Anyone thinking of going digital and giving up on 16mm film...or vice versa?

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Also, when you shoot wide shots, you really can't see the distortion. If there was a subject close to the lens, you'd see it immediately. I have the same lens, it 100% distorts on 16mm with close subjects. 

Have that one too, its Tokina edition which is the same thing really, that lens is for APS-C.

Haven't noticed anything egregious, its quite soft at f2.8 obviously and requires stopping down a bit for sharpness, but that's another story.

I am now using the Tokina 11-16 T3 mostly for wides which is really by all intents and purposes not "practically" distorting anything.

[Jon O'Brien]

3 hours ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

I am now using the Tokina 11-16 T3 mostly for wides which is really by all intents and purposes not "practically" distorting anything.

Do you like this lens? I have the PL version. I haven't filmed with it yet, but will this year, on a S16 short film.

Edited March 3 by Jon O'Brien

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

14 minutes ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Do you like this lens? I have the PL version. I haven't filmed with it yet, but will this year, on a S16 short film.

The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't go further! 😎

But for the money, its absolutely awesome, all controls are smooth and it can be pretty "reasonably"sharp at f4. It's my all rounder at the moment and contemplating getting the dirt-cheap 8mm (for EF mount, APS-C again) which is in fact a fish-eye, but can be made to "work" in certain scenarios.

For more tele I have a full frame Tokina 24-80 for Nikon which is in fact an Angénieux design if I am not mistaken, that one is really, really well performing on 16mm

Edited March 3 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Aapo Lettinen]

16mm is excellent for narrative work with tons of closeups and mcus. Does not necessarily need to be documentary-style but generally speaking the format starts to work really well when one shoots closer than medium shots. Generally speaking I would say it is the perfect closeup shooting format on most situations. One can shoot with something like from 16 to 25mm lens if it is fast enough and still blur the background nicely if needed. On wide shots I would use 35mm if possible, if planning cleverly one could shoot some wide shots of a dialogue scene on MOS camera on 35mm and then cut to low grain S16 footage on closeups where the characters are actually talking. This does not cost that much even, it is enough to have one roll of 35mm 4perf and the rest can be S16 material. 

I like to shoot 50D on 16mm if possible and a bit tighter shots and faster lenses than on 35mm. Mainly can shoot documentary stuff but in April-May will have some narrative projects on N16 npr and cp16r, at least one of them on 50D and will probably mix 35mm shot on Konvas to some scenes

[Tyler Purcell]

10 hours ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Have that one too, its Tokina edition which is the same thing really, that lens is for APS-C.

This is the lens we have tested. It's full frame and it distorts quite a bit. 

Because again, on full frame it will be a WIDER FIELD OF VIEW then on ASP-C or 16mm of course. 

This is the version 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

19 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Because again, on full frame it will be a WIDER FIELD OF VIEW then on ASP-C or 16mm of course. 

Mine is the Tokina APS-C one, with F2.8 I guess with some similarities here and there, I did not see any crazy distortion other than the one specified from the manufacturer, dont understand the all caps, we are all familiar with field of view.

Edited March 3 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

16mm is excellent for narrative work with tons of closeups and mcus. Does not necessarily need to be documentary-style but generally speaking the format starts to work really well when one shoots closer than medium shots. Generally speaking I would say it is the perfect closeup shooting format on most situations. One can shoot with something like from 16 to 25mm lens if it is fast enough and still blur the background nicely if needed. On wide shots I would use 35mm if possible, if planning cleverly one could shoot some wide shots of a dialogue scene on MOS camera on 35mm and then cut to low grain S16 footage on closeups where the characters are actually talking. This does not cost that much even, it is enough to have one roll of 35mm 4perf and the rest can be S16 material. 

Yea, if you use longer lenses, you can achieve a more cinematic look with more depth to the shot. 

Using wide lenses for closer shots, will make everything look flat, including faces. There is no depth to the objects shot, so they look unrealistic compared to the way humans see them. Plus again, with wide lenses, there is more distortion, especially the closer an object is to the lens. If you're using wide lenses for master wides at infinity, you won't see this phenomena at all. It's really only when bringing in closer subjects, where you're going to a closer focal plane, that you will start to see the distortion known for wider lenses. 

If you're shooting 12mm - 24mm lenses on S16mm, you're ostensively stuck to longer/deeper fields of view. So if you want that close up with some depth to it, you're inherently cutting off parts of the subject. If you move the camera further away from the subject, so your field of view contains more of the subject, then you lose a substantial amount of that depth. You have to be willing to use very long lenses and shoot in the style of "the subject is distant", which isn't an intimate feeling. This is why most people who shoot narrative on 16mm, use wider lenses which again, suffer from distorted and flat looking images. 

