Another major advantage of the ARRI large-format system for Deakins is the low-light performance and lack of digital noise. “I was blown away, with the LF, by the difference if you shoot 1,600 [EI] or 3,200,” he says. “I know you can always underexpose, but there should be something like a 4,800 setting, because it’s remarkable, the image quality. Yes, you get a certain amount of noise at 3,200, but it’s minimal. On a future film I could quite imagine myself shooting the whole thing at that setting, to have that little bit of noise.”
For brighter scenes, Deakins made use of the ALEXA Mini LF’s internal FSND (full spectrum neutral density) filters. And where necessary, he supplemented them with matching external FSND filters made by ARRI with the same high-quality glass and coatings. “After 1.8 on most NDs, you start noticing shifts in the color and quality of the image,” he says. “But the NDs in the Mini LF are very, very clean, and we had a set of the same NDs to put in front of the lens…I was really pleased with them.”
At the same time as testing the ALEXA LF, Deakins also tested ARRI’s Signature Prime lenses, which are purpose-built for large-format digital cinematography. “I have always used primes, he says. “I started off with the Zeiss Distagons and Planars, then Cooke S4s, then I went to the Master Primes. So coming to the LF, we did a lot of tests with various lenses, but for me, the Signatures are the cleanest I’ve seen.”
“I don’t like vignetting; I don’t like breathing when I’m shifting focus,” continues Deakins. “I want the sharpest, the cleanest; I want a lens that shows the world, or records the world, the way I see it, which is—I’ve got pretty good eyesight, so it’s pretty sharp. The image that the LF and the Signature produces seems more like what my eyes see than anything else I’ve experienced so far.”