If it's Good Enough for Stanley Kubrick...

basspig

basspig

Veteran
Several of us has raised issues about CA with the EX1 lens.

Well this evening, the wife and I just finished watching Kubrick's masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket, and I have to tell you, I've seen better clarity out of the EX1 and certainly no more CA than I observed in the Panavision lenses that Kubrick employed in this film.

While I was enjoying seeing the film in high def (thank you Sony for the rebate offer of five free BDs with my BD player) for the first time and my eye kept going to three things: film grain, softness of the picture (especially in night scenes) and CA in quite a few of the scenes.

Through the miracle of Blu-ray, I can finally make a more reasonable comparison of the EX1 to film shot on the high end cameras with expensive primes. And I'm finding that EX1 footage is cleaner, has more detail, and apparently more dynamic range. The CA is about the same over all.

In conclusion, I think we're becoming 'pixel-pokers' and maybe demanding what even a $70,000 camera/lens can't deliver, from a $6500 camera/lens.

The EX1 aquits itself quite well in this context.
 
That is the same exact thing I said about Harold and Maude. I saw it for the very first time (shamefully enough) the other day. (on regular def. mind you) and I was the most captivated I have been by a movie since watching The Fountain.

Now let me put it this way. The EX1 tears up some newspaper, unbuckles his jeans, and then proceeds to bare down on top of the camera they used in Harold and Maude.

Even then however, I felt as if the cinematography of the opening scene in Harold and Maude was among the best I have seen, despite the relatively low grade film used in production.

I don't believe that there has been a single HD movie I have seen (EVER) that has been so compelling as to motivate me to re-watch a scene in the film, before the film has expired.

Thus in my mind the ex1 is as follows:

1. a tool used to make some short-term money (pay for school. rent. camera equipment, possibly a car?)

2. A pimped out film camera (it compares favorably to most movies shot on film, and relatively avg in comparison to modern 60,000 dollar HD cameras) with little to no continual expenses. As such I don't get so angry about tiny flaws in the images, or limitations in terms of quick pans, or even liitations in terms of flashes disrupting the image. This is because for what it is, it still saves me 10's of thousands of dollars, with the only slight limitation is the neccisity of geting familiar with the camera. I haven't experienced the worst conditions mind you, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it has been my experience thus far that as long as you don't use your camera like an idiot in the first place, "super mtv jerkoff cameraman", then you should be good, with almost all of your results
being usable. (NOTE - at some point in the next few months I have a goal to shoot a feature film using nothing more than an ex1/color corrected worklamps/el cheepo shouler mount, a boom mic, and a tripod. bogen 503hdv? (PLEASE SOMEONE GIVE ME ADVICE ON SAID TRIPOD HEAD w/ EX1)... currently using 100 dollar sticks and el cheepo shoulder mount, but am looking to get a new tripod for production - the 100 dollar sticks were lying around and I felt it would be sufficient for atleast getting acquainted with my new baby.

Anyways - I agree 100 percent Mr. Pig. We as audiences has always been just as captivated by films as we are today, and even in many regards moreso, despite the relative disparity in terms of technology. The reason my friend is due to CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT. Light is light, actors are actors, writers are writers, editors are editors, directors are directors, and sound is sound. As long as those concepts don't change, films will never be judged merely based upon their shiny wrappers (IE if they were shot on a Red, etc.), therefore to get so caught up in statistics, numbers and the technical aspects of things would be foolish. Granted it is a benefit to know the technical aspects of filmmaking, however to focus on the minutua of said techincal aspects, regardless of need, just seems in my mind superfulous.

Especially when the real ART is the narration.

(ALSO NOTE - if anyone reads this -- I need advice in terms of said boom mic as well - I want the cheapest one I can get that still holds upenough production quality to be able to take a feature to sundance/Cannes/Toronto/etc.)
 
