Difference 16mm to 35mm

[saleem dad]

hi

i wanna aske & shire about what difference betwhen 16mm & 35mm.i mean now days all tvc shoot on 35mm atfter telecine end of the day on air at tv.i mean if we shoot on 16mm after telecine the major difrence look,qoulity wise ,compair then 35mm?

plz send your comment at your experiance .i hope you r guy's openly discase me.

regrads

Edited August 11, 2006 by saleem dad

[David Mullen ASC]

35mm is a bigger negative, that's mainly it -- bigger negative = less grain, more detail. Oh, and more money.

 

On regular TV, 35mm still looks better than 16mm (hence why 35mm is the preferred format for high-end stuff) but the differences are minimized compared to theatrical projection. There are a number of TV shows shot in Super-16 (Super-16 instead of regular 16mm because they are transferring to 16x9, not 4x3) and some of them look so good you'd think they were 35mm ("One Tree Hill" for example.)

 

You can get closer to a 35mm look by using the slower-speed stocks in 16mm, but it's harder to match the degree of fine detail that 35mm can capture. Using good lenses helps.

[Jonathan Bryant]

One great looking 16 show is the OC. I dated this girl who had the whole season on DVD and it looked amazing like 35 on her 20" TV. Also Sex and The City is a great example of what can be done with 16 IMHO. Alot of small ads are shot on 16.

 

Like David said I think if you use 16mm in 16:9 format you use alot more of the film compared to cropping for 4:3. Super 16 in the 16:9 format like the OC dvds to my eye looks almost like 35 besides the deeper depth of field (more area in focus). What keeps me from shooting film is the expense in telecine.

[Stephen Whitehead]

Here is a question, that I have never fully understood, perhaps David or someone else could shed some light on the subject. I have been told by some colourists that 35mm has better latitude then standard 16mm. Now at first I didn't think this was accurate, as the same emulsions are used on both sizes, the resolution should be different but not the latitude. But then my thinking was, HDV has higher 'colour depth' (not latitude) then standard difition when down converted even if both formats have a colour space of 4:1:1. This is because when down sampling more pixels are used to create a pixel of one colour, therefore a more precise colour can be determined by good down conversion software. Is this why 35mm has better latitude than 16mm, at least in the telecine world?

 

Anyone understand that?

[David Mullen ASC]

Latitude should be the same, contrast should be the same. Detail and resolution are different, and that may give a different impression of whether you can see something in the extreme dark and bright areas I suppose.

 

Also, the larger negative means that the graininess from misexposure will not be as pronounced because grain is smaller to begin with, so I suppose you can call that "greater latitude" for misexposure. When things crap out in 16mm, they do so more obviously, so there is less room for error.

[Corey Bringas]

Here is a question, that I have never fully understood, perhaps David or someone else could shed some light on the subject. I have been told by some colourists that 35mm has better latitude then standard 16mm. Now at first I didn't think this was accurate, as the same emulsions are used on both sizes, the resolution should be different but not the latitude. But then my thinking was, HDV has higher 'colour depth' (not latitude) then standard difition when down converted even if both formats have a colour space of 4:1:1. This is because when down sampling more pixels are used to create a pixel of one colour, therefore a more precise colour can be determined by good down conversion software. Is this why 35mm has better latitude than 16mm, at least in the telecine world?

 

Anyone understand that?

 

I have heard people have different definitions of "latitude". If by latitude you mean how many stops of latitude you have (ik now using the word in the definition) i.e. if you are shooting at a F/16 everything from a f/8 to a f/32 will expose then that is your latitude. And yes, Super 35 or 35mm will have more "latitude" then 16 or super 16. I believe super 16 has about 4 stops of latitude and super 35 has 7 or 8? these numbers may be wrong, i'm going off of memory not experience. (Though I believe super 16 does have 4 stops from experience..)

 

Just my 2 cents.

-Corey

Edited August 12, 2006 by Corey Bringas

[Stephen Williams]

I have heard people have different definitions of "latitude". If by latitude you mean how many stops of latitude you have (ik now using the word in the definition) i.e. if you are shooting at a F/16 everything from a f/8 to a f/32 will expose then that is your latitude. And yes, Super 35 or 35mm will have more "latitude" then 16 or super 16. I believe super 16 has about 4 stops of latitude and super 35 has 7 or 8? these numbers may be wrong, i'm going off of memory not experience. (Though I believe super 16 does have 4 stops from experience..)

 

Just my 2 cents.

-Corey

 

Hi,

 

Whilst the dynamic range of film is over 11 stops any latitude comes at the expense of the dynamic range. From tests a film underexposed 1 stop will not perfectly (but very nearly) match a film overexposed by 1 stop, so I would say the latitude shot to shot is no more than +/-1 Stop. If you are after a 'Look' then you can expose at - 3 to + 4 stops and still get a result.

 

A day for night scene underexposed 3 stops will (just) work, overexpose by 3 stops and it won't!

 

Stephen

[Keneu Luca]

Would lenses also affect the differences? Perhaps the selection and quality of 35mm lenses outperform 16mm?

[Corey Bringas]

Hi,

 

Whilst the dynamic range of film is over 11 stops any latitude comes at the expense of the dynamic range. From tests a film underexposed 1 stop will not perfectly (but very nearly) match a film overexposed by 1 stop, so I would say the latitude shot to shot is no more than +/-1 Stop. If you are after a 'Look' then you can expose at - 3 to + 4 stops and still get a result.

