Robin Phillips

I think you're view of the market is too narrow. if there is some specific application necessary for a digibetacam workflow (local tv news that hasnt upgraded maybe? doesnt have to be US domestic), or for spare parts or the like. Plus sometimes if you need period footage you'll want to shoot on a period camera. GLOW did this, retrofitting some SD NTSC broadcast cameras for certain shots. Thats not a sunk cost fallacy scenario. In the cast of an F35, it can be useful in a sports scenario, capturing blank gun fire as an element cleanly (to avoid rolling shutter issues), or just because someone likes how it looks. Thats no crime. Hell, NASA has a ton of research footage of the recent SLS launch that was shot on 16 and 35 high speed along with their digital because the film held the difference between the highlights and blacks better than the high speed digital. In almost all senses the photosonics cameras are obsolete, yet they allowed for a clearer picture of what was happening with the engines than the newer stuff could. Ultimately, though, Im not quite sure why you care. Like, who cares if someone wants to use a certain tool that you dont want to use? What matters is what they do with it, and if it achieves the result they want. After all, what we're talking about is art.

the answer is, enough to keep the market price of the camera still at around $5k.

I've found 4k is almost always worth it, especially if theres any chance of VFX work. An arriscan for 1.3x the scanstaion sounds like a pretty good deal, though obviously if you're sending a ton of film that will add up. IMO if you can do a true RGB scan thats usually optimal. That being said, if you do not have a machine that can handle the mass of DPX files and that lab wont transcode for you, the scanstation may be the best option. The best scanstation 6.5k footage I've seen for 16 has always been when it runs in HDR mode. If you go with the scan station, ask for prores 4444XQ over traditional 4444. Its a subtle difference, but noticeable.

I mean, I just listed some of the reasons why it still has value. I dont think the F55 is remotely in the same class image wise. The alexa is debatable, IMO the F35 makes for a more filmic and pleasing image out of the box through hdsdi than the Alexa except in certain lowlight conditions, where some of the CCDness of it can get a little wonky. But even then, the Alexa classics also dont have the best low light performance in the universe, though they dont have the weird shit that can sometimes happen on a very under exposed CCD picture. The market is the market, and so long as people are willing to pay 5k for an F35 thats what its price will be. Same for the alexa classic or any other camera really.

its picture rivals or beats the alexa classics, even the mini in some circumstances. plus that global shutter. with ultra primes it upscales to 4k in post with no problem

IMO if you want the 7219 look, shoot 7219. I normally shoot that at 400 and find it fine, 320 should give you more small grain response and a little more perceived sharpness. I would light a little more contrasty though on 19, not just to lean into its native properties but to add even more perceived sharpness. Remember we also live in a world where you can do subtle sharpening in Resolve without making the grain pop too much. Hell, if you really want you can use neat video to degrain, sharpen, then mix back in with the source. That method works great too, but boy its a resource hog. If you need a reference, check out "the wrestler", which was mostly 19. it looks great. 500T is perfectly sharp when done right. That being said, make absolutely sure your camera is as sharp as it can get. On the Aaton XTR series its FFD is 52.00mm dead nuts. My SR3 Advanced is sharpest at 51.99mm for whatever reason (differences in pressure plate tension between the two systems?). Make sure your lenses are also collimated to the sharpest possible. I've seen professional stuff, usually ads, where its clear they used 16 and its was a little soft, and to my surprise they are often shot on the 416. My best guess on these is that they're out of spec, or the flange depth is technically within tolerance so the camera still goes out, even though its not dialed in optimally. If you do go 200T, TBH I shoot that at 160 for best results.

the InCamera guys in the UK have some videos on this. One thing to be aware of if you go to 200FPS is that any little debris you have floating about (ideally being kicked up by a fan) may fall too slowly. I'd recommend a day of testing if you can afford it

you can send raw, though if you have a preferred algorithm for demozaicing you should make sure that info is passed along. Otherwise demozaiced DPX (at least 10 bit) log or prores4444XQ log is fine. You should sort out any color management methods with VFX, including if they want a viewer lut or not. Personally Im a big fan of using ACES when theres VFX involved. You dont want to give them graded footage, as it can limit their ability to give you the best composite. Sometimes you need to dig deep into a color channel to get a track or isolate something and if you grade it you can tie VFX's hands. You may also want to do a round trip test of the pipeline as well, so you know that what you get back from VFX is in the right/intended format for color

the LWZ.1 and LWZ.2 match the Ultra 16s. same coatings, nearly as sharp. its a 15.5-45 t2.6, so its not super wide. I used it as my main lens with my U16 8mm till I hunted down my longer U16 focal lengths. The only other lens that will directly match is the master zoom 16.5-110, but thats like bolting a canon on to the front of your camera. If you need wider, your best bet will be the zeiss s16 zoom 12-120. It has the zeiss contrast, but it wont be color matched. If you go with a wider canon zoom, you'll get some magenta chromatic aberration that doesnt match the zeiss glass and isnt really undoable in the grade, unless you've got a lot of time to work on it in post.

among other things, it just makes life easier. You can take your film scans and tag them as cineon and set an output transform (say rec 709), and you're suddenly not wasting time with as much technical work as you are now able to just dive in creatively. It also means that you can bring in other cameras, say an arri alexa, set it up as log c and with the same output, and now your footage is more or less living in the same general world color wise. This color management also makes outputting to different color spaces a little easier since your material was effectively normalized on the input side. You should still manually check your color for each space instead of relying on a final output transform to magically get it right, but it does make life easier

You usually want to set your input profile for film as cineon, but its not necessarily going to be perfect due to a variety of reasons (say you are mixing 2 week old film with 6 month old film, there will be subtle differences). I've also worked with some labs who had instructed me to use arri log c instead of cineon, so you want to talk to your lab/scan house just to be sure. As for Aces vs Resolve color management, I think it just depends on your needs, what you're mixing, how heavy a vfx show it is etc. Personally I lean toward ACES when dealing with heavy vfx where Nuke is the main compositing tool due to the linear workspace, but Im not convinced thats vital. It seems to make things easier for the VFX houses and simpler to solve color management problems though should shots come back wonky.

