The secret to behind the Panavision Genesis

[Ted Johanson]

I'd take my 8 megapixel Nikon over my 35 mm Nikon any day of the week. What I lose in highlight detail I more than gain in convenience.

 

Don't forget the resolution loss, the noise that can easily become worse

than the grain of film at the same speed, purple fringing, horrible shutter

lag, horrible shot-to-shot performance, disgusting power consumption,

non- interchangeable lens, pathetic EVFs and initial expenses. I believe that

just about covers all of the disadvantages that your particular type of digital

camera has. If you're really willing to have all those problems in order to

have "convenience", that's your choice to make.

 

 

I still favor the 12 megapixel sensors mounted on a perforated clear plastic base that Kodak sells for less than $0.04 each.

John, you do realize that you are being very conservative with that statement,

don't you? Especially if you are talking in terms of digital camera "megapixels".

Take the highest of quality lenses, such as the Canon EF 135mm f/2 lens, focus

them perfectly on a high quality 35mm negative, and it will easily provide more

than 12 megapixels. Scan it with an excellent dedicated film scanner such as

the Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 II and you'll have a beautiful 40 megapixel

image.

 

Digital motion-picture cameras are still struggling with the very high data rates and massive amounts of data that need to be recorded

 

Let's do the math...

The Sony F900 outputs a 10 bit 1920x1080 image with 2:1 compression,

right? That equates to 89 megabytes per second when running at 24 FPS.

 

Super35, 4 perf negative film is worth at least a 4k scan. That's a

4096x3072 image. You'll need at least a 12 bit image to maintain all of

gradients throughout the entire contrast range. The image should also be

uncompressed. That equates to 1,300 megabytes per second at 24 FPS.

Overcrank the camera to 96 FPS and the bandwidth required would be

5,200 megabytes per second.

 

As long we're on this subject let's consider IMAX film. It is worth at least

a 12k scan. That would produce an image with dimensions of 12288x10500.

Again, you'll need a 12 bit uncompressed image. That equates to a bandwidth

requirement of 13,289 megabytes per second at 24 FPS.

 

Yep, things are looking good for digital capture. They'll be able to pipe all

that data through in the very near future :lol:

 

So many people seem to have the following misconception of digital camera

technology: "Before, I could only buy a two megapixel digital camera. Now

I can get 8 megapixel cameras! Wow! How do they do it. It must be new

technology." Wow! What genius thought of making the chip larger to add

more pixels?! Since when is adding adjacent pixels a new technology?

 

Yes, they have occasionally made small increases in pixel density on the

chips. And yes there's more noise and a tighter contrast range because

of it!

 

Some people seem to be under the impression that it is possible to infinitely

increase the resolution of electronic sensors. What's the purpose of making

a sensor with photodiodes smaller than photons?!

 

 

-Ted Johanson

Edited March 17, 2005 by Ted Johanson

[Guest Peter Waal]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't shoot a wedding with 35 mm film. It's the lowest standard of professional still photographers and yet DPs in the movie business revere it as if it were heaven sent. The challenge posed by digital capture is making some of you so dizzy that now we hear claims of 35 mm film being the equivalent of a 40 megapixel camera!

 

By the way, "How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?"

[Rik Andino]

Alls I've gotta say is simple

 

You watch an movie filmed in HD and it looks good

You watch something filmed in 35mm and it looks better...

 

I don't know much about the technical mumbo jumbo

But I know what I see and from my perspective 35mm still looks better than HD.

 

And I know these are just MY asthetics

but if you like...

We can do the Pepsi challenge on this

 

Take it to the streets see which one the people choose? 35mm film or HD?

[Balazs Rozsa]

As I said:

 

Digital motion-picture cameras are still struggling with the very high data rates and massive amounts of data that need to be recorded for anything above 2K resolution (1920 x 1080 = only 2 megapixels).

 

...

 

So when will a true 4K digital camera having film's latitude and an on-board recording device be on the market?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If you consider on camera recording from a purely storage capacity point of view, the Kinetta shows well what can be techonologically achieved. It is 6.5kg with battery and a hard drive magazine and it records 1.2Gb/sec into a fault tolerant raid array. At about 1.9Gb/sec you can record uncompressed 2K 10bit 24fps. That surely could be put into 10kg. And it uses the old 40GB drives, the new 60GB drives are already on the market. So I think uncompressed 2K on-board recording is very well within reach.

 

When will be it 4K?

