Tyler Purcell

You aren't going to have less grain by over exposing because it increases the contrast. The grain structure doesn't change if you over expose. So 50D would be the way to go and yes, if you wanted to over expose a tiny bit like a stop, you could retain better middle grey and black details, but you won't change the grain structure. Each of the Vision film stocks, is an entirely different emulsion, they have different looks as well. Many people prefer shooting 200T over box speed, simply because they prefer the look and it over exposes nicely and delivers a smoother grain structure similar to 50D than 250D. To truly change the grain structure, you need to shoot 35mm.

The 16mm Ultra primes are very good. I've had mixed results myself, but a lot of the material I've scanned that was the sharpest was with the ultra primes, so they are clearly the best, and I'm fairly certain they fit the SR's no problem. The for sure fit the SR3.

Yea I do think it's the filter as well, it's also underexposed, which is why you have splotches of no data.

Yea blue chrome is inherently reflective and because it's blue, you'd get an unusual tint in the halation.

Sadly, there really isn't much that's either expensive OR slow. You basically pay for quality. This is why I don't much care for anamorphic and simply go spherical on everything.

The Siruri anamorphic lenses are ok, but they're not sharp. I've shot with them before, they are very nice, well made and low distortion, but when looking at the finished results (final footage) we see not much resolution. Clearly nowhere near as sharp as our CP2's. I also find the T2.9 is a bit slow. The blackmagic cameras need a lot of light, gotta think of them as fixed 800 ISO cameras, so you need fast lenses for dark scenes. You do not want to increase the ISO to compensate.

Sweet! Very exciting! When you got that done, let me know plz. I would love to test it.

Thanks for the test Robert, cool stuff! I was gonna ask, is your 4k 16mm recorder S16 or still N16?

Well 5 perf 70mm doesn't have nearly the resolution of the 12k blackmagic camera, not even close. This is due to issues with film in general, the float of the film, the slight fluctuations with flange. The scanning process and film itself, where it does retain a lot of information, can't really present that information to the user in a perfect way. The 12k imager, in open gate 12k mode, is probably around 8,000 lines of resolution, which is really good. Are you going to find lenses that can reproduce that? Probably not, in fact I'd say it's not even worth doing. The reason why you shoot in 12k, it's because you want 8000 lines, it's because you want to have no aliasing, the edges on objects are flawless. Hair for instance, you can actually see detail, it's shocking. But the imager is still not very sharp, it's not like an overly sharpened Sony camera for instance. Na, the imager is pretty neutral honestly. I will be posting some samples soon, but I need to shoot more material. I really like the DZO Arles, I think they will resolve PLENTY of resolution honestly. I haven't bought them, but I've tried them and I was blown away. I made a mistake buying CP2 super speeds, wrong lenses for the camera. They aren't pretty, they just work.

Oh interesting, so sole proprietorship is similar to LLC then.

