ALEXA LF

The ALEXA LF gave me the freedom to shoot at ISOs as high as 3200. Even though many of our shots were wide angle, including close-ups, we carried lenses ranging from 15 mm to 800 mm on this movie. The ARRI EVF-2 viewfinder, with its wider gamut, is ideal for HDR deliverables. Every day I captured raw frame grabs from the camera’s SD card and graded them myself, which helped me maintain contrast and look throughout the movie. I’m in love with the organic skin tones of the ALEXA LF.

Cinematographer Vijay Kartik Kannan from the sets of the Indian movie “DOCTOR” (in thamizh language)

I love the combination of ALEXA LF and Signature Primes. On “The Singapore Grip” I shot with ALEXA LF as our main camera and Mini LF mainly on a gimbal. We tested many lenses before the shoot and the Signatures were the best, hands down. With large format I am getting images that are halfway between spherical and anamorphic, which fits certain narratives beautifully.

Cinematographer John Lee BSC (Known for: "The Singapore Grip", "Barkskins", "Baptiste", "The Widow" and many more)

Using the ALEXA LF gives me a greater dimensionality, a combination of a bigger field of view and a shallower depth of field. I easily could push the ALEXA LF to 2000 ASA with no visible noise but a very pleasant texture.

Cinematographer Greig Fraser ACS, ASC (Known for: Vice, Foxcatcher, Star Wars: Rogue One and Zero Dark Thirty and many more)

The ALEXA LF creates a painterly and cinematic image that I really love. Also it has the same built quality that I trust for many years. Since we liked the vibrations, we just hard mounted the cameras to our cars for our race scenes, but the camera never failed us.

Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, ASC, GSC using ALEXA LF on Ford v Ferrari (Known for: Nebraska, The Monuments Men, Downsizing and many more)

The ALEXA LF gives me the immersive beauty of large format with a rich image texture, I chose to match it with ARRI Signature Primes for their beautiful smooth skin tones and wide range of focal lengths.

Cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman AFC (Known for: The Artist, Populaire, OSS 117: Lost in Rio and many more)

After exhaustive tests with many cameras and lenses, my choice was clear: ALEXA Mini LF and Signature Prime lenses. I had found the perfect combination: the cameras with a large sensor, large pixels, intense blacks, skin tones in their natural color range, high latitude and versatility and the lenses with unmatched quality optics including a well-balanced relationship between definition, softness and contrast.

Cinematographer Javier Salmones AEC (Currently shooting "El Cid", a TV series for Amazon Prime; Known for: La Lengua de las Mariposas, The Retorned, Mallorca´s Songs and many more)

It’s an absolute joy to shoot with Tolan Films’s new ALEXA LF, the first of its kind in Turkey. Not only is it well-balanced and easy to handle, it’s capable of capturing detail and texture I find absolutely unprecedented. Combining it with ARRI Signature Primes gives me images that are both intimate and cinematic in scope.

Cinematographer Fatih Türker, GYD (Known for: I`m not one of you, Bu Sayilmaz, Delete me and many more)

Shooting with ALEXA LF and Signature Primes changes your perspective; you bring the audience closer to the subject, while at the same time you have more peripheral vision. It is very immediate and very cinematic. 

Cinematographer Milos Moore (Known for: Patrick Melrose, Stan Lee's Lucky Man and many more)

It was very exciting to use the LF. The DP Matt Gillan and I were very interested by the LF’s native form, Open Gate. We felt this aspect ratio added a sense of claustrophobia to our protagonist's story. The shoot for the ALEXA Challenge was tough, having to shoot 14 pages of script in 2 days during a storm. But we did it thanks to the tireless, hard work from our cast and crew. We are all very happy with the results, thanks ARRI!

Director Emma Swinton (Known for: Isabella, Unearthed and many more)

The ALEXA LF has fantastic clarity. There is so much more detail and roundness to the image, yet with the ability to keep the backgrounds soft, the image isn’t harsh or clinical. Skin tones are smooth and buttery.

Cinematographer Glen MacPherson ASC (Known for: Rambo, The Three Musketeers, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Resident Evil: Retribution, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and many more)

The ALEXA LF is a technical insurance and a high quality creative tool for us DPs. Both in the ease of handling, and in its resistance to adverse weather, the camera has accompanied us with absolute fidelity. I appreciate its density in blacks and the great variety of possibilities when working with textures.

Cinematographer Xavi Gimenez AEC (Known for: The Machinist, Agora, Transsiberian and many more)

The ALEXA LF is a very flexible camera because the weight works in its favour with the inertia of the camera. I’ve done frames that I’ve never done before and I could get the camera really close to the actors, so I was much more intimate with them than I have ever been before. I’m a big believer in large format.

