7D vs 16mm Kodak vision 3

TheDingo said:
Hey Papa,

...You might want to take a look at Stu Maschwitz's blog about how he sets up his Canon 5D MK2 for video work, and then apply something simillar to the 7D camera before doing your tests.

http://prolost.com/blog/2009/8/3/flatten-your-5d.html
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Thanks, will check that out!

xbourque said:
Instead of shooting film, having it processed, then coming back later to shoot with the 7D, you should shoot side by side. Shoot some video on the 7D with a "flat" setting to see what you can achieve in post, but also shoot some RAW stills.

One interesting exercise might be to match your RAW stills to both ungraded and graded film. If you're lucky enough to match your RAW using Picture Style Edior, just save the profile in camera for future video shooting. Realistically though, I think the basic controls of PSE will not get you close enough... you'll need fancier color correction in some proper grading software.

--X
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I plan on doing that as well, i just meant that i will then come back to see how the curve adjustment and scene file settings compares when going back to shoot the same portrait/still life with the new settings, to the film.
 
Papa, can't wait to see your test results. I think with proper lighting, the 7D can emmulate a film look successfully.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Is there a picture style out there that can be downloaded to emulate a specific film stock on Canon DSLRs?

Not trying to be a smartass here -but that seemed to be PaPa's goal in all this, which I do find kind of interesting. Or did you simply mean that we already have most of the information we need in order to emulate the look of 16mm film?
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yes

but it depends in the stock.

I mean thats the point of stock.

There are stocks that have 1/2 stop latitude. like this:
http://www.nydp.tv/MusicVideos.html (click on Parlour Mob)
this was shot on a special "copy" films thats 12 ISO, and is used as a projection Format.

or then theres Fuji Velvia... its richer in color...

or Vision3
which is a bit flatter and has redicuous dynmaic range....

Or reversal....
 
what are you trying to test? if you can get as much color correction latitude out of the 7d as you can with film, which we already know you can't, or are you trying to test if you can make the 7d image look as good as film? to do the latter i think starting with the best 7d footage you possibly can, either by shooting it the way you want it or by shooting as flat as possible and grading it, then matching your film footage to that in telecine and comparing the results is the best way. it may sound as if there would be no difference between them but there will be for sure. even if they look the same you will see a difference in shadow and highlight handling, and the very structure or texture of the image will of course differ as well. we do the same when we compare different ratings and push/pull processing techniques with film. if we don't print or scan them to the same density all such a test tells us is that these techniques produce different brightness, whereas if we match them we can see the difference in texture, range saturation, shadow contrast, highlight rolloff, and so on. good luck.
 
Wouldn't the whole point of the test be to see how close the 7D can come to film? Who cares if film can be graded to match the 7D... you're talking about degrading one to match the more-limited format. Instead, I think PaPa is trying to find out how good the 7D can be, and comparing it against the "gold standard" - film. So the film should be shot to its maximum advantage (maximum latitude, maximum preservation of detail for manipulation in post) and the 7D should be shot to its maximum advantage. And then they should be compared.
 
That's it my good man, that's all this is meant to be. I'm very excited to put the two side by side, should be quite a little adventure. Any Local montrealer's are welcome to come lend a hand!

Barry, would you recommend then that i shoot them both side by side, and use the flattest settings on the 7D? Lowest contrast, ( what about gamma curve? ) low saturation, regular sharpness, and then see in post how to manipulate it to get closer, and from there attempt to make a preset that can bring the 7D close to it without having to go through post processing?

regardless, i will be posting for everyone raw files of each so everyone can have their own go at it so we can come to some combined conclusion. Should be fun!

If i can get anywhere near that same wonderful skin tone that film produces, then i'll call it a success.
 
If I was doing it, trying to do what you're talking about -- I'd shoot outdoors, on the brightest/sunniest day I could get, and I'd set them both up side by side, and I'd try to stage the shot so that it has the absolute widest tonal range possible. So you want a pristine white skyscraper behind the subject with the sun blaring directly onto it, you want a couple of puffy clouds in the sky, you want deep dark shady hedges or trees in the shot, with the tops of the trees getting hit with direct sunlight and the shadiest parts being as dark and detailed as possible, you want to stretch the range from brightest to darkest as far as you can get. Lots and lots of shades of gray (or shades of colors, but the point is you want a wide variety of tonal ranges represented). And you should put some charts in there too, like the DSC Chroma Du Monde or even perhaps a ToNi. Shoot with the subject being directly harshly lit, and then take a second shot with a silk softening the light on the subject. If you can shoot with a backdrop of water, like maybe a lake in a park, so it has specular highlights dancing across the water, that'd be good too. So ideal location would be a park on a sunny day with buildings in the background, etc.

