5 ms·

R.I.P., the movie camera: 1888-2011

67 points by RyanMcGreal 15y ago

suivix 15y ago
Fascinating read. It's amazing to see such established things become obsolete.
bprater 15y ago
I knew the film camera was dead when I saw the first video coming from the Canon 5D Mark II. It wasn't perfect, but it was close. All coming from a package that fits in your fists and uses no film.
protomyth 15y ago
I'm pretty sure IMax still uses a film camera.
- bradleyland 15y ago
  Current IMAX cameras use 70 mm film, but they're looking to go to 4K digital with new equipment. Cameras like the RED Epic can already capture at 5K resolutions. There's not much reason to stick with the 70 mm format.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    I seem to remember from an interview on the rc podcast that 4k would not be enough for them.
trafficlight 15y ago
At my previous employer we had a Red One (http://red.com http://red.com). 5 minutes with that thing and you could see the writing on the wall.
- stephen_g 15y ago
  And now cinematographers (like John Schwartzman, DOP on the new Spiderman reboot) say the RED Epic has picture quality like 65mm film, and it shoots full resolution at up to 96 frames per second! All onto a 2.5mm SSD drive.
- Keyframe 15y ago
  True, it was a first among new ones. I hate RED with a passion though. Cameras stall, long boot times, damn rendering of R3D files - in the end, whatever time you think you've saved with it, comes back in post. Not to mention picture quality issues with non MX sensor cameras. OTOH, with Alexa and ESPECIALLY Sony SRW9000 I really don't see a point in film anymore. It will survive, but not in mainstream anymore.
pluies 15y ago
I am at the moment working with a guy whose job is to digitalise old (usually amateur) movies filmed on 8mm and 16mm reels. It's a bit of a shame to see these go, because the quality of 50-yo footage is quite incredible, even without any post-processing. The sheer simplicity and sturdiness of some old mechanical Russian camera is also amazing. What will happen of the videos we are shooting now? I'm pretty sure we'll be losing a lot more of it to hard drive failures or simple mistakes. Digital is a lot harder to store away in the attic to be re-discovered by your grandchildren.
- Klinky 15y ago
  People have lost troves of footage & pictures due to fire & water damage thanks to physical formats. People will also lose footage & pictures to digital media loss/damage, though it's much easier to duplicate a hard drive or a couple thousand data files than it is to duplicate a physical format. While it may be sad that the grandkids aren't going to find 8mm film in the attic, there's nothing really stipulating that even if they did find it they'd have the ambitiousness to track down the proper equipment to view the footage. It's not like you can walk into most any store & find an 8mm or 16mm player. If the fear is that people won't be able to play the content a previous generation created, that fear has already been realized with 8mm & 16mm film.
  - codedivine 15y ago
    On the other hand, I am hoping people won't be storing content in proprietary formats without a spec, or heaven-forbid with some DRM restrictions, or you might not have the proper software (or the proper rights if DRMed) to play it back 50 years later.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      In the realm of master copies for films the issue isn't so much DRM as merely encryption. There's likely to be some pressure to ensure that the master is "secure" from "thievery" regardless of where the bits physically reside, which will probably manifest itself in the use of strong encryption. Which, of course, brings up the question of what happens when the files are still around but the encryption keys are lost. The bigger problem is the classic fundamental problem of data retention. The people responsible for retention probably do not value the retention of the data independent of other developments to be of sufficient value to guarantee that retention with robust measures. For example, they could leave unencrypted copies (or encrypted copies with the encryption keys separate) in the custody of the library of congress. Or they could use some sort of N of M keys encryption system and distribute copies and keys to numerous individuals or institutions around the world. Etc. However, while such things would retention of the media would be valuable to the world at large even after, say, a global catastrophe (asteroid impact, nuclear war, etc.) or merely the bankruptcy of the company that created the media such concerns the company itself would tend not to share those ideals.
antidaily 15y ago
I'll miss the grain.
- thwarted 15y ago
  There are filters for that.
  - paganel 15y ago
    They're fake, just like Instagram is a fake.
    - pavlov 15y ago
      In that sense, the letters you're looking at on this webpage are also "fake" because these letterforms were not achieved by using hot-metal typesetting. Art constantly reinvents its methods while retaining forms derived from the past. That's cultural heritage. If efficiency on a particular medium were the only concern, it wouldn't make any sense to use Latin letters on a computer screen, with all these awkward shapes derived from Roman stonecutting and Medieval handwriting... (The Braille alphabet would probably be the most suitable for digital displays.)
    - thwarted 15y ago
      My point was that you can recreate the nostalgia (REcreate, so it's twice removed? heh). But yeah, they are fake, and one thing I always notice is how these kinds of filters seem to have an obvious loop in them. Are there any filters that are more dynamic and feed from an RNG or something to lessen the perception of looping?
- wahnfrieden 15y ago
  And the colors.
trimbo 15y ago
Ex-VFX guy here. For me it's more like "don't let the door hit you on the way out." Consider all of the issues: * A toxic chemical process for development. Both the source negative and the (thousands of) projected copies. * Weave, both during filming and projection. * Aspect ratio madness because of legacy formats. For example, academy formats have an offset center thanks to the audio track. * Light leak, and other physical film issues you don't have with digital. * Film is very inconsistent, and between projects, stock choices can make the source material really bad to work with. Take the legendarily bad Vision 500T that many cameramen would use even on critical bluescreen/greenscreen shots it had no place in. * For IMAX, going digital has the added benefit of losing weight. IMAX reels can only go about 90 seconds at a time. That'll also help high speed. Filming 500-1000 fps will tear through a 35mm reel in about 5 seconds. Again, pretty wasteful when you think about it compared to using a Phantom. Now it's just a matter of getting all theaters to use digital projection.
cromulent 15y ago
James Jannard's Red obviously had something to do with this. If you can buy a Red for less than the cost of renting a film camera from Panavision, then that's the way it will go. http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/ff_redcamera?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/...
wegwegerg 15y ago
So film has an digital equivalent resolution of 4k If you don't shoot in 4k digital you are screwing yourself badly, and most people are...
- Keyframe 15y ago
  Actually, I've read somewhere (somewhere credible, maybe it was cinefex) that 35mm 2-perf has a maximum equivalent resolution of 8.5K, 4-perf is probably then a double or quadruple of that? 2K in output is more than enough today, but there are technical reasons on some cameras to shoot in 4K - for example on RED One. If you don't shoot in 4K, you're not using the whole area of sensor, which results in odd behavior of lenses you're using.
  - stephen_g 15y ago
    You can scan film at whatever resolution you want, but on average (and this varies between different stocks, different film speeds, different processing) you won't get that much effective resolution from 35mm beyond 4K - you just start seeing the grains in more detail! And that is assuming a camera negative. A 3rd generation release print that has been played a few times can have less than 1.8K resolution.
RandallBrown 15y ago
It's pretty funny that the youtube video the guy posted wasn't even filmed with a camera. Brakhage just put moth wings on film and projected it.
mathattack 15y ago
I am frequently the crotchety old man in these situations but video (and sound) are ripe for digital technology. New technologies in these fields won't replace good stories, but they will replace old technologies.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
I used conventional movie cameras for most of my life (videographer for my high scholl movie club, family stuff), but you would have to forcefully pry my Sony EX1 from my hands (unless you were swapping in an EX3). A good hidef digital video camera is a joy to use, and great software like FCP is so much better than splicing film when editing. Even digital cameras are adequate (http://youtu.be/zIe3EKO43Sg http://youtu.be/zIe3EKO43Sg - I took this last week with my Canon T2i) and in some cases when you want a very narrow in-focus zone, better than a digital video camera.

