Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted January 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted January 6, 2011 My "pot stirring" point, I guess, was not to let our preconceptions and romanticism about film capture lead to erroneous conclusions about it's superiority. I feel like a lot of people moved past the film "romanticism" thing some time ago and are now mostly influenced by what is simply shown to them. For those in the producing chair, standing up against a decrease in quality isn't any more romantic a feeling than signing the checks to do what feels best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted January 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted January 6, 2011 Probably the closest thing on the book is the proposed 6K FF35 "Monstro" sensor from Red. THAT I could see as being IMAX-like if projected digitally in 6K. I think Aaton is a little ahead of that game with their 6K CCD Dalsa system. Wasn't it officially working recently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antti Näyhä Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 I understand that a movie will show less grain when displaying 24fps. But, detail is detail Detail is comprised from grain. Please read this again: Random grain being repeated 24 times a second fills in a detail gap, after gap, after gap, giving even the small 16mm frame great perceivable detail when in motion. Also, just out of curiosity, what kind of 6x9 camera did you use for your test? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris D Walker Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 I wholly agree that an Imax-sized negative has far more than 4K's worth of resolution, I would never dispute otherwise. My original post asked if a digital Imax camera would be worthwhile to build as technology stands today; maybe the answer is no. 15/70 film may stand as the best capture format for a long time to come; the demands for speed, storage and exhibition of 8K or even 12K images in a digital landscape is still far away from becoming a real possibility for film-making. Having said this, what do many of you think is the plateau of resolution in a digital image? If 4K isn't enough for the capture and exhibition of big-format motion pictures than what is the uppermost limit? It surely can't go on forever. 8K? 12K? More?! Look at The Dark Knight; there was a large number of visual effects with 15-perf 65mm film as the capture format that were recorded back to film at either 8K or 5.6K. When people were sitting in Imax theatres watching The Dark Knight how many of them noticed the difference between the 5.6K Imax shots and the 8K Imax shots? How many of us can see the difference between a scene shot on Kodak 5205 250D and Kodak 5218 500T pushed a stop on 15-perf 65mm negative? We can't see the difference because our eyes most likely can't resolve any more detail beyond a certain point. Why waste time on resolution that the vast majority can't perceive? Imax has been doing fine for 40 years with 15/70. Maybe they should stick to it for a little longer. Maybe what makes them special is that they stick to what is still the best. There's a lot of good talk going on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Papich Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Both formats were well focused, and the scan was very well focused by virtue of the detail of the film grain. Which scanner did you use? There is no point to argue with you, until you write this IMPORTANT information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Greene Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Which scanner did you use? There is no point to argue with you, until you write this IMPORTANT information. OK, OK, OK... The scanner is a Nikon 6x9 film scanner. Not quite drum scan quality, but close enough for my work. - and nobody drum scans movies. The camera was a Fuji GW690III. It is a fixed lens rangefinder camera with a 90mm lens (38mm equivalent) A wonderful camera BTW! The film camera actually had a magnification advantage as the digital version was shot on a 35mm lens. Now Anton, you can argue with me :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted January 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted January 6, 2011 It's worth bearing in mind that in a very few years we will be able to have more or less any amount of resolution we want in a camera system, within reason. At this point it will become a debate about how much is actually appropriate. Given that 1080p24 HD outresolves 35mm film prints which have been considered acceptable for almost a century, it is clearly adequate for most work. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antti Näyhä Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 When people were sitting in Imax theatres watching The Dark Knight how many of them noticed the difference between the 5.6K Imax shots and the 8K Imax shots? You might know this, but just as a clarification: For the IMAX prints of TDK, most IMAX shots were printed photochemically. Only the effects shots went through a 8K/5.6K DI. And as far as I can remember, the majority of the FX shots were shakycam & rapid-fire editing anyway, so they might even have got away with 4K as no-one in the audience had time to really look at picture details anyway… And I'm only half joking here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted January 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted January 6, 2011 Not every shot needs the same level of resolution -- I'm sure that with the efx of "Dark Knight" the decision as to what resolution to work at for the IMAX digital efx shots were based on a number of factors, length of the shot, how tight or wide it was, amount of movement, was it night or day, etc. A wide landscape shot in daytime is going to need more resolution than a close-up at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Papich Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 OK, OK, OK... The scanner is a Nikon 6x9 film scanner. Not quite drum scan quality, but close enough for my work. - and nobody drum scans movies. You can write name of the model, 9000 ED, is this such a big problem? And yes, not quite drum scan quality, and yes, nobody drum scans movies. So, what is your point? The camera was a Fuji GW690III. It is a fixed lens rangefinder camera with a 90mm lens (38mm equivalent) A wonderful camera BTW! The film camera actually had a magnification advantage as the digital version was shot on a 35mm lens. Now Anton, you can argue with me :) Actually I can't, not yet. Why not give us your two photos, with exact data and 100% crop ( I know pixel peepers like this :) ). Otherwise, any serious conversation is pointless. Pics or it didn't happen. B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Greene Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 You can write name of the model, 9000 ED, is this such a big problem? And yes, not quite drum scan quality, and yes, nobody drum scans movies. So, what is your point? Actually I can't, not yet. Why not give us your two photos, with exact data and 100% crop ( I know pixel peepers like this :) ). Otherwise, any serious conversation is pointless. Pics or it didn't happen. B) The scanner is the Nikon Coolscan 8000 ED (same quality as the 9000). It's no problem. As for posting the images, I'll try to do that