MARCH 2018
Vol 244
(09) 527 6126
Choose Your Weapons We’re at Imagezone in Scanlan Street in Auckland Central and we’re going to hear from Stephen Baker. Ed: Stephen, tell us about the situation where somebody comes in, they’re picking up gear for a shoot, but they need to choose more than just the camera. They need the accessories, the bits and pieces that go along to make up a production and the DOP has a choice as to what they take, but the team here at Imagezone can offer some assistance in this area? Stephen: Typically, the process does start quite a few days before the first shoot day. My role is that I talk to producers, they come to me saying “we’ve got a shoot coming up” and generally the first thing that comes out of their mouth is “it needs to be a Mini and some nice lenses.” Currently, the ARRI Mini is the “go to” camera, it’s what all the DOPs want, it works very well as a production camera, it’s also very good for handheld – and at the moment, the trend is very much things handheld on Easyrigs or on MōVI Pros and that, for want of a better term, NYPD Blue look of things moving constantly. Ed:
Dynamic?
Stephen: The dynamic look, yes. Often the DOP has a wish list of what lenses he wants – for him, the lenses are the most important thing, the look he wants. Is he looking for a clean look, does he want a vintage look – there are a multitude of options so, here at Imagezone, we’ve got a very wide range of lenses from your ARRI standards and a couple of sets of Super Speeds through to our new G35s Gecko-Cam which are a reinvention of the classic Canon K35, a very popular lens back in the 70s and 80’s – Aliens and that sort of stuff were shot on the K35. A German company called Gecko-Cam released a G35 which is their homage to it. It’s not exactly the same lens, but it is similar; it has a strong look, it’s a very warm lens, it’s gone out a couple of times and so far
Stephen presents the GH5S with anamorphic zoom lens.
I’ve had positive reports. Then we move into the more classic – the Leica Summicrons, the Cooke S4s, the ARRI Master Primes and the ARRI Master Anamorphics. Our lenses start at around $700, all the way up to around $4500 per day….but I’m always happy to discuss. Ed:
Per lens or per set?
Stephen: Ed:
Per set per day.
Phewww …
Stephen: So that’s when the conflict … I should say “discussion”, but I suppose it’s a form of conflict, pops up between the producers and the DOP. Obviously the DOP wants top of the line lenses but often they can’t afford them. That’s when I step in; I never like to force a DOP to use a lens that he doesn’t want to use because of a budgetary constraint, we’ll see what we can do, we might give a little bit of a discount to the production to help the DOP get a lens set that he wants, and we come to a happy medium between the producer with their budget and the DOP with what he wants. Ed: Who handles the insurance on the lenses because I imagine, if he got a set of the expensive ones and somebody drops one of just even scratches it, it’s a lot of money? Stephen: It is a lot of money and all the big production companies here in New Zealand tend to carry their own insurance. Some of the foreign ones that come in and, for some of the smaller local ones, we will actually charge them a fee if they’re wanting to piggyback on our insurance to save them doing it. But most of the bigger production companies around have their own. Ed: But you know these people and they’re not going to stiff you?
Typical Mini cable and rod accessories kit.
they’re also going to get myself working with them. Having been a cameraman myself for 17 years, I’m going to do my utmost to give them something that they’re happy with before they go.
Stephen: They will present an insurance certificate to me before the shoot, so I know that the gear’s covered. We also have our own insurance as well. One of the good things about this country and the professional teams that we have is that every assistant cameraperson ( AC ) who comes in here, I know them and they all treat our gear with the utmost respect. We very rarely get anything damaged – a broken cable, a scratched filter or something – but we have yet to have any major problems with our lenses. The guys are all very good, even when shooting in conditions like Bethells when there’s black sand, the ACs who come in here, like I say, treat our gear like it’s their own, which is really good.
That’s all done with telephone calls and emails and so on, then we will give out a gear list of everything down to individual cables that the AC will get before he shows up, so he already knows what he’s got and often at that point we’ll start getting an email conversation with the AC saying “hey can I get an extra widget here.” Many ACs nowadays have some of their own equipment – they’ve gone and bought their own follow focuses and their own little focus monitors. ACs in this day and age are usually expected to pull focus from a monitor, so they’ve gone and bought their own monitor that suits their eye that they’re happy with. So at that point I’m often very happy to pull our monitors or our follow focus off the quote to give that to the ACs. It’s a bit of cream on the top for them, but again, we work closely with the ACs.
