Death of Kodak; Death of Film

well that depends on what kind of movie you're trying to make, doesn't it? Cloverfield wouldn't have looked very good on film.
 
Rick Burnett said:
They've gone digital. My wife does Radiographs (Xrays), CTs and MRIs at a vet school and they don't use film anymore. Even when I had my lungs Xrays and CTed a week ago (Pulmonary Embolisms) they were ALL digital. I even got a copy of all the digital files!

And Ultrasound in realtime. It's sound. No film. Totally different process.

(And MRI is different process as well)
Click to expand...

Well, technically CT and MRI are not film based either... In the case of CT a 'beam' is emitted and a phototube used to sense the attenuation of that beam, at the most primitive level of the process, then a computer is used to reconstruct the slices. NMR, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, is the most primitive part of the MRI process... which uses RF energy as an exciter, and magnetic coils as the sensor, the signal is then processed again via computer to form the image. PET on the other hand, one drinks an isotope laden Coolaid, and then nuclear decay products are monitored by the sensor system, but again not 'film' based.

As for X-rays, it is still cheaper for most places to use film. Real time X-ray imaging however, is computer based, with some form of sensor array. The process can be performed in a couple of ways; some sort of scintillation material, which produces 'light' photons, which are then captured via some type of sensor such as a CCD array; or a 'direct' conversion of Xrays in to electrical signals.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Well, technically CT and MRI are not film based either... In the case of CT a 'beam' is emitted and a phototube used to sense the attenuation of that beam, at the most primitive level of the process, then a computer is used to reconstruct the slices. NMR, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, is the most primitive part of the MRI process... which uses RF energy as an exciter, and magnetic coils as the sensor, the signal is then processed again via computer to form the image. PET on the other hand, one drinks an isotope laden Coolaid, and then nuclear decay products are monitored by the sensor system, but again not 'film' based.

As for X-rays, it is still cheaper for most places to use film. Real time X-ray imaging however, is computer based, with some form of sensor array. The process can be performed in a couple of ways; some sort of scintillation material, which produces 'light' photons, which are then captured via some type of sensor such as a CCD array; or a 'direct' conversion of Xrays in to electrical signals.
Click to expand...

It is true, CAT scan based on film would be horrible. It's possible, but you'd still have to scan in the film to process it to 3D. I find CT fascinating because it's a series of 2 dimensional Xrays that are processed in software after the fact. If you took Xrays in the same manor, around a radius, then you could do the same thing as the machine is doing it. Given it knows the exact dimensions of the space, and the slice depth, all of the information on the 2D xray plane is assigned to a voxel. At the basic level, they do averaging of the image data that passes through those voxels from all the different angles that the CT was taken (called mass averaging). So neat.

The plates cost about $20k I believe (alone) that replace the film. That's not including the support equipment for reading in the plate, and analyzing the data. I think a lot of places are switching pretty quickly actually. Not the small clinics, as you say, but I've been surprised at who I see with digital.

My dentist is still film. My chiropractor I used for a short bit was film. Our vet uses digital. The hospital I visited was digital. I think there will still be a lot of need for film in Xray for awhile.
 
Rick Burnett said:
Not sure, I can ask my wife. The names I see on the equipment are (at least CT equipment) Siemens, Phillips and I believe Toshiba.

A quick Google search shows they have dental imaging equipment at a minimum :)

http://www.carestreamdental.com/digital-imaging.aspx
Click to expand...

Looks like Kodak got rid of their health care products in 2007.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16559077/ns/business-us_business/t/kodak-sell-medical-imaging-unit-b/#.TxTDVkpSBr0

Anyone got a Fuji Film price list?!!! ...
 
Rick Burnett said:
They've gone digital. My wife does Radiographs (Xrays), CTs and MRIs at a vet school and they don't use film anymore. Even when I had my lungs Xrays and CTed a week ago (Pulmonary Embolisms) they were ALL digital. I even got a copy of all the digital files!

And Ultrasound in realtime. It's sound. No film. Totally different process.

(And MRI is different process as well)
Click to expand...

You missed a key word in my post: PRINTED.
I never mentioned how medical/scientific images are originated.
Of course it's all digital, please don't insult people's intelligence.
I'm staring at an inch thick folder of A3-sized ultrasound film negatives right now.
Goes to show how much the medical industry trusts digital files for archive purposes.....
 
Paul V Doherty said:
You missed a key word in my post: PRINTED.
I never mentioned how medical/scientific images are originated.
Of course it's all digital, please don't insult people's intelligence.
I'm staring at an inch thick folder of A3-sized ultrasound film negatives right now.
Goes to show how much the medical industry trusts digital files for archive purposes.....
Click to expand...

It's not all digital, as I posted, I've had scans from both my dentist and chiropractor on good old xray film. I had actually asked both of them why they didn't go digital and they said it was too expensive still for them today. A lot of the bigger places are going all digital from what I've seen, or where quicker access is required, but not all yet.

