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Beyond VV


Daniel Porto

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On 12/25/2021 at 2:22 PM, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Please don't open up another can of worms with the film vs. digital argument

??

I think I'm gonna shoot some macro footage of a can of worms on both film and digital as soon as the Summer comes. The soil is frozen now and all the worms are sleeping so I am just shooting the snow crystals and such on digital ?  

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On 12/26/2021 at 9:15 AM, Daniel Porto said:

. all really im trying to say i guess which is that im a camera nerd and very particular about what i like in that respect

I thought I am a camera nerd, having tons of different cameras and lenses just because I like the variety of choices they provide and sometimes just for finding the technology fascinating. Even disassembling film cameras just to see what is inside of them and to learn how to repair them and maybe even make them better (or at least not to break them in the process).

But the difference is, I like all types of different images and workflows and camera systems as long as they are the best working choice for the particular application and project and the end result is as close to what was intended as possible. If the end result works extremely well, then the format choice was right even if it is not some of my all time favourite formats...   

the thing is, I don't care about the shooting format or the lens choices if the end result works perfectly. Maybe it has something to do with my documentary background... the necessity to abandon the strict "methodological" approach to filmmaking like always clinging on one globally worshipped camera system and instead using whatever needed to get the shot you need and want. Often one needs to use extremely heretic approaches like using Z-cam cameras as a main camera or a critically overcranked Konvas for macro stuff or glueing lens elements backwards in place and shooting or changing the shooting format in the middle of the scene.

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1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

??

I think I'm gonna shoot some macro footage of a can of worms on both film and digital as soon as the Summer comes. The soil is frozen now and all the worms are sleeping so I am just shooting the snow crystals and such on digital ?  

Using a diy lens assembly and a heretic mirrorless camera system shooting 5.9K prores raw. Using film would have been possible but I would have missed the shot then ?

51784459590_b8c9b24dcd_b.jpg

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After a certain point, why is increasing picture definition even important, or 'better'? This technical fascination with increasing definition reminds me of someone going into an art gallery, finding a beautiful picture of a landscape painted by a true master, and walking up and standing as closely as possible to the brushstrokes and looking to see how well the artist painted the individual leaves on the trees. But doing this misses the point of what the painter was trying to achieve. We aren't meant to walk up and examine individual leaves. Painting isn't a contest of definition. It is the overall effect, from a distance, that's important.

I started out this way, however. When I first got into filmmaking as a kid I was absolutely appalled at the poor definition of Super 8 movie film compared with full-frame 35mm still film slides (usually Kodachrome 64). But with growing appreciation I grew to love the look of standard 4-perf 35mm as seen in the average movie theatre. It was grainy, and even a little fuzzy at times, but I loved the look. 

If you really like high definition film/video, I'm not knocking you for it. Fair enough, if that's what you like. But I think 35mm looks absolutely great projected. I don't care at all that it looks a bit soft and grainy.

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By the way, when I say 35mm projected I'm referring to the old system of multiple film prints being sent out to cinemas. I'm not talking about 35mm which is scanned and projected digitally, as in many films shot on 35mm today. To my eyes, such digitized films look just about as sharp and high definition as any movie would ever need to be. I don't like extremely high definition videos. I see them a lot in TV/appliance shops. To me they look awful. But if you like that, then go for it.

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2 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

After a certain point, why is increasing picture definition even important, or 'better'?

Because high resolution images can provide law enforcement useful data when it comes to solving cases. Recall the recent story about Gabby Petito. A couple, on their road trip, captured Gabby's van, parked by the side of the road, on their dash cam. That helped LE find Gabby's body more quickly than they otherwise would have. If the dash cam footage were of higher quality, it could have yielded perhaps more clues.

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29 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Because high resolution images can provide law enforcement useful data when it comes to solving cases. Recall the recent story about Gabby Petito. A couple, on their road trip, captured Gabby's van, parked by the side of the road, on their dash cam. That helped LE find Gabby's body more quickly than they otherwise would have. If the dash cam footage were of higher quality, it could have yielded perhaps more clues.

I though it was obvious that Jon's comments were in the context of filmmaking? Maybe I am wrong.

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19 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I though it was obvious that Jon's comments were in the context of filmmaking? Maybe I am wrong.