So we get back to that dance between the producers and the DOPs and one of the really cool things that we have strived for at Imagezone is to have a wide range of lenses and a wide range of options to offer the DOPs. So if their first choice is not there, we tend to have something else that they like or that they’re happy to use and all of them are well aware of their budgets and are well aware of working within budgets. I think most of them accept the job already knowing what it is and they know that every lens that we’ve got in here is a very good lens; it may not be their first choice, they may have other preferences, but they know, when they come to us, that they’re going to get good lenses and
Now we’re at the point where the AC shows up for the camera test and the reason is that we’re talking big budgets on most commercials – even the low budget commercials, it’s still a lot of money, there’s catering and makeup and talent and all that sort of stuff. It’s not just the camera budget that goes into a commercial budget, there’s a lot of money, so no one wants to show up on the day and have something not working. They will always pay the AC a day to come in and test; they’ll put the camera on the tripod, they’ll power it up, they’ll put the lenses on, they’ll shoot something on a test chart, and they’ll make sure that lens is hitting its marks – when it says “3 feet”, it’s 3 feet. If it’s not, we
Go to https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/ for more news. P10 Big Lights on Cricket P14 Past NAB photos
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can re-shim the camera or the lens to get it to being accurate and they go through all the logistics. They make sure they’ve got spare power cables and everything there, that the focus motors are working, that the follow focus is working, that the filters aren’t scratched, that the matte box is not missing any of its clamp backs that will fit the lenses properly, that the head and legs are right and there’s nothing untoward there. We will get them to sign off on the gear list that they’ve gone through and checked everything, and everything that is on the gear list is what they have, and they’re good to go.
Ed: This is something that you can either use on its own if you’re looking at a budget shoot, or it’s that second camera that can be in a really tight space and get those pictures that you wouldn’t get otherwise?
Ed: When do you get the opportunity to offer them the onions? “Now you’ve looked at this package, you might like …?”
Stephen: Yes, and they’ve shot things like House on a 5D but for us, the reason we got this camera is because, in the $300-400 mark a day for a camera, as opposed to $1800 for a Mini, it caters for the amount of content that’s being shot nowadays – especially low budget content for Facebook and social media. All of the big production houses are shooting content and they don’t have the budget. Some clients are willing to spend $100,000 on a commercial, but they don’t want to spend $100,000 on one commercial … they want to get 10, because they want to be able to pump it out on Facebook and all the social media.
Stephen: That tends to not happen with ACs but it does tend to happen with the DOPs and the producer 34 days or a week out from the shoot. They come to me and they want this, and X is going to cost them $5000 for the day, the producer says “I’ve only got $4000 for the day” so I can then go back to the DOP and say well you can’t have X because they can’t afford it, or go back to the producer who then goes to the DOP with that – you can’t have X, you can have Y, and we might do a little bit of a compromise there. That toing and froing happens a week out and before the AC well and truly comes, and then we get something that the DOP is happy with, he’s happy with Y or X or maybe it’s become Z at this point. He’s happy, he knows he’s got the tools to do the job – and when I say “tools” it’s the lenses. The cameras always have been well and truly decided on, they’ve always got the money for the ARRI – we mainly have ARRI at Imagezone, we have the ALEXA XT, the AMIRA and then we have four Minis. We have a RED Epic in house, but it’s mainly ARRI at Imagezone.
Stephen: That’s exactly right. So it could be a B camera to something like the Mini. I am yet to see how closely the footage will match, but if you’re using the same lenses and doing a bit of grade, I’m sure you can get it so that Mum and Dad at home wouldn’t know. Ed: Well I know that they used a Go Pro in Lord of the Rings and nobody noticed that footage?
