Film out quality

Landon D Parks

Landon D Parks

Active member
I know this is a time honroed question... But if you shoot in 2k RAW with this camera, will the film-out quality be the same as any film out from say a 35mm original?

I know people talk about color, contrast, etc... but that is not what I'm refering too. I'm refering to the actual perceived resolution of the filmout....

to get to the point, will the 2k footage from the SI2K be able to to match the >>>resolution<<< of a 35mm originale film-out?

:bath: :violin:
 
Depends, if all you did was a 2K DI of your film (and not a 4K DI), then the resolution will probably compare very favorably . . . if you do a more expensive 4K DI of your film, then the of course the resolution of the 35mm film will be higher.

But honestly, no matter how high the resolution of the film you're placing in the scanner, if it's not resolving the entire resolution of the film, then it won't be any different than our camera. The film-scanner becomes the point of limiting resolution.

A film-scanner is really a camera head that is shooting film (in a very basic sense) . . . what's the difference between shooting a real-world scene (which has infinite resolution) with a 2K camera and shooting a piece of 35mm film with a 2K camera like a scanner would do? In the end it's the scanning head, not the 35mm film that is the limiting resolution.

So if you're doing a film using a 2K scanner like a Spirit 2K, and then a 2K-DI, then yes, our camera will be very similar to the *end-result* you'll get from that 35mm film pathway. If you scan your film at 4K on a Northlight or something of that caliber that can actually scan the entire latent resolution of the film negative, then the 35mm will have more resolution. Of course if you downsample your footage back to 2K for DI, then you're going to loose a bit of resolution, but oversampling will still help . . . but the differences will be less.

Finally, in the end, you also have to realize that a film-print is no-where near 2K resolution, and many digital projectors are only 2K . . . So while 4K is nice for future use and archiving, there's a reason that 2K is also considered a DCI-spec resolution, and that is because that's what most of the industry is working at right now.
 
Has any one ever done a 35mm film-out and projection of footage from this camera?

What does it look like? Good color, contrast, etc?
 
On even the largest features, 2k DI is the flavor of the day. Yes, 4k is out there, but major studio shows like Casino Royale, that mixed Super 35mm and Genesis footage for background plates in HDCamSR, post most often in 2k.

I'd venture to say that 2k can pretty much get it done - especially taking into account today's miniscule theatrical screens. Having watched the 1080p Superman Returns Special Edition on an IMAX 65mm blow-up, I can say that it held up well to quite well through most of the show.

4k is perfectly matched to 35mm Academy work, but for silly (and economical) 2-perf (947 x 2195 relative lines) and 3-perf (1390 x 2195 relative lines) production, where there is greatly diminished original negative real estate, 2k DI is more than plenty.

e
 
Last edited:
Scott Billups did a film-out with our NAB prototype, and he said it looked really nice . . I wasn't there to see it, but he did like the quality of the image he saw.
 
original film negative does have very high resolution ( 2000+++) BUT by the time you go thru IP/DP print then 35mm projector lens you are BELOW 1000 lines of resolution and that could be some of the reasoning for many theaters to settle with 2k projectors ( more RES then 35mm print) ..

note: that in test the highest res noted from 35mm print was 875 !! the average res among 6 different movie theaters was 685 = where did the film 2000 res go ???

http://www.cst.fr/IMG/pdf/35mm_resolution_english.pdf
 
The highest discernable resolution at any particular spot within the larger frame was 875 - which is precisely why many contend that 2k or 1080p (1920 x 1080) is almost enough for even the most discerning viewers.

In larger exhibitions, 4k will look appreciably better than what we're accustommed to - which is the generationally / optically degaded 18.55mm (1855 relative lines) image we've watched in theaters for nearly a hundred years (Academy and Scope were children of the '30s and '50s respectively).

Keep in mind that with the myriad formats that have been in play between the studios and various manufacturers over the decades, you would, with modern filmstocks acting as arbiter, be looking at just as wide a spectrum of negative resolutions to match.

Techniscope, in wide use by just about everyone in film from the late '60s through Titanic, had a camera aperture of roughly 9.5mm x 22mm (about 950 x 2200 lines). Not a lot of vertical resolution happening there. Techniscope might've, by the whitepaper's estimation, yielded about 525 relative lines by the time it went through post.

In the end, we're looking at a much better resolving scenario in HD and the emerging DC formats with nothing but room for growth moving forward. What anyone will notice from a resolution standpoint is almost irrelevant [even today] compared to the recent strides made in contrast / dynamic range.

e
 
So REZ is not the problem, its Contrast / Dynamic Range... From the sound of it though, this camera resolves 10+ stops... 35mm film resolves around 12-14+ stops, from what I hear, and smaller video formats like HVX200 and even HDWF900 only resolves around 7 stops, due to the small sensors and small pixels. So Dynamic range is almost up to par with film in this camera.

I also hear that film apparently has more "Color"... How true this is, I don't know. Anyone care to speculate?
 
Well if you take minidv footgae for exemple its 8bits system that means you have 256 different colors and 256 different luma. So its not that its digital(well not only) thats is the problem its the number of bits. Film is anolog and can produce a much wider range of everything. Of course no film is better than the digital scan of it.

If you for a difference would have a 12bit digital system that would allow 4096 different combinations.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top