David Mullen ASC

I think there might have been a b&w reversal print stock back in the late 80's. Later CalArts switched to shooting those beginner projects on b&w negative so I guess the option to print onto reversal disappeared. But in theory it should still be possible, I just don't know about soundtracks, plus it would be an acetate print, not Estar.

In film school we used to print b&w reversal to b&w reversal to make prints -- it got very high in contrast of course.

I think it would be a good idea for everyone to step back and not make things personal, talk about the message, not the messenger.

I don't think digital has caused more problems that solutions, it's just that so many people are shooting digital that by sheer volume there are more issues to deal with. When most people were shooting film, there were problems too, just different problems. We got used to the limitations of film and worked around them but that doesn't mean the limitations didn't exist. And the costs of film are real too -- recently I started playing around with old film still cameras and dealing with the cost of stock, processing, and scanning, plus the limitations on the number of photos per roll, really makes me think when it is worth trotting out the film camera. Sure, there is a look, a nice one, but the cost and logistics of your chosen shooting method can affect creative decisions. I also suspect that if everyone was shooting film today and there was no digital, stylistic issues would emerge that might not be to everyone's tastes. Maybe it would be "why is everything shot on underexposed fast film with minimal lights?" rather than "why is everyone shooting on high ISO digital cameras with no lights?"

"Seinfeld" was shot on Agfa XT320 I believe, which accounts for the softness and graininess.

It's very easy to restore or increase the contrast in post color-correction so I wouldn't worry too much about that unless you get some sort of veiling glare over the whole image. Or create a camera LUT with crushed blacks for your diffused images for monitors and dailies.

You just expose normally or for the look you want. The only reason you adjust / compensate when you use a filter is that the filter is cutting down the light, so with no filter, there's no light loss, no filter factor to worry about.

The point of a film print emulation LUT isn’t to make something look more like film. It’s just so that your digital color-correction looks the same for a film-out for a print as it does for the digital cinema master, it basically limits you to the color that can be displayed in a photochemical print.

Of course, we are all talking about fresh stock -- stock that has aged quite a bit may need more overexposure.

The issue with Circle of Confusion is that it entirely rests on some vague moment when a point of light going out-of-focus looks too large to look like a point anymore, based on estimates of average viewing size/distance, etc. Many people think that the current standard is not critical enough for modern digital cinemas, plus not everyone will be sitting at some theoretical perfect distance from the screen. Since you are dealing with perceptions of sharpness and depth of field, these calculations should only be used as a rough guide, or for comparing one lens against another -- i.e. relative to each other.

Film negative does record information on a gamma curve -- basically at the extreme ends, the amount of density increase relative to exposure amount starts to flatten out (lower in contrast). However, if the stock has almost 15-stops of dynamic range, overexposing doesn't increase that, you are just trading highlight detail for shadow detail. But it is true that with the latitude for bright highlights, often it isn't a bad idea to give the negative more exposure to improve the shadow information. But within limits -- I think a 1-stop overexposure is more than enough if you are simply trying to get a normal image but with cleaner shadows. Too much overexposure and your negative gets very dense and it takes more light for the scanner or telecine to push through it and sometimes you can end up with electronic noise in the highlights on some systems. Also keep in mind that if you are overexposing to reduce grain, the large grains in the stock are what determine its speed -- 500T has larger grains than 200T. Overexposing just exposes more of the smaller, slower grains in between the larger ones, giving the grain structure a tighter appearance. But the large grains are still there, they are the first to react to light. So you may be better off switching to 200T rather than overexposing 500T by rating it at ISO 200 if grain reduction is your main goal. However, the overexposed 500T would have more shadow detail. Personally I find that rating 500T at ISO 320 is generally enough to improve the look of the stock in terms of grain and shadow detail. Rating it at ISO 250 would be about the most I would do (I did a whole feature where I rated 200T at ISO 100 but it took a lot of light!) But that assumes you aren't prone to accidentally underexposing a lot. Everyone finds a method of rating stocks that works with their natural tendencies while giving them the consistent results they want (assuming they are consistent in their tendencies...)

I got this weird private message from a "Seeya" saying he is KH Martin and he was upset over me deleting an email(?) I have no idea what this is about. I don't have a way of deleting posts myself and I never received some private PM about this nor deleted one, etc. I never asked Tim Tyler to get involved in deleting a post in this thread. I'm totally clueless about what is going on here.

The camera has no manual controls for tint and black level for the Rec.709 output?

https://www.abelcine.com/articles/blog-and-knowledge/tutorials-and-guides/at-the-bench-capturing-anamorphic-shots-in-prores Keep in mind that Open Gate is uncompressed Arriraw and the whole sensor area is recorded (3424 x 2202) even if you select 4:3, etc. You can see the recorded dimensions here for the Alexa ProRes 4:3 2.8K: 2880 x 2160 ProRes HD Anamorphic: 1920 x 1080 ProRes 2.39:1 2K Anamorphic: 2048 x 858 ARRIRAW 4:3 2.8K (OG 3.4K): 3424 x 2202 ARRIRAW 2.39:1 2K Ana. (OG 3.4K): 3424 x 2202 These are the pixel areas used: 4:3 2.8K: 2880 x 2160 2.39:1 2K Ana.: 2560 x 2145 HD Ana.: 1920 x 2160 Open Gate 3.4K: 3424 x 2202 So you see that 2.39 2K Anamorphic mode converts 2560 x 2145 to 2048 x 858 in camera (desqueeze and rescale). "HD anamorphic" is for when you want a 1.78 : 1 image but using 2X anamorphic lenses. So you first have to choose whether you prefer to work in post with uncompressed Arriraw or compressed ProRes 4444 (probably) in Arri Log-C. You have to decide what you final delivery requirements are: HD, UHD, 2K DCP, 4K DCP, etc. If you choose ProRes, you have to decide if you want the camera to desqueeze and rescale to from 2560 x 2145 to 2048 x 858, or want to record 2880 x 2160 (4:3) and do the desqueezing and rescaling in post. If you have to deliver UHD or 4K DCP, this might be better than the 2K anamorphic recording option. Keep in mind that if you record Open Gate Arriraw, you'd be cropping the sides to get a 2.39 image once unsqueezed, so you only would be using about 2620 x 2202 out of 3424 x 2202. So resolution-wise, they all use about the same pixel area to start with.

One interesting thing I learned is that there is a difference between dye stability in light storage versus dark storage. Kodachrome has excellent dye stability in dark storage but can fade faster if continually exposed to light than some E6 slide films. Of course, who would shine a Kodachrome slide continually with light?