 

Based on the increase of storage capacity in the last 15 years (which is about a steady 1.8 fold a year), the jump from 2K to 4K will take slightly more than 2 years. The jump to 8K another 2 years, and the jump to 16K another 2 years and so on. Of course it is possible that we are just at the point where the storage improvement will slow down and then we will need maybe 10 years for 16K capture.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Don't forget the resolution loss

 

8 megapixel isn't that much less than the average 35mm still. It's certainly very much more than a typical high-street digital lab does. It's probably less than an absolutely ideal Vistavision frame, but very few situations actually make that achievable.

 

> the noise that can easily become worse than the grain of film at the same speed,

 

Balls.

 

> purple fringing,

 

That's down to the lenses. Obviously. And you can frequently use the same lenses.

 

> horrible shutter lag, horrible shot-to-shot performance, disgusting power consumption,

> non- interchangeable lens, pathetic EVFs

 

Oh, so you want to compare 35mm pocket cameras with digital ones? No, didn't think so.

 

None of this applies - again, obviously - on any half-worthwhile DSLR. Digital pocket cams are unusably horrible because of these issues - although one I've been using occasionally recently has an optical parallax VF option almost identical to a similarly-marketed 35mm or APS pocket camera, and turning off the LCD does reduce power consumption enormously. The shutter lag on many pocket digicams is awful, tough.

 

> and initial expenses.

 

Yes, five grand UK for a 1DS is rather unfortunate. The 300D is fairly reasonable at the moment, though.

 

Phil

[John Pytlak RIP]

Some people seem to be under the impression that it is possible to infinitely

increase the resolution of electronic sensors. What's the purpose of making

a sensor with photodiodes smaller than photons?!

-Ted Johanson

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The largest grains in the fastest films are LESS than 5 micrometers in size, and film images are mostly captured by grains much smaller, many less than 1 micron in size. Larger than a photon, but MUCH smaller than a pixel sensor in today's digital cameras. B)

[Ted Johanson]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't shoot a wedding with 35 mm film. It's the lowest standard of professional still photographers and yet DPs in the movie business revere it as if it were heaven sent. The challenge posed by digital capture is making some of you so dizzy that now we hear claims of 35 mm film being the equivalent of a 40 megapixel camera!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you have any proof that it isn't?!!! Have you ever bothered to shoot film

with real lenses and then scan the negative itself with a dedicated film scanner?

Obviously not! Where in the <bleep> do some people get this extremely STUPID

idea that negative film so limited compared to digital cameras? I once heard The

History Channel claim that you need about 6 megapixels to match a 135 format

negative. What a pathetic misconception!!! Especially considering that a digital

camera uses Bayer pattern sampling!

 

If you'd actually bother to learn about the technology that you obviously love

so much, you'd know how Bayer pattern sampling works. You'd then realize

why a 6 megapixel digital camera doesn't produce an image with true 6

megapixel resolution! Anybody can see the results of it too. Take a look at

your precious digital images at 100%. Are you going to try to tell me that

looks true and natural?! Even if 135 isn't worth true 40 megapixels, it's

certainly worth 40 megapixels by digital camera standards. Would anybody

like to see an example?

 

The challenge posed by digital capture is making some of you so dizzy...

Do you actually dare to claim you know more about "digital capture" than I do?!

I use a digital camera EVERY day. I study this stuff in great depth every day.

 

> purple fringing,

 

That's down to the lenses. Obviously. And you can frequently use the same lenses.

Actually, the sensor plays a significant role in this issue too. Even DSLRs have

very significant issues with some lenses.

 

What I lose in highlight detail I more than gain in convenience

You obviously have no clue as to how important exposure latitude can be.

 

...I wouldn't shoot a wedding with 35 mm film

And I suppose you would shoot it with your digital camera instead?

 

 

-Ted Johanson

[Ted Johanson]

In the aftermath of the Genesis test footage, which has unquestionably

rocked the industry, film is now being touted, here and elsewhere, as 6K, 8K, 16K

and 24K

 

Yeah, I know, the F900 rocked the industry too. Apparently, you didn't read my

first post. The Genesis is incredibly inefficient when it comes to produce a measly

2 megapixel image! It requires 12 million photodiodes on a chip the size 35mm

MP frame just to produce a 2 megapixel image! Look at the F900, the three 2/3

inch chips are able to produce an image that truly has 2 million pixel resolution.

The Genesis is pathetic for it's chip size! Once again, digital cameras are trying

to resort to using a single chip design to cut costs. That causes serious setbacks

in resolution or contrast range capability. IMAX film could be considered to be

worth up to a 24k scan, 12k is definitely necessary.

