7D vs 16mm Kodak vision 3

I wouldn't mind seeing the tests... why not? It's just nice to see individual frame scans sometimes, to look at grain close up.

I'd be really interested to see what the color detail of the film 'feels' like compared to the color detail of the 7D...
 
exactly, and see with the same lighting setup, and a still image perhaps, how the two compare as to the amount of detail in the shadows, the brights, and what kind of curve adjustment can be made to the digital image to bring it closer to the film image. Also to see how it treats color saturation, blemmishes, sharpness and detail. That's really what im after. Hopefully at the end of this, there will be some sort of curve adjustment and hue/saturation adjustment that can be saved into a scene file setting that can be uploaded to the canon.
 
Something I would suggest.

1. Calibrate the 7d with picture style editor (maximizing latitude, etc)
2. Bring the 7d files to the telecine
3. See what the colorist can do in terms of matching the footage.
4. Search around for a colorist you hear good things about. Who colors this footage makes all of the difference.

With a good colrist 99.9999999% of people shouldn't be able to tell the difference. The same would hold true for 35mm. Though film looks better most people can't tell the difference. Remember that your audience isn't tech heads.
 
more things to consider

more things to consider

A couple quick, rather random thoughts from a long-time film shooter, and soon-to-be 7D owner:

-) The look of film, as has been pointed out above, is not a fixed thing--the color grade makes it. When you put a modern negative up on the telecine before grading, it looks super flat and uninteresting. But it has incredible latitude to be pushed into different looks.

-) If you do 2K scans, you'll want to look at grain reduction. High-end transfers to video typically involve sophisticated grain reduction in the transfer, so a 1080 Spirit transfer to QuickTime files might look "better" (or at least less grainy) than a higher-res 2K scan off a film scanner. When pulling stills from s16, we've sometimes gone with frame grabs from 1080 video transfer over official 2K scans.

-) Also if you do 2K scans, how are you going to do the color grade?

-) It'd be cool to try the same glass on both cameras. If you have access to an Aaton with Aaton mount, you can throw a Nikon adapter on it, then use the exact same glass on both cameras (with a nikon to canon adapter for the 7D)--even though the field of view will be very different.

-) Speaking of which, an easier comparison, if you have access to a 35mm camera, would be to shoot 35. Then you'd be less distracted by grain, and your imagers would be roughly the same size, so your optics could match. Because of the format differences, I think you'd want to compare super 16 to something like a soon-to-be Scarlet 2/3".

-) It might be interesting to look at the tone curve presets in Magic Bullet Looks--I would imagine they spent some time tweaking those curves to match the response of film stock.

With all of the above in mind, it sounds like it would be quite an effort to put together any kind of test that would really help define film-look profiles for the 7D. But it would be a fun geek-fest to try!
 
There have been enough indoor 500asa film vs digital "tests"- go out side at the absolute worst time of day to shoot with 50asa in the film camera and then do the "test" shoot, bring any digital camera you can get your hands on and prepare to have a new realization on why some people still think film is better! ; )
 
I am looking to do a similar test. I have a 35 arri 2c and want to use it for exteriors, and use the 7d for interiors and sync sound shooting. The 2c sounds like a coffee grinder, but makes pretty pictures.

I'll be happy to share my results when the time comes as well.
 
ryansheffer said:
Something I would suggest.

1. Calibrate the 7d with picture style editor (maximizing latitude, etc)
2. Bring the 7d files to the telecine
3. See what the colorist can do in terms of matching the footage.
4. Search around for a colorist you hear good things about. Who colors this footage makes all of the difference.

With a good colrist 99.9999999% of people shouldn't be able to tell the difference. The same would hold true for 35mm. Though film looks better most people can't tell the difference. Remember that your audience isn't tech heads.
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If I understood what PaPa was trying to do - that would somewhat defeat the purpose of the test. I don't think anyone questions whether or not film can be color corrected to match the look of a 7D - but the goal here would be to get the 7D to match the film (in terms of color rendition and dynamic range) as closely as possible.... (via comparison of scopes/curves in post) not to 'dumb down' the film to match the 7D (for lack of a better term)
 
Well then call me confused about the point. Maximize your dynamic range and get the desired color rendition with picture style editor. This all sounds too expensive if all he wants is to maximize the capabilities of the camera.
 
:(, I feel as though Luis here is the only one who understands what it is that I'm trying to achieve. Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly.

In simple, I'm basically trying to find out what altercations the 7D image has to go through to match as closely as possible the color/texture/range of film given one or two lighting setups. That's all, regardless of what tests have been done showing how close together they can get. So disregard tests like the zacuto shoot out. For my purposes, it's mute.