Well, that was true up until early in February when we got the Panasonic GH5S, which is a stills camera. We’ve never gone down the route of having A7S or a Matt Day preparing ALEXA Mini. Canon 5D Mark III or anything like that, because we’ve always thought There’s an awful lot of content being produced now and they’re a little bit inferior compared to the ARRIs. We the budgets aren’t quite there for the full shoots, so we believe this Panasonic GH5S is a very, very good believe this little camera is going to be really helpful. camera. It fits perfectly with an anamorphic lens that You put good glass ( we’ve only got good glass ) on this we’ve got, in terms of the delivery because the camera and you will get very good results. It’s very anamorphic lens is a 1.5 de-squeeze. This is a 4K new. internal recording camera, it has V-Log so you can Ed: But wouldn’t that cut out the other side of your grade; Duel ISO … so there are lots of positives. Dean business which is supplying the ARRI Minis? spends a lot of time going over the latest technology that comes out. David Paul, who’s one of the eminent Stephen: No, I think this is going to pull in some DOPs in Auckland, saw it and Dean and David had a business that simply wouldn’t be there because there’s chat about it and on paper it ticked an awful lot of no way anybody’s going to offer an ARRI Mini for $300boxes. We got one in, we had a play with it, we’ve 400 for the day. This little GH5S we believe has a much since purchased it.* better sensor, its ISO is incredible, we think it’s a far *Read about David at https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/issues/2015/07july15
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superior camera to the A7S and a far superior camera to the FS7 and it’s in that region of price. I don’t think this is going to be a massive market for us, but it’s just once again, like in many areas, technology is constantly getting better. For a start, shooting 4K internally is incredible. For the A7S, you would have to have an off-board recorder to get 4K. So you couldn’t record 4K internally in the A7S; you can in the GH5S and that’s a massive thing especially with 4K being so big right now. And the GH5s is 4K DCI as opposed to 4K UHD; without getting too technical, it’s a big difference. Netflix, who are arguably one of the largest producers of content in the world, or buyers of content, have very strict rules about what they will accept, and it seems to be 4K is pretty much their baseline. Ed:
You can get 4K out of an Apple iPhone can’t you?
Stephen: Not true 4K. 4K is a misnomer really because there are so many different flavours of 4K. Ed: Yes, yes we know that, we’ve just got to keep telling people not to believe everything they read in “tech specs”. Stephen: Well the other thing is you might be able to get 4K, but that’s the size of a piece of glass … Ed:
Oh, it’s about the lens as well is it?
Stephen: It’s always about the amount of light you can get onto the sensor. The GH5S is very exciting as we can put very nice lenses on it. Ed:
But surely you’re not going to stop with one?
Stephen: We’ll see how it goes – 1 or 2 maybe, but like I said, it’s not in competition to the ARRI, certainly
not. For us, it is another option to offer our clients to work within budgets because, at the end of the day, there’s only so much money that goes around with these productions. We have people coming to us with all sorts of budgets and I hate saying “no” so I’d love to be able to say “well no, we can’t do that budget for the ARRI Mini, but have a look at this GH5S.” Currently there’s a shoot happening in Queenstown and Clayton Carpenter is using the GH5S as his second camera, alongside a Mini. We were quite excited to hear that from Clayton, who’s a very good DOP, and to get some feedback. It’s the first time it’s gone out in anger I suppose, with some anamorphic lenses on it and it’s going to be really good to get some feedback. Ed: But again, isn’t this going to encourage your DOPs to actually go and buy their own … when the Canon 5D came out, suddenly there was this great burst of interest in the 5D and every man and his dog went and bought one and all of a sudden the whole rental market collapsed for a while, but then they discovered hmmm … it’s not quite up to what we want, and they started to look at real cameras again? Stephen: Sure, absolutely and that’s why, at this point, we’ve only invested in one because you’re right, I know a DOP who is going to go and buy one so he probably won’t be hiring it off us, but then again, he might. He might have a 2 camera shoot, so he wants to hire one from us. I can’t stop people going and buying gear … Ed:
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But they always need the lenses?