2 perf 2.40:1 uses less surface area than 3 perf 2.40:1. The grain will be more present. Remember that 2 perf does not have a native aspect ratio of 2.40:1, its much wider. there is an old panavision explainer pdf that I have, but its too large to post here and annoyingly Im not seeing it elsewhere online. but from that doc: 3 Perf 2.40 0.945 x 0.394 in. 24.00 x 10.04 mm [same area as 4 perf 2.40] 2 Perf 2.40 0.825 x 0.345 in. 20.96 x 8.76 mm 3P 2.40 is 1.3x larger than 2P 2.40

if this is repeatably happening you need to have your camera and lenses serviced. You will need your flange depth checked as well as your fiber screen mount checked. Your lenses will need to be collimated. Maybe someone here can recommend a tech or service house in London that can help you.

I would think its possible, but it wont do you any good if you want to project it given you'd need a non standard desqueeze lens on the projector. If you're doing this as a backup for archival purposes its probably fine so long as you tape desqueeze instructions to the box. But I would talk with the labs about this, especially if you want to include sound on the film

the tobin ones were the most recent made for them I think, IIRC they were actually made in the 90s. I've seen those go for as much as $800 USD

I suspect it started in some part due to the at the time new high / dual ISO digital sensors, and seems it got turbo charged when the skypanel soft-lights became all the rage.

just FYI the ANSI S35 masks for the 435 and 535 seem impossible to find, its not clear how many they actually made. The closest you'll get is the 4 perf universal mask which is a tad cropped in from the ANSI s35 spec. I might have a spare DIN 1.33 one, but Im 90% sure the one I've got in storage is cropped in from the universal mask so if you're trying to maximize your negative its probably not what you want

have you inquired if the lab/scan house was doing any sharpening processing on the scanity? or if some features were turned off on the scanstation? do you know which version and resolution of the scan station it was?

is it just the nature of the transfer or did the pre vision 3 stocks just have a little more character?

You also seem to be assuming they didnt want the breathing on the lenses. On a show this large, its a safe bet they tested various sets of lenses and chose these for artistic reasons. That is, they wanted the breathing. If they wanted no breathing, like you said they could have chosen master primes.

I think without the answers to those questions we cant really know. I can tell you a while back a show I was on we just bought a $800 projector off amazon, I believe it was 60hz. playback was 30fps because of the approved background (which was licensed, annoyingly only came at 30fps) while we recorded 24fps. We were on battery, no phase sync. Looked great. Given the projector was 60hz I believe it was showing each frame twice on playback. We ran the playback off my macbook pro with the screen mirrored via HDMI. We tried a 24fps conversion on the 30fps stuff the day before we shot, and that caused an image stutter, but the stutter was visible to the eye as well as on the monitor. That led us to go back to the original frame rate.

if you're looking for a XTR Herman at cameramarket.eu has some available. I've had good dealings with him in the past, including on some expensive items. When it comes to ebay, NEVER follow up on an offer to buy outside of ebay. its 99% of the time a scam, and you will loose any ebay buyer protection as 1 it isnt even a sale through ebay and 2 it violates ebays terms of use

I would just call the film office to get some info. I do think it may be worth hiring a cop to babysit a show in SF depending on what youre doing. Even news crews have been robbed for their gear in the past few years, including an incident in oakland where their security guard was shot. Im not saying thats the norm, but I dont think I'd be one to use personal gear stealing shots or being in a skeleton crew without hired security of some kind.

was it a virtual rear projection setup (aka the camera being tracked with an unreal or similar background)? Do you recall the projector settings? Was it a 144hz projector or less? Was what you saw on the monitor or to the eye (or both)? Was the camera on battery or was it running house power? Was it on the same circuit as the projector or a different one? Do you recall the playback file's frame rate and the camera's frame rate? Do you recall the device (and if a computer, the software) used to playback your projected material?

the problem with that idea is that where is everyone gonna get the 65mm compatible lenses? Vista Vision was one thing, theres tons of glass that covers 8 perf. But when you get into 65mm territory you're really in lens rental territory just to be able to use the thing. So then suddenly that camera body is a rental only. Maybe Panavision would order a custom build for it, but since the Alexa 65 is rental only as well and I believe you can pair it with super 70 glass or the like, then unless there is a serious indication of demand from panavision's customers for a Red sourced sensor Im not sure why they'd order it. I have CCDs come down in price? I thought the reason that entire approach was abandoned was because a 5k RGB, 1080p resolving CCD sensor cost alone the same as a full Alexa at launch (IIRC the sony F35 CCD block alone was like 70k USD, with the full F35 camera being around 250k USD) and there was no indication it would ever scale.