Filming the sun with the Arri Alexa

Karim Hussain · December 1, 2011

Hey all,

I'm shooting a feature on the Alexa in Toronto (stunning camera, love it!) and we have to shoot some direct inserts of the sun in the upcoming days. On film, of course, this wouldn't be a problem, but this is the first time I'll shoot the sun so directly with a CMOS camera. We're planning on piling on the ND's and stopping way down, but anyone know if there's any danger of frying the sensor even when stopped down as such?

Thanks for any help!

Karim Hussain

Cinematographer

Karim Hussain · January 16, 2012

If anyone's curious, we shot the sun pretty full on and the sensor took it fine. We just panned away between takes for safety and the shots worked out beautifully. Stopped down with ND's, but even when we opened up the sensor could handle it.

So it's another plus point for the amazing Alexa. Now if they can only get a much better electronic viewfinder going, one that you can actually judge focus and exposure on, then the camera will be pretty close to perfection in my books.

The Alexa is, for my money, the best digital camera out there just the same.

Karim Hussain

Cinematographer

K Borowski · January 16, 2012

You are courageous. I didn't see this, I don't think, before you shot, but I think a lot of people wanted to avoid telling you advice that could potentially wreck a $100K camera!

I've had still go haywire electronically doing just SMALL sun-in-the-frame shots, and on one of the Apollo missions, they have practically no stills of the landing (not 13 :-p) because one of the astronauts pointed the Hasselblad at the sun and similarly fried its metering system. I am fortunate, thusfar, in never killing a camera with this technique :-D

Karim Hussain · January 17, 2012

Very true! We spoke to enough people, including the technicians at the rental house, to ensure we wouldn't fry the sensor with the shots, and if you're careful about it, those shots are possible with the Alexa. Of course to get the sun proper, the rest of the sky goes dark, so it helps if there's some partial cloud cover to diffuse the glow and it looks great and surreal. Just keep the camera on the sun only for the duration of the shot and the instant you don't need to, pan away, is what I've discovered and the Alexa survived just fine. Wonder if they had the Alexa on the moon how it would handle? :)

Best,

Karim