ARRI Forum

Hi,

I have two requests in relation to the Alexa Mini user buttons on the side of the camera. I dont have a viewfinder, I dont like the mini one so please dont suggest I buy one.

1. When the camera looses power during a take you normally get a data corruption warning. If you don't have the mini viewfinder on the camera this warning does not appear over SDI and there is no way to clear the warning other to press record on and off. This is fine if the card is not full but if you continue to record on that card till its full when it comes time to reformat the card the record on and off button doesn't work to clear the data corruption warning and camera locks up. The only way to format is to clear the warning via the wifi menu and then you can reformat. Now I know good practice is not to loose power during a take but I shoot a lot of documentary work where most of the time what is happening is out of my control and you want every last uninterrupted second you can get. So my request is to enable the data corruption warning over sdi and enable any button to dismiss the warning.

2. The playback shortcut is awesome on the side of the camera but not being able to fast forward or rewind is really annoying. The other thing I do a lot is utilise the mini's 200fps capability and so there is a lot of time at the beginning of a take that needs to be fast forwarded. My other function request is to enable the clip selection user buttons on the camera to go into fast forward and rewind when held down in playback mode. It would be great to be able to different desired fast forward/rewind speeds to the buttons example a 4x or a 10x fast forward. It would also be nice to be able to configure them to both be fast forward at different speeds if we are shooting a mix of 200fps and 25fps.

Thanks Michael

I absolutely second this.

The Starlite will do FFWD starting SUP 5. I am checking what we can do with the user buttons.

We are about to release the CCP-1, which is basically the MVF-1 viewfinder without the eyepiece part (just the LCD, the buttons and an old style rotary encoder) - would this be of any interest to you?

Michael, I'm interested in the CCP-1 but it's also crazy that you can't control the camera without an external device, I know it's the price to pay for a compact design, but I think the whole menu could be workable with just the current buttons if you guys wanted to do it.

I am excited about the ccp-1 for sure. Any word on pricing and when it will be available in the states?

Obviously have zero idea how this all works so please take this request with a grain of salt but it would be amazing if there was a way to send the menus and other data thru SDI and navigate with the user buttons. Either that or a high quality 5-7 inch led monitor that is sharp and accurate enough to operate off of and also has built in touch control (much like red). This alone could really streamline the experience and lighten the cameras footprint significantly.

Hi Michael,

To be honest I'm not super excited by the cpp-1 as it means more, cables more weight, more things to fit on the camera and more things to go wrong. I'm sure it has its place but the majority of the settings for camera can be changed pretty quick in the short cut keys and for me I'm hand held a lot and like the camera as light as possible.

Full menu control from the camera user buttons would be great, it wouldn't be very hard to implement and would be really helpful. Not just for people like me who don't use the viewfinder but also on gimbals and steadicam. The web remote is good but it's nice if you don't have your phone on you to quickly adjust something. It could be done in similar way to the erase card shortcut where you hold function and tap the 3 button twice. Instead of 3 button it could be the 1 button twice to activate the menu and that could take you into the list menu. From there you could navigate with buttons 1 and 2 for up and down 3 as select and function as a back key.

Having full touch screen control would be great but these days currently the starlite doesn't make much sense as it doesn't do anything more than the camera buttons. Also I am using high bright monitors for outdoors so the starlite monitor would again kind of be dead weight just another add on just to control the menu. If the starlite could control everything and came in different sizes in with daylight options then it would be great.

Whilst you are on this forum I would also like to ask about two other requests.

1) I would love the ability to change the color and brightness of the camera inforomation displayed on the screen. I use waveforms to check my exposure on my smallhd monitor and I can't see highlight clipping as the white text clips the waveform. It was suggested to just use a clean Sdi feed out of the camera but but that doesn't make sense as I operate using a monitor so I have no way of seeing my settings or if I am recording or not. When I am running multiple monitors the director and camera assistant always want that info to know when I'm recording and check settings etc.

2) In terms of checking exposure it would be great to have another exposure setting like false color that is showing just raw clipping highlights and blacks. As I said I use my smallhd for exposure but that is just off the Rec 709 so you always know there is a stop or two more information but it would be nice to know exactly how much. Sometimes, especially when shooting natural light you want to compensate the exposure to get a little more in the shadows a or highlights and you don't know how far you can push it. I was using the example it's like not knowing how fast your car is because the speedometer isn't accurate so you always have to drive slower. If you were late to work you want to know the fastest you can drive without speeding, cinematography is sometimes like this

Besides this I love my camera and thank you for everything so far!!!

Thanks Michael