Stil or moving images...they are all related and much of the things are interchangeable. After all, the 35mm still camera, invented by Oscar Barnak, was made to use 35mm motion picture stock.

Back on the early 70's if you wanted cheap 35mm film for still use, you bought expired and repackaged oddball movie film stock from Freestyle. It was about $1.50 - $2.50 for a 100 foot roll. In date Plus-X was about $7.50 per 100 feet.

 

Oskar_Barnack-660x929.jpg

Oscar Barnak

In 2022 I hope to recreate my lost website on camera comparisons. You can see how digital vs film looks and how different size sensors perform from P&S to medium format and everything in between. It is not cine' comparisons, but it will give you an idea.

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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5 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Stil or moving images...they are all related and much of the things are interchangeable. After all, the 35mm still camera, invented by Oscar Barnak, was made to use 35mm motion picture stock.

I wasnt disparaging still photographers or mentioning about 35mm stills vs motion pictures. I was talking about how Karim was mentioning about high resolution being helpful in solving open criminal/missing person cases. 

Edit: I imagine if Gabby's car had a digital cinema camera with a > VV sensor as a dashcam then things may have turned out differently. ?

Edited by Matthew W. Phillips
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23 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

In 2022 I hope to recreate my lost website on camera comparisons. You can see how digital vs film looks and how different size sensors perform from P&S to medium format and everything in between. It is not cine' comparisons, but it will give you an idea.

I'm interested!

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On 12/26/2021 at 10:03 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

I mean, even the Alexa 65 doesn't get remotely close to the resolution of standard 5 perf 65mm negative. 

Considering the Alexa 65 resolved more detail than IMAX film(scanned at 11K) in Yedlin's resolution demo test, I strongly doubt this statement. 

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6 hours ago, John Shell said:

Considering the Alexa 65 resolved more detail than IMAX film(scanned at 11K) in Yedlin's resolution demo test, I strongly doubt this statement. 

15-perf 65mm resolves more than 6K. I know that because 8-perf 35mm is already about 6K (if 4-perf is 4K). That depends on the lens, though. And let me be clear that I would never use 15-perf 65mm for movies. At that point, film doesn't make much sense to me.

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It's not as simple as that, resolution is more than pixels for one thing, but also regarding film, there is the difference between the optimal scanning resolution (in theory, it should be twice the actual resolution of the piece of film) and the actual resolving power of the film.  Super-35 seems to resolve about 3K to 3.5K, meaning it should be scanned at around 6K to 7K.  (Certainly a 4K scan doesn't mean the image is resolving 4K -- if it did, there would be aliasing visible). 5-perf 65mm being twice as wide would therefore resolve around 6K to 7K, and IMAX being three times as wide would resolve around 9K to 10K. But there are other factors that affect resolution, from lenses to image contrast, etc.  Plus grain size is a visual clue about origination size, something that a digital image lacks, making it harder to pick out a 2K digital image from an 4K digital image, compared to picking out a 16mm image from a 35mm image.

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9 hours ago, John Shell said:

Considering the Alexa 65 resolved more detail than IMAX film(scanned at 11K) in Yedlin's resolution demo test, I strongly doubt this statement. 

I mean I've personally done optical resolution tests with 16mm, and have determined that it can retain around 2k worth of information. If you scale that up to 5 perf or even 15 perf, you're looking at resolutions that the lenses and scanners can't even achieve honestly. The "celluloid" itself is not the issue. 

The reason why the Alexa 65 looked great is because they were using specialized lenses designed for that format, which are brand new and super crisp. 

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On 12/28/2021 at 7:10 PM, aapo lettinen said:

Using a diy lens assembly and a heretic mirrorless camera system shooting 5.9K prores raw. Using film would have been possible but I would have missed the shot then ?

51784459590_b8c9b24dcd_b.jpg

 

I think it was László Kovács or his partner that would say...I don't miss the shot, I'm from Hungary...if I miss the shot...I get shot!

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On 1/20/2022 at 9:54 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

I mean I've personally done optical resolution tests with 16mm, and have determined that it can retain around 2k worth of information. If you scale that up to 5 perf or even 15 perf, you're looking at resolutions that the lenses and scanners can't even achieve honestly. The "celluloid" itself is not the issue. 

The reason why the Alexa 65 looked great is because they were using specialized lenses designed for that format, which are brand new and super crisp. 