Do a sharpness test too, let's see how the 7D holds up to 16mm in terms of resolved detail; a wide landscape or scenic should do it, although of course a zone plate or at least the resolution trumpets on a Chroma Du Monde would be good too.
 
That sounds like a good plan. As for the Canon, i should probably just put the contrast settings in camera to low and forget about doing any scene file curve adjustment.

The camera better arrive quickly, it's pretty much fall now here in Montreal and the sun doesn't go as high in the sky as it does during the summer time.
 
Not sure I saw this, but are you going to transfer 7D to film? Film transferred to HD will lose some of its advantages. It'd be interesting to see them both projected on 35 in a theater, that's the big test there.
 
Barry. I'm sure you'll figure it out if you just give it some more thought. I'm tired of explaining myself. I'm offering knowledge and experience, not putting ideas up for discussion.
 
I think this will be an interesting test. For my purposes, I'm most curious in terms of one format dominating the other.

In other words, if the 7d comes close to film, but film is noticeably better... then I'd say that's a win for the 7d. If film blows it completely out of the water then that will be disappointing.

Here's the thing. I made a decision a long time ago that I was going to stick with digital, becuase it's easier, cheaper, faster, smaller crew, and for better or worse, I have much more control in post. The biggest thing is that I hate large crews and I love natural light. Film, for the most-part demands more light and bigger crews.

So, when we look at the 7d, if it even comes close, remember that you could shoot as a one man band and get usable footage in nearly any circumstance. I don't know what the iso is, but even with noise, you could turn it up in a dark room. With film, unless you get a faster stock, you're not going to get an exposure without adding light in this scenario.

Film and digital are two different animals. I think we need to stop asking "which is better" and start asking, "what is better for this job?"

(Or "what is better for my filmmaking style and preferences.")

That said, tests like this are important, because if film is exponentially higher in quality, for certian jobs a filmmaker may decide the stretch is worth it for a delivery where anything less would be unacceptable. It's always a tradeoff. If it were me, and we found that the 7d came 70% close, or I just liked the look, the benefits of digital would outweigh the 30% increase in quality.

I've been thinking about this a lot this week, because I recently got my hmc150, and I love the look, and with the 7d coming out, and me looking for a new dslr anyway, I keep thinking about the future.

And it came to this. Codecs, lenses, quality, aside, the HMC has a look that I love, plus CCDs. I think it would be silly to sell it. I'd much rather buy an HDSLR, and keep them both, and use each one for the right job.

The zacuto 08 shootout was AMAZING. And it really reinforced my thinking on the subject. They all commented that the HPX/HVX low end just popped right out of the box and looked great. The rest really needed finesse to look right.

I do also think that DSLRs in the future will implement higher resolutions and advanced codecs, and maybe even sRAW, or CinemaDNG. I think Canon is beginning to listen, like panasonic started doing nearly a decade ago. They see this as the future, I don't think that they'll intentionally cripple their cameras with poor codecs or anything else. And I do think that RED and Canon will duke it out. And I'm glad! the competition only means better things for us comsumers. And I also bet they'll both offer different "angles" on their products. I also think Canon would prefer to dominate the sub 3000$ range, which RED may be totally cool with letting them keep, and concentrate on their epics and 10k$ Scarlets.

When Tim Smith said, "Canon is very interested in selling lenses," that convinced me that they are almost going to take a video game marketing strategy. Get the best cameras at the lowest prices, and make money on the lenses. Race to the point where the limiting factor is no longer the sensor or codec, and the glass is. Then as people make money and climb up, or do different work, they can buy or rent whole new classes of lenses. In fact, I think this is where canon and red will duke it out the most. They both want to sell lenses.

My biggest worry is that Panasonic may try to follow suit, and granted the GH1 is awesome, and maybe they can do both... I just worry that they will neglect their sub 10$K handycams (using CCDs), which have such a specific purpose, and such a specific look. I'd hate to think that in 5 years, there would be nothing in kind to upgrade my hmc150 to. If Panny does drop that line someday, I think they owe it to humanity to divulge how they get their "look." It's so unique that I wouldn't be surprised that in 10 years a filmmaker with a budget for film goes out to get an original DVX100 just as an artistic choice. I so worry about losing this.

