Is the 7D the better 5D for filmmakers?

> Im starting to think that people who dont mind 30p just
> dont see the difference between 24p and 30p.
> So for me talking with those guys about 24p vs 30p
> is like talking with them about aliens from space or ghosts.
> Its just... no words.

That's a great point. Try teaching color theory to color blind students. I wonder if some people are more/less sensitive to motion artifacts.
 
24p/30p - The Story of a self-inflicted illusion

24p/30p - The Story of a self-inflicted illusion

Neither I nor anybody I have been showing 24p versus 30p footage has been able to tell the difference. Where there has been a very slight difference, e.g. panning through thin vertical structures, 24p has been described as "worse", "jerky".

I am totally motion-blind and cannot tell the difference between 24p and 30p on computer screens and on projected pictures.

My conclusion is that the 24p versus 30p has nothing with kinetic perception (illusion of movement). It is probably a self inflicted phantasm in the indie communities. I do not think 24p is more filmic or "cinematographic" than 30p.
 
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Its all about converting your 5d mark II content to Film. If you want to go to film, you need 24p.
 
Ha! I'll use the same argument that Barry used to make my point about making movies (using his same exact phrases from above)...

To discard style lighting -- that to me is ... incomprehensible.
To discard cinematography techniques -- that to me is ... incomprehensible.
To discard production design -- that to me is ... incomprehensible.
To discard framing -- that to me is ... incomprehensible.
To discard composition -- that to me is ... incomprehensible.
To discard camera movement -- that to me is ... incomprehensible.

Dudes, 24p is just one piece of the puzzle and out of all the above, if I had to drop one, going from 24p to 30p is the least likely to have any impact on a good flick. That is NOT to say we don't know 24p from Raquel Welch's breasts, it's just not as vitally important as the other qualities.

That's a great point. Try teaching color theory to color blind students. I wonder if some people are more/less sensitive to motion artifacts.
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That's a great point. Try teaching COLOR THEORY to a 24p worshipper. I wonder if some people are more/less sensitive to color/composition/lighting/sound/story telling. :Þ

GIVE ME 24p... OR GIVE ME DEATH!
 
So for me talking with those guys about 24p vs 30p is like talking with them about aliens from space or ghosts.Its just... no words.
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Well, honestly, I did have a Bigfoot experience once, no lie. The report is here. http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=16550 If I ever get a chance to point my video camera at Sasquatch, I'd rather be shooting 30p than 24p. Hey, I'm trying to tie in the aliens and ghosts comment to this argument SOMEhow!
 
Even if Spielberg would log in here right now to tell you "USE 24P" then you wouldnt do that,stick to 30p if you want,i just hate how it looks and i like motion picture like movement of 23.976.
 
Even if Spielberg would log in here right now to tell you "USE 24P" then you wouldnt do that
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If Bigfoot told me to use 24P, maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. I might say, "screw you, Skooky, I think I'll shoot 23.976 instead". :Þ
 
I like 24p and can tell the difference between 24p and 30p. But I am using a 5d, because it has other properties that allow it to look more film/movie-like. Public Enemies was shot at 24p but looks like video. So obviously 24p is only one part of the equation.

If someone shot the same movie with the 5d but tried to convey a more traditional film look through lighting, dof, etc. I guarantee the average audience member would say the 5d looked more film/movie-like even at 30p.

Even if someone can tell something was shot at 30p over 24p if the story is good it won't matter.

"The Celebration" isn't filmlike at all, but it's one of my favourite movies. I love classic films as well, but I don't base my judgement on whether or not I can tell if something is 24p over 30p.

indy 4....still trying to wipe that movie from my memory. At least I now know I just need to find a big ol' lead fridge to survive a nuclear blast. I wonder why that was never covered in the old "stop drop and cover" educational films.
 
I know I'm going to regret getting into this debate...but it's so ridiculous that I feel worth it. There are a lot of people speaking nonsense, but the person whom I'm most shocked speaking the nonsense, is our teacher Barry. For G***'s sake Barry, there is a lot of film shot at 30fps, and 25fps. It still looks like film, when it's film. It's nonsense to say that filmlook has to be 24P, it's just not true. One might say that video shot at 24P looks more like film: but that's about as much a rule as any professor should preach.

In regards to the 5D, at 30 fps it does look pretty much film like. If you convert it to 24P, you get some flicker...that's about it. Most of the people on these forums (not everyone, of course) will only see their work digitally, and of those, many are only going to see it on the net. By the time there 30P film gets on to VIMEO, or YOUTUBE, the quality will be so distorted anyway, it won't make that much difference. For those that will watch the fruit of their work on a HD TV, they will most likely be watching it with a strange cadence from their LCD TV. For those who will be doing film out, then by the time their work is converted, it will look like film anyway.

What is true about the 5D, is that to get the film feeling to work there are some strange things that we have to work around: problems much bigger then frame rate. The two obvious things are Jello, and too much shallow focus. The reality is that in film you cannot get as much shallow focus as we can get on the 5D, this results in some beautiful, but not realistic images. The last problem is it's very, very difficult to pull focus on a 5D, for a variety of reasons. Photo lenses are the main problem, as the focus range is so much different then a film lens. And too much shallow depth of field is hard to handle, especially by a novice cinematographer.

