I Am Alone

[Freya Black]

I think there's a slight reality check needed with regard to the difference between noise in fast video cameras and grain in fast film.

 

500-speed film, scanned properly to an uncompressed HD master, produces grain that would be considered pretty hideously noisy if it was coming from a video camera. This gets even worse if you consider techniques like super35. Around the time I did some work for a manufacturer of (extremely high quality) scanners, we had some test footage from a prominent motion picture that had been shot super35 on 500-speed stock. Noisy? At 2K, it was an absolute snowstorm of grain.

 

And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. This was oscar-nominated cinematography.

 

But the idea that video is even nearly as noisy as film, for the same sensitivity, is sheer fantasy. Even the slowest video cameras clock in at about 320ASA, with the gain at unity.

 

P

 

I can accept your core point that people are more likely to accept a nice bit of film grain over some nasty video noise and thus we may not be exactly comparing like with like, HOWEVER I can not go along with the implication that 500ASA film will be "an absolute snowstorm of grain".

 

This must have a good deal to do with the way that footage was shot. Movies are shot all the time on 500ASA film in 35mm. I'm often surprised at the number of movies that are using it when I would have thought they could have easily have shot on 200T. In fact 500ASA seems to be the most common stock used on most movies shooting on film and I don't perceive them all to be "an absolute snowstorm of grain". QED the footage you are talking about must have been shot differently.

 

Basically I agree with your core point but I think you went way too far in over-egging the pudding.

 

As to many cameras being capable of 320ASA, well that sounds about right, and I don't find that to be all that wildly impressive, especially given that people have been saying this stuff about video cameras for years and years and the ability of the cameras is getting better over time.

 

Having said all that I do think we are finally starting to see video cameras that are capable of doing some wildly impressive stuff in lower light conditions, I just think this is only starting to happen now, after people going on about it for years and years.

 

Freya