Jump to content

Ruben Arce

Recommended Posts

Lars Preisser,

 

I have learned a few things since I started this thread. Personally, I don't like using old stock. Even if it was refrigerated since day one film has an aging process and it's well known that it's going to translate into more noticeable grain. Considering that Vision 3 has been around for more than 10 years you might be talking about film that is 20 or 25 years old, that definitelly it's going to make the grain more noticeable.

 

Perception: If you compare films shot on Kodak Vision 3 with fresh stock it will definitely look different. Vision 3 is known to have a really fine grain structure. You may be thinking that your film has a lot of grain but that may be the nature of Vision film, add the years and condition of storage...

 

Exposing the film: I used to shoot 35mm stills and I used to have good results, but when you have a smaller format like 16mm you are going to start noticing things that were not that obvious before. I learned that it's a good idea to increase (over expose) exposure by half or a full stop and a lot of people do it in order to get more information and less grain in the shadows. Now, when you use new old stock film you are supposed to compensate for that aging process for half or a full stop depending on how old it is and storing conditions. If you didn't compensate for the old stock and you didn't increase your exposure intentionally to get cleaner shadows you may be 2 stops under, and that would definitely make your footage grainy.

 

Shutter Angle: You mention that you got very different results out of the two cameras even when you were using the same light meter. A mistake that a lot of people make is to assume that the shutter angle of their cameras is 180° I did a quick research and I found that the Eclair ACLII has a 175° wich is equivalent to 1/49th of a second in still photography. The shutter angle on the Bolex is very different. The bolex H16 has a shutter angle of 133° which is equivalent to 1/65th of a second in still photography. If you assumed that the shutter angle of your cameras was 180° you were wrong, it was pretty close in the case of the Eclair, but that's 1/3 of a stop compared to the Bolex. Is not a huge difference in any case, but you are adding factors that set you apart from ideal exposure.

 

Lab & Scanner: The lab can affect the grain structure of a film. When you process film at home you can make it more or less grainy just by shaking the developing tank more or less. If you sent your film to a professional lab I don't think that's a factor, but it definitely can be in some cases.

 

Inexpensive scanners and inexperienced technicians can definitely make your film more grainy. I have some films scanned that have a lot of RGB pixels and it looks horrible. When labs try to give you a 1080p file out a native 720p scanner for example you will see more of that digital noise that combined with film grain can look ugly.

 

When I get my film scanned I ask for best light or medium gray and if I made a mistake and under or over-exposed a shot it will show up in the video file. I used a package one when a couple of years ago that included film, processing and scan from a lab, it was not the most professional lab and in order to make me happy they "corrected" a shot that I underexposed by 2 or 3 stops. When my friend saw the footage told me "Hey remember that shot you thought it was under... I was not" I knew it was underexposed and when I saw the footage I noticed that the lab increased exposure to make it look good, but it had a horrible green tint and ugly grain in the shadows. It talks about how great Kodak Vision 3 is and how it can handle over and underexposure, but that doesn't mean it's ideal.

 

I hope that helps, it would be better to see the footage in order to make comments, but those are general points that you can take into consideration when shooting film. I don't know how experienced you are, so just my grain of salt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • Premium Member
On 12/15/2014 at 3:13 PM, Will Montgomery said:

 

That's basically it. Although colorists I've worked with have all said that in digital, lighting to what it looks like in a monitor on set is something of a flaw; especially in low-light situations. Too easy to have no black detail or lots of noise when you try to work on it.

I'm very interested in this. Can you elaborate? I've shot at extreme low light exposing with waveform and didn't notice issues. I am quite inexperienced though. Was there a best practice in those situations they recommended?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

I wouldn't agree with that IF you are working with a calibrated monitor in a moderately darkened environment.

The problem in very low-light situations is that the monitor on set becomes the brightest light in the room so one has a tendency to expose things darker to compensate. Same thing happens the opposite way when shooting outdoors in daylight and the monitor isn't tented, expose correctly and everything looks too dim so you start overexposing to compensate.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...