Should I shoot 4:4 matted to 16x9

honey

honey

Active member
Ok, I've been planning on shooting 16x9 by using a 16x9 lense and outputting to anamorphic widescreen. Anyways I was just reading this awesome article about the making of 28 days later in which their Director of Photography states that they shot with a 4x3 aspect ratio but matted for 16x9.

Why would they do that? Wouldn't they get better resolution with a 16x9 lense? What's your opinion on this issue?




http://www.theasc.com/magazine/july03/sub/index.html (that's the article)
 
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Wasn't it shot on film? Film is such high resolution that they really don't have to worry about it. It was probably a lot cheaper and easier to shoot with non-anamorphic lenses.
 
Should I shoot 4:4 matted to 16x9
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Oops. ;)

Agcohn, No 28 Days Later was not shot on film, it was shot on Canon XL1's with HD lenses. The footage underwent large amounts of professional timing and grading after production.

With those specific HD lenses, I am not sure a 16:9 setup was available, or worked for their worlflow. Also, the XL1s does not shoot native 16:9 anyways, so 4:3 matted was basically the only way to go.
 
InvisionProductions said:
Oops. ;)

Agcohn, No 28 Days Later was not shot on film, it was shot on Canon XL1's with HD lenses. The footage underwent large amounts of professional timing and grading after production.

With those specific HD lenses, I am not sure a 16:9 setup was available, or worked for their worlflow. Also, the XL1s does not shoot native 16:9 anyways, so 4:3 matted was basically the only way to go.
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Oh, sorry. I thought you were talking about 28 Weeks Later. Nevermind.
 
in general though... wouldn't you get a better picture by using a lense that squeeses a 16:9 picture onto the 4:3 sensor?
 
honey said:
in general though... wouldn't you get a better picture by using a lense that squeeses a 16:9 picture onto the 4:3 sensor?
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Yes, but you might not want to do it for cost reasons, or ease of use.
 
The anamorphic lens makes use of more pixels, but the lens itself introduces some image degradation. I've read (unfortunately can't remember the details) that in one side by side comparison the two essentially cancelled each other out.
 
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