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I am a little surprised that digital filming isn't hitting it's stride when photographers have taken to the digital transition. Not sure if the celluloid comme

by mey 16y ago

I am a little surprised that digital filming isn't hitting it's stride when photographers have taken to the digital transition. Not sure if the celluloid comment is only in reference RED or in reference to digital film in general. I see parallels to audiophile type comments regarding analog v digital.

pokjhnboi 16y ago
Film cameras + lenses are expensive, $100k expensive. They are typically leased for each production from rental houses that have many $M of stock on their shelves - and are often also manufacturers (panaflex didn't used to sell cameras at all - you had to rent) Then you need a camera operator that is trained on that camera. Imagine if a pro-photographer had 6 different camera brands that they didn't own and didn't know which one they would be presented with on their next job. Then there is a whole industry of labs, dailies, neg cutters that work with film. Replacing all these with data wranglers, DBAs and sysadmins is expensive - especially with no market leader means you need to hire a team that all know the model you are using. A recent BBC documentary shot on regular HD cameras had 2people who spent all night copying all the memory cards to hard drives and making backups. Digital cameras will catch on, probably in independant first - but it's not because of any artistic reason, it's just a cost/time/benefit calculation
alexqgb 16y ago
Given the exponentially lower amount of data handled by still cameras, it was much easier for them to eclipse 35mm film in terms of quality. Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk. Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen that is literally two stories high. The scale is unforgiving. Things that would fly on television get suddenly ugly - especially if you're only starting with 1080 lines of resolution. And that's before your picture has gone through layers and layers of heavy post production - every one of which constitutes a round of transcoding, and thus, a source of degradation and artifacting. In other words, not only are you shooting far more frames in far less time (and needing hardware that can do sustained encoding for each one in real time) but, you're doing so at exceptionally high bit-rates, oversampling like hell so that you'll still have a clean picture even after running it through the wringer of post-production. Encoding for broadcast, DVD and the web (which is par for the course with any professional shoot) only adds an extra layer of abuse. When Michael Mann was shooting Collateral (which made heavy use of HD), there were a number of scenes where they had to shoot film, just because the HD rigs capable of supporting adequate bitrates came with umbilical cords that were simply too cumbersome for handheld setups where agility was essential. There's also been an optical issue, in that sensors for digital motion cameras have typically been much smaller than those used for digital still or motion film cameras. Even if the resolution is commensurate (which is hasn't been), the fact that the same number of scan lines are packed into a smaller area has consequences in terms of the optical effects that the camera can achieve. Specifically, a larger imagine surface allows for a shallower depth of field. Given that really good cinematographers can make masterful use of DOF, it's understandable that they don't like the constricted range that comes with smaller, digital sensors. For guys like Lucas, Fincher, and Jackson - who all do a huge amount of pre-visualization and heavy CG in post - this isn't such a big deal. They can plan around it, or deal with it after the fact. But in a more traditional setting - and for filmmakers who don't have the same hardcore ILM/WETA ethos and skill - the trade-off isn't so favorable. All that said, my sense is that this RED camera marks a tipping point, where a lot of the advantages that film has held will start to erode in earnest. The thing that's really going to drive this is the exceptionally high dynamic range (that is to say, the range of light levels the camera can handle before the picture either drops into black, or blows out in a haze of pure white). Higher performance in this area really was the trump card for film. But now that RED is not just meeting, but exceeding the long-established benchmarks, a lot of people who have stuck with film are going to ditch it in favor of a much higher ceiling. I mean, wow, 18 stops - that's hot.
- mprovost 16y ago
  Resolution on the big screen isn't such a big deal - Avatar was only HD (1080). Sure 2K looks better but people weren't noticing the resolution. Increasing the frame rate has a bigger impact than increasing the resolution.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    Minor nitpick: "2K" is actually very close to 1080p: 2048x1080 vs 1920x1080.
    - alexqgb 16y ago
      You've misunderstood what '2k' means - it refers to the y axis, not the x. Both aspect ratios you cite are effectively 1k. Also, regarding Avatar - see the comment above about what it takes to compensate for lower resolution sources. There is absolutely no comparison between what Jim Cameron can do with 1080p + a quarter billion dollars, and what the average Sundance aspirant is trying to pull off for less than a million.
      - nitrogen 16y ago
        I've always seen "2K" or "4K" or "nK" used to refer to the X axis. My sources: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Image_resolution https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Image_resolut... https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Digital_cinema https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Digital_cinem...
        alexqgb 16y ago
        I stand corrected. And thanks for the links.
- ansgri 16y ago
  It's not exponential—quadratic at most. With exponential factors cinema wouldn't be possible until quantum computers ^)
Keyframe 16y ago
Yeah, there is a certain flare of 'it feels organic' hipster thinking going on... but there is another thing to it, you might not be aware of. When shooting on film, DOPs and directors go to a telecine facility or a film lab where they wait for their stock to get scanned and then grade it live with an operator... I suspect most of the 'i shoot only on film' directors and DOPs are actually shooting on film because of they way they are used to work in grading/DI process with a certain operator or a few of them... it's that process that they are comfortable with and don't wish to abandon. sure, there is digital grading, and it's done - but with film it's more of a ritual, where with digital footage it's more like sitting in a comping booth... I don't know how to explain it otherwise, it's a big deal to DOPs and directors (especially directors on commercials, not so much on features).