My perfect world is one where the DVX/HVX/HPX/HMC live on and keep up with standards, and HDSLRs are affordable enough that I can use both, and pick the right one for the look/purpose/workflow/budget/content.

Also, fyi, there is no line skipping in the 5D. That's a myth. It uses pixel binning.

Anyway, this is my rant, I hope it contributes to a good discussion. I hope nothing is construed as a dig or a flame to any one or any company.
 
I do agree with your sentiment, that it's really a matter of which format is best for the job at hand. Prejudice is for rich dentists. There are some things that I would want to extrapolate on:

A lot of people believe that Film for some reason requires more light.
This is currently not true. Most mainstream digital cameras, such as the F900R, HPX/HVX, Sony EX1/EX3 are still rated about 200ASA to 400ASA depending upon whether they are being shot with daylight or tungsten balanced lighting. So with Kodak and Fuji having good stocks at 500ASA, you don't need more light for film shoots, either for quantative or qualitative reasons.

It will be interesting if Papa or others can figure out just what is the native 0 gain sensitivity of the Canon 7D. Perhaps in the next generation of digital movie cameras such as the RED EPIC, and Arri's Alev chipped cameras, that native 0db sensitivity will be bumped to an equivalent of 800ASA, which will be incredible if true. So the whole sensitivy rating will be a fluid comparison soon.

As for bigger crews, I often find that I can shoot outdoors with film using smaller crews vs. shooting with digital. As already noted, film has a greater latitude. Here in LA, where the sun shines direct and hot day, I always have to modify that direct harsh light with grippage when shooting video which means more grips. Only with film do I have the balls to shoot actors in direct sunlight and hope to get everything exposed well looking halfway decent.

I do however, believe that the Canon 7D will produce clips that are more pleasing to viewers on the web than most 16mm test footage. I suppose that's the purpose of the test - to see how they compare, their native rated ASAs, their dynamic range, etc.


arrestthisman said:
Film, for the most-part demands more light and bigger crews.

Film and digital are two different animals. I think we need to stop asking "which is better" and start asking, "what is better for this job?"

(Or "what is better for my filmmaking style and preferences.")

That said, tests like this are important, because if film is exponentially higher in quality, for certian jobs a filmmaker may decide the stretch is worth it for a delivery where anything less would be unacceptable. It's always a tradeoff. If it were me, and we found that the 7d came 70% close, or I just liked the look, the benefits of digital would outweigh the 30% increase in quality.
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the New vision 3 500asa is supposed to be very very sensitive so i imagine it would be a fair contender against digital. I'll discuss this with some of the profs at my film school university to see what they will have to say. But yeah, can't wait to get my hands on the 7D and start this bad boy. I will start a whole new thread when the test actually takes place so that there will be more of a focus on the image and less of a discussion about the theory.
 
that was beautiful.

love how tungsten looks on Daylight stock. Yellow, but not a muddy orange.... so cool....
 
Sorry for being off topic but I saw something earlier in this link posted on this thread .....just curious .... I noticed on the Synaptic Light shootout they list the gain settings on all the HVX200 shots as set to -3db. I thought that 0db was the lowest gain setting. Can someone explain how to set the HVX to -3db gain?
Mattykins said:
http://synapticlight.com/2009/01/08/zacutos-great-camera-shootout-08/

http://www.bscine.com/my_documents/my_files/BSC_Evaluation_Shoot_2009_web.pdf (This link is worthless)



I can't find the Panavision one. But both Zacuto and the BSC rocked film and digital together (including the 5D in both cases). I just can't foresee the 7D would be vastly different.

I was just curious as to why he was doing it, that's all.
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xbourque said:
Ok, where can I see those tests?

I was curious to compare the 7D to film myself, but I was planning a test much less ambitious... My plan was to shoot side by side with a traditional SLR, and have the film developped to CD.

BTW, if you don't have enough money for a film scan or telecine, you should consider the ghetto approach: a slide scanner.

-- X
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That would turn the beautiful film image into a horrible digital replica, which removes the majority of the quality. This would make the comparison useless.

The only way to scan film is if you have a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED (or 9000 ED). a High end drum scan would be alright too.
 
I think its best to shoot a couple of seconds ,transfer it ,look at it then match 7d as close as possible then reshoot again side to side.

In this youtube link, its so visible that its film,its just something in the movement which tells you immediately when someone moves that its film ,DSLRS dont look like that at any shutter speeds.
 
what's the average cost of 16mm film from shooting to the losses compression file for about 6hrs of 24fps.

edit:

super 16
 
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