georg lamshöft

But they compared the F35 @800ASA and therefore the issues with banding? I hope ARRI will share some of their technology in the still-photography world, Leica is currently working on an EVIL (Electric Viewfinder Interchangeable Lenses) - 24x36mm-system and they need CMOS-sensors and a high-quality EVF. What was your impression on the ARRI EVF? Is it really a good replacement IQ-wise for an optical viewfinder? The current 800x600-EVFs didn't convince me at all. @Thomas Tanks, I simply used it as a opportunity to train my English-skills, when it's halfway readable and made some technical basics in this crazy marketing-poisoned world clear I'm happy ;-)

We're experiencing two major issues in digital cinematography: Dynamic range and establishing a real 4k workflow. Dynamic range is mostly a product of the active photodiode size while 4k needs smaller photodiodes to stay within Super35-size (or do you want a 65mm-sized-sensor? ;-). A 4k (4096x2048 given a 2:1 aspect-ratio)-signal would need a sensor with at least 24 million photodiodes (or pixels - 4096 x 2048 x red x green x blue) on a sensor which is three times smaller (24x12mm instead of 36x24mm) than 35mm-full-frame in still-photography! At 4k the signal would contain zero contrast/information - to increase MTF (achieveable contrast over resolution) up to higher resolutions/frequencies, to avoid alaising/moire and make an OLPF unnecessary you would have to oversample the signal. ARRI does that already with their digital systems (D-21 and Arriscan with 1.5x the linear resolution) - they scan/film with 3k to create a high-quality 2k-signal! So what do we need for a real 4k-digital-camera with a Super35-sized sensor without alaising, high contrast up to high frequencies and no color interpolation? A sensor with 6144x3072 (1.5x linear oversampling) photodiodes for RGB-colors (one color pixel is created out of three filtered photodiodes) = 56 million photodiodes, such a sensor would have 168MP on 35mm-full-frame! the pixel-pitch (and therefore the max. pixel-size) would be 1.3µm x 3.9µm (assuming that three of them combined create one square "color-pixel") so about 13 times smaller than in the new digital ARRIs! What does that mean? Well, no 800ASA, no 12 stops DR... That would be the "perfect" 4k-solution (the ARRISCAN pretty much does that when scanning at 6k, combining 24 (two exposeres for 16bit, 4x pixel-shift for 6k, 3x for RGB-color) images per frame to one oversampled 4k-scan) and I don't think we can see one of those in near future... It will propably a compromise (just 1.5x oversampling or only three subpixels for every color) but it would still mean tiny photodiodes with problematic DR and sensitivity and about 1.2GB/s @24fps! Panavision has such a sensor already (www.panavisionimaging.com) and it has 33MP at Super35-size with 2.9µm pixel-pitch. But still, high DR OR 4k - not both... CCD-based-still-photography cameras like the S2/M9 or P40+/P65+ use full-frame-CCDs with very large photodiodes (due to a high fill-rate, much of the sensor area is actually light-sensitive - the big advantage over CMOS) but they are slow (also to keep DR up and noise down due to slow read-out) and power-consuming (they get really hot when used with live-view) and have little to do with digital cinematography. Digital has hopefully a great future but companies like ARRI and Panavision have good reasons to be careful and offering "only" 2k and still offering 35mm-film-systems. I for myself am impressed with the technology incorporated in the D-21 or the new system (oversampling, custom CMOS, mechanical shutter, uncompressed...) but we shouldn't overestimate it's possibilites, it's really not difficult to see that it's not film at all and even on my tiny PAL-80cm-TV I much prefer well-done 35mm in TV-series (like House M.D.)...

The OLPF isn't such a big problem regarding mechanical properties (fitting the sensor in a film-camera), even without it, you'll have to squetch a complex optoelectronical device (sensor, coverglass...) into the aperture. "Camera aperture" is the correct English term instead of "window" ? The still photography cameras without OLPF (M9, S2, MFDBs) are designed for max. IQ, the OLPF always reduces resolution close below nyquist which cannot be restored with any kind of sharpening - despite common believe. The problem is moire which has to be removed manually in post. This works in still photography, but all these filters/algorithms are extremely problematic in moving pictures - they would change the "look" every single frame!