Maybe where you are involved with medical imagine they print material. From the 10+ ultrasounds I received over the last two weeks they all had printers on the machine. Or, they recorded the material as a movie (sonogram based recording) which does no good printed to film since it's actually a movie that is important so they can study the performance over time of what they are looking at (In this case heart and vein function).

Also, at least where my wife works, all of their CT, MRI and Xray material are stored on a central server and not printed out at all. In fact, all their old case studies that are on negatives have been scanned in and placed into the digital system as well. If they need to look at old cases, they bring them up on special monitors with extremely high contrast ratios. Keeping the files digital allows them to manipulate the raw data to examine things different ways (as it was told to me).

I'm sure there are a lot of different practices kept at different locations. I only have 3 or 4 specific experiences and the practices of where my wife works for reference so maybe overall it's different. To me it makes no sense to print to film for archiving material. But then again, when did things in the medical field ever make sense.
 
lwright84 said:
This is verifiably incorrect. For example, the low light performance of film cameras is abysmal in comparison to many current digital cameras.
Click to expand...

And the highlight performance of digital is dismal in comparison to film.
Film just has a certain quality that can't be re-produced digitally. Numbers can't totally tell that story.
 
the keyword he said was "many" current digital cameras, of course film blows away "many" digital cameras in low light, but only more recent cameras.

and on the other end, several new digital cameras have phenomenal highlight performance, it's just that they cost more than film (alexa/f65/35/etc...)

so it's still the back and forth, film is still the gold standard, and since digital is just starting to roll out cameras that have increasingly cleaner high ISOs, the next step is to refine the highlight handling.

as sad as it does make me because hey, i'm an "organic" guy, sorry sorry, had to drop the O... i imagine in 5 years film will become very scarce. i don't think it will ever fully go away because of other markets and a few die hard filmmakers.
 
Basically a whole generation of cinematographers has to retire. On a Hollywood budget the cost difference between film and digital is pocket change. They spend that much on corndogs for craft services. it will slowly wither over the next decade with people continuing to shoot on it occasionally for nostalgia or to get a certain look.

If somebody came to me and said you can shoot your next movie on 35mm or on the newest "best" digital camera out there, cost isn't in the equation, it would take me about 2 seconds to say "film". Of course, I'm also 45 years old, not 25.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
And the highlight performance of digital is dismal in comparison to film.
Film just has a certain quality that can't be re-produced digitally. Numbers can't totally tell that story.
Click to expand...

This is why things like the Zacuto Camera Shootouts are so important. Not only can you see the numbers & data, but you can also use your own eyes. Additionally you can also hear the comments and insights of seasoned industry professionals who are able to view the content without additional web compression. When more than one of them says "wow, I can't even tell the difference and I've been shooting on film exclusively for decades"... I tend to side with their first-hand experience and technical knowledge.

This is all moot anyway, film IS dead. Anyone who shoots on it now either has a production so large that the enormous cost difference doesn't matter to them, they are stubbornly adhering to their nostalgic allegiances, or they are playing the novelty aspect (omg, shot on film!). The sooner you adapt and learn how to emulate the filmic look on digital (or whatever look you want), the easier/better your life and creative work will be.
 
Except that isn't what they said. They said they were surprised at the quality of digital and impressed with what it did in the shadows. They also noted it still had major issues in the way it handled highlights. A lot of them still expressed "close, but not there yet".
 
apparently the new big thing is, in stills photography there's new cameras or programs or something which will take triple exposure of a single shot, essentially bracketing it then combining the shots to give an amazing latitude, better exposing for shadows, then for midtones, then for highlights, and compositing them together in a single image.
there's rumors out there (do a google search) that this is the next step for digital cinema. and THAT will be something interesting to see, that could never be produced by film.
 
sonofaresiii said:
apparently the new big thing is, in stills photography there's new cameras or programs or something which will take triple exposure of a single shot, essentially bracketing it then combining the shots to give an amazing latitude, better exposing for shadows, then for midtones, then for highlights, and compositing them together in a single image.
there's rumors out there (do a google search) that this is the next step for digital cinema. and THAT will be something interesting to see, that could never be produced by film.
Click to expand...

It's actually been out for awhile now, as said, it's called HDR. The problem with using HDR is if ANYTHING moves in the frame, you get artifacts. This is true with the RED implementation as well. I'm not saying it isn't usable, just that it has limitations.

When I was trying to shoot some HDR images outside, I basically gave up because the wind was really making the trees look horrible. It is VERY neat to play with.
 
ya know, i may not have read into it much, but why is RED doing hdr using alternating shutter speeds? i would think using alternating ISO would be far more sensible and not be affected by the motion issue. yes it would mean possible differing noise issues, but only if you're shooting in unreasonable light conditions
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top