What do I say to HD people?

[Tenolian Bell]

And at least for the most I've read about it was obvious that in perceived image resolution HD was nearer to 35 than 16.

 

It can depend on circumstances. There are so many variables. If you shoot 7201 (50 ISO) with Master Primes, scan it at 3K. In the totality of what makes an image you are working with a lot more real information than HDcam's perceived sharpness.

 

However, as a compositor I might be more sensitive to grain

 

True. If the DP is shooting greenscreen with 500 speed film and crappy lenses they are certainly doing you no favors.

 

But these problems are circumstantial and not across the board a characteristic of all super 16 film stocks or all lenses.

 

Grain increases the appearance of sharpness

 

Fine grain does, not large or course grain.

 

Now if you blow up a scan of a detail from 1080i HDCAM vs Super-16, under controlled circumstances, the HDCAM will likely reproduce more fine detail.

 

You can also shoot super 16 at 30fps to match 1080i temporal resolution. The slower film stock you shoot, the finer grain you record and the more detail.

 

There is no one definition of super 16 grain.

[Michael Most]

If you'd look to the left you'd see I'm not shooting at all. ...However, as a compositor I might be more sensitive to grain ;)

 

If I look to the left, I see your description as "Digital Image Technician." Since this is a Cinematography board, the definition of Digital Image Technician is one who sets up and is responsible for digital cameras and associated ancillary equipment, in prep and on set. In other words, it is a production crew position, usually represented by someone with that designation from IATSE Local 600, the ICG. If you are a compositor, you are not a Digital Image Technician, at least not in a group of Cinematography people. You may do a technical job, and you may deal with digital images, but the title is specific. You should really change your description here to "compositor," or "post production compositor," or whatever you want that isn't already taken by something else.

Just a suggestion.

[Tenolian Bell]

With any film image one has to keep in mind which camera and lens the image was shot with. If you shoot on a Bolex with lenses made 40 to 50 years ago, of course the image will not be as sharp as an F900 with a decent HD zoom.

 

Fine grain film stock with the newest lenses will have far greater resolving power and a finer detailed image. Under these conditions even with the extreme sharpness of HD, super 16 will inherently posses advantages that can easily outweigh the considerably subsampled and compressed HD formats.

 

 

Once your get into 4:4:4 10 bit uncompressed HD. Then I agree technically the advantages of HD can outweigh most of super 16 advantages. Perhaps the last being archivability.

 

Over all though at this point those who shoot super 16 do so for the look and advantages super 16 can offer their production. Those who shoot HD do so for the look and advantages HD can offer their production.

[Filip Plesha]

Fine grain film stock with the newest lenses will have far greater resolving power and a finer detailed image. Under these conditions even with the extreme sharpness of HD, super 16 will inherently posses advantages that can easily outweigh the considerably subsampled and compressed HD formats.

 

That's what I was thinking. Many here seem to take HD resolution for granted, most cameras don't fill up a HD frame with fine detail (like the latest generation seems to do). From what I've seen f900 certainly doesn't give you 1920 pixels of pure resolution, so it's not fair to compare best super16 to the ideal of HD, but rather with the effective resolution of F900, in this discussion that is.

Maybe super16 at its best doesn't give you exactly pixel-to-pixel sharp images at 1920 pixels, but neither do most HD cameras.

[John Pytlak RIP]

From what I've seen f900 certainly doesn't give you 1920 pixels of pure resolution, so it's not fair to compare best super16 to the ideal of HD, but rather with the effective resolution of F900, in this discussion that is.

Maybe super16 at its best doesn't give you exactly pixel-to-pixel sharp images at 1920 pixels, but neither do most HD cameras.

 

Don't forget that the resolution of a digital camera is NOT the pixel count. You usually lose over half of the resolution with the Nyquist filter used to prevent aliasing, plus the losses of any subsampling or compression in the recording process. When film is scanned, you always have the option of using a higher resolution scanner to minimize any aliasing from the scanning process.

