ALEXA

Creating Lens Tables

Q U I C K G U I D E

Date: 20 November 2013

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Table of Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 2! Required Equipment ......................................................................................................... 2! Creating a Lens Table ...................................................................................................... 3! 1.! Lens Motor Setup .............................................................................................. 3! 2.! Accessing the ALEXA Webremote Interface ..................................................... 3! 3.! Programming a New Lens Table ....................................................................... 4! 4.! Creating Lens Description ................................................................................. 4! 5.! Entering Data Points ......................................................................................... 4! Editing and Deleting Data Points .................................................................................... 7! Saving and Downloading Lens Tables ........................................................................... 7! Customizing Existing Lens Tables ................................................................................. 7! Restoring Last Session .................................................................................................... 8! Known Issues .................................................................................................................... 8!

Introduction
The ARRI Lens Data System (LDS) provides frame-accurate information about the focus, iris, and zoom settings of a lens at the time of shooting. ALEXA cameras can embed this information with the images, or send it to peripheral camera equipment on set. Embedded lens data is very helpful for VFX postproduction, as it eliminates paper and guesswork. On set, the same data can be used with the WCU-4 hand units integrated lens data display and pre-marked focus rings for more accurate focus pulls and faster lens setups. ARRI LDS lenses such as Master Anamorphics, Master Primes, LDS Ultra Primes, ALURA Lightweight Zooms and the Ultra Wide Zoom deliver lens data instantly, as they have integrated encoders that determine the current lens position, as well as a lens table that interprets those encoder values. The same applies to Cooke /i lenses. All other lenses require an external encoder and a custom lens table for lens data generation. All ARRI CLM motors include an accurate encoder that can determine the lens position. Custom lens tables can be generated with the ALEXA Webremote interface. This document explains how to create and manage custom lens files with an ALEXA Plus or Studio type camera.

Required Equipment
An ALEXA Plus, ALEXA Plus 4:3, ALEXA Studio, ALEXA XT Plus or ALEXA XT Studio. One or more lens motors (CLM-2, CLM-3, or CLM-4). We recommend using one motor per lens scale. If you have only one motor available, but need to program more than one lens scale, you can create the lens scales sequentially, connecting the motor to the respective controller connector. Data points do not get lost from the web browser unless the session cookie is deleted. One lens control hand unit (e.g. WCU-4). Alternatively, lens rings can also be moved manually with the motor attached to the lens. A computer with installed web browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari). Cookies must be enabled. Internet Explorer and Opera browsers are NOT supported! An ALEXA Ethernet/RJ-45 Cable KC 153-S (K2.72021.0)

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Creating a Lens Table

Perform the following steps to create a lens table with ALEXA: 1. Lens Motor Setup A prerequisite for lens table programming is the correct setup of the lens motors. Please set up the correct motor direction. If you mount the motor on the camera right side, set DIRECTION to RIGHT. If you mount a motor on the left side, set DIRECTION to LEFT. Then calibrate the lens motors by hitting the CAL. ALL button.

Fig. 1: ALEXA Motor Menu Page

2. Accessing the ALEXA Webremote Interface Each ALEXA camera contains a built-in basic remote control web interface (Webremote) that can be accessed through an Ethernet connection using the Bonjour protocol. Part of the Webremote is the LDA (Lens Data Archive) tab for the creation and storage of new lens tables with the ALEXA camera. Do the following to access the ALEXA Webremote: 1. Connect the camera to a computer using the ALEXA Ethernet Remote Cable KC 157-S. 2. Open the web browser on the computer. 3. Enter address alexa####.local, with #### being the camera serial number.

The web browser will now connect to the camera.

Fig. 2: ALEXA Webremote LDA Tab

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3. Programming a New Lens Table Enter the LDA tab and click the button Start new session. A browser screen with lens scales comes up. If you did not yet calibrate the lens motors, you can do so by hitting the Calibrate button on screen. The same applies if you are using one motor sequentially for multiple lens axes. The lens scales are displayed on the LDA browser screen once the respective motors have been calibrated. The green + symbol indicates the current position of the motor attached to the lens.

4. Creating Lens Description Fill in the lens descriptive fields. Lens descriptions will be shown on LDS screens and/or embedded as metadata. Description: Serial Number: Focal Length: Lens description that will be displayed on the camera and WCU-4 screen and embedded as metadata. Should include lens type, focal length and serial number. Lens serial number will be embedded as metadata. Focal length in mm. Will be shown on LDS screens and embedded as metadata. Enter 0 (zero) for zoom lenses.