Stephen: They need the lenses, exactly so they’ll come to us for the lenses. There are some DOPs out there right now – I can think of 3 right away – who all own Minis. So there are actual owner / operators of ARRI Minis out there – but that’s actually been a bonus for us because I am often able to sub-hire those in when needed. In fact, only a few weeks ago, I had 9 Minis out in one week. I pretty much sucked up the market of Minis in Auckland for a while there. I honestly don’t see that as a problem really because, like you said, we have got the glass. Getting back to the original question about what ACs are getting ready to go for; that test day is also very handy for us – it’s not just handy for the ACs to come in and make sure they’ve got Mike Bull, tech, “how to pull a Mini apart.” everything they need; it’s some dioptres or something like that?” Generally, we’re really handy for us because, sometimes at that point, talking about adding a few hundred dollars’ worth of the ACs can say “you know what, we don’t need this extra stuff, not thousands of dollars – they don’t item, we can drop it” so I get Brownie points for going suddenly come in and swap their lens set out for back to the producer and saying “hey, your quote’s now example. It’s a couple of extra little widgets here and coming down.” Sometimes it goes up because a DOP there, maybe a couple of extra batteries. So that’s a swings by and says “oh, can I actually grab an extra set really good time for us to add and / or subtract all the of filters, I’d like some diffusion filters or hey, I need time. Ed: But surely the DOP has also got to budget in sound and lighting, because those are 2 areas that you don’t provide for? Stephen: We don’t provide for that no, and that’s certainly not something the DOP generally has to worry about; lighting he will obviously want to have some input in, but that’s something the producer has to budget for. Like I said before, I’m incredibly aware of when they come to me for a quote, mine is a tiny little segment. I know there’s catering, there’s extras, there’s talent, there’s location fees, there’s lighting trucks, there’s sound – there’s all these sorts of things – the profit the production company have to make themselves, because they’ve got offices to pay for in Ponsonby Road. I do know our part is a small slice, and I like to help and work within budgets; I don’t just say “here’s the budget – take it or leave it!” Ed: Are there lighting combinations that work better with your ARRI Minis than others – is this something that you advise on?
Mike as video tech doing Q-take replays.
Stephen: It’s not something I need to know about because that’s what Directors of Photography are for. They’ve sat down with the director, they’ve looked at storyboards ( I occasionally get to see them, but very rarely ). It’s something that the DOP and the director have done a recce, they’ve gone through storyboards, they know exactly what lighting requirements they want and that is often at the point where they know what lens they want because of the situation they’re in. A classic example is Clayton, the DOP I mentioned before, Page 6
who went on a recce the other night. He’d requested one set of lenses that was actually coming from a competitor, but while on the recce, he realised that they weren’t really going to work and so came back to us for several lenses that he knew would work better for that job. So until he went on a recce and saw where he was going to shoot and what he was shooting, that then really cemented what lenses he needed. That’s something that happens outside of here and the lighting doesn’t really affect me because we don’t do lighting. There are plenty of lighting guys out there who know what they’re doing, and that’s what the DOPs get paid for. They get paid for making those lighting calls, but they know what lenses will work best and we’ve got nine sets of lenses. If we don’t have what they need … Ed:
Mini on location in Wanaka.
You’ll find them?
Stephen: We’ll find them and I’d be very surprised if we didn’t. Some of the really unusual vintage stuff that we don’t have is again becoming popular. Some DOPs now are looking for real vintage, they’re not looking for that clean sharp ARRI Master Prime look; they’re looking for something … I think the best way of describing it is “fruity” and somebody like Panavision
who have been around for a long time and are great to work with, have some pretty cool lens options as well. Ed: Now you currently stop at the ARRI Mini, so if somebody’s wanting something bigger and better – in other words in the 4K market to cater for Netflix – either they’re going to take on your new Panasonic or you’ve got to get yourself some new cameras? Stephen: Watch this space, yes there is something coming up. NZVN
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Big Lights on Cricket Last month we talked to Chris McKenzie at PLS about some small and very precise lights, the Pipelines from BB&S; now, we’ve gone for the really big ones – SoftSuns and not just one, but two. Ed: What on earth can you do with two SoftSuns in New Zealand Chris? Chris: You can do an enormous amount of things with them – light very large areas to very high intensity. SoftSuns are part of the Luminys Systems stable which is Lightning Strikes and that family of fittings and they are of a very high intensity. They’re an old style of lamp which is a low pressure xenon arc and, in these fittings, we have two 100 kilowatt and one 50 kilowatt available for hire. The lamps themselves are about 2.5 metre long and 200mm in diameter, so they’re very large lamps. As a result, you can get an extraordinary amount of light out of that large amount of gas that you’re igniting, which is essentially what you’re doing in a discharge lamp. Ed: Now in the situation we see in these photographs, you’re using them to light the cricket nets for New Zealand to practise – or is it all the teams to practise under?
Stage one.
They wanted to do a test prior, which is what we’ve done and they had the Auckland team practising that night and they brought in a couple of the Black Caps batsmen and their bowling and batting coaches and threw the balls down the pitch. They all seemed to like it, no one got a ball in the face and the batsmen were happy and the bowling guys were happy, so they basically signed off. It’s an interesting job. Ed: Something they couldn’t have done any other way?