You got to compare film and digital on equal footing, shooting the same subject. 

Cine' digital may be different than still digital. I've only comparison  tested still film and still digital. 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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28 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

You got to compare film and digital on equal footing, shooting the same subject. 

I mean none of my tests are still formats, all motion picture compared to similar formats on digital video. 

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Here is the deal for all the film fanatics. 

You should poll the commercial scanning companies. Find out if their business for scanning new film is stable or going up or down. The kids are not projecting these film...they are digitizing them.

Forget the archival work, that is ancient history. Find out where the new production scanning business is going. 

(Although some businesses don't usually like to disclose their stats, especially if not positive.)

 

Vintage%20pornographic%2016mm%20film%20l

Collection #1 vintage stag film labels off 16mm cans & reels 

DDTJRAC

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Screenshot of my lost Tumblr website...

 

1%20Tumblr%20SS%20photography%20compared

 

I've been looking for my film vs digital files for a few weeks now. I had deleted them all off the hard drive years go after I made the Tumblr. Back then we didn't have all the big HDD's we got now. We had a 500mb and a 1TB if lucky. So, I was always tight on space. And I figured Tumblr was pretty safe as I had been with them for near a decade with no problems. But...I was wrong. They shut down all 48 of my Tumblrs in 2019 and I lost everything. Luckily, I had some of the camera tests on DVD's. 

Now, here is the deal with film...

35mm flatbed scanned negative film is very low res stuff. It is roughly equal to a 3 or 4 mp image. At least that is what my tests have shown. I didn't have the negative drum scanned or use anti-newton glass on the scanner to hold it flat. I did the tests as an average hobbyist photog would do it with my Epson flatbed scanner. I used a tripod for all camera tests and did the best I could to get a good representative sample with each camera, but that is it. Maybe if you injected lots of $$ in a super duper neg scan you would get slightly better results. But no matter how you slice it...film is low res stuff when compared to digital.

I had shot all sort of things in the tests, but am only going to show some of the thermometer tests. All the gear I used back then is old and outdated and I don't have time or interest in recreating the lost website. But the thermometer tests show the results pretty good.

 

Epson%20RD-1s%206mp%20D.D.Teoli%20Jr.%20

Epson RD-1s 6mp camera 

Epson%20RD-1s%206mp%20D.D.Teoli%20Jr.%20

Crop of Epson RD-1s 6mp camera

Leica%20M6%2035mm%20Kodak%20Ektar%20ISO%

Leica M6 35mm Kodak Ektar ISO 100 film

Leica%20M6%2035mm%20Kodak%20Ektar%20ISO%

Crop Leica M6 35mm Kodak Ektar ISO 100 film

 

If you want to see some of the other thermometer tests that go from 6mp to 40mp, check out: 

Partial Archive for Tumblr Photography Compared Website by D. D. Teoli Jr. : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Daniel, thanks for taking the effort to upload those files.

I do have one minor quibble though. You claim that film is low res. 8-perf 35mm, well exposed, has 6K worth of information. It's not the cleanest 6K you'll ever see, of course, but it is capable of that.

Basically, film has 2K worth of information per 12mm, although in very special cases it can be a lot more. A frame of Super 16 is about 12mm wide, thus it technically is a 2K medium, so to speak.

Those flatbeds are fairly poor at what they do.

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Now here is another test. 4x5 drum scanned vs digital. 

61mp Digital vs 4x5 Large Format Film Resolution Comparison | Mountain Photography by Jack Brauer

I didn't read it all, but it seems FF 35mm 61mp digital is about equal to a 4x5 drum scanned film in res. So, as I said, film is relatively low-res stuff when compared to digital. And once you factor in all the generations away from the OCN you need to make a finished film...it really goes down in res a lot more. 

But the softness of film can also be the beauty of film. Just depends on what you want.

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Daniel, that was very useful, thank you - although I have questions. I assume that drum scanners top out at 11k? That doesn't look good for sheet film. But if Super 16 is 2K, which is measurable, I'm not sure how 5" wide film can be merely 11K or less.

Perhaps the lens is the weak point? If so, that would mean that a 4x5" sensor would be useless if its resolution was much more than 60Mpx. But the sensitivity would be off the charts, so... maybe not useless after all?

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