 

For years, Super-16 certainly has had enough resolution to satisfy the needs of being blown up to 35mm and projected on a large screen:

 

http://www.imdb.com/SearchTechnical?PCS:Super%2016

 

Modern stocks like today's Kodak VISION2 films are significantly better than the stocks of only a decade ago. So if well-shot Super-16 could satisfy theatre audiences a decade ago, why wouldn't even better Super-16 stocks be up to the challenge of HD video?

[Guest Kai.w]

This whole debate has become misdirected. Grain increases the appearance of sharpness Resolution is not a matter of perceptible grain but what the grain is resolving. You can have a very sharp, high resolution image that is grainy

These have been two different statements of mine.

 

If I look to the left, I see your description as "Digital Image Technician." Since this is a Cinematography board, the definition of Digital Image Technician is one who sets up and is responsible for digital cameras and associated ancillary equipment, in prep and on set.

You are right. That was imprecise on my side. I actually attended two sets were digital image technicians have been present, so I know what they do. So, yes I simply forgot when I thought that was the most appropriate description. Sorry for confusion.

 

-k

[Andy_Alderslade]

Modern stocks like today's Kodak VISION2 films are significantly better than the stocks of only a decade ago. So if well-shot Super-16 could satisfy theatre audiences a decade ago, why wouldn't even better Super-16 stocks be up to the challenge of HD video?

 

This is a good point, this obbsession with resolustion is largely intelectual. In the end resolution is not what you react to in terms of percieved quality, providing it doesn't fall below a thresh-hold of acceptable definition. Contrast and colour saturation is a far more affecting visual attribute which most people will notice.

[Filip Plesha]

This is a good point, this obbsession with resolustion is largely intelectual. In the end resolution is not what you react to in terms of percieved quality, providing it doesn't fall below a thresh-hold of acceptable definition. Contrast and colour saturation is a far more affecting visual attribute which most people will notice.

 

Contrast and saturation are really not the issue of either of these formats, because they can be altered with a simple push of a button. (of course, unless you have more "contrast" than you need like with video often, in which case its hard to bring it down because highlights are gone)

[Galen Carter-Jeffrey]

Forgive me for this stuid question. What is Color Depth and Contrast?

[Filip Plesha]

Forgive me for this stuid question. What is Color Depth and Contrast?

 

In digital world, color or bit depth is the number of steps assigned to the range of brightness from black to white. What you are seeing every day on the internet, the jpg images, have 24-bit color depth. That means 8-bit depth of each chanel (red, green, and blue)

The more bit-depth the marrier, unless its too much, they you are just wasting disk space.

 

In film world, color depth is not really a technical term, as much as it is a subjective esthetic phrase, meaning

how subtle the nuance can be captured on film.

Often films with less "color depth" avarage-out colors, which leaves it spectrum looking more like strips than gradual gradient. On the other hand have great color separation, capturing a lot of subtle differences in color, it is sometimes said that those films have more "color depth", but like I said that is not a technical cathegory as much as subjective description. The technical word for it would probably be "color separation"

 

 

Contrast, well take your remote control, and change the contrast of the TV, that's the best way to explain what it is

 

But here is a more technical explanation:

Contrast is more of a subjective description of Gamma. When people say something looks contrasty, it probably has higher midtone gamma.

And what is gamma?

 

This is elementary school math:

Well supose you make a simple linear mathematical function where the value (y) is the recorded brightness on film, and the variable (x) is the light comming through the lens.

If the slope of that curve is higher (than 1), then you have more gamma, which means for less brightness difference of light comming through the lens you get more difference in brightness on film. In other words the brightness on film changes from dark to light very fast.

 

a practical example:

with high gamma (high slope of the gamma curve) when shooting a scene on a sunny day, your shadows will be very dark and your highlights will be very bright, approaching white

with lower gamma, your shadows will be mild, and your highlights will not be that bright, you will still see a lot of detail in shadows and highlights. The midtones will look smooth.

 

 

hope this helps.