Cinematographer Marc Windon (Known for: Jazavads Pred Sudom: With the Badger on Trial, Infiltration, Command Performance and many more)

Large format isn’t just about resolution, it’s a different relationship between the audience and the image. With the ALEXA LF we're able to capture all the beauty of longer focal lengths but with a wider field of view. This in turn lends itself to capturing images of truly cinematic quality.

Cinematographer Remi Adefarasin OBE, BSC (Known for: Elizabeth, Band of Brothers, Me Before You and many more)

We were trying to tell a story about wideness and freedom; the ALEXA LF worked really well. The depth of field is so small, creating its own world. It’s fantastic. 

Cinematographer Dan Laustsen ASC, DFF (Known for: The Shape of Water, John Wick: Chapter 2 and 3, Crimson Peak and many more)
 

Obviously it’s nice to have the extra resolution and the increased depth-of-field fall-off, but it’s the large image perspective that is particularly interesting. The perspective is truer and seemingly the image has more dimensional depth, even in very wide shots. This aesthetic of the LF is great, especially alongside the usual familiar attributes and features that you get with ALEXA cameras.

Cinematographer Andrew Stroud (Known for: Ice (2nd Unit cinematographer), Spartacus (2nd Unit cinematographer), The Lord of the Rings (assistant camera) and many more)

It really makes a huge difference, the color balance and the resolution are real game changers for me. Especially at night, I am pushing the camera with higher ASAs, and we all love it.

Cinematographer Matias Boucard (Known for: Pixels, SK1, David Nolande and many more)
 

LF is a revelation to DOPs.

Cinematographer Santosh Sivan ASC, ISC (Known for: Ashoka the Great, The Terrorist, Halo and many more)

I intentionally shot mundane subjects I wouldn’t normally cover, and the results got me really excited. The camera and lens captured every tonal nuance with unmatched detail, gradation and color. I love how the out-of-focus areas are rendered, contributing to a rich and vivid overall look.

Cinematographer Wang Yu (Known for: Suzhou River, Fengshen Trilogy, The Golden Era and many more)
 

Large format felt like the natural choice and I know when shooting with any camera in the ALEXA family I’m guaranteed beautiful colour rendering, wide dynamic range, and all in a ultra-reliable camera system. The ALEXA LF brings a generous, three dimensional quality to the image while still maintaining that cinematic, shallow depth of field I’m often looking for to give my subjects a real presence in the frame.

Cinematographer Josh Flavell ASC (Known for: "Emily", "Pimped" and many more)

I don’t think of this camera as being sharper, rather it has increased clarity.  The unique depth of field and visual compression were welcome additions to my tool box. Because I know this sensor so well already, I was able to immediately drop into the creative process rather than fussing with the camera.

Cinematographer Logan Schneider (Known for: Drunk History, Ave Maria Bamford and many more)

To me, the system embodies typical ARRI quality, but there is a new level of emotion to the images - a smoothness to the way the camera and lenses work together.

Cinematographer Tom Fährmann BVK (Known for: The Miracle of Bern, Ulzhan, Campus and many more)

The ALEXA LF creates a luscious image with the large sensor in fascinating slow motion, yet remains the rugged and reliable camera we have come to know and love.

Cinematographer Bill Bennett ASC (Known for: Kiss or Kill, In einem wilden Land, Outback and many more)

When you shoot large format and get closer to people with short focal lengths, I still have a slightly anamorphic character. The anamorphic character is not only technical, but it also has a painterly quality and this is an element which I didn’t experience with other formats so far.

Cinematographer Christoph Krauss BVK (Known for: Manifesto , Dogs of Berlin, Steig. Nicht. Aus! and many more)

I have been a fan of ALEXA from the beginning and the LF continues that tradition. The camera is easy to use, all the buttons are exactly where I expect. The skin tones are natural and there is a remarkable clarity to the images. It's almost brighter than the classic ALEXA, as if the larger sensor captures more light. We were aiming to make a modern film with a nostalgic feeling. The ALEXA LF enabled me to light minimally while capturing the essence of what we were going for. The silky smooth images are a remarkable testament to the quality of the ALEXA sensor. The large format sensor allowed me to get in close to the actors, and let their emotions guide us. The LF is a remarkable camera, it records beautiful images with a familiar and convenient form factor.

Cinematographer Chris Chomyn ASC (Known for: Como Caido del Cielo and many more)