Chris: It’s for all the teams to practise. It’s for the Pink Ball test in March with the UK and I think they did it last year where they didn’t light the nets successfully. Basically, we were asked if we could provide a lighting solution which would give them the same light level in the nets as there is on the centre of the pitch at Eden Park, so they can warm up and practise under the same lighting conditions. Given that the nets is an area that’s normally used in daylight, there’s no lighting provision there. Ed:
So otherwise they’d have to go onto the pitch?
Chris: I’m not quite sure what the deal is, but we have to do it for 2 nights – I think one night is England and one night is New Zealand and they get the day/ night crossover. Apparently, in these day/night games, they have to time it so they get the crossover at dusk, so that they finish playing under daylight or partial daylight/night. Then they come back after tea with fully night lit. But the issue is that they play with … well, they call it a pink ball, but it’s really fluro pink, a bit like your football linesmen are wearing. We’ve done one job previously for New Zealand Cricket and they knew that we had this lighting setup, so they made a call late last year asking if we could do it; we drew up a plan and threw it into a piece of calculating software that we’ve got to see if we could achieve the light levels needed on a theoretical basis, and we could. So then I could go back to New Zealand Cricket and say “yes, we can achieve above your levels and do the job.”
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It’s getting darker!
Chris: do it. Ed: Well SkyPanels?
You’d be hard pressed to there’d
be
a
lot
of
Chris: A helluva lot of SkyPanels, yes, especially now they have a new weatherproof cowl for them – but it’s what the SoftSun is very good at, particularly lighting something like a cricket pitch. Because it’s a very long lamp, it tends to spread along the length of the fitting and doesn’t spread very much vertically in relation to the lamp. When you’re using it in the daylight fill scenario, which is what they came into New Zealand originally for with Lord of the Rings, if you think of those big wide shots in the South Island high country where 50 horsemen ride up to camera, that was all backlit sun, but the front light was a SoftSun sitting on a condor boom above the camera and basically one to one balance with the sunlight in the high country.
Lots of generator grunt.
Ed: In the cricket nets, you could adjust the intensity by just raising or lowering the crane? Chris: Yes but the other advantage of the SoftSun is that it’s fully dimmable and so you can actually dial up your light intensity. Our calculations showed that if we got the unit at 20 metre off the ground, we were getting 4500 lux at a width that covered the pitch, because that was really what governed our height. So by running it at 4500 lux at that 20 metre height, we could then dial it up and dial it down. The nominal level on Eden Park is 2500 lux, so we showed them under that and then over that, and then went back to the 2500, so on the night with the proper test set up, we’ll be running it at 2500 lux. I understand that the players are mild prima donnas and they have to be treated in a certain way, so “we won’t give them any more, but we won’t give them any less” is the brief from New Zealand Cricket. Ed: Are they now interested having them for other events?
In position ...
in
Chris: I think this might generate other work. As I said, we did do a job for them about 4 years ago where we got 8 SoftSuns and lit 4 games of night cricket in the South Island. They were looking at doing Friday night T20s and I think it just turned into too big an exercise because by the time you get 8 SoftSuns, we had to bring them in from the US and from Australia; we had to have 4 cranes; we had to have 4 gen sets … Ed:
That’s a lot of tickets?
… and on. Page 12
Chris: It’s a lot of tickets, and just the sheer logistics of even when you think about it, it costs you $3000 to move a container from Auckland to Christchurch and that was 5 containers of gear, so the logistics cost starts eating up … you know for me to get a gen set delivered in Auckland costs $350. So those things start eating into all of your costs. Ed: Is there any way you can adjust the colour so that the England team lose sight of the pink ball when they’re batting? Chris: I’ll have a think about that. SkyPanels may well come into their own.
That’s where
Ed: Just flick it on to “police car” at the wrong moment? Chris: Yeah … the interesting thing is you could probably do that with the stadium lights but not with the SoftSuns. They are very much a unit that’s designed for pure colour rendering for film and television, which is quite telling when you sit there and you look around at all the brand new LED street lights – how green they are in comparison to the pure daylight that you’re getting out of the SoftSun. I think we’re not getting the best quality units on our streets. Ed:
You’re sounding like Mr Weigert.
