Check out some fun facts about the ALEXA 35 released yesterday: The sensor party, new cooling concept, stray-light suppression, and torture tests. It appears that this beast went through a lot:-)

Better image quality than any other ALEXA

The ALEXA 35 was officially introduced yesterday. Senior Product Manager Marc Shipman-Mueller sheds a bit of light on the development process of this new expensive piece of toy. “The ALEXA 35 has significantly better image quality than all our previous cameras,” says Marc. The camera shines on four parameters and delivers more of them compared to other ALEXAs: More dynamic range, more contrast, more sensitivity, and more color. This is the first time that ARRI has developed the sensor by itself, based on 12 years of experience and knowledge accumulated by other sensors which were designed in partnership with On-Semiconductor.

We did a ‘happy dance’ in the lab.

ARRI

The sensor party

According to Marc: “When we fired up the new sensor and looked at it for the first time, we saw that it had a fantastic dynamic range. We did a ‘happy dance’ in the lab. There was a big party at the lab”. Indeed, the ALEXA 35 sensor grants 17 stops of dynamic range which is significantly higher compared to the 14.5 stops of the other ALEXA cameras. However, new problems have occurred.

The stray-light suppressor

As Marc elaborates: “But then when we looked closer, we noticed that the dark parts of the image… weren’t really dark, but a kind of grey and milky. It turns out, that with 17 stops of dynamic range you need to be really careful about stray light. And we found that there was a stray light between the lens and the sensor inside the camera. To combat that, we developed a sophisticated stray-light suppression technology that works in the camera and in the lens mount. Because of that, the ALEXA 35 can catch the full contrast range and character of each lens, to create deep and rich blacks. This stray-light suppression in the camera will help with any lens and lens mount combination”. Well, that reminds us of the stray-light issue that exposed the stitched line in the RED V-Raptor sensor. RED mitigated this by a flare-guard ‘device’.

We found that there was a stray light between the lens and the sensor inside the camera. To combat that, we developed a sophisticated stray-light suppression technology that works in the camera and in the lens mount.

ARRI

New cooling concept

The ALEXA 35 consumes more processing power in a more compact form factor. Hence, a new cooling mechanism had to be developed. Indeed, ARRI has invented a new cooling core which is a single chimney with one large fan that pulls the air from the bottom. That apparatus allows the dissipation of the heat in a more effective way.

REVEAL color science

We wrote about REVEAl color science before. However, Marc elaborates regarding the name itself. It appears that it’s called REVEAL because it reveals more from the image. REVEAL is used in the camera to create the ProRes image, the viewfinder image, SDI, and frag grabs. But it’s also available for 3rd party software tool providers, in order to process ARRIRAW. REVEAL contains six components (further reading here).

Torture test

Every ALEXA camera undergoes a torture test (Durability Test) as a part of its QC (Quality Control) process. As ARRI states: “Before shipping, every ALEXA 35 undergoes extreme temperature and vibration tests to ensure a lifetime of reliable service onset. During development, the camera was shaken, frozen, cooked, and subjected to blunt impact trauma, while connectors were repeatedly stress-tested by robotic arms. The result? ALEXA 35 is temperature resistant, splash and dust-proof, and built to last, delivering a safe return on investment”. Check out the video below which shows the torture test trying to break the ALEXA 35. It’s quite diverting 😉