67 points by RyanMcGreal 15y ago

Fascinating read. It's amazing to see such established things become obsolete.

I knew the film camera was dead when I saw the first video coming from the Canon 5D Mark II. It wasn't perfect, but it was close. All coming from a package that fits in your fists and uses no film.

protomyth 15y ago

I'm pretty sure IMax still uses a film camera.

bradleyland 15y ago
Current IMAX cameras use 70 mm film, but they're looking to go to 4K digital with new equipment. Cameras like the RED Epic can already capture at 5K resolutions. There's not much reason to stick with the 70 mm format.
- protomyth 15y ago
  I seem to remember from an interview on the rc podcast that 4k would not be enough for them.

trafficlight 15y ago

At my previous employer we had a Red One (http://red.com http://red.com). 5 minutes with that thing and you could see the writing on the wall.

stephen_g 15y ago
And now cinematographers (like John Schwartzman, DOP on the new Spiderman reboot) say the RED Epic has picture quality like 65mm film, and it shoots full resolution at up to 96 frames per second! All onto a 2.5mm SSD drive.
Keyframe 15y ago
True, it was a first among new ones. I hate RED with a passion though. Cameras stall, long boot times, damn rendering of R3D files - in the end, whatever time you think you've saved with it, comes back in post. Not to mention picture quality issues with non MX sensor cameras. OTOH, with Alexa and ESPECIALLY Sony SRW9000 I really don't see a point in film anymore. It will survive, but not in mainstream anymore.

pluies 15y ago

I am at the moment working with a guy whose job is to digitalise old (usually amateur) movies filmed on 8mm and 16mm reels. It's a bit of a shame to see these go, because the quality of 50-yo footage is quite incredible, even without any post-processing. The sheer simplicity and sturdiness of some old mechanical Russian camera is also amazing. What will happen of the videos we are shooting now? I'm pretty sure we'll be losing a lot more of it to hard drive failures or simple mistakes. Digital is a lot harder to store away in the attic to be re-discovered by your grandchildren.