Chris: Absolutely, absolutely. He knows what he’s talking about with LEDs. Ed: Well we’re going to hear from him soon at NAB this year. NZVN
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“It’s like daylight in here” says Ricky.”
ARRI ALEXA LF Game Changer We are at the ARRI launch event in Auckland with Sean Dooley and Sean’s not only had a very busy day setting up cameras, lights and projectors, he’s had a very busy couple of weeks doing similar shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Ed: Sean, I thought you were just going to release a camera but in fact, you’ve released a whole system. First of all, tell me why it’s important that you keep the name “ALEXA” for this new LF camera? Sean: We have finally released an ALEXA that’s greater than 4K resolution – it’s a full 4½K sensor and it’s paired with the new ARRI Signature Primes and a brand new type of lens mount that enabled ARRI to Thorsten Meywald from ARRI Munich holding a Signature Prime lens, create a lens that is worthy with Brett Smith and Sean Dooley. of such a large ALEXA sensor, but it’s an ALEXA that everyone will know. The for their own distribution platforms, but with the LF, LF, or Large Format, operates exactly the same, there’s we’re using a sensor that is just as tall as the 65, but no learning curve; it’s compatible with all the two-thirds of the width. Because a lot of lenses don’t accessories that are currently available for ALEXA actually cover the massive sensor size that’s in the 65, cameras, so it should be easy for people to adapt on the look that you get when you use the LF is probably set. the look that you associate with the 65 large format photography. Panavision’s lenses don’t cover the 65, Ed: So by being part of the ALEXA family, it means but they do cover the LF. So you suddenly have access that you can buy the camera base, if that’s all you can to far more lenses than you do with a massive system afford at the time, you can buy an adapter which means which is expensive, incredibly power hungry and very you can put your own PL mounts on, or you can rent PL weighty. The great thing is, you can now own it and it’s mounts, and you can put all your accessories that you not too expensive compared to a normal ALEXA, and own because they all still fit? neither are the Signature Prime lenses compared to Sean: In the ALEXA family, there’s the ALEXA SXT ARRI Master Primes. The whole system is about giving which is still a current model, there’s the ALEXA Mini directors of photography a new way of capturing and now there’s the ALEXA LF. They all record exactly images; it’s a new field of view, it’s a nicer compressed the same file types – ProRes and ARRIRAW – in the field of view with beautiful shallow depth of field and fall same manner and they all have the same type of photooff at wide angles which we’ve never had before – so site design in the sensor. The colour is exactly the it’s a new system. same, the really good dynamic range is exactly the Ed: Now in terms of the sensor size, are the sensor same, the skin tones are exactly the same and it’s part sizes actually different between the Mini, the SXT, the of a real family of cameras that you can use for their LF and the 65? different unique attributes – whether it’s a Super 35 sensor on the SXT, a large format sensor with the LF, or a very small compact camera for rigging in drones and gimbals with the ALEXA Mini.
Ed: Now this is something that fits in just before the ALEXA 65 – a camera that’s not available to buy, it’s only a rental camera that’s available from ARRI and not rental houses. Obviously this has been a success, it’s an expensive camera, but it provides that really, really large format that people want for cinematographic work? Sean: Sure, so the ALEXA 65 came out nearly 3 years ago and it has been used on the highest budget productions that we’ve really ever seen. The latest Star Wars film was shot with the ALEXA 65, and plenty of other huge budget films. Each of those cameras was hand-built with only ever 70 made. IMAX own 10 and they use those for really large format cinematography
Sean: The ALEXA Mini and the ALEXA SXT share the same sensor and then, on top of that, the ALEXA LF has the same type of photo-site, so the size of each pixel is the same on the sensor level, and the same with the 65. That’s why the colour science is exactly the same across the family, the dynamic range is the same, the design of the sensor is the same. When we go to a larger sensor in the LF and in the ALEXA 65, all we’re doing is adding more of these photo-sites and that increases the surface area. So more photo-sites, but of the same type … all the image attributes are identical but the sensor area that we use to capture an image is larger, which is why you need lenses that are designed specifically for this sensor, because they need to cover a larger area in terms of square millimetres. Ed: And a key part of the optics is actually this new mount?
Page 16
really want to use the new lens mount” because they all understand that you can’t have high quality, large format optics, if you don’t have a larger lens mount than PL. Ed: And you have safeguarded the system by having not only a PL to LPL adapter, but you’ve also got it going the other way, so people can use these new Signature lenses on existing PL mounts?
