Super-16mm Compared to Standard-16mm When Cropped to 1.85:1

[Robert Meakin]

This may be going over old ground for many but it was useful for me so I thought I'd share it here.

According to my working out, when cropped to 1.85:1 aspect ratio, shooting on Standard-16mm is the equivalent of using 67% of a similarly cropped Super-16mm frame. The projected image will have 33% less negative contributing to the image.

Kodak sent me 2 TIFF scans: Standard-16mm and Super-16mm (both scanned Opengate, not Overscanned), which I cropped to 1.85:1 and then worked backwards.

 

16mmVSuper16mmDifferenceCalculations.pdf

[Diego Collado]

Thanks for sharing this!

[Jon O'Brien]

More big-time feature movies should be shot on Super 16 these days. The look is great in the cinema and on televisions and audiences would love it in my opinion. Average people are finally starting to appreciate the difference between digital acquistion and film.

Where I am a lot of digitally shot movies don't do so well in the cinema but whenever something's been shot on film I can't help but notice that the cinema definitely seems to have more people in it. Coincidence? Maybe.

The only thing with Super 16 is that it's more difficult to get a shallow depth of field in some shots. But that doesn't really matter.

You know, the cinema business and film production doesn't seem to be doing so well lately. Is it even remotely possible this could have something to do with how movies are nearly all shot on digital now? Or is there no connection at all? I can't help but wonder.

[Samuel Berger]

On 10/1/2024 at 6:50 PM, Jon O'Brien said:

You know, the cinema business and film production doesn't seem to be doing so well lately. Is it even remotely possible this could have something to do with how movies are nearly all shot on digital now? Or is there no connection at all? I can't help but wonder.

Way too many bad movies out there. This, and the so-called "democratization" of filmmaking is really just about turning Western film production into an India-style ocean of bad films. 

But we can probably draw some parallel. I imagine that people shooting 16mm are trying to create good films, while digitally created productions are often the result of studio activist types only interested in using movies as a political indoctrination tool instead of telling good stories. 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Jon. I can't help but wonder.  . . .

2 hours ago, Samuel Berger said:

good stories.