Here Comes the ARRI AMIRA

ARRI has met with some success in digital filmmaking with their ALEXA camera. As just one indication of their dominance, the ALEXA was used on three-quarters of this year’s Best Picture nominees. It’s been praised for its image quality, ease of use and ruggedness. But it’s not cheap, and it’s not light.

ARRI last year announced the AMIRA, and described it as a documentary camera. It’s smaller and lighter than the ALEXA, but if you were hoping for a significantly cheaper camera, you’ll be disappointed; the base AMIRA is $39,999. For those on a budget, renting the camera remains the way to go.

The AMIRA is available in three different “packages.” The hardware is the same, but each package adds different compression software options. Significantly, the base model lacks Log C support, while the Premium package adds ProRes 4444 and 2K recording.

ARRI expects to ship the AMIRA shortly, and at a recent event at Rule Boston Camera, we talked to ARRI technical sales rep Guenter Noesner about the AMIRA.

Filmmaker: What’s the difference between the AMIRA and the ALEXA?

Noesner: The AMIRA records only compressed codecs. All the ProRes codecs, 4444, 422, HQ and 422 LT or ProRes Proxy. The ALEXA will record RAW or compressed codecs. The ALEXA can switch between 4:3 and 16:9 so you can use anamorphic lenses as well as spherical lenses, while the AMIRA can only do 16:9, so no anamorphic lenses.

The maximum speed on the ALEXA is 120 fps, on the AMIRA it’s 200 fps.

The LUT capability is different. On the ALEXA it’s only 1D based looks, on the AMIRA it’s 3D based looks.

On the ALEXA you can only adjust ASC CDL levels, making RGB, Chroma and brightness adjustments. In 3D based LUTS you can change the Rec 709 signal itself; adjust the knee — black levels — hue adjustments, RGB adjustments, which gives you more control from the coloring side (and you can) have a preview look in your camera while you’re shooting.

Filmmaker: What are the differences between the three different models of the AMIRA?

Noesner: The physical hardware is exactly the same on all three models. There’s the Base, Advanced, and the Premium package. The Base package lets you only record Rec 709 with a maximum of 100 fps. The Advanced model lets you shoot 200 fps and adds the ProRes 422 HQ codec, and the premium model adds 2K recording, ProRes 4444 recording and unlimited 3D based looks