welcome to another episode of comparing Hollywood's movie camera the Arri Alexa to
something quite a bit less significant. so I did a couple different shoots this
week with this camera and I rigged this right next to it so we can look at the
footage side-by-side. quick introduction this is the Arri Alexa which is probably
one of the most common cameras used in Hollywood movies and TV shows and this
on the other hand is the Canon 80D, what I use for travel videos, youtube
videos, personal stuff like filming my cats. I'm just kidding I hate cats and oh
my god that's gonna get me so many dislikes. so let's start off by watching
some footage from the DSLR.
now let's watch the same set of clips except for this time with the Arri Alexa
let's see if you guys can tell difference.
so how much of a difference did you get.. *coughs* sorry I just finished eating a burrito.
but did you guys notice a difference? the first thing I'm noticing is the
color of the skin tones and also the dynamic range which we'll talk more
about in a bit. I do think the DSLR is hanging in there pretty well but at the
same time it is sunset and if you're filming during golden hour and it's not
looking good, you're doing something pretty wrong I don't know how you don't
know what you're doing man. so enough of these cliche Sunset Beach shots let's
move on to blue hour where I think things start to look a little bit more
interesting. so now we're moving over to downtown Los Angeles to film some yoga
with Michaela.
now it may look like the white balance settings are off, but no
both cameras were manually matched and there's been no color correction done
in post. the shifting colors you're seeing is all part of Aries magical
color science. so when I have the Arri Alexa shooting just after sunset it's
one of my favorite times to shoot. there's usually this nice blue glow in
the air and the subject tends to pop out at you. but if I'm shooting on a DSLR I
think I'd rather go back to filming during sunset. as we enter this colorful
light tunnel that we actually aren't supposed to film in, we see exactly how
refined Arri's color science actually is. I mean Apocalypse Now is filmed on an
Arri camera so they've had a little bit of time to figure this out. and probably
one of the reasons why they're shooting the new Blade Runner on it because look
how rich these colors are. and that's one of the reasons why I always insist on
shooting on the Arri Alexa is because I swear they secretly install these beauty
filters and every single one of their cameras. And unless you're filming a
documentary about the Mars rover you're most likely gonna be filming a lot of
people. this camera just makes people look alive and natural no matter what
kind of crazy lights you throw at it.
by now you've probably fallen into a
trance by watching Mika do yoga, but I'm so sorry I'm gonna snap you right out of
it we still have more footage to look at. how to load into a balcony this is
efficiency here's a scene with Kristina and Marlon. the look we were going for
was a dimly lit room that's cozy but still with a lot of contrast. with the
Alexa it looks like a soft warm light wrapping around Kristina's face, but on
the DSLR it looks like this harsh light. so as we get over to this part of the
room the DSLR starts to look absolutely terrible. and a lot of that is actually
because of the lenses the Alexa has high-speed cine lenses and the DSLR I
didn't have anything fast for at the time which is why you're seeing so much
grain. but under the right circumstances the DSLR can perform really well for
example one of my favorite films, Whiplash, they film most of that on the
Arri Alexa, but they filmed a couple of the inserts with a Canon 7D. and on Mad
Max they destroyed a dozen 5D Mark IIs filming some of the action sequences.
although I do remember them saying they limited all the DSLR shots to a second
or so before the viewers will notice a difference in quality. and also I don't
think they really wanted to destroy a dozen Alexuses. this is the price of a
Lamborghini, but like you know at 2005 three previous owners salvage title and
this is the price of like a nice dining room table. but the DSLR does have some
super convenient options that the Alexa doesn't. auto-exposure, auto-focus, built-in
audio, high-res photos, time-lapse settings and of course it's small and
lightweight. more lightweight enough for me to film while I'm riding my
motorcycle is this incredibly unsafe and stupid? absolutely! but I'm trying to
prove a point okay? one of the legs fell off this tripod while we were doing that.
found it! Bam! alright that's let's not do that anymore. and if you're mounting
it on to an electronic stabilizer like the Ronin, the DSLR is a hundred times
easier because you can literally mount it in just a few minutes and operate it
yourself. first the Alexa needs to be stripped down to be balanced and since
the camera is so heavy you have to put on one of these vests which makes you
look like a lame Android from the future. so in addition you're gonna need a
wireless follow focus system and another person to pull focus. and ideally at
least a third person to control the gimbal. but when you have the team that
Alexa becomes very useful it has all these professional tools built in like
exposure tools, internal ND filters, timecode SDI ports, wireless control,
codecs that are better for special effects and many other things to
optimize workflow when working the crew. so for this last part let's
hang out with Angel and Viola who's just doing their boring daily routine you
know. now let's talk a little bit about dynamic range to put it simply, a good
dynamic range will let you see something really bright and really dark in the
same shot. so here's a good example, we're in a dark environment with a really
bright fire coming into the shot. this kind of lighting really puts a camera to
the test. now if you look at the flames you'll notice that the alexa has a lot
more details in the flame, opposed to the DSLR where the flames just look white.
you'll notice that the alexa not only sees more in the brights, but also in the
darks. so in a situation like this. the Arri Alexa looks very even and exposed
opposed to the DSLR where it looks either too bright or too dark depending
on what part of the frame you're looking at. and remember that this is the Arri
Alexa's default color profile. if you roll it back and look at the raw file, you can
see exactly how much detail is maintained in this shot. so the color
grading options are endless. with a DSLR you're much more limited to your color
grading options because of how much of the information is blown out or
underexposed. and of course the slow motion on the Arri Alexa is pretty
awesome. now with all that in mind if we go back to Romina's footage we can
really see that the dynamic range is taking place in every shot. the sky looks
white and blown out on the DSLR, but you can still see the orange glow on the
Alexa. same situation here were the reflections on the water and the sky
also looks blown out on the DSLR, by the way Romina is a funny travel youtuber
clearly she's super cool if you haven't noticed by her, her...tribal dance and her
very elegant monkey dance. and I know you're looking for some cool people to
follow on Instagram so make sure you check out Michaela, Kristina and Marlon
and huge thanks to Angel and Viola who's always down to risk their lives for the
sake of great footage. I'm on there too, but my feed's pretty lame, so please lower
your expectations. Jonatan spend the man behind the camera
for many of these shots and music's from my good friends Gothic Tropic and
Rhodes, go check them out add them to your Spotify playlist by their cassette
I don't know you to you.