7218 or 7246? Help!!

[F Bulgarelli]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm still debating on the stock choice for a music video.

I'm going for a clean, saturated, grainless look.

 

The shoot mainly involves a long, narrow hotel hallway. There is a good amount of light coming through some windows and skylights so I'm going to balance for daylight.

 

I need about a 250asa stock so I was thinking the 7246D would be a good choice, however I'm still considering 7218T with an 85 filter and rated at 250asa.

 

I'm a bit concerned that the 46 might not read into the shadow as well as the 7218, (we can't use a lot of lights) but I was thinking the 7218 might be grainier than the 46 which might give me a cleaner, snappier image.

It already sound like a compromise...but maybe it doesn't have to be.

 

Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Francisco Bulgarelli

[Aaron Tan]

I've just done two shoots using the two stocks you've mentioned. The 46 is very sharp and clean and there is less grain than the 7218... I haven't shot the 7218 filtered so I can't say if it will pick up the shadows better. It does a really amazing job without the filter.

 

However I don't know if you're going to telecine but if you are you can ask the colorist to (I don't know what the process is called) lower the grain levels to allow for less noise for a broadcast signal. Then the 7218 looks pretty clean.

 

I'll see if I can post up some images from the shoot on 7218 which we telecined onto MiniDV so you can see how grainless it looks after going through that 'ungraining' process. :lol:

 

One questions: Isn't 7218T rated 320ASA when you apply an 85 filter on it?

[Michael Nash]

Aaron's talking about "noise reduction," and it's essentially a digital blurring of the frames to mask the movement of the grain. On static images it looks great, but with movement you have to be more judicious. It can look pretty good, but if you go too far it ends up making motion look a little too smeary and soft.

 

7218 doesn't exactly have rich color saturation, although you can pump up the chroma in telecine quite easily. It does have more shadow detail than '46 if that's your fear. An 85 filter puts the film at 320 ASA, and rating it at 250 overexposes it 1/3 stop. That's not bad for a little kick of density for telecine.

 

But Francisco, you're kind of contradicting yourself (no offense) -- on the one hand you're saying you want shadow detail because you don't have a lot of light, and on the other you're saying you want a "snappy" image, which by most definitions means relatively high contrast and dark shadows. So which is it? If you ask me, that's the source of your dilemma. It's not which stock will deliver what you want; you already seem to know the answer to that. It's what do YOU want? ;)

[Aaron Tan]

here as promised... 7218 on an Aaton A-Minima with a Fujinon T3.9 10-40mm lens. The neg was telecined onto MiniDV with a bit of noise reduction and the brightness brought down slightly.

 

 

Please hold the applause... j/k :P

[F Bulgarelli]

So which is it? If you ask me, that's the source of your dilemma. It's not which stock will deliver what you want; you already seem to know the answer to that. It's what do YOU want? ;)

Thank you guys,

 

Aaron, your work looks very nice.

 

Michael, What I mean by "snappy" is an image clean and grainless. Maybe I'm not using the term correctly.

 

As far as what I'm looking for, let me give you a scenario:

 

Let's say that I could shoot a side by side test with both stocks rated at 250asa and I have a situation in which my key is at T4, I want to be able to see some detail in the background 20 feet away, which reads...let's say T1.4. I know that I won't get much information 3 stops under but I would think a faster stock like the 7218 will give me something, perhaps more than the 46 eventhough I'm rating them the same. Right?

 

Thanks,

 

Francisco

[John Pytlak RIP]

If you exposed both stocks at their rated EI (and the proper color temperature), the 7218 will be just a bit better for shadow detail. Sharpness and graininess will be very close, as Kodak's 7218 uses the new VISION2 technology, which improved the image structure significantly, even for a higher speed film.

 

Rating 7218 with a Wratten 85 filter at EI 250 is slight overexposure, which should improve shadow detail.

 

Aaron: Is that warm overall cast the "look" you wanted in the transfer?