Any difference in high def versus film from audience point of view
 

Hi guys,

I was listening to a bunch of cinematographers (in "the cinematographer's style" movie) talk about how analogue film (I assume they meant 35mm) can hold more information than a 1 2 or 4k high def, digital captured film (which is more or less true). My question is at what point is the human eyes simply unable to discern the difference in detail when using high def versus film. Except for the tendency of an ultra clean look for digital versus the natural grain of film, I am not convinced that for any practical purpose there is a dimes worth of difference that the audience will readily notice. Please liberally chime in.

Dwight

I really think that 99% of the population will never know or care, one way or the other.

Technicalities aside, it's not good what's good, it's good what I THINK is good. A matter or preference, in other words.

But seriously, it really depends on how you watch the movie... if we're talking real cinema big screen, you don't have to be an expert to see the difference. But if you're watching at home, on your bigscreen TV or projector, you are limited anyway by the tech specs of your machine.

Just my two cents...

1- Resolution is the only difference between film and video, and it may not even be the most important difference.

For material shown on a SD monitor, film has a different look than video.

2- IMO, a lot of digital video isn't ultra-clean because of compression and also because of sensor noise.

3- The most important differences are:

A- Film tends to have a technical advantage in exposure latitude. This lets you do things like light without fill light (this would look terrible on video).
High-end video is getting better here (arguably rivaling film... i.e. Superman, Sin City, etc.).

B- Historically, film productions do letter better than video-originated productions. So some people are set in old ways / basing their opinion on prior experience. As well, there may also be a cultural thing going on...
film = cinematography
video = videography

There's also some economics involved... film companies will want to say that film looks better.

C- Film is more expensive... we tend to associate expensive with better.

D- There's lots of people who know how to shoot film well. Really good video has only been a recent development and people are only starting to learn it.

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For people starting out in this kind of thing, it probably makes more sense to shoot on video:
A- It's cheaper... your money is probably better spent elsewhere (i.e. food, rent).
B- A good chunk of future projects will likely be shot on video... TV series are already moving in this direction.