16 mm vs super 16 mm

rucine · April 29, 2006

Can you see difference on the screen? Is the grain realy so bigger what you can see a difference? How to test to know that?

Stephen Williams · April 29, 2006

Can you see difference on the screen? Is the grain realy so bigger what you can see a difference? How to test to know that?

Hi,

Shooting 7212 and telecine via a Spirit for TV then probably not. With 7218 probably you would see. Blown up to 35mm for 1:1.185 then yes.

The only way to test is to shoot both formats back to back and view. In a telecine you could zoom in to a standard 16 frame from a super 16 frame to see the change in grain size.

Stephen

Joshua Reis · April 29, 2006

If you are framing for 4:3 (1.33 TV), there is no difference in graineyness and resolution between standard and Super 16. When framing for 1.85, standard 16mm, 26% of the exposed area is wasted/cropped (.404x.218) giving Super 16 46% more exposed negative (.488x.263). The advantage of shooting Super 16 vs. Standard 16mm for widescreen acquisition is tremendous for blow-ups to 35mm or HD transfers. For letterboxed NTSC projects, the difference will noticeable, but subtle. Anton Wilson's. "Cinema Workshop, A.S.C. Holding Corp. 1983. has a great chapter comparing the two formats. The most economic way to test would be to shoot both formats side by side and do a comparison in telecine.

Can you see difference on the screen? Is the grain realy so bigger what you can see a difference? How to test to know that?

Jonathan Benny · April 30, 2006

Can you see difference on the screen? Is the grain realy so bigger what you can see a difference? How to test to know that?

The difference really starts to manifest on the big screen and depends on the types of shots you are looking at (and what you are looking for on the image).

On a blowup, wider shots that have subjects further away tend to suffer a great deal in small format blowups. The difference between a regular 16 wide shot and a super 16 wideshot might be more noticeable than the closeups. But either way, with the regular 16, you will see a lot more grain "dancing" around trying to resolve detail in the image.

AJB

rucine · May 5, 2006

All big thanks for answers!

my friend want to buy the photosonic 1PL that is why he interested. And it interested for me because i saw the material after this camera (7218, 1.85) and i saw the grain on the TVscreen... but in this situation we had no choice.

May 5, 2006

And with a high speed camera like the Photosonics (assuming you're shooting slo-mo), your exposures for each frame will be very brief, necessitating the use of high speed film, further exacerbating the grain problem.