I'm not 100% sure, but at least in the still photography world these digital mags cause lots of trouble. Even the modular systems in the medium/large-format sector have to deal with complex issues regarding mechanical calibration and electrical communication between back and camera. Leica was the only producer which actually created some kind of "digital mag" for a "normal" SLR, the Digital-Modul-R. You had to be really careful to keep the contacts clean, the mechanical film transport components weren't designed for a digital back but the biggest issue was the frame window. The sensor-"board" itself is quite large (you can even see it in the images in arridigital.com) due to circuitry and the mechanical housing while the sensor has to penetrate deep into the camera-window. They weren't able to achieve a full-frame sensor (the 15digital SR Mag also has a crop) because it didn't fit into the film-body. So you end up with a compromise that uses a smaller sensor, is more complex, larger and heavier... and I don't think ARRI loves compromises...

You find more details here: http://www.arri.de/fileadmin/media/arri.co...9_ARRI_News.pdf As far as I understood it, there will be three different cameras. The entry model (50k€) won't record ARRIRAW and has only an EVF, the second one records also ARRIRAW, the big one (130k€) is the D-21 successor with ARRIRAW, usable 4:3 aspect ratio for anamorphics and OVF. The electronics seem to be entirely new (I wonder if it's still a cypress-sensor) and it has some unique features as well: - it records uncompressed RAW sufficient for 2k (downsampled from 3072 horizontal pixels) - it shots up to 60fps - it has the highest-res EVF (1280x720) with larger image area (the sensor has 3392x2200 pixels) than recorded - it has a base sensitivity of 800ISO - 16bit color depth But they also mention the problems with a real, uncompressed 4k-workflow and the problems with smaller pixels (they would need to go down from 8,25µm to 4,125µm - increasing noise and decreasing DR) and therefore don't call it a replacement for 35mm. Panavision created a sensor with 2,95µm-pixel-pitch, a fill-rate of 70% with microlenses, the result is: high dynamic range OR high resolution, but not both... I don't think we will see 4k so soon. I wonder what is the "competitor A"-camera in the ARRINEWS, such noise and banding with 500ASA? Such a camera is sold?

This teaser blew me away! Maybe it was the right moment I watched it, the right mood!? But it doesn't show what is happening in the movie, it seems to show deeply what it's really about! May I ask if you shot the aerials? Wow! Tell us EVERYTHING! :rolleyes: Hopefully the studio paid for a decent DI this time - what about some IMAX-prints - one for Berlin would be fine :P You just set the bar even a little bit higher, don't disappoint me :lol: ;) Damn, I'll have to wait till 28th of January...

It's easy printing some T-stops on the barrel, make handselected prototypes that work nicely for a few months, using cheaper materials, primitive designs or slave labour because "most people won't notice the difference anway..." :unsure: But staying away from all the marketing-bs, staying true to your standards, doing what makes sense in a technical way and for the customer, not for the shareholder-value... That's a rare thing and I cannot overemphasize the importance of this! Since a prosumer PL-mount/35mm-camera is available, many companies you propably never heard of will try to grab a piece of the cake and offer new lenses. Propably not T2.8 and much cheaper and cooler looking and many people on the net will tell you that those are great... But be careful! Making lenses is state-of-the art engineering, machining, assembling and testing! When you want to make it right (as in the professional-market right now) it won't become cheaper or easier! Just look at the still-photography market, we have 20+Mp-DSLRs but barely any usable lenses. Why? Because it isn't expensive to squetch more photosites on a sensor but very expensive to make proper lenses! Appreciate companies like Cooke that rather disappoint their marketing (T2.8...) than their customers!

"65mm material" Really? Where was it used? I thought all they had was 35mm nitro :lol:

I have friends in the States and I think health care/insurance is one of the most important topics in American politics, therefore I'll just add my 2 cents from the perspective of an "European" once and then will switch back to cinematography-related topics ;-) One thing that is important is efficiency - who much of the money spend for health care is actually used for health care? That might sound strange, but most of the money that Americans spend for health isn't used for health care at all. It's used for marketing, stock-market speculation, fighting other insurances... The other thing is the difference between being social and being "fair" (getting what you paid for). Insurances are based on the social mindset, you don't get what your paid for at all, instead, all people in the insurance agree to pay a fee and everybody who needs the money that was paid into it, gets it. Insurances in many places are just business and make barely any sense at all, but health is part of everybodies life and it's unpredictable and non-cyclic. Some may need only a few thousand dollards of health care all their life, others may need millions! But all paid the same... Many countries/governments tried out different systems and after many decades there is one thing save to say: Only the universal health care works! There is no competition and the Government controls it. But the system of competition doesn't work in the very special circumstances of health care! Nobody knows when he/she gets sick, people become desperate once they become sick. Private insurance companies love to take money from their customers, it works for the small additional services but not when peoples lives depend on it! Germany has tried to establish a private sector in health care. A few decades later, all the private insurances companies spend billions on marketing and competing to each other (while offering basically all the same), they got well-paid young people who didn't want to pay into the national insurance (because of their high wages they had to pay much more than most of them ever got back). Now, the private insurances crawl back to the government, their customers became old and ill - they don't want them anymore... So it will go back to a non-competitive only national insurance. Why is this good? Because the social system of insurances works best when more people are part of it! A national health care isn't a guarentee for good health care at all. It's the government that runs it, the government you elected! YOU have the responsibility, no market regulates it automatically, you have to regulate it! You make a good or bad health care system out of it! But don't make it a business anymore, don't let a market regulate that doesn't exist! Then you will get a more efficient system than today, which shouldn't be too difficult with 8000$/year for health care right now...

