Cinema Color Science Showdown: Arri Alexa 35 vs Every Major Camera Brand — Why Fujifilm’s Film Heritage Matters
Let’s Talk Colors
The 76K expensive Arri Alexa 35 is considered the gold standard when it comes to cinema color science and color quality.
But what if you want to get those awesome colors into a more affordable package? Which brand comes closest to it?
Well, Cinecolor published a color grading demo exploring real-world differences in color science between the Arri Alexa 35 and nearly every major camera brand that shoots in Log format.
The cameras tested are:
- Arri Alexa 35
- Blackmagic 4.6K Ursa Mini (Gen 5)
- Canon EOS R5 (C-Log / C-Log3)
- DJI (D-Log)
- Fujifilm X-T4 (F-Log)
- GoPro (GP-Log)
- iPhone (Apple Log)
- Lumix GH7 (V-Log / Log 3C)
- Nikon Z6 (N-Log)
- RED Komodo (IPP2)
- Sony (S-Log3)
IMPORTANT – The True Goal of the Test
There are two things to consider for this test:
- How good are colors right off the bat (after simple Rec 709 conversion)
- How much editing is needed, to match the Arri Alexa colors
Sometimes colors right out of camera are quite close to Arri (iPhone/DJI) or already very beautiful (Fujifilm) or quite lifeless (Sony), but in any case, the question is how much editing is needed to match as closely as possible the Arri Alexa 35.
The Result in Short
DJI and iPhone (although can have HDR look), have closest Arri colors. Probably because of small sensor and less editing flexibility, it is important for Apple/DJI to get best possible colors in camera.
Fujifilm was tested with the old F-Log file, not with the newer F-Log2 or the newest F-Log2C. F-Log2C has the best skin tones. With that said, F-Log looks great already. Fujifilm has its own and very beautiful look, and it requires just a bit of editing to come close to the Arri Alexa 35 files. He says:
It’s really impressive what Fujifilm can deliver in terms of color science, even with older X-T4 F-Log. That’s not surprising considering their background in creating film stock. Fujifilm shooters won’t be shocked by the results, but hopefully others, who don’t shoot Fujifilm, will understand why so many are drawn to Fujifilm specifically because of colors.
Nikon and Sony are the files that you have to work on most, because Nikon handles colors very different and has uneven saturation and Sony files look lifeless and drab. But it’s important to note that you can edit them to get close to Arri. It just requires more editing time and skills to get there.
Panasonic is far away from the Arri skin tones. Canon also is not quite close to Arri.
Conclusions in Short
Except for DJI and iPhone (and GoPro), which have a small sensors, you have a huge flexibility with all camera brands and you can edit files to make them look closer to Arri Alexa 35. The only difference is how much you need to edit to get those awesome results.
To get the closest results to Arri with less editing, Blackmagic and Fujifilm are best (after DJI and iPhone).
Fujifilm also has very good colors right out of the box, so you can edit colors if you want to match Arri, but colors look great also without editing.
Sony files really need to be edited, but the good thing is files are flexible.