 

I've seen a 24" x 50" landscape photograph taken with a 22 megapixel Hasselblad -- half the pixel count you're claiming as being necessary to equal 35 mm film

 

I've heard of it and so what? You can make 24" x 50" prints from micro film.

Of course, they won't look perfect at that size but neither will a 22 "megapixel"

Bayer pattern sampled image. What does this camera cost? $15,000, $20,000?

A 22 megapixel Bayer pattern sampled image is pretty pathetic for chip as large

as that camera has! The actual resolving power of film is far greater than the

resolving power that camera. Did I mention yet that larger sensors become

exponentially more expensive and can have increased noise?

 

There is a 24 megapixel movie camera already in prototype stage, built by Arri and Lockheed Martin.

Oh, now it's 24 megapixel?! I thought it was to be 12 megapixel. Anyone else

here agree? Here's what I've heard about it... It supposedly uses a special type

of memory which is write-once and costs around $9,000 per minute. It supposedly

uses a three-chip design; each chip being the size of a 35mm MP frame. The

alignment on that must be causing some massive headaches. I also heard that

it is currently the size of a small car. If this camera isn't some gigantically stupid

rumor started by some digital propagandist such as yourself, it's going to be one

hell of an expensive camera!!!

 

 

-Ted Johanson

[John Sprung]

There is a 24 megapixel movie camera already in prototype stage, built by Arri and Lockheed Martin. All the work now is going into making an onboard recording format.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I introduced Marc Darr and Steve Stough from L-M to the ASC guys and Denny Clairmont back in the late 1990's. Denny hooked them up with Arri. They can't say it officially, but the wink and nudge is that this thing was the eyes of the KH-12 spy satellites. It's a three chip beam splitter setup, using chips that are larger than the 65/70 film format. Last I heard, they had put this on the back burner, and parted company with Arri. I doubt that a prism camera with chips that size could ever compete with single chips. Size, price, and lens constraints all cut in favor of the single chip designs. (IIRC, it's three 12 megapixel chips, total 36 meg.)

 

 

 

-- J.S.

Edited March 17, 2005 by John Sprung

[John Sprung]

It supposedly uses a special type

of memory which is write-once and costs around $9,000 per minute.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've heard that, too. It was in one of the trade papers, so I figure it went thu the filter of a non-technical reporter. In the KH-12 implementation, it recorded to a RAM array, and downlinked to another RAM array. TRW made the downlink array, it was close to a cubic yard box full of memory chips. The cute trick on the downlink was that it dumped everything in such a short burst at such a high data rate that it was done before anybody else could grab a copy. In the spy business, you don't want them to know which of their secrets you do or don't know. ;-)

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Tenolian Bell]

The Sony F900 outputs a 10 bit 1920x1080 image with 2:1 compression,

right? That equates to 89 megabytes per second when running at 24 FPS.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The F900 records 8 bit with far more compression, around 7:1 - 9:1.

 

The Genesis records 10 bit 2:1 compression at its highest data rate.

[Ted Johanson]

The F900 records 8 bit with far more compression, around 7:1 - 9:1.

 

The Genesis records 10 bit 2:1 compression at its highest data rate.

 

Thanks, tenobell, for setting me straight on that. So my bitrate stands for the

Genesis, not the F900. Are you sure the F900 doesn't do 10 bit output though?

 

 

-Ted Johanson

[Eric Steelberg ASC]

I believe the F900 outputs 10 bit 4:2:2 uncompressed to disk (LARGE & FAST disks), like when using 901 HDSDI back or the Miranda, but records 8 bit 4:2:2 to HDCAM which I understand is the HDCAM format spec.

[Tenolian Bell]

From the Quantel Digital Fact Book

 

HDCAM.

 

Assigned D11, this is a series of VTRs based on the Betacam principles for recording

HD video on a tape format which uses the same style of cassette shell as Digital

Betacam, although with a different tape formulation. The technology supports both

1080 and 1035 line standards. Various methods are believed to be used to reduce the

video data including pre-filtering, DCT-based intra-frame compression and sampling

at around 3:1:1. Together these are said to provide data reduction of between 7 and

10:1. Four non-compressed audio channels sampled at 48 kHz, 20 bits per sample,

are also supported.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't shoot a wedding with 35 mm film. It's the lowest standard of professional still photographers and yet DPs in the movie business revere it as if it were heaven sent. The challenge posed by digital capture is making some of you so dizzy that now we hear claims of 35 mm film being the equivalent of a 40 megapixel camera!

 

By the way, "How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why do I suspect that you haven't got any idea what you're babbling about?

Oh, maybe it's because you don't seem to be aware that 35mm stills film is exposed on its side and so has twice the width and hence four times the emulsion area of movie film.