Who designed and manufactures them? Sigma?

@John Sprung Great explanation! But I'll have to add that aspherical lenses are just a technology, a tool to improve possibilities in lens design. They're not a guarantee for better quality. There also various different technologies used to create aspherical surfaces, many consumer-lenses incorporate plastic-molds to create cheap aspherical lens-elements of low-quality/precision. Aspherical elements that truly enhance quality are extremely difficult to manufacture (many hours of CNC-polishing for one surface!) and to assemble (centration) into the final lens, that's why this is still high-end-technology and really expensive.

I really liked it, it seemed more "mature" than previous QT-films, besides the fact that Pulp Fiction was an exciting introduction to a new filmmaker and IB still share this style, I think IB was his best movie so far! Of course there were the characters, the dialogue scenes... but the story itself felt more "fluent" after getting used to the fact that this movie isn't the "basterd Brad Pitt killing nazis"-flick at all. It's great that a filmmaker like QT with a clear artistic vision can bring it to the big screen without having to compromise it, stil with a decent budget allowing professional production standards and becoming the #1 from the boxoffice-perspective, too! You don't have to make stupid movies to make money! I was also surprised that Brad Pitt wasn't the main character at all, it was Christoph Waltz! As a German it was fun to see all those familiar faces, many of them are just "TV-stars" in Germany never got the chance to play in a decent project. But Diane Krüger was clearly the weakest actress, the others were great! The cinematography was nice and after the first few minutes the 35mm-projection I had was fine, too - stable, clear and sharp - I have yet to see a home-cinema with such an IQ - no need for 2k-DLPs... But why the hell a 2k DI in such a movie? Why not 4k (much cheaper movies already get a 4k DI)? Why even a DI at all?

Which camera can shoot uncrompressed at-least 1080p/2k (non-interpolated) with 48fps? Downsample the 4k-interpolated-signal from the Phantom 65 maybe? The ARRI D-21 makes up to 60fps non-interpolated 1080p but only 4:2:2... I don't think any business people can talk Mr. Cameron in his artistic/technical decisions - anymore... He is doing a 189min 3D-movie for IMAX... i wonder how expensive these prints are... He made the first 100+Mio$-movie - and it was R-rated!

I don't know if any of these patents were ever used regulary? All I know that "regular" 3D uses two fixed cameras positioned next to each other and yes, they cause headache after a few minutes... I admire Mr. Camerons work but never understood some of his technical decisions. He wants 48fps but doesn't use the best/only way to do that: using film... Those 2/3"-HD-fusion-cam looks as bulky as a 65mm-stereo-cam... Now we don't even have 2k on an IMAX-screen...

Well, it's a teaser, not even a trailer :-) "This contains lies about earlier systems used to make his system seem innovative, if not down right "revolutionary"." I think the video showed the difference pretty clearly: the lenses are not only able to change distance (to adjust the strength of 3D?) but also tilt towards each other to converge in the focus point and that's the innovative part!?

It's still just a trailer... I think James Cameron has earned our trust, don't expect a complicated, twisted story but one thing he has proven: his stories work! Aliens wasn't too sophisticated on paper, either but it propably was one of the most effective, scariest roller-coaster-rides in cinematic history! This man has done seven movies, except for a "akschn"-comedy-remake (True Lies) and Piranhas 2 ( :P ) all of them were ground-breaking! Who else has achieved that? Not even Scorsese and Spielberg are this constant! The only thing that worries me is the technical aspect, he used Super35 because it was convenient in the 80s/90s, when it was still way behind anamorphic (grainy stock, soft lenses, optical transfer), now he uses some pretty primitive 2/3"-CCD-cams with about 600-800 lines resolution (Super16 can do that!) for a 300Mio$ IMAX-spectacle! He is the F/X-specialist who says you need to mix technologies to avoid catastrophies like Lucas'-work, wouldn't it be better to add a realistic touch to this "fantastic" pictures with proper cameras? He wanted to shoot 48fps, but that didn't work yet for his first movie since 12 years... :blink: But he HAD to use HD-cameras, because they're somehow the future and like 70mm (I can see even CA in the 720p-trailer!) :angry:

