WHY THEY WON | FEATURE
IMAGE Shot on an 85mm DNA LF prototype on an Alexa 65 in LF mode. The out-of-focus areas in this close-up roll off softly, bringing your attention to the details of her eyes
for establishing shots; being 21mm you’re not going to get as much distortion. The 21mm isn’t among the first batch of lenses, it starts with the 25mm (standard 18mm). To physically find the 21mm lens glass is harder than the others, plus Arri Rental feels that you’d want wider lenses to resolve a little better, because they are generally used for those establishing or wide shots. Andrew Prior, head of Camera Technology & Development at Arri Rental, comments on the difference: “A lot of our DNA glass – due its vintage heritage – has a lower contrast and softer feel. I don’t want to say it’s not as sharp, it just has a softer feel to it. We didn’t want the wider lens, because we’re also de-tuning them to get too mushy or soft; that can be an issue with old wide lenses.” DIFFERENT INTERNAL DESIGN The new DNA LF range also has a slightly different design internally as they have been purpose-built to not only be de-tuneable in that they can move lens groupings internally – effecting the transmission of the light – but that is now a measurable scale, We used Arri Rental DNA glass; these are all rehoused and rebalanced vintage lenses
ABOVE The Arri Rental development team accepting the Optics award for the DNAs
focal lengths – 36mm T2, 110mm T2 and a 120mm T2.3. The new lenses are more than likely as a result of the last two years of prime DNA use, which includes the lack of fast lenses – a capture bugbear given the huge popularity of the camera. Getting to a T2 or faster for medium format glass is not an easy thing to do. Arri Rental is also extending its experimentation with some uncoated, extreme contrast new glass that it’s calling DNA X; this is beyond, for instance, what the Canon K35s could offer, but there is a demand for this type of look. “We’re going to be experimenting with this X series, which we’ll release later in the year. In the simplest terms, these are uncoated and heavily de-tuned variants of the
as we mentioned in last month’s special. De-tuning can also be achieved through coatings. Ironically, all this adjustment makes the lens worse, but as Prior points out, “worse isn’t necessarily bad”. Globally there will be 22 sets of the full range, which goes up to a 135mm. De-tuning lenses isn’t for everyone and the DNA lens range has been built to look great anyway. However, Arri Signature Prime lenses are waiting in the wings, which are of much higher grade with a range from 12mm to 280mm and with a fast T-stop of T1.8. NEW PRIME DNA There are also new prime DNA lenses for the Arri Alexa 65 camera with three new
AUGUST 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 51
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