With a sensor that has an active area larger than the ARRI’s 765 film gate, with a dynamic range of over 14 stops, with 6,5k uncompressed ARRIRAW, all housed in a slightly larger ALEXA housing, the ALEXA 65 is clearly a camera for legendary sized shots and incredible detail.
The main tech specs for the ARRI 65 are:
- 65mm Digital Cinema Camera
- ARRI A3X CMOS sensor
- 5-perf 65mm (full camera aperture)
- 6560 x 3102 resolution (maximum recordable)
- 54.12 x 25.58 mm Sensor size (active image area)
- Weight: 10.5 kg / 23.2 lb
- ARRI XPL Mount (64mm diameter)
- 200 - 3200 ISO. Base is 800 ISO
- Dynamic Range: >14 stops
- Uncompressed ARRIRAW
- LDS metadata
- Electronic Shutter 5° - 358°, adjustable in 1/10° increments
- 0.75 to 27 fps (upgrade to 60 fps planned for early 2015)
Apart from its size, the ARRI 65 is in essence an ALEXA XT, with all its easy to use features and functions, the ergonomics and menus, even the recoding median will be the familiar Codex Capture drive after Q1 2015 or the Codex Vault for the time being. This makes the ALEXA 65mm compatible with all the existing ARRI accessories, workflows, and rigs with the exception of the lenses. For this ARRI has launched a range of 65 mm prime and zoom lenses that do justice to the exceptional levels of detail capable of being captured by the camera. The 50-110 mm Zoom 65 and the eight Prime 65 lenses, ranging from 24 mm to 300 mm, utilize state-of-the-art optics from Hasselblad, housed in classically robust and uniform lens barrels co-developed with IB/E Optics.
The overall performance, cost-efficiency and flexibility of the ALEXA 65 will allow many high-profile productions the choice to shoot with 65 mm digital in their entirety, or alternatively, utilize the scale and fidelity of the large capture format for selected establishing shots or high-impact VFX sequences.
Regardless though of its use the only single large difference between the ALEXA XT and the ALEXA 65 apart from the sensor size, is that the latter can only be rented and not purchased,nevertheless, spectacular images are expected from the DoP and production which choose to use this unique camera.