CREATE CATEGORY BaM™Award Nominee – ARRI ALEXA LF
ARRI has been making movie cameras for more than a hundred years, and our equipment and services are used by some of the most creative and successful filmmakers in the world.
The ALEXA LF system comprises our Large Format Camera, Signature Prime Lenses, an LPL leans mount, and PL to LPL lens adapter.
The ALEXA LF has the largest sensor of any full-frame cinema camera on the market. The sensor is slightly larger than full frame, and the camera records native 4.5K with ARRI’s best overall image quality. This allows filmmakers to explore an immersive large-format aesthetic, while retaining the sensor’s natural, pleasing skin tones and stunning capability for HDR and WCG workflows. Versatile recording formats, including efficient ProRes and uncompressed, unencrypted ARRIRAW up to 150 fps, satisfy all on-set workflow requirements.
Our new Signature Prime lenses are complex pieces of precision-engineered mechanical hardware that combine up to 27 pieces of glass with a unique magnesium casing which is 20% lighter than aluminum. The hardened aluminum gear rings are less prone to wear from friction and don’t have magnesium’s flammability. The section between the rings is wider than on other lenses. This allows for easier handling, and gives more space for lens motors to be fitted down one side, leaving scales visible.
A crucial element of this new system is the LPL lens mount, optimized for large-format sensors. A wider diameter and shorter flange focal depth allows the ARRI Signature Prime lenses and all future large-format optics to be small and lightweight, with a fast T-stop and pleasing bokeh –a combination of features that would not be possible within the confines of the PL lens mount.
The LPL mount will also be available for other ARRI cameras such as the ALEXA Mini, and is being licensed to third-party lens and camera manufacturers. Although the camera, lens mount and lenses are new, full compatibility with existing PL mount lenses and ALEXA accessories is a cornerstone of the system’s design. This is part of ARRIs commitment to customers, ensuring their investment is ‘future-proof’.
A PL-to-LPL adapter offers backwards compatibility with all PL mount lenses, be they Super 35 or full frame. The adapter attaches securely to the LPL lens mount without tools, allowing crews to rapidly switch between PL and LPL lenses on set. Cinematographers are therefore offered an unlimited lens choice, with complete lens metadata accessible from LDS-2, LDS-1 or /i lenses.
The system – the camera, the lenses and the mounts – is an industrial tool designed to help the world’s finest cinematographers capture unforgettable images that exude feeling, emotion, and warmth. But alongside that functionality, we think we have created something with classic good looks which brings with it a timeless aesthetic.
