CineAlta cameras are a series of professional

digital movie camera A digital movie camera for digital cinematography is a video camera that captures footage digitally rather than the historically used movie camera, which shoots on film stock. Different digital movie cameras output a variety of different acquisi ...

s produced by

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

that replicate many of the same features of

35mm film 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock * 35MM 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format ...

motion picture cameras.

Concept

CineAlta is a brand name used by Sony to describe various products involved in content creation, production and exhibition process within digital cinema workflow. Now Sony's products branded as CineAlta include camera, camcorder, recorder, cinema server, and projector. "CineAlta" is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordscinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...

, and Alta, an Italian word for "high".

Logo

The first CineAlta logo was designed by Hiroki Oka, Chief Art Director of Sony CreativeWorks Corporation, based at the Sony Atsugi Technology Center. The twinned ribbons represent the marriage of film and videotape, arranged in a way to deliberately evoke the

infinity symbol The infinity symbol (\infty) is a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. This symbol is also called a lemniscate, after the lemniscate curves of a similar shape studied in algebraic geometry, or "lazy eight", in the terminol ...

, to symbolize the infinite possibilities. The CineAlta logo was updated by Tetsuro Sano and applied for the first time to the F65.

Format

CineAlta cameras record onto

HDCAM HDCAM is a high-definition video digital recording videocassette version of Digital Betacam introduced in 1997 that uses an 8-bit discrete cosine transform (DCT) compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 1080i-compatible down-sampled resolution of 144 ...

tapes,

XDCAM XDCAM is a series of products for digital recording using random access solid-state memory media, introduced by Sony in 2003. Four different product lines the XDCAM SD, XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX and XDCAM HD422 differ in types of en ...

Professional Disc Professional Disc (PFD) is a digital recording optical disc format introduced by Sony in 2003 primarily for XDCAM, its tapeless camcorder system. It was one of the first optical formats to utilize a blue laser, which allowed for a higher densit ...

s, SRMemory, or

SxS SxS (S-by-S) is a flash memory standard compliant to the Sony and SanDisk-created ExpressCard standard. According to Sandisk and Sony, the cards have transfer rates of 800 Mbit/s and burst transfer rate of up to 2.5 Gbit/s over the ExpressCard's ...

flash memory cards. They have the ability to shoot at various frame rates including 24fps and a resolution of up to 8K. The camera can be used with a Miranda DVC 802 converter. This allows the camera to output SDI, DV, and multiple HD outputs.

History and use in motion pictures

In June 1999,

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...

announced that Episode II of the ''Star Wars'' Prequel Trilogy would be the first major motion picture to be shot 100% digitally.

and

Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during ...

had teamed up to develop the High Definition 24p camera that Lucas would use to accomplish this, and thus the first CineAlta camera was born: the Sony HDW-F900 (also called the Panavision HD-900F after being "panavised"). However, the

science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...

film '' Vidocq'' was actually the first released feature that was shot entirely with

digital cinematography : Digital cinematography is the process of capturing (recording) a motion picture using digital image sensors rather than through film stock. As digital technology has improved in recent years, this practice has become dominant. Since the mid- ...

. Lucas held a private screening of '' Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones'' for the Atsugi Technology Center staff, and inserted a credit to specifically thank the Sony engineers at

Atsugi is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 223,960 and a population density of 2400 persons per km². The total area of the city is . While the name "Atsugi" is often associated with the United ...

for the use of the HDW-F900. For '' Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith'' the more advanced Sony HDC-F950 was used, with higher resolution and better color reproduction than its predecessor. The film was cropped to a 2.40:1 aspect ratio from its native 16:9 frame. As a result, only 818 of the 1080 vertical pixels were actually used. An

anamorphic Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted ...

adapter lens is available from

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...

to allow shooting in 2.39:1 without losing any pixels. Manuel Huerga's ''

Salvador Salvador, meaning "salvation" (or "saviour") in Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese may refer to: * Salvador (name) Arts, entertainment, and media Music *Salvador (band), a Christian band that plays both English and Spanish music ** ''Salvador'' ( ...

'' is the first movie shot with this adapter. 2002's ''

Russian Ark ''Russian Ark'' (russian: link=no, Русский ковчег, ''Russkij Kovcheg'') is a 2002 Experimental film, experimental historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. In ''Russian Ark'', an unnamed narrator wanders through the Winter ...

'' was recorded in uncompressed high definition video using a Sony HDW-F900. The information was recorded uncompressed onto a hard disk which could hold 100 minutes, thus allowing the entire film to be shot in a single 86 minute take. This was very complicated, as in 2002 there wasn't widely available technology for high capacity hard disk recording, and even less for doing this portably, on battery power, indoors and out from to . Four attempts were made to complete the shot, which had to be completed in one day due to the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...

being closed for the shoot. The first three had to be interrupted due to technical faults, but the fourth attempt was completed successfully. Extra material on the DVD release includes a documentary on the technology used. Other notable movies that were shot with CineAlta cameras include: * ''

All About Lily Chou-Chou All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All al ...

'' (2001, shot August 2000) * ''

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'' (released 2001, shot September – October 2000) * ''

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'' (released 2007, shot February 2002) * ''

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'' (released 2003, shot May 2001) * '' Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams'' (2002) * '' Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over'' (2003) * ''

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'' (2003) * Scacco pazzo (2003) * ''

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'' (2004) * ''

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'' (2004) * ''

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'' (2004) * ''

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(2005) * ''

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(2005) * '' Crank'' (2006) * ''

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(2007) * ''

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'' (2008) * ''

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'' (2009) * '' Public Enemies'' (2009) * ''

Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

'' (2009) * '' Tron: Legacy'' (2010) * ''

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'' (2011) * ''

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'' (2011) * ''

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'' (2011) * '' Sanctum'' (2011) * '' The Sunset Limited'' (2011) * '' Mirror Mirror'' (2012) * ''

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'' (2013) * ''

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'' (2013) * ''

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'' (2013) * ''

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'' (2013) * ''

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'' (2013) * '' Winter Sleep'' (2014) * ''

Lucy Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Luci ...

'' (2014) * '' 6 Underground'' (2019) * ''

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'' (2019) * ''

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'' (2019) * '' Harriet'' (2019) * '' Two of Us'' (2019) * ''

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'' (2020) * ''

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'' (2020) * '' Unhinged'' (2020) * ''

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'' (2021) * ''

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'' (2021) * '' Black Widow'' (2021) * ''

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'' (2021) * '' Voyagers'' (2021) * '' Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway'' (2021)

List of CineAlta cameras

All cameras are made by Sony except where noted: * VENICE 2 (2021) * VENICE (2015) * F55/F5 (2014) * NEX-FS700 (2011) * F65 (2011) * PMW-F3 (2010) * SRW-9000PL (2010) * PMW-500 (2010) * PDW-F800/700 (2008-2009) * F35/F23 (2008) * PMW-EX3 (2008) * PMW-EX1/EX1R (2006, EX1R in 2009) * HDW-F900R (2006) * PDW-F350/F330 (2006) * HDC-F950 (2003) * HDW-F900 (2000) ;Notes

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official CineAlta page

Sony Professional

Sony US's announcement with information of CineAlta 4K
Digital movie cameras Sony camcorders Japanese inventions 1999 introductions Audiovisual introductions in 1999 pl:Sony Cinealta

Concept

Logo

Format

History and use in motion pictures

List of CineAlta cameras

See also

References

External links