What I want to throw into the pot here are two things: I think the 7D might just be easier to work with if you were trying to get a film look. However, I think its time we all stop talking about film look...we are entering a new generation where the best looks might not be what we have already seen. We are here to create new rules, and new looks. I think the 5D is an amazing tool for that. Finally, until we know more about the 7D, what one can say now is that they are different tools. With some soft upgrades, perhaps the 5D will come out the winner. As a photographer there is no question that the larger captor is still the key to more beautiful digital pictures.
 
OK everybody, lets get down to the nitty gritty.
If you want your project to look like film....SHOOT FILM and 35 at that.
Good looking video can be a thing of beauty...but it is NOT and NEVER will be film.
Thats not a bad thing, thats just the way it is.
Emulsion and scans lines are 2 different animals. They dont have to and will never look the same. Get used to it.
I love the look of the 5D when I edit it.
I love the look of 35mm film when I edit commercials at work.
They are images generated with different technology and can both be beautiful to behold.
But they deal with motion and luminance differently. And that gives them their
unqiue character.
Taking a pidgeon and stapling a bill on it doesnt make it a duck ;-)
 
The lens is more important than the camera for the film look. Shallow DOF,high speed and wide angle... all very cinematic attributes.

Film may be a different beast but it ends up being delivered to most people's screens digitally, i.e. on DVD or in a digital cinema.

So secondly the way you view cinema is also more important.

For me, having been a GH1 fan from the day it was out and an owner for quite a few months now, the thing attracting me to the 5D over the 7D are:

A) Getting the most coverage out of my 35mm Contax Zeiss lenses
B) A better codec than the GH1
C) Very nice stills
D) The 7D has a 1.6x crop factor, which to me is NOT an advantage IQ wise... and neither is it's lesser low light performance which will be closer to GH1 territory than film.
 
danap said:
Neither I nor anybody I have been showing 24p versus 30p footage has been able to tell the difference. Where there has been a very slight difference, e.g. panning through thin vertical structures, 24p has been described as "worse", "jerky".

I am totally motion-blind and cannot tell the difference between 24p and 30p on computer screens and on projected pictures.

My conclusion is that the 24p versus 30p has nothing with kinetic perception (illusion of movement). It is probably a self inflicted phantasm in the indie communities. I do not think 24p is more filmic or "cinematographic" than 30p.
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I am quite sensitive to the slower motion of 24p and I associate that with the cinema screen.

But as a technology I don't think one has an advantage over the other... it's all about the perception of the individual. I think movies have to grab the audience with other things and not let their attention be grabbed too much by an intrusive delivery style. The look has to stay in the background and let the escapism bloom.

The moment the camera or display technology takes me 'out' of that experience, thats the only time it has a negative impact.

24p can sometimes look jerky, 30p or 60p can sometimes look too smooth and clinical. But there is more to film than just that.

I have no problem shooting at 30p instead of 24p and I expect the next firmware update to give me the choice anyway :)

I think maybe where 24p does have an advantage for those that notice it is that it is slow enough to let individual frames register in your subconscious and for movement to be slow enough to have an 'emotional' feel to it. Faster frame rates tend to feel more 'live'.
 
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ydgmdlu said:
I'm not sure what you mean here, since film's low-light sensitivity is not very good at all.
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Really? Would you say a GH1 or 7d will have better low light then film at the same settings?


By the way, and I am sorry, this is a little off topic, but what is the highest feature films will go when it comes to actual film iso? I mean films you would watch on a big screen. Not excluding films you would see at a festival or something though. Just on average what is the standard that you don't go above?

Thanks.
 
I dont get how some guys are obsessed with low light capabilities or grain,ive seen some really grainy footage on cinema big screen and it was watchable,you should really take a look at 1080p scans from some older films and see is 35mm really THAT superior.
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/ScreenShot.php?ifb=Ghostbusters_43396249462&n=2
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/ScreenShot.php?ifb=Ghostbusters_43396249462&n=1
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/S...tantNinjaTurtlesFilmCollection_8839290542&n=1
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/S...tantNinjaTurtlesFilmCollection_8839290542&n=2

New films arent that "bad looking" tho.
 
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Entity said:
Really? Would you say a GH1 or 7d will have better low light then film at the same settings?


By the way, and I am sorry, this is a little off topic, but what is the highest feature films will go when it comes to actual film iso? I mean films you would watch on a big screen. Not excluding films you would see at a festival or something though. Just on average what is the standard that you don't go above?

Thanks.
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Film at ISO 1600 is significantly noisier/grainier than the 5D and 7D, probably even the GH1 as well. Here's a Flickr group devoted to photos shot exclusively on ISO 1600 film: http://www.flickr.com/groups/iso1600film/

According to the following Wikipedia article, no motion picture film stocks are made faster than ISO 500: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motion_picture_film_stocks

And though you can push-process any film stock, the results are even grainier. That's because the grain structure for a given film stock is optimized for its exposure index (ISO value).
 
Yes but grain on film is visually much more attractive than the colourful speckles and loss of detail we get with digital technology. That's worth keeping in mind. The grain is also a lot finer, as you can see on the Flicker 1600 group.

What I determine low light 'performance' to be is, is that the colour, dynamic range and detail is retained. It's not all about noise and grain. I can accept film grain because it doesn't remove colour and detail from the image.

CMOS fixed pattern noise and digital noise in general is very lively and intrusive, much more noticeable... and then noise reduction kicks in and you loose your detail. Not good.

In no circumstances is this kind of digital noise aesthetically pleasing, but film grain can be. At the other end of the scale in fact digital can be too clean sometimes at ISO 100, and it gives the image a lifeless plastic feel.
 
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