There are a few hybrid 16mm/35mm films, but with the cost of new/fresh 16mm being higher than re-can 35mm today, it's really not that much more to shoot 3 perf and retain the more cinematic look. You may have to cut down on your shooting ratio, but if you're clever in the writing of the film and keep dialog scenes to a minimal, you can get away with MOS cameras for quite a bit of the production and constrain the amount of takes, saving a lot of money. This is how I was able to make Love, Frog for $6k shooting 13,000 feet of 35mm for a 38 minute original cut. On 16mm, it would cost probably more to be honest, we survived off very cheap short ends. 

2 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

I like to shoot 50D on 16mm if possible and a bit tighter shots and faster lenses than on 35mm. Mainly can shoot documentary stuff but in April-May will have some narrative projects on N16 npr and cp16r, at least one of them on 50D and will probably mix 35mm shot on Konvas to some scenes

50D is nice, but it doesn't have the detail in the blacks of 250D, so if I'm shooting indoors and have enough light for daylight stock, I generally shoot 250D. It really captures way more shadow detail. 

[Tyler Purcell]

11 minutes ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Mine is the Tokina APS-C one, with F2.8 I guess with some similarities here and there, I did not see any crazy distortion other than the one specified from the manufacturer, dont understand the all caps, we are all familiar with field of view.

Yea, it's a zoom lens. It will probably not have much distortion at infinity. It's when you're shooting close subjects that you will see the distortion, especially in the face and the lack of depth. The FF variant of the 10mm, distorts full imager on wide shots. It's really  too wide for full frame, it's more of a specialty lens. 

[Aapo Lettinen]

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, if you use longer lenses, you can achieve a more cinematic look with more depth to the shot. 

Using wide lenses for closer shots, will make everything look flat, including faces. There is no depth to the objects shot, so they look unrealistic compared to the way humans see them. Plus again, with wide lenses, there is more distortion, especially the closer an object is to the lens. If you're using wide lenses for master wides at infinity, you won't see this phenomena at all. It's really only when bringing in closer subjects, where you're going to a closer focal plane, that you will start to see the distortion known for wider lenses. 

no, the idea is to use normal or slight wide angle lens and shoot physically up close to the subjects, typically from 2ft to 5ft distance. Opening aperture to get background blurred nicely if needed. Typically something like T2 to T2.8 aperture optimally. Anything smaller than T4 on s16 starts to lose the effect considerably. One usually needs to use primes to get them stopped down at least one stop to get nice linear projection without too much aberrations and disturbing edge falloff and softness.

Zooms are also typically physically longer which affects the parallax and makes intimate handheld operating more difficult. Short primes are optimal.

If one has heavy wide angle lens one distorts the face too much (kind of stretching their nose towards camera etc) and if using tele lens one needs to back off too much making everything very tele-shot-like "observation pov instead of being inside the zone of action with the characters" .

It is kind of about entering the "personal space" of the subjects with the camera instead of backing down to the horizon and then zooming in to get tight framing. If the movie has not use for intimate closeup shots really observing the inner world of the subjects then it is better to shoot on another format I think.

[Aapo Lettinen]

10 minutes ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

no, the idea is to use normal or slight wide angle lens and shoot physically up close to the subjects, typically from 2ft to 5ft distance. Opening aperture to get background blurred nicely if needed. Typically something like T2 to T2.8 aperture optimally. Anything smaller than T4 on s16 starts to lose the effect considerably. One usually needs to use primes to get them stopped down at least one stop to get nice linear projection without too much aberrations and disturbing edge falloff and softness.

Zooms are also typically physically longer which affects the parallax and makes intimate handheld operating more difficult. Short primes are optimal.

If one has heavy wide angle lens one distorts the face too much (kind of stretching their nose towards camera etc) and if using tele lens one needs to back off too much making everything very tele-shot-like "observation pov instead of being inside the zone of action with the characters" .

It is kind of about entering the "personal space" of the subjects with the camera instead of backing down to the horizon and then zooming in to get tight framing. If the movie has not use for intimate closeup shots really observing the inner world of the subjects then it is better to shoot on another format I think.

Screenshot of some old test I shot in 2009.   Zeiss 16mm T1.3 Mk3 on Arri SR3HS, the lens is stopped down to maybe T4/T5.6 split if I remember correctly, at least two stops in any case. This kind of tighter shots are optimal for S16 by my opinion and can be nicely shot handheld with slight wide angle like I did this test

[Jon O'Brien]

What are the absolute tack-sharpest lenses, primes that is, for S16 in PL mount, opened up pretty much all the way (not stopped down)? Mainly for CUs and MCUs, that kind of thing? I think I know the answer but thought I'd ask. Maybe the way to go is to hire a lens or two, if I can afford it (and if they will hire out individual lenses rather than a set).