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I think I've reached an understanding with my EX1; I know its limitations, I am more familiar with its strengths now, and as such, can shoot to maximize the strengths and minimize the flaws. And perhaps this process is happening somewhat automatically, adjusting my shooting decisions, what settings to use, how I frame the images, etc. But whatever the case may be, I am liking the images more and more as I get more familiar with the camera.
Now that I have the Rode NT4 married to the EX1, I have the ultimate Reality Capture Machine in the palm of my hand.

Having a Blu-ray player, and a growing collection of Blu-ray movies, I am getting a clearer picture of the quality that Hollywood is capable of. In the majority of cases, I'm observing that the images I'm getting out of the EX1, surpass the film images on Blu-ray, both in level of detail and noise level, as well as dynamic range and color gamut. I can get some really blazing color out of the EX1 with the HiSat matrices that doesn't lose edge detail! It blows me away to see a bright red car and to look closely at the edge, only to find a smooth, crisp edge and, despite the intensity of the saturation, the red is not crushed at all. It's got dept and texture and shape to it, via the many subtle shades of red that appear along the body of the car.
Brightly-colored objects take on a brilliance and clarity that is like a video candy dream.
And, oh... I still love playing with that lens!

Got to hit the rack early tonight.. 'have a run & gun in the morning!
 
basspig said:
In the majority of cases, I'm observing that the images I'm getting out of the EX1, surpass the film images on Blu-ray, both in level of detail and noise level, as well as dynamic range and color gamut.
Click to expand...

Did you try to put your footage on blu ray? Maybe the compression takes away some (or all) of that edge.
 
basspig said:
... and apparently more dynamic range.
Click to expand...

While it's a good point that a lot of us are becoming pixelpushers, film still is in a entirley different league when it comes to dynamic range. Even raw doesn't compare. What you see in the final cut of a movie is not at all representable of how far you can push film in both directions in post. If you've ever worked with a log film scan like dpx files, you will know this. If you haven't you would be shocked if you are used to video.

But I absolutely agree: The Ex1 is capable of providing stunning results completely out of sync with the price/performance ratio if you compare to hollywood productions.
 
mmm i wonder which version you where watching I know the 2006 release on bluray was terrible due to the mpeg 2 compression and the master they pulled it from. The newer 2007 deluxe edition is much better quality wise.
 
basspig said:
I'm observing that the images I'm getting out of the EX1, surpass the film images on Blu-ray
Click to expand...

We have yet to see a good blu ray title, so this doesn't surprise me.

For what it's worth our HVX200 footage taken to either blu ray or HD DVD using h.264 encoding looks markedly better than either blu ray or HD DVD commercial releases, except for animated films which started digitally.
 
Sumfun said:
Did you try to put your footage on blu ray? Maybe the compression takes away some (or all) of that edge.
Click to expand...

Yes. That' is what I was comparing it with. I frankly can't see any loss of quality after I've encoded the source for Blu-print. But perhaps it's because I'm doing 35mb/s avg for the bitrate settings. A lower bitrate may visibly degrade the footage.

There is just more detail in the XDCam footage by a good margin.
 
chagchag said:
While it's a good point that a lot of us are becoming pixelpushers, film still is in a entirley different league when it comes to dynamic range. Even raw doesn't compare. What you see in the final cut of a movie is not at all representable of how far you can push film in both directions in post. If you've ever worked with a log film scan like dpx files, you will know this. If you haven't you would be shocked if you are used to video.

But I absolutely agree: The Ex1 is capable of providing stunning results completely out of sync with the price/performance ratio if you compare to hollywood productions.
Click to expand...

It has been said that the human eye can comprehend 14 f-stops of dynamic range. Film can be anywhere between 5 and 11-12 f-stops. True, distro prints are probably a lot less than the master footage--more like 5-7 f-stops.

The EX1 can be considered "embarassment of riches".
 
Powderfinger said:
mmm i wonder which version you where watching I know the 2006 release on bluray was terrible due to the mpeg 2 compression and the master they pulled it from. The newer 2007 deluxe edition is much better quality wise.
Click to expand...


This version has a 2007 date on it. It looks excellent, but there is some grain and the images aren't detailed down to the single-pixel level--it's a softer look. But still very good.
 
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