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In other words: dynamic range. That late 80's film is set up at daylight in a brightly lit joint. So that cameras could actually record it. The other scene is

In other words: dynamic range. That late 80's film is set up at daylight in a brightly lit joint. So that cameras could actually record it. The other scene is in a dimly lit dining room with directly visible light sourcee (that don't saturate). You can bet that 80's film could not have captured this kind of low-light high-contrast scene.

dekhn 4y ago
Except Barry Lyndon did exactly that.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  You’re not wrong, but Kubrick famously used some of the fastest lenses available at the time to shoot the candlelight scenes. I believe the folklore is that he had to borrow them from NASA, so it’s probably a stretch to expect that kind of technical availability in general film productions from the period.
  - shagie 4y ago
    Not so much a "borrow" but rather "they had already been designed so the hard part was done - he just bought some." https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/ https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fa... > Kubrick obsessively researched the problem. He eventually discovered that Nasa had commissioned Carl Zeiss to build ten Planar 50mm f/0.7 stills lenses in the sixties, which were used to take photos of the dark side of the moon. > ... > Anyway, Kubrick promptly bought three of the Zeiss Planars. He liked to own equipment himself, rather than hire it in, and to this end he had also purchased at least one Mitchell BNC camera. As befits Kubrick’s perfectionism, these were perhaps the world’s most precisely engineered cameras, previously used for special effects work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7 > In total there were only 10 lenses made. One was kept by Carl Zeiss, six were sold to NASA, and three were sold to Kubrick.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      A Zeiss 50mm f 0.7? Heck, I don't have a camera for that lense, nor the budget, but this combination sounds like a dream...
      - shagie 4y ago
        Some ideas - http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed00.html http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed00.html (note: its a rather old style site that hasn't been updated in two decades - I can't find it properly linked from http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html and the navigation is on the right hand side header and footer). Make sure you look at the http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed03.html http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed03.html - the Scentless Mayweed is really neat for its depth of field. The AI Noct Nikkor 58mm F1.2 is another neat lens. https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0016/index.htm https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0016/index.htm (make sure you look at the full size examples of the 58mm f/1.2 and the 50mm f/1.2 and look at the car lights in the corner of the frame). (and digging - found it). You might also enjoy Philip Greenspun's review of the Canon 50/1.0L https://web.archive.org/web/20040605021643/http://www.photo.net/canon/50-1.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20040605021643/http://www.photo.... and the Graceland paperweights https://web.archive.org/web/20040617130935/http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd0088/graceland-paperweight-34 https://web.archive.org/web/20040617130935/http://www.photo....
        hef19898 4y ago
        Seems like need to use my 50 f1.8 more often!
        shagie 4y ago
