Alexa Studio

[Manu Anand]

Just saw a Demo of the Alexa Studio here at Abelcine in New York and had the honour of finally meeting Mr Mitch Gross who gave a hands on demo of the Camera!

 

Here are the Highlights!

An optical Viewfinder!

A Mirror Shutter that eliminates all rolling shutter artifacts since the sensor read out happens during the dark Phase

An inbuilt 1.3 ND filter that moves over the sensor with i think if i remember correctly an IR filter as well.

A quick interchangeable EVF for situations where one cant see clearly through the optical viewfinder.

And a full 4:3 sensor that allows for those wonderful anamorphic lenses to shine in the digital world.

 

My impressions of the camera was that basically its the same Camera same body but Arri now allows one to use the full sensor in 4:3 as opposed to just 16:9 with the 4:3 crop happening in the 16:9 sensor area.

80% more sensor area is now used in the full frame 4:3 mode.

And the optical viewfinder was wonderful to look through it really eliminated the horrible rolling shutter we can experience while panning too fast although Arrris sensor read out is quite fast as it is and the rolling shutter artifacts on the Alexa are not that bad.

The innards of the camera are the same as compared to previous models.

Same image processor same sensor. The optical viewfinder and the mirror shutter are the add ons along with the full sensor 4:3 mode.

I also asked the Arri Technical Sales Representative Mr Guenter Noesner if Arri would at some point allow Look Settings to be made on the camera and i think he said that it might be possible with the wireless remote that is coming out soon. I might be mistaken and Mitch can confirm that aspect. Currently looks can be made on the computer through a Pomfort software called i think Silverstack Set and can be then loaded on to the camera.

There was also an interesting Demo of Pomforts Livegrade Beta which allows you to set the Look through the HD link and see the result Live on the monitor.

 

http://pomfort.com/news/2011/12/livegrade-the-tool-for-interactive-camera-look-creation/

 

The sense i got was that although Arri isn't Upping its game in the Resolution Sweepstakes it really is listening to feedback from our Field and has addressed some

of the issues that we have faced.

Naturally all of this comes at a price and since Abelcine is now going to be an authorised Reseller they will probably be best to reveal the cost of all this

innovation.

 

Manu Anand

Dop

Director

Mumbai

Edited January 14, 2012 by Manu Anand