You probably wanna be in PL mount honestly, I think you'll find dealing with L mount lenses to be a real problem. I've tried in vain to use still format EF lenses (same problem as L lenses) and they just aren't workable in my opinion. So if you're gonna be doing cine primes anyway, might as well go with PL, there really isn't that much of a cost difference and you're probably more likely going to get full frame coverage whatever you get, rather than stuck to S35 or even MFT. The BP-U batteries are common, but the one for the Pyxis is special due to the power requirements. Once the camera comes out, there are going to be a lot of very unhappy customers until they figure this out. Your ol' batteries will not run the camera for more than a few minutes, probably less than 20. Core SWX has worked with Blackmagic to create a special battery for the Pyxis called the Nano U-98X. So I have 98, 150 and 360 batteries for my Cine and the 98's last like an hour or so with all the displays on, so the BP-U battery may be the same, so not a long time. Plus you can't run a plate very easily, it blocks the card ports, which makes it very troublesome. The whole thing is a poor design for cinema where you need power for wireless, power for monitors, power for FIZ and want the camera to sit on for the day. This is why we bought the 360 batteries, those things will run half a day no problem. In terms of cards, the only ones that work are the OWC Ultra, Angelbird PRO SE and Lexar Professional Diamond (all 4.0 cards), no other cards that I know of actually work. They'll over heat and drop frames. Remember, the bandwidth is WAY higher than any other camera you can use those cards with. I'd shoot 12:1 compression in 12k 1.85:1, edit in 2k or 4k and then upses at the end to 8k. All you do is change the sequence settings to 8k and it automatically makes it all 8k. It's softer than an Alexa which is very strange, but that's a good thing. I haven't done any camera tests yet, we've been shooting some commercial stuff and I don't have any footage, been handing it over to the clients. I have some stuff we shot at Cinegear and some stuff we shot at an open house that's just unlit b-roll, but we'll be doing a real shoot shortly, just need to get my ducks in a row and get it done. I'll have something to show of it next month for sure. I wouldn't worry about the LLC unless you think the film will get picked up and be sold. You NEED an LLC for liability reasons if that's the case. If you're doing it for fun and don't care if anyone sees it, then no bother. But be very careful, because if you make something really good and you don't have that LLC, if you don't have all the right paperwork and don't do E&O, you may get into some trouble IF the film does well. If it's just for fun, no sweat, don't bother.