        A 50mm f/1.8 (or f/1.4 if you have a bit more money) is a beautiful lens to work with. On a full 35mm frame, it provides a normal field of view which approximately matches the field you see (kind of, we've got two eyes and so more of a panoramic view, but unless you're pulling out an xpan ( https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/xpan/ https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/xpan/ ) it isn't something that you can capture - still catches the part that you see looking forward). And it doesn't have any weird perspective issues with flattening on long lenses or the exaggerated perspective of things closer. It's just the right lens for so many situations. Light enough to handhold without any issue. Fast enough to get a nice shallow depth of field. As an aside, if you are looking at primes, a 35mm f/2 is a good "I want something wider" and the 85mm f/1.8 is a very nice "I want something longer" while not being ungainly or slow.
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    John Alcott, Kubrick's cinematographer, who got an Oscar for that film and is known for using natural light, is probably more responsible for that. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005633/bio https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005633/bio
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >some of the fastest lenses available at the time ?? more like ever. are you suggesting that we have lenses widely available that are faster today?
    - dekhn 4y ago
      probably nobody in a non-classified situation has built such a thing recently. But if you put enough engineering into it, you could exceed those parameters today. Glass/glass manufacture, lens shaping, etc all improved tremendously. It would be obscenely expensive; every lens would be completely custom, you'd probably burn through hundreds of blanks before you had something worth using, and there are other, easier ways to achieve low-light imaging anyway.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        probably? are we just making stuff up now just to prove a point?
        dekhn 4y ago
        I mean, I work with optics, and I know the history of making good glass, so.... no?
        dylan604 4y ago
        the fastest commercially available glass is 0.75-1.0. that means the 0.7 from the glass Kubrik used is still the fastest. i seriously doubt that even someone the likes of Kubrik would have the clout to approach the NRO and ask for whatever the best they have is to shoot a feature film. so your non-classified caveat is kind of pointless.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      This is an unnecessarily hostile reading. I just wasn't sure that it was the fastest lens at the time, and I didn't want to say something incorrect.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  i.e. one of the greatest auteurs was able to achieve what can be done by a TikTok today (just about)
royjacobs 4y ago
A famous counterpoint to your statement that eighties film stocks would not be able to capture that kind of low-light high-contrast scene: Barry Lyndon (released in 1975). However, it's pretty much guaranteed that both the old and new scenes mentioned in TFA have a _ton_ of extra lights and flags just out of camera. If anything, the article is pretty naive in assuming that they just walked up to some diner and started filming using available daylight.
- muglug 4y ago
  Yeah, the difference is just that the first movie’s DP was aiming for a naturalistic shot, whereas the second DP wasn’t. Tons of 80s and 90s movies have heavily-stylised non-naturalistic lighting (e.g Tim Burton’s Batman)
  - royjacobs 4y ago
    Exactly. Going further back in history there's also this thing called Film Noir that further disproves the argument that digital cameras (or, more narrowly, Netflix) is the origin of the high-contrast look. I mean, even the most celebrated film of all time, Citizen Kane, is celebrated among other things for its stark contrast and that was shot in 1941 or thereabouts.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  For Barry Lyndon, Kubrick had Zeiss build ridiculously fast f/0.7 lenses for him that was previously only used by NASA. That’s how he was able to capture these low-light high-contrast scenes that look so gorgeous.