SkyPanel lit the scene.
Sean: It’s called the LPL mount which is the Larger Positive Lock lens mount. We came out with the Positive Lock ( or PL ) lens mount about 50 years ago and that became the cinema standard. It was designed around a Super 35mm film gate and it has continued because, generally, with all digital cameras, we have a sensor the same size as film was, so it works really well. However, when you move to a larger sensor, we need a larger lens mount because we need to have lenses that project a larger image circle over that larger sensor. The new LPL mount has a diameter of 66mm which is 15mm larger than the PL mount. That allows us to have a larger rear element inside the lens so that the projection of the lens, when it hits the sensor, is telecentric, so all the light is parallel and it’s also much better at controlling vignetting. Also, when you have a larger rear element for a lens, it means you don’t have to have a proportionally larger front element. There are some lenses for PL mount which will cover the ALEXA LF sensor size, but these lenses are really heavy – we’re talking 4 kilograms per Prime lens – and it’s because the PL mount has a really small diameter, so to squeeze that massive image circle through, you need to compensate with the huge front element. With the LPL mount, we’re introducing a new standard. It’s an open standard, we’re licensing it to all lens and camera manufacturers for a very low sum – it’s just to ensure our IP is protected and we can maintain an excellent quality of machining with the new lens mount, but we really want everyone to adopt it. We’ve already had Angénieux, Canon, Zeiss, Leica, Panavision, Vantage, Sigma and Tokina – like every lens manufacturer said “yes, we
Sean: That’s exactly right. The Signature Primes make use of the large format PL mount – the LPL mount – but we’ve now designed a lens mount which works with the ALEXA Mini and the AMIRA and that same lens mount we’ve licensed to camera manufacturers, so we expect very shortly that RED and Sony and Canon and Panasonic will all bring out either adapters or mounts to enable an LPL Signature Prime to work with their system. Ed: What also excited me, when I heard you talking about that LPL mount, was that no longer do you have to match a lens to a camera. Every time you change a PL mount lens, you have to calibrate it – but with this new system, what happens? Sean: With the new LPL mount, we have an LDS 2 data system ( LDS stands for Lens Data System ) … Ed: They have focus groups that come up with these names do they? Sean: ARRI acronyms are outstanding! The original LDS system was patented by Zeiss but they wouldn’t licence it to anyone, that’s why it was only in Ultra Primes and Master Primes. This new system that we’ve developed ourselves is based on CAN bus, an open system; it’s 10 times more accurate than LDS and
Lots of ooohs and ahhhs over the ALEXA LF. Page 18
it features what’s called an absolute encoder. The encoder inside every zoom focus and iris axes on a lens, spits the data out as soon as it touches the interface in the camera lens mount, so it always knows where it is in terms of its focus mark or its zoom position. Because it always knows where it is, you no longer need to turn the rings to initialise the lens and you shouldn’t need to ever calibrate a lens either, because it’s a fixed position, every lens is the same, it knows where it is and that will really speed up lens changes on set. Ed: So all in all, the LPL mount is pretty much a game changer for the industry? Sean: The PL mount was developed nearly 50 years ago and it’s high time we had a new lens mount. It enables us to have better data management and it also enables us to have higher quality, smaller, faster, lighter optics for large format sensors. Ed:
Looking after your customers’ future?
The AMIRA was there too.
Sean:
Absolutely.
We really wanted to have a new format, a new standard in the cinema industry which every manufacturer that we know of so far has now supported, and we wanted to also support everyone’s existing rental fleet, so this more on page 22
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is backwards compatible with our cameras, with third party cameras. We’re also supporting older lenses which will cover some of the new sensor sizes on the LF. Ed: Finally, I thought one of the interesting things you mentioned was a new back filter which you can put on your very, very expensive well-tuned and honed lenses that are perfect, and actually make it look like an old one? Sean: The Signature Primes feature a rear magnetic net holder. Nets were super popular in the 80s and a lot of cinematographers remember them fondly because they gave you a really nice soft image occasionally, and people had different types of stockings they really liked to use. So we’re bringing that back – it’s a snap on patented magnetic system; and then we’re also going to introduce some optical filters which use the same system so that you can change how a lens looks. The benefit with having a redesign is that sometimes nets, if you put them in front of the lens, can result in weirdly shaped bouquet and it really changes the characteristics of a lens. But if you put it behind the iris grid, you’re going to have the softness without any bad image quality effects. Ed: But some people like bad image quality? Sean: Absolutely, go for it you know … this is all about choice, we’re giving you a massive sensor so you can choose the size of sensor you want to use, and we’re now giving you the choice to have nets behind as well as in front of the lens. Ed: What more could you want! One of the attendees of the event was Stephen Baker from Imagezone. When we last spoke to Stephen and asked the question “are you getting something new?” he said … Stephen: Watch this space. Ed: And we’re here announcement Stephen?
