ARRI ALEXA 65

This week starts with big news: ALEXA 65. It has been introduced as a complete system by ARRI Rental, and will only be available through their rental services.

ARRI Alexa 65 consists of a 65mm digital camera, a set of custom-designed fixed and zoom lenses, and new tools for efficient workflows.

The camera

The new Alexa 65 has been manufactured by ARRI in Germany to ARRI Rental’s specifications. It could be said to be a scaled-up version of an Alexa XT or the evolution of the 765 film camera, first introduced in 1989.

It features a 65mm CMOS sensor, the equivalent of film of the same size and 5 perforations. With this, ARRI wants to hark back to the mid-20th century, when the 65mm format was appearing all over the world as an inspirational format that provided a larger and much more powerful frame.

This sensor has exactly the same small photosite design found in the 35mm Alexa digital cameras, but on a much larger size.

Its maximum available resolution (Open Gate) is 6K, reaching 6560 x 3102. In addition, the Alexa 65 offers the same sensitivity, dynamic range of 14 stops and color naturalness as the other Alexas.

Recording formats

One issue in common with Alexa XT is ARRIRAW recording (between 20 and 27fps).

During the development of the camera, ARRI Rental and Codex have worked together to create a new workflow that processes ARRIRAW images with the full resolution of Alexa 65. Therefore, depending on the shooting environment, either the Vault S or the new Rental Lab 65 can be used.

Capturing on Codex XR discs, with a capacity of 480 GB, it is possible to record 11 minutes of ARRIRAW at 24fps.

The new workflow also allows clips (dailies) to be generated in ProRes 4444 HD in real time, starting from the original image. These files can then be transcoded to other formats if necessary.

Custom designed lenses

A set of fixed and zoom lenses has also been released as part of the Alexa 65 system, intended to cover the levels of detail the camera can capture. Included are the Zoom 65, 50-110mm, and eight Prime 65 lenses, ranging from 24mm to 300mm, developed using Hasseblad’ s technique in collaboration with IB/E Optics.

These lenses feature an XPL mount equipped with ARRI’s Lens Data System (LDS). Thanks to the recording of metadata along with the image, we can obtain precise information about focus, aperture and zoom settings.

On this page you will find all the detailed information about Alexa 65.