Hey Scott, So we have a 12k URSA Cine (similar camera) and it's a pretty good camera. I have an OG 12k URSA as well that we use as a "B" cam and will probably wind up with a Pyxis 12k eventually up the road, seeing as I feel they'll have stocking problems for a while. I'll just wait for one to show up used. The 12k imagers aren't 12k worth of resolution, they are more like 8k at full res. This is because they have white pixels which create the luminance channel and those pixels add a bit of complication to the actual theoretical resolution of the camera. Having done a shit ton of tests on our original 12k, I have determined that it's closer to 8k actually, but most likely less than 8k rather than more. This test was done semi-scientifically using high resolution lenses between multiple 8k cameras and the URSA. Sadly, those lenses are not available for me to test the 12k Cine with, so I don't have numbers, but suffice to say, it's the same pixel structure on the full frame version. The 12k imager shot in 12k and reduced to 8k works great. I've tested this workflow and it's fine. Just edit in 1080p or 4k and upses at the end in Resolve, you'll be happy. 12:1 is the happiest medium for compression in 12k. If you have to use 9k mode (S35 due to lenses), I would reduce the compression as it makes an inverse effect on aliasing and you may see some aliasing. I have done lots of tests on various formats, I have found the higher the res, the more you can deal with the noise floor AND the higher the compression can be. Even 18:1 is not bad for things like interviews, you'll never see it in 12k. In terms of lenses, the last thing I'd ever do is shoot with sharp glass. I would use something like the DZO Arles VV lenses. This is what I will be buying myself in the very near future, mixed with a vintage S35mm zoom lens like a Angeneuix 25-250, HP or HR. This is really to me the way these very sharp imagers need to be shot, so help compensate for how damned crisp they are. You absolutely want soft lenses and you absolutely want manual lenses. The 12k imagers may have auto focus some day, but not this year I was told. They may not offer it at all and NEVER on PL mount. With PL lenses, you would simply run the DJI focus pro for AF or Tilta Nucleus for manual. I prefer the Nucleus because I love the handles, they fit nicely with the URSA body for shoulder mount work and the new MKII controller is great for an assistant. I went with the CINE over the Piyxis for 5 reasons: 1) Imager refresh rate on the Pyxis is much slower. Readout on the CINE can be lower than 10ms by adjusting the 12k frame size to 1.85:1, but on the Pyxis, it's 19ms in that same mode. 2) The Pyxis doesn't have the higher frame rates in high res mode, only lower resolutions. 3) The Pyxis does not have interchangeable lens mounts and probably won't. 4) The Pyxis uses an all new battery system, it does not work with standard Sony batteries. So suddenly you're investing in chargers, batteries, the whole 9 yards. 5) Internal ND was a flat-out must for me, no way was I going to invest in an "A" camera without it. A B camera, ok not a big deal, but A camera SHOULD have it. Plus and I know this may sound silly, but that big assistant display on the Cine is absolutely a game changer. Thus far on every shoot I've worked on with it, the directors flat out love the display. They want to be to the side of the camera, not looking over the operators shoulder, so now you don't need to have another monitor, you literally have one already on the camera. It's such a great idea and I just flat out love it. I have the EVF as well, which is excellent, it's already considered the best EVF for that price range ever made. They come with the extension for rear operation AND multiple cables so if you damage one, your kit will have more. Having shot video with both the Pyxis and the Cine 12k, I have to say I vastly prefer the Cine over the Pyxis in day to day use. Where the Pyxis isn't bad, I feel the issues I mentioned above, kinda relegate it to a B or C camera. The fact the touch display is not coverable and does not fold out, makes the camera an accessory hog. You literally can't use it without attaching an EVF or monitor. Now you've used up all your attachment ports on the body, so you're buying cheese plate to attach anything. Now your camera is much larger because it's in a cage, etc. Eventually, it will wind up being the same size as the cine anyway, once you add all the tools required to actually shoot anything. So in my world, why not just start big? Where I will buy a Pyxis as I said earlier, it would be for quick pickups and such, where no accessories are needed. In terms of storage, we have tested multiple cards from a few vendors, the OWC Ultra cards and of course Angelbird are the best ones. Lexar professional does have a new CFExpress 4.0 card that we've briefly tested, which also performs well. We have confirmed that all 3 cards, in 1TB and 2TB variants, can record all formats no problem outside of 12k Q0 higher than 24fps. That's really the only limitation. We also noticed at full 220fps on the CINE, it would only shoot for 15 minutes before overheating the card, but I doubt anyone would really need that functionality. So the CFExpress works great, no problems at all. You can also record to external USB storage, but it's a lot slower, you're relegated to 9k at most and even then, limited bandwidth stuff. On the 2TB cards, at 12:1 12k 1.85:1, you can get around 2hrs of time, that's not bad at all. I'd say it's probably where you'd be most of the time. So you don't NEED the 4TB cards really. In terms of post, learn resolve, get a good computer and just do all post in resolve. I can't imagine touching an adobe product in 2025, there just is no reason anymore. I have to support Premiere for multiple clients and its such a dog shit program that requires rendering for any changes to your timeline if you have effects, it bogs everything down and you're constantly running into brick walls with resolution limitations and scaling, amongst other things like color science which sucks. Na, just use Resolve. The camera comes with a studio license. Forget Premiere exists. Let me know if you have any questions.

OOOO Reaaaalllly. That's new then! We did a film restoration open house late last year and they said it wasn't included, but that's great to know. Yea I haven't tried it on our new system, Phoenix is really nice tho! So happy to have a new system finally. Ryzen 9950X with 5080. Still kinda wish we had more video memory, but we just don't do enough restoration to be worth it. || Yea Phoenix Dry Clean is very good. The only thing it's not great at is generating new data to cover scratches. DRS does tho, so that helps, but so does PFClean... Yea, everyone has warned me. I wasn't going to invest, just get a license for a month and test. We're also a 90% Mac shop, so it's nice to have something that is native to our systems and just flat out works on our color grading bay which is Mac of course. I'm still frustrated Digital Vision hasn't made their DVO plugins for film cleanup available to OFX plugins on Mac. They clearly use CUDA, which sucks. This is why we built a new PC.

Yea it works great, it's a hog resource wise, but it's a very good tool, arguably the best. I'm starting a huge project shortly that the client doesn't have a lot of money for, so I'm gonna license PFClean and use their new AI tools and see how it goes. I hope it works well, the tests we've done with them thus far, have been stellar. The DRS AI frame generation tool is incredible as well, but they charge more for it.

