How do I get the film/cinematic look with a digital camera?

[Mark Kenfield]

 

It's that impression of legitimacy that people crave - not another half a stop of dynamic range.

 

P

 

A lovely summary Phil!

[Carl Looper]

While experts might be able to determine, from clues in an image, the particular technical mechanisms involved, in the delivery of that image, it's really quite irrelevant. Either you know the delivery mechanisms (for example, you created the delivery in the first place) or you are hazarding a guess, based on experience. But a guess is always a guess. But whether it's right or wrong is really beside the point. What ultimately matters is not the delivery mechanism but the resulting image. If we otherwise put an emphasis on this or that way of delivering an image (film vs digital vs some other means) it is not out of any concern for whether an audience will guess the delivery mechanism (correctly or otherwise), but out of concern for what type of image we're delivering for that audience. We will know, from experience, that a particular way of delivering an image can deliver a particular type of image. And indeed we might learn there are other ways of delivering the same type of image - perhaps more cheaply. Or indeed we might opt to use a cheaper technology (for economic reasons) and due to limitations in such a decision, we alter the type of image we want to deliver, ie. in order to fit the technology we've otherwise adopted. We make the best of what we have - rather than trying to pursue a cheat in some insane way.

 

That all said, I guess there's always something tantalising about a cheat. Cheats have a strange magnetic pull on our imagination. On one level they are a way of attacking the "reality effect" of photography - the idea that a photograph reproduces some pre-existing reality outside of the image. By creating a cheat one throws into question assumptions around photography (as reproduction of some real). But cheats can also reinforce that same reality effect. By turning an image into a trick, one can end up reinforcing the notion that images are inherently tricks - reinforcing the idea that reality is to be found elsewhere. But perhaps the most important aspect of any cheat is not that it is a cheat, but what the result might be: the effect.

 

The effect is far more important than the means. But for this reason the means become important. For it is not enough to just create an effect that merely "looks like" the effect one is after. Such effects are short-lived. They can easily end up looking like nothing other than a wannabe effect. A failure. Far more interesting are those effects which are better than what one might otherwise be after - and this requires giving up, to some extent, the preconceptions that might otherwise motivate pursuit of a particular effect. It requires a certain amount of experimentation, and looking at effects for those which are of interest - and then using their associated means. The selected effect, in this sense, precedes it's cause. And there is no question of such effects merely "looking like" something other than what they are. For they are equivalent to what they look like (not less so), because they will have their origin within that very domain: the domain of the visible, the observable, the effect.

C

Edited August 11, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

As an add to the above, the history of effects in the cinema can be traced back to Georges Méliès and an important part of that history is that his very first effect is the result of an accident. But properly speaking the effect "precedes it's cause" (precedes the accident) in the sense that the effect proper doesn't occur in the accident but in the observation of the effect during a screening of the film. In other words it doesn't occur in any recognition of the accident, but in the screened effect. And without the effect the accident would simply remain an accident. The film would end up on the cutting room floor. But what the effect does is to transform that accident into what will then become the means necessary to recreate the effect.

 

Now this is not to suggest that an effect can only be made by accident. It is to suggest effects be understood, firstly, in terms of an effect (what one sees), as distinct from their cause (this accident, that camera, this technique, etc). The task then becomes how to engineer the cause of such an effect. But the effect has to be an observable effect. Exactly those that accidents might otherwise expose. A form of precognition becomes required. To foresee an observable effect and to engineer it's cause.

 

C

Edited August 11, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Jon O'Brien]

Film catches/depicts sunlight better than digital in my opinion. Sunlight reflecting off and giving a glow to natural things like people, animals, flowers, foliage, trees, earth and water looks better on film. Darks, shadows, highlights - these things are important artistic factors too but in my opinion plain old sunlight is where film is king. Sunlight is a pretty, magical thing that is not fully appreciated by the digital sensor. I don't think it ever will be.

 

If you like Mozart or Bach played on a good acoustic violin, the proper effect is just not quite captured by a fiddle with an electric 'pick-up' on it. After all these years, with all our technology, we still haven't gotten away from the magic of acoustic music. In the world of movies, film will live on because, artistically, it's such good value. Another place where film shines over digital is in capturing natural lamp light - as in light from a kerosene lamp.

 

Also, art is difficult. He or she who would make good art must somehow pay. To use a musical example again, classical guitar requires more of the artist than 3 chord rhythm guitar. It's a longer, harder road to walk. Film costs more, and takes more care.

[Simon Wyss]

There’s a fundamental difference between film and sensor capture in time.

 

Film motion-picture cameras have mechanisms that transport the ribbon over a certain part of their movement cycle, covered by a shutter. The largest shutter opening angle is that of the Mitchell 16 camera, namely 235 degrees. I may be misinformed. Generally cameras have opening angles of 180 degrees or somewhat less. 170 degrees is very common, 172.8 degrees fits the 50-Hertz mains cycle by which HMI lamps flicker. 144 degrees was en vogue for filming off TV screens in 60-Hertz countries at 24 fps. Apart from the Mitchell 16 and Fujica Single-8 cameras that have 230 degrees, we can roughly say that of one minute action 30 seconds are not recorded.

 

Television and video cameras have much shorter interval blank times, broadly spoken around eight percent. 91 percent of the action is transmitted, recorded, and displayed. Binary-numeric or digital TV and video, HD, has about four percent blanking time, meaning that one sees around 96 percent of the action through time. I’m not going into computer monitors and the like.

 

Projection looks entirely different, too. Film projectors also have shutters, they cut off roughly half of the light concentrated on the film, the IMAX rolling-loop projector having been the most efficient with 32 percent dark and 68 percent light per cycle. Video projectors don’t have shutters but a vertically rolling blanking interval, interlaced or progressive. Some projectors can black out longer for a “cinema look” which is plain stupid. Had the film pioneers found a better solution to the technical problem of film transport and exposure time cinema would have had a look much like TV and video. Tisafact

[Jon O'Brien]

I think part of the key to perfection in creativity is an element of imperfection. If we are limited in some way, that's actually a blessing. An oil painting is a highly limited thing. It has a frame around it. It's terribly small really and it can't move or change. The limitations/technical absurdities of film are a gift. Us humans can get into problems when we have things too perfect. Video/digital is an almost perfect medium. It is rock solid steady, getting sharper by the year, we have absolute flexibility with its technical ability, it's all so easy and neat and affordable ... but it is boring. Boring is a real problem.