ARRI ALEXA Mini Hands-On and First Footage at BVE 2015

by Nino LeitnerFebruary 26^th, 2015

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We are here at BVE 2015 in London and together with our UK man Tim Fok I had a chance to have a hands-on with the super lightweight Alexa Mini, and an extended chat with Arri product manager for cameras, Michael Jonas.

As might already have read in our news post about the new Alexa camera, the new “baby” Alexa is targeted at gimbal (like on a MoVi M15) and multicopter shooters.

However, when holding it in our hands we realized that this camera will also be very popular with “normal” shooters who want to stay extremely small without sacrificing the legendary Alexa quality – but they must also have the money (to either rent or buy body-only for €32,500), and the camera quite clearly isn’t a bargain.

It’s tinier than I thought it would be – it feels considerably smaller than a Red Epic, but they are similar in size. It’s very lightweight and according to Michael Jonas, it comes in at roughly 300 grams less than the Red Dragon / Epic.

The Alexa Mini features a set of mounting screw holes that haven’t been seen on other cameras before. Mounting it on a normal tripod isn’t its main intended purpose, but surely a lot of people will want to do just that – and Arri will sell them a cage for that. It won’t take long until other accessory makers will provide solutions for that. Due to the fact that the body is made out of carbon fibre, the mounting screw holes were put onto the metal front part which holds the lens mount – the carbon fibre would break under too much force.

Be sure to watch the full video to see some of the first footage of the Arri Alexa Mini which we were able to shoot at the Arri stand at BVE, and of course also to hear all the technical details about the camera from Michael Jonas.

Arri plans to start taking orders in March and the body-only price (as mentioned above) will be EUR 32,500.

We are planning to shoot a review film with a pre production model as soon as possible.