Alexa 65 emulation
hello, I am interested in recreating the Alexa 65 film camera using Cinematographer PRO.
I saw the 'Create a Camera and Lens with example' tutorial, but I could use a little help overall
tbh, I'm trying to recreate the film look of 'All Quiet Along the Western Front (2022)', which I know uses film LUTs for color grading
I found the camera's specs here as follows:
- 65mm digital cinema camera
- ARRI A3X CMOS Sensor
- Aperture equivalent to 5-perf 65mm film
- 6560 x 3102 Resolution
- 54.12 x 25.58 mm Sensor size (active image area) Sensor image diagonal: 59.87 mm
- ARRI XPL Mount (64 mm diameter)
- LDS metadata
- Same accessories as ALEXA XT cameras
- Electronic Shutter 5° – 358°, adjustable in 1/10° increments 0.75 to 27 fps (upgrade to 60 fps planned for early 2015)
- EI 160 to EI 3200. Base is EI 800
- Dynamic Range greater than 14 stops
- Shoots: Uncompressed ArriRAW
Hey, thanks for getting in touch!
Cinematographer is for simulating camera equipment not for post process workflows like color grading. It basically tries to give you the same base image the film crew would have gotten, while filming but before post processing. You will have to do that step with the default tools Unreal offers. You can access them in the Real Camera Component as child of the Cinematographer camera you use. There you can modify the color grading.
But first, the High-end Cinema Camera is based on the ARRI Alexa 65 and the High-end Cinema Lenes are based on the ARRI Cinema Lenes. So no need to create a new camera or lenses, you can just use the High-end Cinema presets!
Since I don’t know what kind of information you are looking for, here a a few observation about the movies look and how to implement them in Unreal:
The movie seems to emulate a tungsten film stock, which looks rather neutral when exposed with artificial light sources but tints very blue under natural light. You can achieve that look either by using the color grading tools or by using the camera components white balance and using the correct kelvin values for your light sources. The contrast of your reference film is very low and the colors are very muted. So stick with the Dynamic Range Simulation of the Cinematographer Camera of 14 or higher and maybe desaturate the image in the color grading images a bit.
These are my first observations without having watched the movie myself. I hope this information helps! If you are still missing something please ask. Good Luck!