What might be the issue?

[Nathan D. Lee]

Here is a frame grab from my most recent short, and my first time shooting on 16mm film. I went the really cheap route because i had never shot on film before. In carefully analyzing the images i captured i have found as i am sure you can see the image to have an overall soft quality to it. Specifically along sharp edges of her clothes and hair. Its not that i think it looks terrible but i have compared it to some MiniDV footage and the DV footage shot with an ol single chip camera has sharper edges and detail, particularly in hair. Here are the full specs on what you are looking at.

 

Stock: Fuji 64D

Camera: Eclair ACL II with a 10-150mm Angenieux lens

Standard 16mm

This frame was somewhere around f8 as i recall. (it was lat Aug)

There was one .3 ND filter on the lens

24fps

The telecine was done directly to MiniDV

 

This frame has not been color corrected beyond the telecine.

 

I am guessing the culprit of the lack of clarity woudl be either the lens or the fact that i went right to DV, but i know that DV can support the detail so i do not know. If i went to something a little higher like DVCam if that would ahve made much difference. Anyway i would appreciate any thoughts on the subject and ic an post more frame grabs (one of the slate, with lines) later. Let me know. Maybe my focus is just off. But most of it looks about like this.

 

 

Edited March 3, 2005 by leebob61

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

How was it transferred?

 

For what it's worth, I just had some 16mm transferred and it looked rather soft like that, and that was a Spirit, so paying a lot of money may not get you out of the problem!

 

Phil

[Nathan D. Lee]

Rank Cintel Turbo II telecine with Digiscan IV, daVinci color corrector .

That is a cut and paste off Alpha Cine's web page, which is where i had it done.

 

Note: It doesnt look bad on your old standard def tv, but anything with real resolution it is really noticable.

[Trevor Greenfield]

The beauty of DI is it allows you dive right in and find the true faults of the image and fix them if possible. It may not help you find out what caused this but I can tell you that the image has a serious red shift, is neutral contrast and brightness (typical for telecines), and with a small sharpen filter it does come back. I'm sure you realize all this, but I just wanted to let you know the footage can be saved easily in case you weren't.

[Michael Nash]

Lenses and telecine mean everything when it comes to the sharpness of 16mm. You were handicapped by both. ;)

 

Older Angeniuex zooms, uh, they're what give 16mm a bad name. The Rank Turbo is also an older machine and while decent, doesn't come anywhere close to the newer high-end telecines, nor will it reveal all the info that 16 can deliver.

 

Sometimes with 16mm you have to add a little sharpening to get it to pop on standard def TV. Most colorists don't do this unless you ask for it. I think this is another area where film first-timers who are used to video see the biggest difference -- they're used to see an edge-enhanced image, and 16mm on its own isn't.

 

The other factor is that film generally tends to be softer in contrast than video (especially MiniDV cameras), and contrast is tied to the illusion of sharpness. If you crush the shadow detail down a little bit (to emulate video), you'd be surprised how much it starts to look like -- video! I've seen so much film and video footage side by side where the video stuff looks "snappier" because of the contrast, even though the actual detail and sharpness is nowhere close to that of the 16mm footage.

 

And FWIW, DVCAM is exactly the same info/compression as MiniDV, it's just laid down on the tape differently. If you want a step up in image quality (staying digital) you'd go to Digibeta or DVCPRO50.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> sharpen filter

 

Ick!

 

Or, you could shoot it on video, and get an image that doesn't require you to go through all this multi-thousand-dollar hoop-jumping to get such an elementary factor as sharpness.

 

Phil

[Trevor Greenfield]

Hi,

 

> sharpen filter

 

Ick!

 

Or, you could shoot it on video, and get an image that doesn't require you to go through all this multi-thousand-dollar hoop-jumping to get such an elementary factor as sharpness.

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Only when you have to Phil. If you're off in focus to begin with rather than use a blurred image it might be OK to add a .5% sharpen.

 

There's obviously a reason why he chose to shoot it on film, and a reason why most pros choose to shoot productions on film.

[Stephen Williams]

Stock: Fuji 64D

Camera: Eclair ACL II with a 10-150mm Angenieux lens

Standard 16mm

This frame was somewhere around f8 as i recall. (it was lat Aug)

There was one .3 ND filter on the lens

24fps

The telecine was done directly to MiniDV

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Do you really want to sharpen the image? The rose on her jacket looks quite sharp. Sharpening will bring out the lines on the girls face. Maybe next time you shoot you might want to soften the background. By wotking at f8 you have similar sharpness everywhere. I think the resoloution of an older Rank telecine is not comparable with a Spirit, but just adding detail will make the pictures more video like. Try turning off the detail on a mini DV camera, the pictures will look very soft. If you have some out-takes you could look at the negative with a magnifying glass and see how sharp the image really is, you might be pleasantly suprised!

 

Stephen Williams DoP

Zurich Switzerland

 

www.stephenw.com

[DavidSloan]

I shoot S16mm all the time and have never had a problem with focus. I don't use angeniux, though! ;) Stick with Zeiss if you're gonna go use a zoom lens. The 11-110 is superb.