Klinky 15y ago
People have lost troves of footage & pictures due to fire & water damage thanks to physical formats. People will also lose footage & pictures to digital media loss/damage, though it's much easier to duplicate a hard drive or a couple thousand data files than it is to duplicate a physical format. While it may be sad that the grandkids aren't going to find 8mm film in the attic, there's nothing really stipulating that even if they did find it they'd have the ambitiousness to track down the proper equipment to view the footage. It's not like you can walk into most any store & find an 8mm or 16mm player. If the fear is that people won't be able to play the content a previous generation created, that fear has already been realized with 8mm & 16mm film.
- codedivine 15y ago
  On the other hand, I am hoping people won't be storing content in proprietary formats without a spec, or heaven-forbid with some DRM restrictions, or you might not have the proper software (or the proper rights if DRMed) to play it back 50 years later.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    In the realm of master copies for films the issue isn't so much DRM as merely encryption. There's likely to be some pressure to ensure that the master is "secure" from "thievery" regardless of where the bits physically reside, which will probably manifest itself in the use of strong encryption. Which, of course, brings up the question of what happens when the files are still around but the encryption keys are lost. The bigger problem is the classic fundamental problem of data retention. The people responsible for retention probably do not value the retention of the data independent of other developments to be of sufficient value to guarantee that retention with robust measures. For example, they could leave unencrypted copies (or encrypted copies with the encryption keys separate) in the custody of the library of congress. Or they could use some sort of N of M keys encryption system and distribute copies and keys to numerous individuals or institutions around the world. Etc. However, while such things would retention of the media would be valuable to the world at large even after, say, a global catastrophe (asteroid impact, nuclear war, etc.) or merely the bankruptcy of the company that created the media such concerns the company itself would tend not to share those ideals.

antidaily 15y ago

I'll miss the grain.

thwarted 15y ago
There are filters for that.
- paganel 15y ago
  They're fake, just like Instagram is a fake.
  - pavlov 15y ago
    In that sense, the letters you're looking at on this webpage are also "fake" because these letterforms were not achieved by using hot-metal typesetting. Art constantly reinvents its methods while retaining forms derived from the past. That's cultural heritage. If efficiency on a particular medium were the only concern, it wouldn't make any sense to use Latin letters on a computer screen, with all these awkward shapes derived from Roman stonecutting and Medieval handwriting... (The Braille alphabet would probably be the most suitable for digital displays.)
  - thwarted 15y ago
    My point was that you can recreate the nostalgia (REcreate, so it's twice removed? heh). But yeah, they are fake, and one thing I always notice is how these kinds of filters seem to have an obvious loop in them. Are there any filters that are more dynamic and feed from an RNG or something to lessen the perception of looping?
wahnfrieden 15y ago
And the colors.

trimbo 15y ago

Ex-VFX guy here. For me it's more like "don't let the door hit you on the way out." Consider all of the issues: * A toxic chemical process for development. Both the source negative and the (thousands of) projected copies. * Weave, both during filming and projection. * Aspect ratio madness because of legacy formats. For example, academy formats have an offset center thanks to the audio track. * Light leak, and other physical film issues you don't have with digital. * Film is very inconsistent, and between projects, stock choices can make the source material really bad to work with. Take the legendarily bad Vision 500T that many cameramen would use even on critical bluescreen/greenscreen shots it had no place in. * For IMAX, going digital has the added benefit of losing weight. IMAX reels can only go about 90 seconds at a time. That'll also help high speed. Filming 500-1000 fps will tear through a 35mm reel in about 5 seconds. Again, pretty wasteful when you think about it compared to using a Phantom. Now it's just a matter of getting all theaters to use digital projection.

cromulent 15y ago

James Jannard's Red obviously had something to do with this. If you can buy a Red for less than the cost of renting a film camera from Panavision, then that's the way it will go. http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/ff_redcamera?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/...

wegwegerg 15y ago

So film has an digital equivalent resolution of 4k If you don't shoot in 4k digital you are screwing yourself badly, and most people are...

Keyframe 15y ago
Actually, I've read somewhere (somewhere credible, maybe it was cinefex) that 35mm 2-perf has a maximum equivalent resolution of 8.5K, 4-perf is probably then a double or quadruple of that? 2K in output is more than enough today, but there are technical reasons on some cameras to shoot in 4K - for example on RED One. If you don't shoot in 4K, you're not using the whole area of sensor, which results in odd behavior of lenses you're using.
- stephen_g 15y ago
  You can scan film at whatever resolution you want, but on average (and this varies between different stocks, different film speeds, different processing) you won't get that much effective resolution from 35mm beyond 4K - you just start seeing the grains in more detail! And that is assuming a camera negative. A 3rd generation release print that has been played a few times can have less than 1.8K resolution.

RandallBrown 15y ago

It's pretty funny that the youtube video the guy posted wasn't even filmed with a camera. Brakhage just put moth wings on film and projected it.

mathattack 15y ago

I am frequently the crotchety old man in these situations but video (and sound) are ripe for digital technology. New technologies in these fields won't replace good stories, but they will replace old technologies.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

I used conventional movie cameras for most of my life (videographer for my high scholl movie club, family stuff), but you would have to forcefully pry my Sony EX1 from my hands (unless you were swapping in an EX3). A good hidef digital video camera is a joy to use, and great software like FCP is so much better than splicing film when editing. Even digital cameras are adequate (http://youtu.be/zIe3EKO43Sg http://youtu.be/zIe3EKO43Sg - I took this last week with my Canon T2i) and in some cases when you want a very narrow in-focus zone, better than a digital video camera.