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"Medium format" movie camera from Arri

gazwas

Active member
Wow that is an interesting development especially considering the link with Hasselblad.

Hasselblad share their lenses so does that mean ARRI share their video knowledge.......Mmmm.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Wow that is an interesting development especially considering the link with Hasselblad.

Hasselblad share their lenses so does that mean ARRI share their video knowledge.......Mmmm.
I wouldn't mind that sensor on a Hasselblad, but I guess this one isn't for sale for any sensible amount of cash.
 
You can't buy the thing, only rent it. So I guess it's not a mass-produced system :)
According to the article, the reason they're not selling it is because of all the companies and individuals Arri spoke to, no one was actually interested in buying this camera, so they're hoping someone at least rents it. It's a very specialized camera system that few cinematographers have used.

Since the original Alexa costs around $80k, and up to $120k for a complete working camera (another $120k for the lenses mind you), I'm not surprised that this one would be quite a bit more expensive to own, especially since it shoots only 6K Raw; that gives you a only 11 minutes of recording time per 480GB of data, although by film standards it's actually quite a lot, especially 65mm.

I'm hoping that this is what medium format backs/cameras will be capable of doing in the near future for the rest of us mere mortals, but my biggest disappointment, as Leica has shown with the S 007, is that no one wants to invest in better electronics to sample the whole sensor. Using a 1:1 center crop for video should be against the law or something, if you can't sample the whole sensor, don't even bother putting in video, let alone market it as a feature.
 

BlinkingEye

New member
A couple of questions.

1. Isn't 65mm what IMAX format is shot in? If so what lenses are used on IMAX cameras?

2. Related is this question. I am a but surprised that Hasselblad lenses are used. What is the number of lines these Hasselblad lenses can "see?"
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Re your question 2, I'm not sure why you'd be concerned about the resolution of the Hasselblad lenses - their stills cameras have higher resolution and smaller pixels than the sensor in the Arri.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Yes, that's a bit over 20MP with an AA filter, so the resolution is nothing to write home about...but cranking that out at up 60fps when they can support the output is pretty impressive! Is the projection technology getting this good?

That was always the area where film still decimated digital...a good slide projector transfers nearly all the resolution and color contained in the film directly onto the screen, while digital projectors (at least the early ones) tended to be terrible. Is there a mainstream digital projection system that would be capable of really showing off that resolution, DR and color? I would love to project my S2 images at full resolution! I won't hold my breath though...
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Yes, that's a bit over 20MP with an AA filter, so the resolution is nothing to write home about...but cranking that out at up 60fps when they can support the output is pretty impressive! Is the projection technology getting this good?

That was always the area where film still decimated digital...a good slide projector transfers nearly all the resolution and color contained in the film directly onto the screen, while digital projectors (at least the early ones) tended to be terrible. Is there a mainstream digital projection system that would be capable of really showing off that resolution, DR and color? I would love to project my S2 images at full resolution! I won't hold my breath though...
A Sony 4K projector for home theatres is around $25,000 and has been on the market for a couple of years already. Professional gear is probably much better and much more expensive. But this is for video/movie. For stills, the challenges are different. I doubt we'll see anything digital that resolves like projected medium format Velvia this side of Christmas...
 
So this is practically a digital IMAX camera? Fascinating...

Concerning the Hasselblad lenses: I was outright stunned when I watched "Batman The Dark Knight" in an IMAX Theatre some years ago (the real IMAX, no digital) and I was even more impressed when I read that Nolan had used Hasselblad lenses to shoot the movie. There are some articles around this on the web. Think it was 50/2,8, 80/2,8 110/2 and 150/2,8 what he had used.

Since then I always wonder, this is how my slides would look like if I had such a powerful projector and large screen...
 
So this is practically a digital IMAX camera? Fascinating...
Not really... IMAX is 70mm film rotated sideways and uses the width of the film for the image height, versus 65mm which uses the film width for image width, in the same way that 6X9 medium format is rotated sideways compared to 6x4.5. It's the same film, but loads length-way, and as a result 3x as much film has to travel through the camera compared to 65mm to maintain the same frame rate, and 4x as much as 35mm; an incredible challenge.

Concerning the Hasselblad lenses: I was outright stunned when I watched "Batman The Dark Knight" in an IMAX Theatre some years ago (the real IMAX, no digital) and I was even more impressed when I read that Nolan had used Hasselblad lenses to shoot the movie. There are some articles around this on the web. Think it was 50/2,8, 80/2,8 110/2 and 150/2,8 what he had used.
Bluntly speaking, nearly all the 70mm lenses made were re-housed Hasselblad lenses, made to be user-friendly for motion film (same size, gears, smooth aperture, et.al). I doubt anyone wanted to produce lenses specifically for this format as it was far too niche, more so than 65mm.
The Dark Knight was actually a mix of camera systems, so every scene where you see anamorphic distortion wasn't shot in IMAX because there aren't any anamorphic lenses for that size, but 65mm and 35mm do have them. If you watched TDK in an IMAX theater you should have noticed the aspect ratio change throughout the film since IMAX is 1.43:1, while 65mm with 1.25x Ana is 2.2:1 and 35mm with 2x Ana is 2.39:1; the IMAX version of the film ran with all the original aspect ratios preserved.
 
Thanks for the explanation! So no digital IMAX, but impressive nonetheless...
It was indeed a real IMAX theatre were I watched TDK with the aspect ratios changing throughout the film. This was - technical wise - the most impressive piece of cinematography I have seen so far...
Years later I watched two other movies in the same theatre but then I was quite puzzled because the image quality was nowhere like I had remembered it. I then learned that they had exchanged the IMAX projector for a digital one.
 
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