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Every single vintage effect misses out on one crucial factor - Resolution. Vintage films (even when scanned in 4K) do not have the same type of aliasing and sha

Every single vintage effect misses out on one crucial factor - Resolution. Vintage films (even when scanned in 4K) do not have the same type of aliasing and sharpening aspects that digital cameras have. This effect is what “makes” it vintage for me. If you haven’t seen, Apollo (2019) documentary is simply stunning and even though it’s in 4K, it appears vintage.

ponderingfish 6y ago
Excellent point. Perhaps, a blurring filter would help with that.
- atonse 6y ago
  And a little bit of grain?
- kawsper 6y ago
  I would consider also getting some old lenses like the Krasnogorsk if you're recording this yourself. https://youtu.be/2YzFPruwXyk https://youtu.be/2YzFPruwXyk https://youtu.be/XelO_3rrkeA https://youtu.be/XelO_3rrkeA
  - ponderingfish 6y ago
    Nice! I am actually just using my iPhone videos and converting them this way! The output is pretty good and when I shared them with family, they loved it. Thanks for the lens links.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
crazygringo 6y ago
I'm curious what you're referring to specifically, since there is incredibly sharp film footage out there. Are you talking about resolution from film grain? Because 35mm film is generally to be considered a good bit higher resolution than 4K. Or the noise properties of film grain, which is a separate issue from resolution? Which shows up some in well-lit conditions, but is even more obvious in nighttime shots? That's certainly easy to add. Or are you talking about lower-quality lenses (e.g. chromatic abberation), or focus issues? Or something else? I don't know at all what you mean by the "aliasing and sharpening" that you claim professional digital cameras perform. (Since we're not talking about iPhone camera processing, but rather the cameras movies and broadcasters use.)
- simias 6y ago
  Analog support doesn't sample individual pixels in a grid format. That's why it's rather meaningless to talk about the resolution of analog photos or video, the actually information density will vary depending on a large number of factors and may not even be the same depending on what you measure. For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. And then you have old school lenses vs. modern lenses and many other factors. I agree with the parent that the end result is an amusing novelty but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording I don't think I would've fallen for it. It's too sharp, the blurring effect on movement feel wrong too and the dynamics are off I think (film has amazing contrast that digital sensors still struggle to emulate).
  - schrijver 6y ago
    > For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. That’s the case for the large majority of digital content as well, in a codec like H264 the chroma resolution is a quarter of the luma resolution. > but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording To be fair, no one claimed this. I think it’s almost impossible to do because so many factors come together.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    Sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to say resolution of analog is "meaningless". I'm not aware of a precise quantitative measure of film "resolution", but simply from a qualitative sense of resolving detail, it's quite meaningful and useful to say that 35mm film is generally considered to lie somewhere between 4K and 8K. Which is far higher than 1080p. In other words, if you're watching a 1080p video and complaining it appears too "high-resolution" to have been transferred from film, that's almost certainly incorrect, and it's something else that cluing you in it wasn't film -- probably grain and/or color characteristics.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Isn't the opposite the case? If I see aliasing and sharpening, I see it as digital distortion you wouldn't expect from film. When I see a bunch of digital artifacts on a film transfer, I think of it as a bad transfer.
leeoniya 6y ago
somewhat related: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/CRT_Simulation_in_Super_Win_the_Game.php https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/...
HelloNurse 6y ago
There's vintage and vintage. Old film scanned today (with modern resolution and chromatic fidelity, reproducing accurately chemical and optical issues in the original) is very different from old TV footage (with anisotropic filtering and old magnetic tape degradation effects) and from early digital cameras.
warpech 6y ago
Which Apollo documentary are you referring to? There were a few last year according to IMDB
- yalooze 6y ago
  Not OP but can only assume it's this one https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 lots of new footage and a great documentary.
- interestica 6y ago
  This one. It's quite incredible in the way it's constructed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_(2019_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_(2019_film) > The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations. > In late 2016, Todd Douglas Miller had recently completed work on The Last Steps, a documentary about Apollo 17, when British archivist and film editor Stephen Slater suggested making a similarly themed documentary for the upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations of Apollo 11. > Miller's conception of the film was centered on a direct cinema approach. The final film contains no voice-over narration or interviews beyond what was available in the contemporary source material.
  - moondev 6y ago
    Found a preview of this on youtube for anyone curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUYurzK-tM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUYurzK-tM The example footage looks awesome - incredible quality but unmistakably vintage.
    - interestica 6y ago
      That clip may be max 1080. Whats crazy is that while the film was released in 4k, the content sourced from 70mm film has a way higher (8k? more?) potential resolution. Combined with something like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25105713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25105713 and we may still have really cool things to see from the 60s.
vmception 6y ago
Then add that affect lol. In production you don't just apply one filter and be done with it, and you don't just apply the filter evenly, you want to layer mask and add something dynamic to it. A proper tutorial won't tell you about all the other filters, just the one specific effect it is talking about.

