OLD ARRI FRESNEL LAMPS, USED FOR THE MOTION PICTURES INDUSTRY.
LIGHTING:
Most likely the single most important aspect of cinematography is lighting. Light is necessary to create an image exposure on a frame of film or on a digital target (CCD, etc). The art of lighting for cinematography goes far beyond basic exposure, however, into the essence of visual storytelling. Lighting contributes considerably to the emotional response an audience has watching a motion picture. The control of light quality, color, direction and intensity is a major factor in the art and science of cinematography.
ARRI:
The Arri Group has been the largest world wide supplier of high quality motion picture film equipment since 1917. Arri, named after founders August Arnold and Robert Richter is a leader in film camera (16, 35, and 65/70 mm) and cinematic lighting equipment. In recent years they have expanded into post-production equipment with the Arrilaser, and in 2000 purchased Moviecam to refine their new camera platform Arricam.
In 1937 the Arri Group introduced the world's first reflex mirror shutter in the Arriflex-35 camera, an invention of their longtime engineer Erich Kaestner. This technology employs a rotating mirror that allows a continuous motor to operate the camera while providing parallax-free reflex viewing to the operator, and the ability to focus the image by eye through the viewfinder, much like an SLR camera for still photography. This technology is still employed today in almost every motion picture camera.
Arri also specialized in manufacturing light-weight and portable cameras for both news and war photography, as well as feature film production in the 1960's which saw an increase in shooting on location rather than in a studio. The introduction of the Arriflex-16ST camera revolutionized the 16 mm format as a cheaper news-gathering and television medium, and the Arriflex-35BL provided a lightweight alternative to the rather heavy and cumbersome blimped cameras of the time.
While Arri manufactures and designs its own motion picture cameras, lenses are supplied by the Carl Zeiss group, unlike its rival Panavision which manufactures both its own cameras and lenses for exclusive use with each other. Arri's relationship with Panavision is somewhat unique, as Panavision is both Arri's largest rival (as an equipment manufacturer) and largest customer (as a camera rental house).
Arri has recently developed the Arriflex D-20 high definition camera. The camera uses a 35 mm CMOS sensor (instead of CCD) to allow cinematographers to utilize standard 35 mm lenses. Other recent products of note include the Arriflex 235, a compact 35 mm camera; the Master Prime lens series; the Ultra 8R, an 8 mm rectilinear lens; Arrimax, an HMI light which can use 18 kW or 12 kW bulbs; and the Arriflex 416, a 16 mm camera optimized for high-end production.
FRESNAL LENS:
A Fresnel lens is a type of lens invented by Augustin-Jean Fresnel (pronounced fre-NELL in scientific and lighting applications, although often pronounced FREZ-nell). Originally developed for lighthouses, the design enables the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the weight and volume of material which would be required in conventional lens design.
Compared to earlier lenses, the Fresnel lens is much thinner, thus passing more light and allowing lighthouses to be visible over much longer distances. The Fresnel lens reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional spherical lens by breaking the lens into a set of concentric annular sections known as Fresnel zones. In the first (and largest) variations of the lens, each of these zones was a different prism. Though a lens might look like a single piece of glass, closer examination reveals that it is many small pieces. It was not until modern CNC equipment could turn out large complex pieces that these lenses were single pieces of glass.
For each of these zones, the overall thickness of the lens is decreased, effectively chopping the continuous surface of a standard lens into a set of surfaces of the same curvature, with discontinuities between them. This allows a substantial reduction in thickness (and thus weight and volume of material) of the lens, at the expense of reducing the imaging quality of the lens.
