The Real Issue Regarding "Film Look"
 

Here is a link, http://www.hpaonline.com/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=236, to a downloadable paper on the Hollywood Post Alliance web site that accurately discusses the real "difference" between the look of film and video. Hint: It has to do with the photographic characteristics between film emulsions and CCDs.

The paper discusses an experiment by Eastman Kodak "showing high definition video delivering a dynamic highlight range relative to an 18% gray of no more than 3 to 4 stops; compared to the 15.9 stops of some color negative stocks."

Hope you enjoy the paper.

Jay

Very good stuff.
Thanks

Thanks for the link, Jay.

Something that still confounds me is why, as the paper points out, a broadcast display is unable to reproduce the complete dynamic range of extended range video rendering it somewhat muted/low contrast in appearance, yet film transferred to tape shown on the same display will retain much of its dynamic range and still appear contrasty, not flat.

Charles, I've wondered the same thing myself on a number of occasions. Doesn't seem to make any sense, does it?

Jay

Maybe you answered your own question. Maybe it's not the tape or vcr heads (they're only used in recording) but the ccd's. I've often wondered that myself.
Gary

Gary, according to the paper, it's more an issue with the monitor's standards.

Jay

This is proably just propaganda from Kodak.

Even if it is true, with the advances in digital it will soon be obsolete.

TOTEM: Does anyone know the bitrate of digibeta, im shooting 50mbit xdcam at work, and im wondering whats better

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

90 Mbit/s.

Given that D-SLRs produce better looking images than their 35mm counterparts, I'd say that saying that the CCDs are the issue is a bit of bunk.

Graeme

Whaaaaaaaaaahhhhh?
Now I agree that D-SLR's have their advantage in some characteristics, but. . . well that is just completley subjective isn't it? an 8MP camera may retain finner resolution, but 35mm film still has greater dynamic range. Graeme, I just don't understand how you can make such a 1 sided statement. I have yet to see any instances where my D-SLR will outperform (imagewise) my 35mm cameras, or my medium format cameras. It looks different, but Better? hmmmmmm, I don't think so.

Subjective, perhaps? But many have compared a decent D-SLR to scanned 35mm and the D-SLR image is better in every respect - lower noise, higher resolution etc. As for dynamic range, it's always something that's tricky to measure, but to me, for all practical purposes 35mm is noise limited in it's dynamic range, and has a non-linear transfer curve that gives it a highlight advantage, if you accept that what it's recording as highlight information is not accurate, but instead good looking. So yes, I'd certainly say D-SLR is better than 35mm, but that doesn't mean you would! I'll have to do a look around and see who's done any dyanamic range studies and see if they enlighten us further....

Graeme

As soon as there's such a thing as a high-definition 1.38" CCD, it's all over.

That's true. To compare motion picture film to "video" isn't even a complete statement. Which "video" are we talking about? It may be true that current crop of 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 miniDV (or even HDV or HD), formats don't retain the dynamic range of 35 and 16mm motion picture film, but that doesn't mean all digital video formats are just as limited due to being digital video.

Video as we dvinfo'ers know it isn't inferior to film solely because it's video.

Once data storage (hard drives, P2 chips, and the like) and CCD/CMOS chips come down in price, "video" will be a different thing.




As for D-SLR's being inferior to 35mm or medium format, that's another half-statement. Some D-SLR's are inferior, sure. But at the higher end of the spectrum it's an undisputable fact that digital is superior to film. Viz: The 20-22 megapixel backs for >35mm formats, etc.

I think it has to do with the way colors and brightness are handled in the medium.
Film always seem to follow an S-like curve whereas video is more of a straight
line. As soon as you start playing with that the look definitely changes and
seems to give a more rich contrast versus a low one with sort of a gray layer
on top of it.

I could be way off base here, however....

I like the workflow of digital-"anything" better than film, mostly because I'm a new-age guy who's grown up with everything being digital. I never took a photo class in high school or college (yet) where you actually have to use film and develop it manually and whatnot. My upcoming cinematography class requires a 35mm camera, whether I can use a digital one (ie. Canon EOS20D or Digital RebelXT), or not I have no idea at the moment.

With all of this said, however, I would still prefer film over digital. Why film? Well, I'm not one for specifics and technical terms, but with my trained eyes I can see the quality difference between film and HD video. Was Lord of the Rings filmed in HD? No. Was the Matrix trilogy filmed in HD? No again. Was Sin City filmed in HD? Yes, it sure was. But what is the difference between those films? The only difference is the directors. Sin City looked great, it was gritty, yet clear, dark, yet bright, and all the while being very detailed. The Matrix and LOTR films had their own looks as well, utterly amazing. But Sin City was different in that the director (Robert Rodriguez right?) has had a lot of experience with HD. Certainly his films turned out much better looking than the new Star Wars films did (minus Phantom Menace as that was apparently filmed with film) because he's used HD more often than George Lucas has. Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Sin City, third time's the charm, eh?