dekhn 4y ago

Except Barry Lyndon did exactly that.

woodruffw 4y ago
You’re not wrong, but Kubrick famously used some of the fastest lenses available at the time to shoot the candlelight scenes. I believe the folklore is that he had to borrow them from NASA, so it’s probably a stretch to expect that kind of technical availability in general film productions from the period.
- shagie 4y ago
  Not so much a "borrow" but rather "they had already been designed so the hard part was done - he just bought some." https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/ https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fa... > Kubrick obsessively researched the problem. He eventually discovered that Nasa had commissioned Carl Zeiss to build ten Planar 50mm f/0.7 stills lenses in the sixties, which were used to take photos of the dark side of the moon. > ... > Anyway, Kubrick promptly bought three of the Zeiss Planars. He liked to own equipment himself, rather than hire it in, and to this end he had also purchased at least one Mitchell BNC camera. As befits Kubrick’s perfectionism, these were perhaps the world’s most precisely engineered cameras, previously used for special effects work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7 > In total there were only 10 lenses made. One was kept by Carl Zeiss, six were sold to NASA, and three were sold to Kubrick.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    A Zeiss 50mm f 0.7? Heck, I don't have a camera for that lense, nor the budget, but this combination sounds like a dream...
    - shagie 4y ago
      Some ideas - http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed00.html http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed00.html (note: its a rather old style site that hasn't been updated in two decades - I can't find it properly linked from http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html and the navigation is on the right hand side header and footer). Make sure you look at the http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed03.html http://www.naturfotograf.com/need_speed03.html - the Scentless Mayweed is really neat for its depth of field. The AI Noct Nikkor 58mm F1.2 is another neat lens. https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0016/index.htm https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0016/index.htm (make sure you look at the full size examples of the 58mm f/1.2 and the 50mm f/1.2 and look at the car lights in the corner of the frame). (and digging - found it). You might also enjoy Philip Greenspun's review of the Canon 50/1.0L https://web.archive.org/web/20040605021643/http://www.photo.net/canon/50-1.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20040605021643/http://www.photo.... and the Graceland paperweights https://web.archive.org/web/20040617130935/http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd0088/graceland-paperweight-34 https://web.archive.org/web/20040617130935/http://www.photo....
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Seems like need to use my 50 f1.8 more often!
        shagie 4y ago
        A 50mm f/1.8 (or f/1.4 if you have a bit more money) is a beautiful lens to work with. On a full 35mm frame, it provides a normal field of view which approximately matches the field you see (kind of, we've got two eyes and so more of a panoramic view, but unless you're pulling out an xpan ( https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/xpan/ https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/xpan/ ) it isn't something that you can capture - still catches the part that you see looking forward). And it doesn't have any weird perspective issues with flattening on long lenses or the exaggerated perspective of things closer. It's just the right lens for so many situations. Light enough to handhold without any issue. Fast enough to get a nice shallow depth of field. As an aside, if you are looking at primes, a 35mm f/2 is a good "I want something wider" and the 85mm f/1.8 is a very nice "I want something longer" while not being ungainly or slow.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  John Alcott, Kubrick's cinematographer, who got an Oscar for that film and is known for using natural light, is probably more responsible for that. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005633/bio https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005633/bio
- dylan604 4y ago
  >some of the fastest lenses available at the time ?? more like ever. are you suggesting that we have lenses widely available that are faster today?
  - dekhn 4y ago
    probably nobody in a non-classified situation has built such a thing recently. But if you put enough engineering into it, you could exceed those parameters today. Glass/glass manufacture, lens shaping, etc all improved tremendously. It would be obscenely expensive; every lens would be completely custom, you'd probably burn through hundreds of blanks before you had something worth using, and there are other, easier ways to achieve low-light imaging anyway.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      probably? are we just making stuff up now just to prove a point?
      - dekhn 4y ago
        I mean, I work with optics, and I know the history of making good glass, so.... no?
        dylan604 4y ago
        the fastest commercially available glass is 0.75-1.0. that means the 0.7 from the glass Kubrik used is still the fastest. i seriously doubt that even someone the likes of Kubrik would have the clout to approach the NRO and ask for whatever the best they have is to shoot a feature film. so your non-classified caveat is kind of pointless.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This is an unnecessarily hostile reading. I just wasn't sure that it was the fastest lens at the time, and I didn't want to say something incorrect.
mhh__ 4y ago
i.e. one of the greatest auteurs was able to achieve what can be done by a TikTok today (just about)

royjacobs 4y ago

A famous counterpoint to your statement that eighties film stocks would not be able to capture that kind of low-light high-contrast scene: Barry Lyndon (released in 1975). However, it's pretty much guaranteed that both the old and new scenes mentioned in TFA have a _ton_ of extra lights and flags just out of camera. If anything, the article is pretty naive in assuming that they just walked up to some diner and started filming using available daylight.

muglug 4y ago
Yeah, the difference is just that the first movie’s DP was aiming for a naturalistic shot, whereas the second DP wasn’t. Tons of 80s and 90s movies have heavily-stylised non-naturalistic lighting (e.g Tim Burton’s Batman)
- royjacobs 4y ago
  Exactly. Going further back in history there's also this thing called Film Noir that further disproves the argument that digital cameras (or, more narrowly, Netflix) is the origin of the high-contrast look. I mean, even the most celebrated film of all time, Citizen Kane, is celebrated among other things for its stark contrast and that was shot in 1941 or thereabouts.
drexlspivey 4y ago
For Barry Lyndon, Kubrick had Zeiss build ridiculously fast f/0.7 lenses for him that was previously only used by NASA. That’s how he was able to capture these low-light high-contrast scenes that look so gorgeous.