ponderingfish 6y ago

Excellent point. Perhaps, a blurring filter would help with that.

atonse 6y ago
And a little bit of grain?
kawsper 6y ago
I would consider also getting some old lenses like the Krasnogorsk if you're recording this yourself. https://youtu.be/2YzFPruwXyk https://youtu.be/2YzFPruwXyk https://youtu.be/XelO_3rrkeA https://youtu.be/XelO_3rrkeA
- ponderingfish 6y ago
  Nice! I am actually just using my iPhone videos and converting them this way! The output is pretty good and when I shared them with family, they loved it. Thanks for the lens links.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

crazygringo 6y ago

I'm curious what you're referring to specifically, since there is incredibly sharp film footage out there. Are you talking about resolution from film grain? Because 35mm film is generally to be considered a good bit higher resolution than 4K. Or the noise properties of film grain, which is a separate issue from resolution? Which shows up some in well-lit conditions, but is even more obvious in nighttime shots? That's certainly easy to add. Or are you talking about lower-quality lenses (e.g. chromatic abberation), or focus issues? Or something else? I don't know at all what you mean by the "aliasing and sharpening" that you claim professional digital cameras perform. (Since we're not talking about iPhone camera processing, but rather the cameras movies and broadcasters use.)

simias 6y ago
Analog support doesn't sample individual pixels in a grid format. That's why it's rather meaningless to talk about the resolution of analog photos or video, the actually information density will vary depending on a large number of factors and may not even be the same depending on what you measure. For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. And then you have old school lenses vs. modern lenses and many other factors. I agree with the parent that the end result is an amusing novelty but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording I don't think I would've fallen for it. It's too sharp, the blurring effect on movement feel wrong too and the dynamics are off I think (film has amazing contrast that digital sensors still struggle to emulate).
- schrijver 6y ago
  > For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. That’s the case for the large majority of digital content as well, in a codec like H264 the chroma resolution is a quarter of the luma resolution. > but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording To be fair, no one claimed this. I think it’s almost impossible to do because so many factors come together.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  Sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to say resolution of analog is "meaningless". I'm not aware of a precise quantitative measure of film "resolution", but simply from a qualitative sense of resolving detail, it's quite meaningful and useful to say that 35mm film is generally considered to lie somewhere between 4K and 8K. Which is far higher than 1080p. In other words, if you're watching a 1080p video and complaining it appears too "high-resolution" to have been transferred from film, that's almost certainly incorrect, and it's something else that cluing you in it wasn't film -- probably grain and/or color characteristics.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Isn't the opposite the case? If I see aliasing and sharpening, I see it as digital distortion you wouldn't expect from film. When I see a bunch of digital artifacts on a film transfer, I think of it as a bad transfer.

leeoniya 6y ago

somewhat related: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/CRT_Simulation_in_Super_Win_the_Game.php https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/...

HelloNurse 6y ago

There's vintage and vintage. Old film scanned today (with modern resolution and chromatic fidelity, reproducing accurately chemical and optical issues in the original) is very different from old TV footage (with anisotropic filtering and old magnetic tape degradation effects) and from early digital cameras.

warpech 6y ago

Which Apollo documentary are you referring to? There were a few last year according to IMDB

yalooze 6y ago
Not OP but can only assume it's this one https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 lots of new footage and a great documentary.
interestica 6y ago
This one. It's quite incredible in the way it's constructed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_(2019_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_(2019_film) > The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations. > In late 2016, Todd Douglas Miller had recently completed work on The Last Steps, a documentary about Apollo 17, when British archivist and film editor Stephen Slater suggested making a similarly themed documentary for the upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations of Apollo 11. > Miller's conception of the film was centered on a direct cinema approach. The final film contains no voice-over narration or interviews beyond what was available in the contemporary source material.
- moondev 6y ago
  Found a preview of this on youtube for anyone curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUYurzK-tM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUYurzK-tM The example footage looks awesome - incredible quality but unmistakably vintage.
  - interestica 6y ago
    That clip may be max 1080. Whats crazy is that while the film was released in 4k, the content sourced from 70mm film has a way higher (8k? more?) potential resolution. Combined with something like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25105713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25105713 and we may still have really cool things to see from the 60s.

vmception 6y ago

Then add that affect lol. In production you don't just apply one filter and be done with it, and you don't just apply the filter evenly, you want to layer mask and add something dynamic to it. A proper tutorial won't tell you about all the other filters, just the one specific effect it is talking about.