by mey 16y ago

pokjhnboi 16y ago

Film cameras + lenses are expensive, $100k expensive. They are typically leased for each production from rental houses that have many $M of stock on their shelves - and are often also manufacturers (panaflex didn't used to sell cameras at all - you had to rent) Then you need a camera operator that is trained on that camera. Imagine if a pro-photographer had 6 different camera brands that they didn't own and didn't know which one they would be presented with on their next job. Then there is a whole industry of labs, dailies, neg cutters that work with film. Replacing all these with data wranglers, DBAs and sysadmins is expensive - especially with no market leader means you need to hire a team that all know the model you are using. A recent BBC documentary shot on regular HD cameras had 2people who spent all night copying all the memory cards to hard drives and making backups. Digital cameras will catch on, probably in independant first - but it's not because of any artistic reason, it's just a cost/time/benefit calculation

alexqgb 16y ago

Given the exponentially lower amount of data handled by still cameras, it was much easier for them to eclipse 35mm film in terms of quality. Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk. Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen that is literally two stories high. The scale is unforgiving. Things that would fly on television get suddenly ugly - especially if you're only starting with 1080 lines of resolution. And that's before your picture has gone through layers and layers of heavy post production - every one of which constitutes a round of transcoding, and thus, a source of degradation and artifacting. In other words, not only are you shooting far more frames in far less time (and needing hardware that can do sustained encoding for each one in real time) but, you're doing so at exceptionally high bit-rates, oversampling like hell so that you'll still have a clean picture even after running it through the wringer of post-production. Encoding for broadcast, DVD and the web (which is par for the course with any professional shoot) only adds an extra layer of abuse. When Michael Mann was shooting Collateral (which made heavy use of HD), there were a number of scenes where they had to shoot film, just because the HD rigs capable of supporting adequate bitrates came with umbilical cords that were simply too cumbersome for handheld setups where agility was essential. There's also been an optical issue, in that sensors for digital motion cameras have typically been much smaller than those used for digital still or motion film cameras. Even if the resolution is commensurate (which is hasn't been), the fact that the same number of scan lines are packed into a smaller area has consequences in terms of the optical effects that the camera can achieve. Specifically, a larger imagine surface allows for a shallower depth of field. Given that really good cinematographers can make masterful use of DOF, it's understandable that they don't like the constricted range that comes with smaller, digital sensors. For guys like Lucas, Fincher, and Jackson - who all do a huge amount of pre-visualization and heavy CG in post - this isn't such a big deal. They can plan around it, or deal with it after the fact. But in a more traditional setting - and for filmmakers who don't have the same hardcore ILM/WETA ethos and skill - the trade-off isn't so favorable. All that said, my sense is that this RED camera marks a tipping point, where a lot of the advantages that film has held will start to erode in earnest. The thing that's really going to drive this is the exceptionally high dynamic range (that is to say, the range of light levels the camera can handle before the picture either drops into black, or blows out in a haze of pure white). Higher performance in this area really was the trump card for film. But now that RED is not just meeting, but exceeding the long-established benchmarks, a lot of people who have stuck with film are going to ditch it in favor of a much higher ceiling. I mean, wow, 18 stops - that's hot.

mprovost 16y ago
Resolution on the big screen isn't such a big deal - Avatar was only HD (1080). Sure 2K looks better but people weren't noticing the resolution. Increasing the frame rate has a bigger impact than increasing the resolution.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Minor nitpick: "2K" is actually very close to 1080p: 2048x1080 vs 1920x1080.
  - alexqgb 16y ago
    You've misunderstood what '2k' means - it refers to the y axis, not the x. Both aspect ratios you cite are effectively 1k. Also, regarding Avatar - see the comment above about what it takes to compensate for lower resolution sources. There is absolutely no comparison between what Jim Cameron can do with 1080p + a quarter billion dollars, and what the average Sundance aspirant is trying to pull off for less than a million.
    - nitrogen 16y ago
      I've always seen "2K" or "4K" or "nK" used to refer to the X axis. My sources: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Image_resolution https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Image_resolut... https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Digital_cinema https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Digital_cinem...
      - alexqgb 16y ago
        I stand corrected. And thanks for the links.
ansgri 16y ago
It's not exponential—quadratic at most. With exponential factors cinema wouldn't be possible until quantum computers ^)

Keyframe 16y ago

Yeah, there is a certain flare of 'it feels organic' hipster thinking going on... but there is another thing to it, you might not be aware of. When shooting on film, DOPs and directors go to a telecine facility or a film lab where they wait for their stock to get scanned and then grade it live with an operator... I suspect most of the 'i shoot only on film' directors and DOPs are actually shooting on film because of they way they are used to work in grading/DI process with a certain operator or a few of them... it's that process that they are comfortable with and don't wish to abandon. sure, there is digital grading, and it's done - but with film it's more of a ritual, where with digital footage it's more like sitting in a comping booth... I don't know how to explain it otherwise, it's a big deal to DOPs and directors (especially directors on commercials, not so much on features).