It has finally come to our door steps. The Arri Alexa. It is an Arri built RED Epic competitor. The RED One MX sensor boasts 2 more stops of latitude than the previous RED One. This pushes it's dynamic range to 11 usable stops of latitude. Maybe a small amount more but it gets a bit noisy in my opinion if you push the footage too far. Regardless, the Alexa is boasting 14 stops of lattitude under ideal case scenarios. We're not getting to film latitude here. Now it's not an exact science from a DN Range chart but hey, the proof is in the footage. In which case we really can't fully use the camera due to the fact the firmware does not support the sxs cards that are INSTALLED on the camera. You can only record to an HDcam or Cinedeck at this point. So you can spend an additional 400 for an HDcam recording deck or more for a Cinedeck mostly dedicated the SI-2K system, or just wait. I think I'll just wait for them to update the firmware to support SxS. No one wants to be tethered by a BnC cable. The camera is heavier than expected but it lives up to the Arri built tanks of the film era.
The Red Epic is supposed to resolution wise have more however it's dynamic range and noises in the blacks is what I'm most concerned about. Another fact to remember is that the EPIC may or may not exist at this point. Some sources say it's unusable due to bugs and others say it's incredible which will be a jump in cinema technology. Either way, I just want to see how they physically compare side by side.
For more information:
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/freshdv/story/epic_vs_alexa_dynamic_range/
Here is some DN Range charts in a test shoot from the link above.
http://provideocoalition.com/images/uploads/red_alexa_dr_charts.jpg
Location: HD Camera Rentals
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