I like the idea of shooting 50D for S16, keeping the grain as small as possible, but still there. And not stopping down, to get a reasonably deep DoF. Possible with NDs but not always desirable if the image is too soft. And filming on 35mm for some shots. This is a great formula for an impressive, comparatively affordable, and fairly 'sharp' film look on the big screen.

It's what they did for 'First Man'. Some of the early shots were S16, and later they switched to 35mm spherical for some sections of the film. The cramped cockpit shots were again shot on S16. The final, lunar scenes were I think filmed on 65mm.

That film looked great in the cinema. The Super 16 scenes were powerful.

Edited March 4 by Jon O'Brien

[Robin Phillips]

The arri/zeiss Ultra 16s are as sharp as you're gonna get I think, especially wide open. Maybe the Master Primes (if they'll clear your camera's viewfinder, so no SRs) too.

First Man IIRC used uncoated ultra primes for most of the picture. When arri/zeiss put out the ultra 16 lenses, they originally stopped at 14mm and basically said to use ultra primes for anything longer. 

that being said you can always cheat a little sharpness with contrastier lighting

[Karim D. Ghantous]

21 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

If there was a subject close to the lens, you'd see it immediately. I have the same lens, it 100% distorts on 16mm with close subjects. 

As it should! As all lenses should (save for a type called 'rear telecentric' which I don't think we can use for photography).

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

50D is nice, but it doesn't have the detail in the blacks of 250D, so if I'm shooting indoors and have enough light for daylight stock, I generally shoot 250D. It really captures way more shadow detail. 

If only Zacuto tested 5203. But you are onto something because 5219 and 5213 are arguably over-rated by maybe two stops or more. I wonder what 5203 would show. From 2011:

[Tyler Purcell]

20 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

Screenshot of some old test I shot in 2009.   Zeiss 16mm T1.3 Mk3 on Arri SR3HS, the lens is stopped down to maybe T4/T5.6 split if I remember correctly, at least two stops in any case. This kind of tighter shots are optimal for S16 by my opinion and can be nicely shot handheld with slight wide angle like I did this test

Kinda proving my point, the background looks like it's going into the subjects head and what if you don't want every shot to be head and shoulders? What if you want a wider shot? Even on a 12mm, which doesn't have much if any distortion, you're still moving further back to get anything else but heads and shoulders. Now you're distant from your subject, but what if you don't want that feeling? What if you want the camera to be close to your subject, but also achieve a wide shot with some depth? 

That's the difference between smaller format systems and larger format systems. That's my point. 

I personally don't like cinematography that is "only" capturing close up's. I don't mind cutaways that are close, but I feel capturing motion/action and multiple characters interfacing with one another, wider is way better and achieving wider shots on 16mm with the satisfaction of larger formats, is just not possible. Even with the best lenses, the definition, distortion, separation of subject and background, it just doesn't work for me. Of course, unless you want a documentary look/feel. Then it works fantastic, it's the ultimate format for that look. Larger formats, simply do not work for that look/feel. 

Edited March 4 by Tyler Purcell

[Tyler Purcell]

14 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

If only Zacuto tested 5203. But you are onto something because 5219 and 5213 are arguably over-rated by maybe two stops or more. I wonder what 5203 would show. From 2011:

19' has the most middle ground dynamic range, more akin to a digital imager. However, the middle grey is shifted down slightly compared to 200T, which means it has less highlight retention. 

I think nearly all the color negatives have the same amount of physical dynamic range. The difference is really just where the optimal middle grey is. Some stocks put it higher up on the dynamic range chart than other stocks. 50D for instance, if you over expose it a bit, like 2 stops you can easily retain more black detail and make the stock perform more like 250D. If there is nothing in the shot that would be clipped by doing this, then it's a win-win for the filmmaker. However, with 250D, you don't NEED to do that. If you expose perfectly, you can still nail the blacks. 

That to me is the biggest difference and the game changer when shifting to 250D. You don't have to worry AS MUCH about the blacks. The tungsten stocks work the same way, 200T is more like 50D and 500T is more like 250D. 

I use 500T very sparingly on 16mm, I generally use the daylight stocks for everything unless I'm completely stuck like when I need to use night time practical lights. I also only use 250D when I know 50D won't cover me for whatever reason. Even my last shoot in the snow, we started rolling at 7am in a snow storm, with cloud cover and I was at 2.8. So the only time you really need faster "daylight" stock is shooting indoors or in substantial shadow areas like forests. So most of my 16mm work is 50D with the occasional 250D or 500T. I know the color science of 200T is very nice and smooth, I have shot with it a bit, but I just prefer the crisper 250D with better black retention. I also prefer not to run filters, I will bring the right stock for the job. That's the nice thing with quick change mags, if you need to quickly change stocks, just swap the mag. 