What will most likely happen:

1) Create a still composition with heavy and light contrasts
2) Stick a grey scale and color chart in there somewhere
3) Shoot the composition in film
4) Get the film processed, timed, and telecined at high quality
5) import the result into my editor
6) grab the 7D and reshoot the same stuff on this camera

....Then.....

WHAT I'M ULTIMATELY TRYING TO ACHIEVE ( for maximum clarification lol )

- What altercations need to be done to the "maximized capabilities of the camera" in order to match them as closely as possible. Then, whatever curve/saturation adjustments that were made to the 7D in post, see if it's possible to get something like that in a scene file setting for the 7D so that what we shoot is as close to the processed, timed and telecined film footage straight out of the camera.

Boom. I truly appreciate you, Luis, for simply understanding my goals here. Lol, I'm not trying to land on the moon folks, I just want to do a test that I, as well as others may be interested in seeing.
 
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PaPa said:
Matt, would you care to expand a little bit about what you were saying regarding what information i would want to throw away?
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a negative transferred flat looks really boring, to make it look good you have to change the gamma, compress or expand midtones, highlights, shadows independently, boost some colors, reduce others, and so on. all of this throws away information in the process, so you end up with a nicer looking image but also one that's increasingly beyond repair should you change your mind. i think shooting the 7d with a normal, good looking picture style, then trying to match the film to that in telecine will give you a lot of answers. more so than shooting both flat.
 
That is a very good point, i guess in the end both will give similar results, your method is just the inverse of what I'm doing, and as you say, will give me some good answers. Both methods can definitely be derived from the same process so that's also a plus. Great suggestion.
 
hunter richards said:
There have been enough indoor 500asa film vs digital "tests"- go out side at the absolute worst time of day to shoot with 50asa in the film camera and then do the "test" shoot, bring any digital camera you can get your hands on and prepare to have a new realization on why some people still think film is better! ; )
Click to expand...

True!
 
That would be the exact test that I would do once I do the first two tests, 1) match the 7D to the film and 2) try to match the film to the 7D so that I can get a very good understand of how the two behave comparatively when trying to match them.

Then with that, I will do the outside test, at noon, under the most horrendous lighting conditions and once again, compare the two to see if we can get even closer. But that might be a pointless extravaganza because there is no way the 7D will be able to compare to the film latitude, but would still be an interesting test/comparison.
 
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
 
hunter richards said:
There have been enough indoor 500asa film vs digital "tests"- go out side at the absolute worst time of day to shoot with 50asa in the film camera and then do the "test" shoot, bring any digital camera you can get your hands on and prepare to have a new realization on why some people still think film is better! ; )
Click to expand...

14 stops of latitude talks, digital walks.
 
hunter richards said:
There have been enough indoor 500asa film vs digital "tests"- go out side at the absolute worst time of day to shoot with 50asa in the film camera and then do the "test" shoot, bring any digital camera you can get your hands on and prepare to have a new realization on why some people still think film is better! ; )
Click to expand...

Amen.

IMHO, the phrase "Film is dead!" has got it backwards. On average, it's video which tends to make most things look dead (or "plastic"), and film which can more readily make most things look alive (or "organic"). Of course, how the footage is lit, shot, processed and displayed can make a huge difference, too.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I've only shot motion imagery on video, but I've been watching motion imagery shot on film for several decades. As a result I much prefer the "feeling" & look of real film rather than video. Despite this, I shoot video because my interest in electronics outweighs my appreciation of film. I don't think this is a contradiction; I'm just being honest.

As a "video person" it seems obvious to me that film can look better than video in most important respects. I also understand that some people don't like the way film looks. That's cool, too.
 
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I've seen 2K transfers from super 16mm, with grain reduction that looked like 35mm film (Undead, Never Die Alone, among others) But unless Papa uses great lenses, and goes for a really good transfer, most people I would *guess* watching it on the web will prefer the look of the 7D to a low contrast/low rez 16mm image.

I used to shoot a lot of film in the 90's, and the greatest part of it was getting back dailies from the lab and watching it through a projector. It's a very nice experience seeing your movie with the colorist at telecine, but the optical projection especially of well shot footage was really magical. Especially black and white looks silvery, 3 dimensional and more contrasty projected, whereas in transfer it seems to lose so much of that and flattens out - talk about losing the 'organic'! I don't think I'm being nostalgic about it - I'm sure if I was to shoot some and could project it now, it would be the same experience. But I haven't watched dailies through an optical projector since 1997 :(
 
This is not a film versus digital in the sense of " which is better " thread. Thanks.
 
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