Just wanted to clear that up <_<

[John Pytlak RIP]

By the way, "How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Elvis still lives. On Film! And even though his movies are over 40 years old, he still looks pretty good. Much better than the video of him from the same era. :P B)

[K Borowski]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't shoot a wedding with 35 mm film. It's the lowest standard of professional still photographers and yet DPs in the movie business revere it as if it were heaven sent. The challenge posed by digital capture is making some of you so dizzy that now we hear claims of 35 mm film being the equivalent of a 40 megapixel camera!

 

By the way, "How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Did you read my reply at all??? 35mm is movie film. It was never designed for still photography. The only application that I feel 35mm is suitable for in still photography is photojournalism. Movies are of a lower resolution because the frame is refreshed at 24/5 times per second, which means with film there is a merging of different randomly scattered grains in the eye which in effect hides the grain because the grain is not in a matrix like digital is. Therefore you're getting great resolution out of the 35mm format. However, with still photography, you aren't seeing your wedding pictures projected on slide film on a 50 foot screen, you're transferring them onto paper (although some still prefer having some slides of the occasion too) and you're pulling them out of the closet and showing them to your children in twenty years. While you can make nearly GRAINLESS pictures using a film like Kodak's Portra 160 VC in the 35mm format, but the fact is that because weddings aren't movies and you don't have a crew of 20 setting up as many lights off camera, you usually have to make do with on-camera flash and available lighting. It's a totally different game in the still photography business. However, because of lighting limitations in still photography, many prefer the quality of larger format film. While 35mm now matches the quality of 6x45 of a few decades ago in many respects and has the advantage (some will say disadvantage here though) of having increased depth of field and newer, more extensive cameras and lenses, I would argue that over time, picture quality should IMPROVE, not stay the same of go downwards, which is why I hate digital photography so very very much. I've heard some people foolishly argue that if someone blinks in a wedding picture you need digital to fix it. Absolutely untrue. Everything available digitally can be done the old-fashioned analog way, or through high-resolution scanning. But as for motion pictures, they've always used 35mm or 65mm as a result of movies coming into competition with television. If you can get perfectly grainless images from 7245 and you have the money to light for it, why use anything else? And I'm sure that 7245 gets MORE than 12MP John. With scans and scanning there is an issue called grain aliasing that is caused by inefficiencies and limitations in scanner software that make grain more evident on your computer screen than it actually is on the negative, so scanner technology has a long way to go IMHO before it can adequately scan a frame of film.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Oh, maybe it's because you don't seem to be aware that 35mm stills film is exposed on its side and so has twice the width and hence four times the emulsion area of movie film.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Er, actually,35mm stills film only has twice the emulsion area; it's 65mm movie film that has four times!

(Phew, looks like nobody noticed....)

(Sorry, I hadn't had my breakfast when I posted that :blink: )

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

  It's a three chip beam splitter setup, using chips that are larger than the 65/70 film format.  Last I heard, they had put this on the back burner, and parted company with Arri.  I doubt that a prism camera with chips that size could ever compete with single chips.  Size, price, and lens constraints all cut in favor of the single chip designs. (IIRC, it's three 12 megapixel chips, total 36 meg.)

-- J.S.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It wouldn't be any big deal to make a 3-chip camera with three monochrome versions of the Genesis chip (ie sans filter mask), but apart from the massive data storage requirements, you wouldn't be able to use any existing 35mm cine lenses, since their rear elements would want to sit somewhere in the middle of the dichroic prism block!

 

If you can get hold of both a standard Betacam and a standard 35mm film lens, a simple demonstration of this is to use them both to focus an overhead light bulb onto a sheet of paper. The film lens will typically focus somewhere between 1/2" to 1" away from the paper while the video lens will need to be over 2" away. It has to be like that to leave room for the prism assembly, which is why you can't normally adapt film camera lenses for use on 3-chip (or tube) video cameras. On the other hand, you could theoretically adapt video lenses to work on film cameras (16mm at least), but I personally haven't heard of anybody wanting to do this!

 

 

This has always been one of the many practical drawbacks of "converting to digital": Not only do you need new cameras and post-production equipment; you'd also have to duplicate your entire 35mm film lens range in lenses designed for 2/3" 3-CCD imagers.

 

The Genesis and the D-20 (to name just two) are specifically designed to overcome that problem, but presumably at the expense of image quality. Personally I don't think this is a "problem" that can be solved: when you get down to the bottom line, taking everything into account, film is still gong to look like the best option.

