transfer and neg stocks

Alessandro Machi · March 18, 2007

BetaSP is a significant step down and DV is a little step down from there, both of these formats in either YUV or in the DVcam from SDI have very significant quality difference from the original Uncompressed SDI signal coming out of the Telecine/ColorCorrector.

-Rob-

Lots of good info Robert. Do you think for Super-8 purposes there is a noticeable difference between Digital Betacam and Betacam SP? And for low budget purposes, betacam sp should still be acceptable for 16mm and 35mm, no?

...Thanks. I am a b&w fan too...

It's 54fps on a Nikon R10. I over rode the light meter a bit to add more exposure.. I had the stupid auto-iris on for the Kodachrome sequence so the spraying water kept tripping it... I never use auto-iris anymore..

Steve

Auto Iris can be useful in front lit situations in which there is a significant contrast range and one is doing a pan or zoom. When autoexposure is used for backlit situations is usually when the footage ends up looking amateurish.

I should point out however that a couple of front lit scenarios can also play havoc with auto-exposure. If a streak or glint reflects off of chrome (such as off of a car bumper), if a white or black object suddenly enters the frame, or if one is shooting water or clouds that can also cause big exposure jumps even if the image is front lit.

But if one is shooting into a forest and not really seeing the sky, then autoexposure can work pretty well, same for other shady scenes as well.

Justin Lovell · March 18, 2007

Lots of good info Robert. Do you think for Super-8 purposes there is a noticeable difference between Digital Betacam and Betacam SP? And for low budget purposes, betacam sp should still be acceptable for 16mm and 35mm, no?
Auto Iris can be useful in front lit situations in which there is a significant contrast range and one is doing a pan or zoom. When autoexposure is used for backlit situations is usually when the footage ends up looking amateurish.

Speaking of auto iris.... on a side note, I just watched 'gridiron .. something or other..." it was that movie where the rock is the football coach. anyways, the had a huge iris pull in one scene where he walks into a building from outside in the sun to get some flowers from the team for his mother. As he enters the building, the camera is over his shoulder and they pull with the iris to correct for the exposure difference from outside.

The cooler shot is when he leaves the building. The camera is on his face (steadycam, walking backwards) as he walks out of the building and into the sun. They do an iris pull and there is no shift in the exposure on his face at all. The background (interior of the building) just goes to black as he enters the sun. I'm bet they ramped it during the telecine, but either way, it looked super smooth.

Alessandro Machi · March 18, 2007

Speaking of auto iris.... on a side note, I just watched 'gridiron .. something or other..." it was that movie where the rock is the football coach. anyways, the had a huge iris pull in one scene where he walks into a building from outside in the sun to get some flowers from the team for his mother. As he enters the building, the camera is over his shoulder and they pull with the iris to correct for the exposure difference from outside.

The cooler shot is when he leaves the building. The camera is on his face (steadycam, walking backwards) as he walks out of the building and into the sun. They do an iris pull and there is no shift in the exposure on his face at all. The background (interior of the building) just goes to black as he enters the sun. I'm bet they ramped it during the telecine, but either way, it looked super smooth.

Did you notice a shift in the depth of field after the f-stop exposure had been racked?

Justin Lovell · March 18, 2007

Did you notice a shift in the depth of field after the f-stop exposure had been racked?

Not when I watched it. Maybe after a second viewing.. in slow mo. ;)

Robert Houllahan · March 20, 2007

Lots of good info Robert. Do you think for Super-8 purposes there is a noticeable difference between Digital Betacam and Betacam SP? And for low budget purposes, betacam sp should still be acceptable for 16mm and 35mm, no?

I have always really liked BetaSP I feel it is overall much better than DV based tape and is more robust and has nicer color. There is however a big difference between SP and Digibeta/Uncompressed Disk (which I am going to consider the same) but this really depends on your finish format and workflow needs. I will maintain that the less compressed the original, especially with a source with allot of grain, the better a final DVD will compress.

-rob-

Alessandro Machi · March 20, 2007

I have always really liked BetaSP I feel it is overall much better than DV based tape and is more robust and has nicer color. There is however a big difference between SP and Digibeta/Uncompressed Disk (which I am going to consider the same) but this really depends on your finish format and workflow needs. I will maintain that the less compressed the original, especially with a source with allot of grain, the better a final DVD will compress.

-rob-

The workflow for betacam sp would be component out (making sure that the tracking knob on the deck has been optimized so the tracking needle is as far to the right as possible, assuming one is using a PVW or BVW betcam sp deck), use a Kona card or a black magic card, then convert the component signal to either 10 bit uncompressed, 8 bit uncompressed, or DVC Pro-50 if hard drive space is an issue.

AS for output from the computer, I'm open to suggestion. Although I would probably go to betacam sp, I'm not against any other option that is affordable and of equal to or better quality than the betacam sp.