On 35mm, I shoot 250D or 500T mostly, tho my last personal 35mm Love, Frog we got a few cans of 200T and I used it for nearly all of the interior scenes. I regret the decision, but at the time we didn't have any options as I overshot my 500T stock and couldn't afford more. 

Edited March 4 by Tyler Purcell

[Jon O'Brien]

Video has devolved into a kind of brand thing. Arri (now said to be getting into phone cams, or is this a scam rumour?), RED (now owned by Nikon), Blackmagic (taking them all on, and winning). I'm inclined to yawn about the whole thing. Their footage all looks the same. Doesn't look like film at all. You just wear a different brand cap and/or t shirt on the shoot. I'm professional, I shoot Arri, that kind of thing. Phone cams getting better each year. Your brother in law who knows nothing about filmmaking makes better videos with his phone, handheld. Nah. Bye to digital video. Everyone and their dog (plus the cat) is into video. Only chance to stand out is to shoot film. Quality of content is no better, sure, but it's no worse either.

Edited March 4 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

The one quality that counts with film shooters is that they take risks. You know, you have to do that in creativity. 100% safe creativity is a trap leading to mediocrity.

[Jon O'Brien]

You know, they said for years, shoot digital because it's cheap, so then you can hire great actors. That's actually a sad joke. The people who complain about the cost of film are no way in the world going to pay for quality actors. They are addicted to the idea that filmmaking is free and easy. Those people do not pay for good actors.

[Jon O'Brien]

So, OP, nope, not giving up 16mm for digital.

[Dom Jaeger]

5 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Kinda proving my point.. what if you don't want that feeling? What if you want the camera to be close to your subject, but also achieve a wide shot with some depth? 

That's the difference between smaller format systems and larger format systems. That's my point. 

 

What point? You're simply describing the depth of field difference between formats, which is hardly a revelation.

You previously stated that the difference with 16mm is "field of view, lens distortion, depth of field and graininess/softness", but that's not true. Only depth of field and grain/resolution are the differences.  Field of view can be matched, and lens distortion is a function of angle of view and lens design, not format or focal length. Perspective distortion is a function of distance to subject, which happens regardless of format. 

Depth of field can be matched in many cases. An f/1.2 S16 lens like a Super Speed or Ultra 16 can match the field of view and depth of field of an equivalent view S35 lens at every aperture above around f2.4. Clearly not as shallow as larger formats can achieve, but still capable of some subject separation.

[Jon O'Brien]

I think Tyler just likes to chew the fat. A lot of what he says about film related issues is bullshit. Excuse my French.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

1 hour ago, Jon O'Brien said:

I think Tyler just likes to chew the fat. A lot of what he says about film related issues is bullshit. Excuse my French.

I don't think so. He is relating his experiences and I respect that. I will disagree on objective grounds only, where someone says something objectively untrue. No need to make a big deal out of it. I learn from everyone.

As for shooting on film, I tend to only read articles in American Cinematographer about productions shot on film. Digital is kind of boring, although I personally would use it. Digital is way more practical in rugged environments, for example.

I have one documentary that I really want to make, and I am thinking about shooting it on 35mm. That is, if I have a bigger budget, and if I don't care about net revenue. I might consider 16mm, too. Would you shoot a documentary on film, assuming you could easily afford it? 

[Jon O'Brien]

Would I?

Yes, definitely.

[Jon O'Brien]

I've got a roll of 35mm in my fridge. If someone has a good project for it to be used on, let me know. I'm on the Sunshine Coast but can travel. I will provide the film stock, gear, camera operating/cinematography, colour grading, and editing, free of charge, and the person for whom I do the filming can pay for the processing and scanning. It's been stored in a fridge for 6 years so you'd have to bear that in mind.

I may suggest to a local filmmaker that she might be interested in filming a short project with this roll of 35mm.

I've got a 2-perf IIC that runs like a dream, however hasn't been film tested yet (that's what the film in the fridge is for). I have a 2-perf 35-3 also but it's currently on the shelf for a check over and won't be part of my camera line up for a while, until a start up issue is resolved.

I've been concentrating on Super 8 the last year or so. Because I was spread too thin, also doing digital, I couldn't really justify getting into film more than I was. But just sold the digital camera. Getting the 16mm gear out this month.

Regarding a certain person who posts every day here, he does have some excellent posts, but mixed in with some incorrect advice or at least highly anecdotal advice here and there. Put it this way, other's mileage may vary. I've learned to take some of it with a grain of salt.

Edited March 5 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

He will probably respond by saying how many more miles of 35mm and 16mm he's shot than I have. Sure.