Still, why go with film? That's just it, Robert Rodriguez had to practice, practice, practice, and upgrade too, before he got HD down to formula. With film, you don't need to practice, practice, practice, the film will look good no matter what (well, you could over/underexpose it, drop it, burn it, or something, I'm not trying to sell you film for 48 easy payments of $99.99 here, I'm trying to make a point >=D ) and you ultimately get more flexibility in post and while filming. Film, as far as I can tell, is told what light it can see via the DP, while HD tells the DP what it can see via the hidden machine AI that will rule over all of us one day until the coming of The One, Bob. HD, for me, is fine, it will probably be what I use until I can make it big and can afford the process of film-based filmmaking. But when I look to the future, all I can see, or maybe all I want to see, is film as that will be the "only" tool for me to create my vision.

That's my view on it, both are good, one's not going to overtake the other, one may be used less or more often than the other but they'll still be around for a long time.

Rodriguez had a lot of help getting his images to look the way they do--the so called "rebel without a crew" has a talented support team hidden behind the curtain.

Which film can you pull 16 stops out of?

In my opinion, obviously arguable, is that the major issue regarding video now are the several limitations in the whole system. Please let me know if I'm wrong in what I'm saying or if anything is so rediculous it just wouldn't work. Let me elaborate:

first issue are the sensors - they're still really, really, tiny compared to the smallest dSLR sensors. ie, the sensor in my Digital Rebel (a 1.6x) is several times larger than those in pretty much any video camera, even a 60,000 dollar Vari-cam has 2/3 inch sensors, still tiny compared to 35mm. While not the same as film, the dynamic range of dSLRs is still very impressive compared to that of all prosumer video cameras - I've never used a Vari-cam or F900, so I can't really comment on those. Now the problem is why can't manfacturers, particularly Canon with all their innovation and the fact that they design they own sensors, produce a video camera with a larger sensor, eventually going with a full frame sensor when technology costs come down?
A larger sensor with larger pixels will have incredible low light performance, more dynamic range, and the shallow dof we all love to see.

Now, here are the only two issues I can see in the way of this: lens size and recording format, both of which can be overcome.

With a larger sensor, we won't be able to have 20x zooms, but I think most of the people who would buy my theoretial camera would be willing to sacrifice range for the larger sensor. Imagine an XL series camera from Canon with a large (1.6x, 1.3x, or even full frame) sensor with an EF mount instead of an XL mount, giving the operator access to all of Canon's awesome, high resolution lenses. In my opinion, it would be an awesome camera, except for one thing which brings me to my second issue:

recording format - in order for a camera to be able to have awesome dynamic range and resolution, the recording medium has to have enough space to store it which is why I think the miniDV format really needs to be abandoned - it's the limiting factor/excuse that's preventing cameras from having all the characteristics we want to see in our images. How about about a new format (doesn't even have to be a tape) that allows for a little bit more space. Yes, there are already formats like DVCProHD and others, and in reality, it wouldn't be hard to use those formats in some form in a camera.
Here's my reasoning - a photo from my Digital Rebel in RAW (uncompressed) format is roughly 7 mb. Multiply that by 30 (for simplicity's sake, we may also try it with 24 or 29.97 depending on how we're shooting) and you get 210mb in one second of video. Now it may seem high, but when we consider today's technology, is it really (I'm actually curious to know if that's possible)? Also, we won't need all 6 megapixels in HD video, so in reality, it will be much lower.
Am I totally off with this theory, or are these the basic 2 things that would give us a nice film look in video? I simply look at the photos from my dSLR and they look very film-like and simply gorgeous, now why can't that same technology be applied to video?
I'm assuming cost will be the major issue at first, but that should eventually come down.

You answered your own question: Cost.

It takes a tremendous amount of money to create, launch, and support a new product. Without large numbers of sales, the company would lose money.

Right now the issue in our market segment is whose 1/3" CCD camcorder to buy. The issue is not, "Am I going to buy one or just not do any video at all until full frame sensors come out?" Nice position to be in for the manufacturers! :)

yeah, I definitly don't see a camera like the one I describe being affordable anytime soon, I see it more as a camera among the ranks of the F900 and varicam - megaexpensive that studios would use, then it would come down in price in a few decades so we could afford them:P

I don't think it's that the tech is too expensive, just that the big camera companies don't want to go that route for political reasons. The idea is very, very sound.

Graeme