gpx/second 4,510 fps at full 2,048 x 1,952 resolution, 8,570 fps at 1920 x 1080. 4-megapixel CMOS sensor in colour or monochrome 1-µs minimum exposure time standard, 142ns with Export-Controlled FAST option Noise level of 7.2 e Up to 288 GB of memory 1- and 10-GB Ethernet standard Follow this link to view a video demonstration of the imaging capabilities of the Phantom v1840 camera. To find out the latest on Vision Research and its high-speed cameras, follow it on Twitter at @PhantomHiSpeed, LinkedIn at Vision Research, Facebook at “visionresearch” or visit the website at phantomhighspeed.com Page 32
Just in case you were thinking of buying a camera that you might want to make something that could go on Netflix, here are the current specs you need to know taken from the Netflix website ( link below ).
WARNING: calling something 4K alone does not mean they accept its footage. ED.
Cameras and Image Capture – Camera Requirements 4K UHD Resolution: Camera must have a true 4K UHD sensor (equal to or greater than 3840 photosites wide). Recording Format: Minimum of 16-bit Linear or 10-bit Log processing Bitrate of at least 240 Mbps (at 23.98/24 fps) recording Recording format must be set to either: RAW (uncompressed or lightly compressed sensor data) COMPRESSED ( Log Gamma – i.e. S-Log3, V-Log, CanonLog3, REDLogFilm, BMDLog, LogC, etc.) No looks or colour corrections should be baked into the original camera files. Files must maintain all metadata (i.e. Tape Name, Timecode, Frame Rate, ISO, WB, etc.) Black Balancing: If applicable, black balancing of camera sensors should be done daily, when the camera is at normal operating temperature. See specific black balancing instructions in the camera operating manual. Aspect Ratio / Framing: Aspect ratios greater than 2.00:1 must be evaluated and discussed with Netflix for approval. Framing chart must be shot before principal photography begins, and processed through the dailies pipeline which will be shared with editorial, post-production, and VFX. Secondary Cameras: Any cameras other than the primary camera (crash, POV, drone, underwater, etc.) must be approved by Netflix. Test footage should be shot and provided to dailies and post-production to ensure compatibility with primary camera. Full details including approved camera list: https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000579527-Cameras-and-Image-Capture
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ALEXA LF lands LARGE in NZ
THE NEW LARGE-FORMAT CAMERA SYSTEM
ALEXA LF has landed Large Format in New Zealand with commercials and an upcoming major film already relying on the latest ALEXA-based cinema camera. Workflow and control are what you already know while the incomparable LF images will blow you away. Based on a larger 4K version of the ALEXA sensor, the LF series comprises the ALEXA LF camera with complete wireless control and wireless video transmission, ARRI Signature Prime lenses, LPL lens mount and PL-to-LPL adapter offering full compatibility with existing lenses, accessories and workflows.
find out more at www.arri.com/largeformat For a demo, a chat or info on where to find ALEXA LF or Signature Prime lens owners in New Zealand and Australia please contact Sean or Brett at ARRI Australia on:
Tel. +612 9855 4300 e: sdooley@arri.com.au e: bsmith@arri.com.au
t: +61 415 048 521 t: +61 417 663 803