I think that's what they aimed for. They positioned the cameras close to the action, very direct, documentary-like. But did it look realistic? Well, it reminds us of documentary-work which claims to show real situations - but the look itself? No, it looked like limited-quality-camera-technology pushed too far, in a few years it will seem like a 80s-sitcom: everybody can see that it was shot when "HDTV was cool", it will be outdated pretty soon... When you want to see a realistic look, watch "The International" on blu-ray, it's "recording"-technology is so good, that it nearly vanishes - it barely has any look if you don't want any...

@James Caspar Wolfe Thanks for finding the right words for my thoughts, too ;-) "Road to Perdition" is a good example, watch it directly after watching "Public Enemies", even with some teenagers/students that don't even know that one was shot digitally and the other one by an old cinematographer with film - they won't care anyway. But I promise, if they're halfway interested in movies, they will FEEL the difference! It has nothing to do with the MTV-generation, every 20 year old thinks that "Star Wars" or "The Godfather" is super-cool - quality is timeless! The brownish, nearly monochrome artificial light scenes remind me a little bit of "Benjamin Button" - just flat and powerless. Soderbergh? When you just thought it can't get worse: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/theinformant/hd/ Well, at least the camera isn't shaking... Looks visually like a well-made youtube-spoof or a multicam-sitcom... Do we really have to see teen-splatter-cheerleader-movies to get good cinematography :lol: ;) (just kidding, Diablo Cody is a must-see for me, whoever has made it, how it was filmed).

He explains why he did it at 2:50: http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/175475...medy-Short.html :lol:

Trailer is online!

It uses a German motor (Faulhaber?) and electronics and incorporates Magnesium in the body. That doesn't sound very Russian to me and it isn't a very good place to manufacture/assemble quality (at least not in the last 40 years) and if you want to make it really cheap, go to China...

They just shown a little report on Tetro in German/French-television: http://www.arte.tv/widget-video-v2/player....autostart=false Viper + Digiprimes? The fact that we can see by a tiny, strong compressed trailer which format was used is even surprising. After all this manipulation and post-work we can still see significant differences, that would be impossible with other comparisons (like piano makers). We are talking about film, about it's DR and specific look, but in most cases we just see the digital interpretation of it, a telecine and the compression propably adds digital artifacts (like highlight-handling) to film - we got used to a certain "digital look". But somehow I can understand Coppola, as far as I know he tries to stay as far as possible from the studios, so even bringing film to labs, giving it to someone else, propably feels like "Hollywood" to him!?

I think we've all been "butchered", we normally don't see 35mm but 35mm + telecine, 35mm + scanner, 35mm + compression and not so many well treated film-copies or high-quality transfers (scanner + 4k)... The DoF looks very 2/3" - most likely Viper or F23.

The compression adds always digital artifacts, so it's sometimes hard to tell - but to me it looks like heavy digital noise, the images look flat, no accentuated grain.

Digital will come and digital will surpass film in quality - someday. I have trouble seeing the difference between medium-format and 35mm-shots (film&digital) in some magazines/prints and sometimes the difference is obvious. Why is that? Because the quality of presentation is different. Right now, the technical-quality of cinema is very limited, we have not-too-bad 2k digital projection and not very well handled 35mm-prints. And after lot's of post-production, filtering, lighting and a bad technical presentation you can still tell the difference? Well, the difference in stock/sensor-quality must have been dramatic! We have the technical, measureable differences in resolution, MTF, DR but also aesthetic differences (especially in colors) and certain unique aspects (noise, grain appeal, motion artifacts...) and I think you should be able to use the best (for your demands) tool! Limiting your choice because one of the options doesn't sound appropriate in our "digital world"? Right now, the technical benchmarks are set with film (see Dark Knight). As long as film gives us something we can't achieve with digital, we should have the option for shooting film! And I think there are more than enough powerful people in Hollywood to win a fight against short-sighted business-managers screaming "finanical crisis! we can't afford film stock anymore"... Come on, "Knowing" looked ok, I have seen 35mm-films with a 2k telecine that haven't looked better and I have seen digitally-shot movies which looked similar years ago - but I can tell you dozens of 35mm-movies that indeed looked better! Minutes before reading this thread, I've seen this (although, typical artificial Jeunet-look) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8v1PzNPLhQ and "film is dead" wasn't exactly what I was thinking... :P