5. Entering Data Points First, select the unit of measurement (metric or imperial) by clicking on the ft/m icon in the upper right corner of the focus scale. If you want to program the lens for both metric and imperial units, you need to program both scales sequentially. Then enter the data points proceed as follows: 1. Move lens ring to the physical engraving that you want to teach in as a new data point. 2. Click on the green + in the LDA browser scale or hit the ENTER button on your keyboard to open the edit field. 3. Enter the current lens value. 4. Move the lens ring to the next position to enter the next data point. Data Point Options: Each data point can have up to three characteristics that have effects on display and interpolation of the lens table. Click on the icon to activate or de-activate the option. Inactivate options are displayed in grey color and crossed out.

Data point will be indicated with a marking line (e.g. on WCU-4 display).

Data point will be indicated with a number (e.g. on WCU-4 display).

Data point will be used for interpolation.

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Imperial Scales: Enter feet values by using the prime symbol () and enter inch values by using the double prime symbol (). The prime symbol for feet values can be used to separate feet and inch values, e.g. 21 inches: 19 or 21 14.5 inches: 12.5 or 14.5 20 feet: 20 Metric Scales: Enter metric values as meters, e.g. 80 centimeters: 0.8 5.5 meters: 5.5 30 meters: 30 Infinity Point: Enter i to set the infinity point. Recommended Practice: All three options are usually active with focus scales. However, there are sometimes just the engraved marking lines without any number in the close focus area. If you are unsure about the numerical value of such a mark, you can switch off the usage for interpolation of this data point. You might want to switch off marking lines for zoom values, if the lens does not have those lines as well. Intermediate iris steps can be programmed with a marking line only, without a number and without being used for interpolation.

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Fig. 3: Sample for Zoom Lens Programming

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Editing and Deleting Data Points

Editing Data Points: Existing data points can be moved on the lens scale by using the Snap function. Hitting the Snap button underneath each lens scale will move the nearest data point to the current motor position. This can be particularly useful if an existing lens scale has a slight offset and needs adjustment. Deleting Data Points: A data point can be deleted by moving the point to the screen scale index. Once there, the icon changes from the green + symbol to a red - symbol and can be deleted by clicking on the red - symbol or pressing ENTER on the keyboard. Click the Clear Scale button to delete all data points on the respective scale.

Saving and Downloading Lens Tables

You can save a newly created lens table into the cameras internal Lens Data Archive (LDA) by hitting the button Send to Camera in the LDA browser. The lens file will then be processed and stored inside the ALEXA LDA User Archive section. The Webremote will prompt an error message in case of any logical data errors within the lens file. In such a case, please check the data consistency of the lens values in the LDA browser and correct them. Click Download from Camera to download any existing lens table from the ALEXA LDA User Archive to the computer. Save them onto an SD card if you want to load them into another camera from the SD card (SD card folder: ARRI/ALEXA/LDA).

Customizing Existing Lens Tables

You can customize existing lens tables from the Lens Data Archive (LDA). First, you need to activate the lens table in the camera by selecting the lens file in the ALEXA LDA menu and clicking the USE button. Set up the lens motors as described in section 1. Access the ALEXA Webremote interface as described in section 2. Enter the Webremote LDA page and click on Load from camera. The active lens table from the camera will be displayed in the browser screen and can be customized. Name the customized lens file in the DESCRIPTION field, and save it as described in section 7. Set Infinity The cameras include a number of pre-defined lens tables in the LDA Main Archive. Some of those lens tables, such as for the ALURA zooms, are stored as templates. This is because the infinity point has to be adjusted for an individual lens. Set the infinity point as follows: Load the lens file to the Webremote LDA screen as explained in the section above. Now set the lens to infinity. Click the Set INF button underneath the Webremotes focus scale; the focus scale will shift to the correct position. Add the lens serial number to the DESCRIPTION field and save the file as described in section 7.

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Restoring Last Session

Lens table values are stored in a cookie while they are created with the ALEXA Webremote. The data will be available during the lifetime of the respective cookie. You can continue with creating a lens table after a break by hitting the Restore last session button in the LDA web browser.

Known Issues
Close focus value not interpolated Many lenses have a close focus point that lies beyond the closest engraved focus value. The ALEXA system will not interpolate focus values that are beyond the closest programmed data point, resulting in frozen focus values beyond that point on the WCU-4 display, ALEXA interface and in the embedded metadata. To overcome this issue, enter the absolute close focus point after determining the correct value by measuring the minimum close focus distance of the lens.

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