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Stephen: Yes, Imagezone have ordered the ARRI LF with a set of ARRI Signature Primes. What the focal lengths of those Signature Primes will be I can’t tell you right now because it’s dependent on what ARRI can supply us, but we know that very soon, within the next couple of months, we will have an ARRI ALEXA LF large format camera, capable of shooting 4K, true 4K and 16x9 3.8 UHD, but true 3.8 UHD. Imagezone will have one along with the large format glass that comes with it, to complement a couple of lens sets we already own that will also cover the sensor of this camera. So it’s pretty exciting times coming for our industry.
Ed: What I found interesting with the presentation was that it’s not just a new large format camera being announced but that it’s a whole new system, it’s a new series of lenses to go with the camera, it’s a new mount and it’s also a new lens data system – and it’s all compatible with other ALEXA accessories. Stephen: That’s exactly right, and also many more DOPs in New Zealand are finally going to be able to start shooting in large format. For the last couple of years, they’ve watched films like The Revenant that have been shot on these large format cameras, the ARRI Super 65, but have not been able to get their hands on one because they’re very expensive. I was just talking with the ARRI rentals rep, Pete McCaffrey, who said that, in order to get an ARRI Super 65 camera, it has to come out of Europe, and for very complicated political reasons ARRI Rentals Europe look after New Zealand; ARRI Rentals London look after Australia – you would think it would be USA, but it’s a very complex process that goes back many years with the result that the ARRI 65 hasn’t been practically unavailable to New Zealanders. To be honest, to be fair, it has come here to shoot things like Ghost in the
Page 21
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Shell but DOPs in New Zealand have not had access to a large format camera. Ed: But this LF is going to be pretty close to the level of the 65? Stephen: Pretty close. I’m hearing from some of the DOPs I talk to that they’re very excited that they can now get their hands on a large format camera. They have been shooting for years and years on Super 35, they know it down pat, they know what the lenses do, they know what the camera does. This is exciting, this is going to allow them to push boundaries and to go “oh, it can do that” or “fantastic now I can get that.” So for a DOP that’s exciting to be able to push boundaries and this camera will allow local DOPs to do that.
it, but look, ARRI are only across the ditch in Sydney and they’ve got some amazing techs over there. We’ve got incredible support with ARRI so we’re not worried about the support at all. ARRI Australia/NZ are 100% behind us with this new technology. Ed: So when does the first of many arrive at Imagezone? Stephen: I think it’s about April and I know we’ve got one; I know there’s a certain gentleman ( and I’m not going to name names ) who lives in the South Island around the Queenstown area, he’s ordered one. So there’s going to be a couple in New Zealand for a start. Ed:
We look forward to seeing the results.
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Now it’s up to the local producers to give the money to allow their DOPs to push those boundaries. Ed: And they’re not going to have to learn a lot of new things are they, because it’s the standard ALEXA workflow, but it’s just that things are bigger? Stephen: They’re not going to have to learn new things in terms of the technical side of things; they’re going to have to learn new things in terms of what this lens focal length looks like on large format, how they frame. So new compositions is what they’re going to be learning, but for a DOP, learning how to compose a shot a different way, that’s exciting. So I think that a lot of DOPs are very excited to see what images they can create with these new lenses and this new camera. Workflow – they’re not going to have to learn a thing; composition – artistically they’ve got a whole new set of tools, so they’ll be like a kid in a candy store. Ed: it?
Are you going to go to Munich to learn how to fix
Stephen: Aaah I won’t … I’ll be going to Sydney to look at some of the new things. We may end up sending one of our technicians to Munich to learn about
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Stephen very happy to have his hands on the ALEXA LF … and he’s not letting go!
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