 

Some of you here are going to have to face reality at some time or another: most of the people given the task of making these sorts of decisions are not "techno-junkies"; they're only interested in the final product and how to achieve it with the best quality/price ratio. Digital acquisition is a not-terribly-good answer to a question that nobody is really asking.

 

You can accuse them of neo-Luddite tendencies all you like, but given the current track record of so-called "Digital Cinematography" I really don't think too many of them are listening :P

[Sam Wells]

Did yo If you can get perfectly grainless images from 7245 and you have the money to light for it, why use anything else?  And I'm sure that 7245 gets MORE than 12MP John.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

7245 is my fav neg stock, but "perfectly grainless" I don't think so. Equiv to 12MP in my dreams ! Hey it's fine anyway.

 

I often use a lighting package called "The Sun" with this stock, it's pretty cheap although the grips & electric don't like to work much over 12 hrs this far south of the Arctic circle B)

 

-Sam

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Some people seem to be under the impression that it is possible to infinitely

increase the resolution of electronic sensors. What's the purpose of making

a sensor with photodiodes smaller than photons?!

-Ted Johanson

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Before you get to that stage, a more serious problem with single-chip sensors is that the dimensions of the individual pixel filters start to approach the wavelength of the light they're meant to be filtering, resulting in diffraction-grating-like artifacts.

 

This isn't an issue with either 3-chip CCDs or colour film.

[Sam Wells]

  They can't say it officially, but the wink and nudge is that this thing was the eyes of the KH-12 spy satellites.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

"Let's get that over-the-shoulder."

 

"OK"

 

"Can you back it up about 200 miles ?"

 

-Sam

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Whenever it arrives, one thing is certain: It will be sooner than Kodak would like :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I should think Kodak would be more worried about the widespread adoption of electronic projection since they sell vastly more release stock than camera negative.

 

Same ol' same ol' actually; television is arguably electronic "projection" but not too many people use video cameras if they can afford film origination. In other words, if electronic cinema projection ever becomes the norm (as I'm sure it will one day) that doesn't mean people won't continue to to use film.

Edited March 18, 2005 by Jim Murdoch

[Sam Wells]

P.S. I like a little granular texture.

 

OK that's enough for today, a satellite transmission is coming in. (Elvis and I are trying to read the numbers on a can of 7299 heh heh...)

 

"Hey hands off the mayo, dude"

 

-Sam

[John Pytlak RIP]

I should think Kodak would be more worried about the widespread adoption of electronic projection since they sell vastly more release stock than camera negative.

 

Same ol' same ol' actually; television is arguably electronic "projection" but not too many people use video cameras if they can afford film origination. In other words, if electronic cinema projection ever becomes the norm (as I'm sure it will one day) that doesn't mean people won't continue to to use film.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Six years after the Digital Cinema demo and pronouncement by George Lucas at ShoWest 1999, less than 1 percent of theatre screens have added Digital Cinema systems for feature presentation:

 

http://www.boxoffice.com/daily/daily99daily12.html

 

In the last six years, several generations of digital projectors and servers have come and gone, as have some of the initial players (e.g., Boeing, Qualcomm, etc.).

 

2004 set records for the volume of print film used worldwide, and 2005 is off to a great start too. In a "best of both worlds" strategy, Kodak continues to actively participate in the development and implementation of Digital Cinema technology:

 

http://www.kodak.com/go/dcinema

 

"We are committed to doing our part to help ensure that the digital projection technology of the future matches or exceeds the best possible image quality that exhibitors can present with 35 mm equipment," says Kodak Entertainment Imaging Division President Eric Rodli. "We believe that will ultimately require higher resolution digital projectors with a capacity for faithfully reproducing the full dynamic range of nuances in colors and contrast that today's films are capable of recording."...

 

The Kodak CineServer unveiled at the conference is designed to enable exhibitors to decrypt, decompress and send content to up to 2K resolution projectors. Rodli says that Kodak is committed to a 4K system and will provide leadership as digital projection technology continues to evolve. He also stresses that film quality sets a moving target.

 

"We have made a quantum leap forward in emulsion technology with the new generation of KODAK VISION2 films," Rodli says. "When you couple that ongoing progress with gains being made in digital intermediate technology, the possibilities for creating more nuanced and visually compelling motion pictures are unlimited."

 

Rodli lauds the pioneering work done by the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) in collaboration with Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), representing the seven major studios. That collaborative effort resulted in the production of a short film designed for use as standard evaluation material for prototype digital projectors. Rodli notes that the original 35 mm negative was scanned at 6K resolution, and the ASC/DCI test material is available at both 2K and 4K resolution.