 

A day for night scene underexposed 3 stops will (just) work, overexpose by 3 stops and it won't!

 

Stephen

 

yeah you said it better. I think what I was trying to say is if you had a subject standing infront of a window during the day shooting super 16. If you expose correctly for the subject and the light outside is 4 stops or less to what the subject is exposed at it will not completly blow out. On Super 35 the light outside would have to be 7 or 8 stops brighter to completely blow out. I think that made more sense...

 

-Corey

[Stephen Williams]

yeah you said it better. I think what I was trying to say is if you had a subject standing infront of a window during the day shooting super 16. If you expose correctly for the subject and the light outside is 4 stops or less to what the subject is exposed at it will not completly blow out. On Super 35 the light outside would have to be 7 or 8 stops brighter to completely blow out. I think that made more sense...

 

-Corey

 

 

Hi,

 

I think its that more care is needed with S16mm, underexpose 1 stop and the grain starts getting very obvious, overexpose by 2 stops and the noise from the telecine gets you!

 

Stephen

[Sam Wells]

Here is a question, that I have never fully understood, perhaps David or someone else could shed some light on the subject. I have been told by some colourists that 35mm has better latitude then standard 16mm. Now at first I didn't think this was accurate, as the same emulsions are used on both sizes, the resolution should be different but not the latitude. But then my thinking was, HDV has higher 'colour depth' (not latitude) then standard difition when down converted even if both formats have a colour space of 4:1:1. This is because when down sampling more pixels are used to create a pixel of one colour, therefore a more precise colour can be determined by good down conversion software. Is this why 35mm has better latitude than 16mm, at least in the telecine world?

 

Anyone understand that?

 

No because it's wrong. If a colorist told me that I'd interpret it as an excuse and find another colorist.

 

David's "less room for error" or Steven's point about noise not withstanding - of course 35 will look better in that regard.

 

-Sam

[David Mullen ASC]

The dynamic range, the number of stops that get recorded, is the same -- it's not based on the size of the negative. The latitude for misexposure is less just because the grain gets more obvious in a smaller negative.

 

But a window is not going to "blow-out" faster on Super-16 7218 compared to 35mm 7218. If that were true, Vision-2 500T '18 would be super high-con in Super-8 and super low-con in IMAX! The only difference, as I said, is that there may be some residual fine detail in extremely hot or dark areas on the larger areas that can still be seen on a larger negative, but don't register as well on a smaller negative because the grain size can't resolve the detail.

 

In terms of color depth or complexity, yes, it seems that a larger negative can resolve more subtlety in colors because they devote more grains to that color -- so a patch of wildflowers in Super-8 in a wide shot may render as a blob of yellow, let's say, but in 65mm, you will see more variation in colors. But this is only true of real-life objects made up of a variety of subtle color shades, not a single patch of a single color like on a chart, which should render the same in different negative sizes.

[saleem dad]

Latitude should be the same, contrast should be the same. Detail and resolution are different, and that may give a different impression of whether you can see something in the extreme dark and bright areas I suppose.

 

Also, the larger negative means that the graininess from misexposure will not be as pronounced because grain is smaller to begin with, so I suppose you can call that "greater latitude" for misexposure. When things crap out in 16mm, they do so more obviously, so there is less room for error.

 

 

 

hi,what means misexposure?

[Elias Haswany]

But a window is not going to "blow-out" faster on Super-16 7218 compared to 35mm 7218. If that were true, Vision-2 500T '18 would be super high-con in Super-8 and super low-con in IMAX! The only difference, as I said, is that there may be some residual fine detail in extremely hot or dark areas on the larger areas that can still be seen on a larger negative, but don't register as well on a smaller negative because the grain size can't resolve the detail.

 

In terms of color depth or complexity, yes, it seems that a larger negative can resolve more subtlety in colors because they devote more grains to that color -- so a patch of wildflowers in Super-8 in a wide shot may render as a blob of yellow, let's say, but in 65mm, you will see more variation in colors. But this is only true of real-life objects made up of a variety of subtle color shades, not a single patch of a single color like on a chart, which should render the same in different negative sizes.

 

 

Also one should mention the amount of bleed that takes place. although negative has anti halo backing (reason why all negative have black coating on back side) bleeding on the negative or internal lateral diffusion on the negative plane takes place IRRESPECTIVE of which negative you use. but manifests itself much more on smaller negs. if for intsance you have that window with a wire mesh in front and the window is way over exposed, the wire mesh will not show on 8mm or on 16mm but might come up on larger formats, simply because the hilight or the halo effect of over exposure will cause lateral diffusion to eat into the information closest to the hilight.

Hope I have not complicated it further for Saleem...

 

by the way I have heard of some dp's who asked kodak not include the anti halo coating in their negs, kodak will gladly remove it for a fee.

 

Elias Haswany

Mena based DP

[David Crossman]

hi

i wanna aske & shire about what difference betwhen 16mm & 35mm.i mean now days all tvc shoot on 35mm atfter telecine end of the day on air at tv.i mean if we shoot on 16mm after telecine the major difrence look,qoulity wise ,compair then 35mm?

 

35mm provides the shallower depth of field.

 

16mm cannot provide anything like the 'look' of 35mm in this respect - assuming you are shooting 35mm at a wide aperture. This is an optical difference and even the newest 16mm stocks cannot create this.

 

I think this is what cinema and TV audiences like about the larger format even if they do not understand what creates this.

 

Regards.