I found this interesting as he is one of my favorite working DP's today. This article was partially copied from the Nov. edition of Visual Imaging News about Rodrigo Prieto shooting a short The Human Voice. It isn't Sony related exactly but I thought it applies since it talks about resolution and HD vs 4K for a moment. This resolution subject is something that I'm tired of talking about with people honestly.
He is testing a C500
The tests included the standard bowls of fruit and colour charts, as well as elements from the set, like furniture,
wallpaper, a lamp, and the wardrobe, with textiles hung from C-stands. There was also a stand-in to gauge skin tones.
Prieto shot this setup with a range of over- and under- exposure, in varied lighting configurations, and in 4K 8-bit
and 2K 12-bit formats.
“It was clear to me that the subtlety of colour was best captured at the 2K with a 12-bit depth,” says Prieto. “I
could see more nuance in the skin tones, and in the apple, more of the different shades of red and yellow. I found that
intriguing because, for me, one of the drawbacks of digital in my experience is the colour depth compared to film negative.
Particularly in skin tones, I find that sometimes digital renders skin relatively flat in the sense that it doesn’t see or
doesn’t capture all the hundreds and thousands of nuances of colour of the skin.
“The resolution difference between the 2K and 4K was not apparent to me unless we zoomed in to something with fine
detail,” he says. “Then you could definitely see it. But the difference in colour was more apparent and more important,
as well as the latitude in the under-exposure, which was a little bit more detailed at 12-bit. For our purposes, the differ ences in resolution between 4K and 2K were negligible, but the proper rendering of the many colours in her face was essential. So for me, it became a no-brainer.”
Digital Imaging Technician Francesco Luigi Giardiello co-ordinated with EFilm and did some “basic, but very effective”
on-set colour grading for Prieto. The dailies were 10-bit, but they included the basic colour timing that was done on set, so
Ponti could edit with Prieto’s starting point in terms of colour. “Francesco was really a huge asset on this film,” says the
cinematographer. “He has a good eye, and he made everything very simple and helpful for us. We liked the way the colours were
reproduced on set using the lookup table provided by EFilm.
He is testing a C500
The tests included the standard bowls of fruit and colour charts, as well as elements from the set, like furniture,
wallpaper, a lamp, and the wardrobe, with textiles hung from C-stands. There was also a stand-in to gauge skin tones.
Prieto shot this setup with a range of over- and under- exposure, in varied lighting configurations, and in 4K 8-bit
and 2K 12-bit formats.
“It was clear to me that the subtlety of colour was best captured at the 2K with a 12-bit depth,” says Prieto. “I
could see more nuance in the skin tones, and in the apple, more of the different shades of red and yellow. I found that
intriguing because, for me, one of the drawbacks of digital in my experience is the colour depth compared to film negative.
Particularly in skin tones, I find that sometimes digital renders skin relatively flat in the sense that it doesn’t see or
doesn’t capture all the hundreds and thousands of nuances of colour of the skin.
“The resolution difference between the 2K and 4K was not apparent to me unless we zoomed in to something with fine
detail,” he says. “Then you could definitely see it. But the difference in colour was more apparent and more important,
as well as the latitude in the under-exposure, which was a little bit more detailed at 12-bit. For our purposes, the differ ences in resolution between 4K and 2K were negligible, but the proper rendering of the many colours in her face was essential. So for me, it became a no-brainer.”
Digital Imaging Technician Francesco Luigi Giardiello co-ordinated with EFilm and did some “basic, but very effective”
on-set colour grading for Prieto. The dailies were 10-bit, but they included the basic colour timing that was done on set, so
Ponti could edit with Prieto’s starting point in terms of colour. “Francesco was really a huge asset on this film,” says the
cinematographer. “He has a good eye, and he made everything very simple and helpful for us. We liked the way the colours were
reproduced on set using the lookup table provided by EFilm.