later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Vincent Sweeney Posted January 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted January 6, 2011 Check this out! Sound of Music 65mm resto. Just saw the Bluray, AMAZING. Sorry, its sort of a double post but its great and fits in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted January 6, 2011 Premium Member Share Posted January 6, 2011 I don't get it -- 35mm film is around 3.2K but a replacement for 15-perf 65mm only needs to be 4K??? Um, no.... Of course we'd have to replace those 1990's vintage chips with new ones, with lots more photosites, now that we can process the data fast enough. I was mainly thinking of the Blue Herring's optical block as an interesting and existing Imax-sized component. And it was full three primary RGB 4K, not Red-style count all the Bayer masked single primary photosites 4K. To get more resolution, you need more photosites. There are two ways to do that: Make the photosites smaller, or make the chips bigger. The first path leads to noise problems and undersampling, because you can't scale down the boundaries between the photosites. That's a large part of why the Arri Alexa makes better looking pictures than some of the cameras that cram more photosites into the same area. So, we could start by making Imax-sized chips with Alexa-sized photosites, and putting them on the Blue Herring prism block. Now, how do we see what we got.....? -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Gross Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Wait, what is Mitch referring to? Speak! ;) Sorry, under NDA. When it is time to go public I'll be shouting from the rooftops. We're involved in so many cool cutting edge things these days it makes my head spin. And I have to bite my tongue constantly so as not to reveal things I shouldn't, like those two different single camera 3D systems we have in the works. Oops. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Greene Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 The scanner is the Nikon Coolscan 8000 ED (same quality as the 9000). It's no problem. As for posting the images, I'll try to do that later. attached full 6x9 image 5d mk1 full 5d mk1 crop 6x9 crop So Here they are :) Added note: The original film scan was 12.5k. This crop is from the file reduced to 6.25k (done to minimize grain aliasing) The 5d mk1 12.5mp crop has been up-res ed to match the size of the film crop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nugat Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Arri in their 4k+ project researched all of that sufficiently and put into practice. To pull all usable information out of S35, a 6k oversampling is needed for the 4k output. That applies both to digital acquisition and the DI/scan of a S35 negative. New generation of Arriscans 6k/4k and Alexa benefited from that research, although a decision was made to oversample 3k/2k in case of the camera--for now. Simple math says for the current IMAX a 18k/12k acquisition/DI system is needed. To be futureproof, a 36k/24k would not be without a merit. http://www.arri.de/camera/tutorials/4k_systems_theory_basics_for_motion_picture_imaging.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Papich Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 So Here they are :) Added note: The original film scan was 12.5k. This crop is from the file reduced to 6.25k (done to minimize grain aliasing) The 5d mk1 12.5mp crop has been up-res ed to match the size of the film crop. I thought you will put TIFF or RAW file in full format. JPG is as you know compressing format, so you loose lot of data in it. It is still not good comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Greene Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I thought you will put TIFF or RAW file in full format. JPG is as you know compressing format, so you loose lot of data in it. It is still not good comparison. gees...I think the tiff file is 60mb, way too big to post. I can assure you that the jpg is a very good representation of the small section of the image. If one zooms into the TIFF film scan further, there is no more usable resolution. I tried :) And a higher speed film would have been even worse. Anton, you are free to stick to your preconceptions, even if they are not accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Papich Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 gees...I think the tiff file is 60mb, way too big to post. It should be even bigger. You have rapidshare and similar sites for that. I can assure you that the jpg is a very good representation of the small section of the image. If one zooms into the TIFF film scan further, there is no more usable resolution. I tried :) JPG is highly compressible format if you're into this comparisons. And you forgot one thing. Resolution of film is limited by resolution of your film scanner. And a higher speed film would have been even worse. As it would be with higher speed setting on your sensor. Anton, you are free to stick to your preconceptions, even if they are not accurate. Sure Bruce, same goes for you. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Greene Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Sure Bruce, same goes for you. ;) Ok :) Nice to meet you on the forum though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Papich Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Ok :) Nice to meet you on the forum though! NHF, Bruce, it's just a discussion. I'm glad that you still shoot film. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antti Näyhä Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 (edited) Sorry to dig up an old thread, but this seemed to be most relevant here: LF Examiner: 4K vs. 15/70 shootout It seems like 4K holds up surprisingly well on IMAX screen after all. Please note though that this is about 4K projection, not 4K acquisition. Both test films were shot on 15/70mm; one of them was a photochemical print and the other was scanned at 4K. Edited July 21, 2011 by Antti Näyhä Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antti Näyhä Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Scratch that last bit: as it says in the article, both clips were actually scanned at a whopping 11K. It's just that the Wild Oceans clip went through a 4K DI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 What a joke! 4K (12 megapixel) files match IMAX??? Was everyone deprived of their glasses, corrective lenses at the screening? They get them drunk beforehand? IMAX has TWELVE TIMES the resolution of 35mm. Let's say, for safety's sake that due to crummy, slow, large-format optics, you only get an actual 8x increase. At 3.2K, hell, 2.5K with grainy 500T pushed a stop, that is 36 megapixels per frame at the worst, which, at 1.33:1 comes out to just a tad under SEVEN K. So, three times the resolution, at a bare minimum, under the worst circumstances, with the fastest film pushed a stop. I like how the test made sure all the IMAX material was 4th generation; as we are well aware most IMAX content is 2nd generation contact printing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Andre Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 why do people get so upset over discussions about resolution? cant anyone calmly disagree? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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