Last time I checked, it was $1499/month

Yea, they aren't releasing the new stock to the public yet, it'll be a while. They won't be phasing out the older stock anytime soon. The main reason they're phasing out remjet has to do with inconsistencies with the coating and removal, which has plagued many films. They wanted to offer an alternative process to deal with it and now they do have one. Kodak is blaming the labs for the remjet removal issues. The labs are blaming Kodak, so it's all a big cluster.

Can't make it smooth enough, talked to an expert, not gonna work. Now we're researching paints that can be polished.

Oh interesting, tats fascinating. Why would the AHU later contain silver?

16mm Bolex's do not have a polished silver plate in the Rex series, they are one of the only camera systems (besides super 8 of course) that will not in any way be effected.

The emulsion is the same, so why would bleach bypass be different?

Well, the issue is actually probably not as bad with the SR as other cameras. The Aaton's would have vertical lines off to one side. At least the square box in the middle, may not be that noticeable, but again only if you direct light straight at the camera would you sever see it. I like working on the SR's, they are well made and easy to work on cameras. I just don't like the fact every single sample I work on, has issues related to poor storage and wear and tear. I see a lot of Aaton's, they just don't fatigue as much, I rarely see a pechan prism go bad, but on SR's it's two or three a year. I've replaced 2 in the 4 years I've been doing service on Aaton's and probably a dozen on SR's. Heck, I've been lucky and been able to sometimes pull the pechan apart and clean it up, but you can't undo the glue on the critical section. It's really a nightmare to deal with. Other than that, I do like them. I just prefer a more modern, lightweight and quieter camera system, but that's a preference and one that some people can't afford, so I get it.

Yes, the SR's will have a major problem because the center is chrome and the outside is black, so you will see a literal square of reflective material that doesn't exist around the outside. The high speed cameras are 100% chrome. They will EVENTUALLY dump the remjet film, but for the time being they're still making it because they haven't released the new film as a finished product. IDK why because they do have lots of stock. Maybe they're wanting to continue testing? What I know is that halation will be worse IF you're pointing a light directly at the lens. In those rare situations, it can be problematic. I don't think it's a deal killer for MOST production, but it's something to think about. Yes, from my understanding the 235, 435, 535, Arricam's, moviecams, Panavision, Aaton's and likewise, pretty much every more modern 35mm camera, has a chromed pressure plate. Same goes for all the IMAX and 65mm cameras. So the problem is pretty vast. Arri did make special pressure plates for some of the cameras to deal with black and white film, but seeing as everyone is freaking out about this issue and so far the testing is pretty conclusive that black pressure plates DO solve the potential halation issues, the only real solution would be to coat the pressure plates black of pretty much every camera made. I have a feeling the reason Kodak hasn't just cut off production of the now older remjet film is simply because they're waiting to see how things go and if the industry can get things fixed fast enough.

There is a chemical process that can strip the chrome off, but after that, creating a black and smooth surface is the hard part. We have done some testing with paint on bad plates, but haven't been able to polish enough to prevent scratching long-term. They really need that chrome surface. We're working on it, but please feel free to reach out if you have any ideas as well. We just want to come up with a generic and easy solution to modify the OG plates because machining new ones, where it may sound simple, the tolerances are challenging and costly due to the materials used. Removing the chrome and painting/polishing seems to be the best option thus far, but it's not working yet.

One of the films that shot with it, was really upset. I have heard several reports saying the expected results were outside of where they tested/expected. I also think those 3 big films, probably used black and white pressure plates, which are not chromed. We will be getting film shortly, but I'm waiting to do a test until we have a solution to the pressure plate situation. We have ideas, but it's going to be a chemical fix which we don't know will work yet.

I forgot to shoot last night, I'll try again tonight, busy night fixing cameras!