ARRI’s camera simulators are one of the most efficient and comfortable ways to train your camera menu skills. It’s online, free, and educating. Recently ARRI has added a new simulator dedicated to its new ALEXA Mini LF.
ARRI camera simulators
Arri camera simulators allow exploring the camera menu straight from your couch at home. It’s a free online tool that mimics the very same menu functionality and options in a real ARRI camera. Those simulators have a lot of potential to educate shooters even before they are experienced with ARRI in a real-world scenario. ARRI has developed simulators that are designed specifically for each of ALEXA cameras (LF, AMIRA, Mini, SXT, XT, and Studio). You can learn more about the simulators on the ARRI Certified Online Training for Camera Systems course. Go here to read our review regarding that course. If you’d like to try out the LF simulator, follow this link.
ALEXA Mini LF simulator
The most recent simulator that has been added is the Mini LF simulator. According to ARRI: “The ALEXA Mini LF Simulator follows the same principle we’ve established with the ALEXA Mini Simulator: it is half camera simulator and half camera exploration tool. By clicking on “explorer,” you can familiarize yourself with the camera body and the Multi Viewfinder 2 layout. The “simulator” interface on the viewfinder’s flip-out display offers access to the new style menu design of our ALEXA Mini LF camera.”. Go here to try it by yourself.
The ALEXA Mini LF Simulator follows the same principle we’ve established with the ALEXA Mini Simulator: it is half camera simulator and half camera exploration tool
ARRI
In case you’d like going deeper into the AELXA Mini LF functionality and implementation, you might find the Certified Online Training for Large-Format Camera System very beneficial. We reviewed this course, as well. Go here to read our impressions.
Pushing into the Large Format imagery
It seems that LF (Large-Format) cinematography is one of the hottest jargon in the filmmaking industry for now. Everyone pursuits after the “Large Format look”. This hypothesis weaknesses the good and “old” Super 35 traditional format. Going off-topic, we wrote numerous pieces regarding the rise of Large Format cinematography. We proved that the large-format sensor expands filmmakers’ creative choices and allows for more artistic possibilities. The main disadvantage is the price. Large format sensor needs horse-powered high technology to utilize this massive amount of data. Thus a large format cinema camera is costly.
ARRI itself has three large-format options: 65, LF, and the Mini LF (which recently was embraced by Netflix). By the way, there is no simulator for the ALEXA 65, so ARRI should consider developing one.
Conclusion
Cinema camera simulators offer first-hand, simplified, and straightforward ways of knowing the camera before renting it and using it in real-world production. It’s efficient, educating, and free. So pick your ARRI, and start playing with its menu to improve your camera skills.
