Karim D. Ghantous

I really liked this. I saw one of your other videos recently, 'Super 16 Feelin’ - Thanksgiving 2017' and that was quite nice, too. One thing that is not surprising is how film can be pulled back from overexposure. It's a good thing, too, because film doesn't like shadows as much. 😉 But the graininess seems to have not improved, even though shadow detail certainly was. I expect film to be less grainy when overexposed - not just based on theory, but on observation. Perhaps this is no bad thing - rating it at 500 would therefore give you the full speed but with the same graininess. Heck, I've seen Super 16 pushed a stop and there's almost no difference there, either. So you could argue that 500T is a pretty good 1000T stock as well. BTW your music is also very nice.

I read somewhere, which of course I cannot find, that if you don't correct tungsten balanced film while shooting outdoors, you cannot recover greens properly. Is that correct? It's also worth pointing out that you should use correction filters on digital cameras, wherever possible. Especially if you're shooting highly compressed formats. The small effort will be worth it.

I just discovered this: Super 16, but it's another example of how 7219 can capture a lot of detail with a better lens: The ungraded version:

I think David meant moving the camera to the other side of the table so that your subject is either sidelit or backlit. I checked out the raw screengrabs and sure enough, everything is soft. So I think the lens is the culprit. And in fact the grain doesn't look too bad, it's just more prominent than one would expect. So maybe you massively underexposed? Maybe the stock has expired? I wasn't there so I'm just guessing. In a previous comment, I stated that Super 8 could look better. I should have provided some evidence! So, here are three videos to illustrate the point: Just know that a lot of people have no idea how to shoot Super 8 and their footage looks like it was developed in dishwater.

FWIW I like the story. It could have been fleshed out a little bit more. E.g. why was the man in the room? What was he doing before? Whom was he texting, and what did he write? Etc. Nonetheless I liked it. As for the footage, yes, it's too soft. 16mm isn't that soft. Even Super 8 can look better than this. So the softness and focusing errors could be the fault of the camera. The weird graininess could be the lab's fault, or it could be old stock. I would have to defer to more experienced people on that one.

I have seen scans of 7219 pushed by a stop. It looks great. I can't show them because they were taken offline, unfortunately. However, have a look at this video of 2-perf 5219 pushed by two stops. Note that the owner has also made an HQ version (2.4GB) available for download:

There are actual DPs here who can give you better and more detailed answers, but have a look at this chart: The middle gray point isn't always exactly between the two extremes. And you can't lose by overexposing by a stop or two - or more, if you know what you're doing. I would not bother overexposing if you're pushing. You're effectively cancelling one with the other, and causing a mess in your head. 😉

We live in a very strange world! Just as digital started to get really, really good, film started to take off. I'm not complaining, I think it's great. But it is noteworthy that while digital was expensive and clumsy (some cameras still are, not naming names), people flocked to them, with promises of liberation from the shackles of 400' spools and the ~1000 ASA sensitivity limit. Weird. I concur on both points. You will find people adopting all this new tech, and then complaining that values have dropped (I'm not having a go at the OP, BTW). What did they think would happen, honestly? As a photographer, I wish there was a film scanner that was fast, affordable, and had good image quality. No such scanner exists. Will Kodak make one? Leica? Anyone?

Often. 😉 If it's appropriate and unintrusive, I'll keep it on.

Good question. The light in that scene was fairly uniform, so I wonder if that would affect anything. At the end of the day, I should do these kinds of tests for myself. I think the Russians have a saying: a thorn of experience is worth more than a whole wood of knowledge. Edit: Pfister used 5218, not 5219, which I don't think was out yet. Zacuto measured 5213 as having a 10.4 stop upper limit. 5219 was 9.5. Alexa (RAW) had an upper limit of 6.8, and the RED ONE had 5.0. I assume these are values over 18% gray. None of this matters, of course, if you are shooting your movie on an iPhone. 😛 I did see two frames of new Ektachrome 100, 10 stops apart. The base image may not have been exposed 'correctly', but it looked normal. The second image, 10 stops over, retained a surprising amount of detail, although I don't know if the colours would be recoverable. The base for Monstro is 1600, so if you're just doing a clipping test, you must use that. The Dragon does have more total DR than the Alev-III, but it depends on what ISO you're using. From what I understand, Monstro is the gold standard now. I prefer the smaller formats personally, but it's great to have a choice. Heck, I still love Super 8.

The interview with Wally Pfister is here: https://ascmag.com/podcasts/batman-the-dark-knight-wally-pfister-asc You want to go to the 16:26 mark. The most he went was 6 stops over. Of course you'll want to listen to the whole thing! It's always interesting listening to DPs talk, although I usually avoid interviews where the DP is talking about digital (and I really like digital BTW!). If film is the medium that a project is shot on, it provides a much more interesting centre of gravity for the conversation, even if most of the conversation is about lights, day-to-day things, production philosophy and locations. Digital? I don't care in general, although some digital cameras interest me personally: most RED models; and these days I'm curious about the Micro 4/3 hybrid cameras. I'm pretty sure that Dragon had a limit of 6 stops, and I'm fairly sure that Monstro has at least that. I'd like to know how far you've pushed those sensors, or if you have heard anything from other DPs about their clipping point above middle gray.

Thanks for sharing, Jason. I won't say I'm a fan of softer lenses on 16mm, but there was nothing wrong with the look you got. It's still natural - unlike the nonsense colours and looks that many people introduce via software. Some footage is simply unwatchable due to the obsession with over-grading images. I suppose you may have heard that for a scene in The Dark Knight, the DP overexposed 5219 by 5 stops. That's what you call a super dense negative. 😉

Oddly enough, I think you'd be right if you're talking about film. I hear from some photographers that Portra 400 is an amazing b&w film. But for digital, the Bayer filter gets in the way, and I'd personally shoot with a monochrome sensor. I'm considering buying monochrome converted versions of the cameras I use, as I shoot only b&w for some applications.

I did, but I forgot to like it which I will do right now. Shame that the compression kind of spoiled the image a little bit. Never mind, the effect was there. I like the use of mid-century sound effects. Nice touch. Were the title cards created digitally, or printed and then filmed? I've actually seen that done back in the '90s.

Thanks for posting these, Stephen. This goes to show how good cinema scanners are. A photographic scanner would not yield a result this good. I've seen more grain from 35mm negatives scanned on Pakons, Reflectas etc.