Video sharp? Film.. not sharp?!

[Homunculus]

Giuseppe Pugliesi there is zero difference between a 50,000 film lens and a 500-1000 stills lense in terms of image quality. the extra price costs from the mechanics of a much larger lens body to accomodate the various film features like focus with much larger throw, etc.
Keep in mind there is a photography industry and PROFESSIONAL photo lenses are used and have been used to create the most professional/stunning/high end print photos in history. When the highest end professional photographers shoot their covers for magazines on their hasselblads mamiyas leicas canon 1d etc they are using stills lenses not 50,000 cinema lenses. in fact if anything image quality wise these stills lenses should in theory be SUPERIOR to cinema lenses considering they are made to resolve far more detail and resolution than what film cameras resolve which is the equivalent of only a few megapixels.

I'm just saying since you are speaking about not spreading fallacies to confuse young up and coming cinematographers, well here is one fallacy that also needs to be demystified.

 

[jburke14]

These two statements are exactly what I'm talking about, spreading around the fact that the "film look" is specific is not helping anyone, with your statement above, that means a DSLR should look exactly like film but it doesnt. I completely agree with you to the most part about "why cant you just see it, its right there in front of your eyes". There is a crowd out there that shoots interlaced and cant see the difference, and yes that frustrates me... BUT there is another level, the level of what I would call new guys who think that the quality of film look is only achieved by say a RED One setup. Sure it holds all of the qualities, and yes it can look like film... but theres one thing its missing, the organic grain of film. There is just something there that you can't replicate with any other device yet. The closest thing I can use as an example is the 35mm lens adapter guys. They say that its much more organic of a look when they shoot with their adapters than with a DSLR. And you know what, for the most part they are right, its introducing imperfections. Its the imperfections of film that make it what it is, but theres a fine line.

I see the 35mm adapter guys and for the most part, their eye is right. Its because all those lens elements thrown together with the vibrating glass grain just makes it something closer to a film look. I'm not saying its the same, but its a new bread of "organic" feel. Problem is you lose sharpness, resolution, and light with those adapters, and thats a little too much for most people wanting to shoot.

A sensor needs to be clean, but organic... There is something to be said of the Alexa camera, if you've ever had access to the prores4444 files and watched them on an hd monitor, you can see that there is a characteristic of the camera a little nicer than RED when it comes to comparison to film... Theres just a little something about it, that has a feel. A lot of people can't tell though. I'm not talking about large differences, im talking about the smaller ones; the ones that need to know what you're looking for in order to understand what you're seeing.

And to your second statement about the lens, again... Just because YOU can't tell the difference doesn't mean others cant. I'm a lens geek, and most big DP's know their lenses and their looks. Its the same way you can tell the "Cooke look" from other lenses. I have a feeling if you looked at something shot with Cooke lenses and then compare to another, you'd not be able to tell. But that doesn't mean others cant tell.

Learning "well thats good enough for me" is fine, but when you start teaching everyone like that, you end up killing off or even preventing the people who would otherwise investigate deeper and learn the full quality of lenses.



If films were only shot for the public, they would all be crap reality shows. TV fell into that trap. DPs don't shoot and light for the audience.. They light and shoot for themselves. And any one who says different is just lying. You're looking threw the viewfinder to please yourself, and the director. You're lighting to build your craft and make something beautiful, you are pleasing YOUR eye. There isn't an audience sitting behind you making decisions. Great DP's break rules and invent all new ones that work visually, but I have never in a million years heard of a professional DP shooting for the audience, sure they are shooting for the audiences sake of enjoying the film, by the are sure NOT sitting there picking there lenses thinking 'hmm I wonder if the audence will like the Cooke S4/i's over the Ultraprimes... No. Thats a decision of creativity from the DP.

DP's are painters with light. they are artists, they create something for people to view yes, but they aren't influenced by the audience as much as they are influenced by what their own image is in their head. Its their creative pallet.

The world is NOT full of great creative people, and thats why some rise above others. The audiences come to see great work. If you gave that theater audience a voting system to let them be the DP's collectively, the film wouldn't come out the way a great DP would do it. Its the DP's job to tell the story in which HE/S sees it, or the Director sees it.

All very valid points. I think what i mean when I say 'audience accepts it' I mean that if the audience can tell what it is or not, or care... Yes as a DP I want to make the best damn pleasing image/moving picture combinations, and with beautiful lighting. I agree with everything you said. The creativity is definitely there to please yourself and the director. I just think we are limited in this world by factors and sometimes shooting super 35, just isnt an option. So we strive for compromises that get us as close as we can for the budget we have. If you come from a film first background, yes you will be less happy with the image quality of the af100. However if you start out on mini dv tapes shooting 480i with no color correction, nd, etc, then I think you have a better understanding. I think its great that the af100 has a lot of features that when used to their potential can make great images... I think if a person is creative and KNOWS how to use the tools (whether film camera or digital, or DV) one can make a great looking project that they can be satisfied with. THe medium doesn't matter, what matters is maximizing the medium you are forced to work on, with regards to the limitations of the project (funds, talent, gear). I think artists use tools to make great art. The tools dont make the artist. A good artist can take the tools he has and make something out of them.

I just think compromise is a part of the reality of ALL situations, and the af100 satisfies a crowd that can't afford certain things (but could be just as talented or more talented then someone working on film). And they can still make exceptional imagery with this camera when used to the fullest potential (hence the artistry)!

 

[William_Robinette]

Giuseppe Pugliesi there is zero difference between a 50,000 film lens and a 500-1000 stills lense in terms of image quality.

Please site tests or examples you have run pertinent to this statement. I'd be interested to see what the results are that have made you so sure. Also interested in color matching between lenses of a set. Hope those tests are available too.

 

[John Caballero]

Please site tests or examples you have run pertinent to this statement. I'd be interested to see what the results are that have made you so sure. Also interested in color matching between lenses of a set. Hope those tests are available too.

All you need to do as he says, look at the thousands of stills shot for professional work every day. There are enough samples out there of stunning image work created with still lens way way bellow $50,000. I discussed this with Winston Vargas at Adorama all the time, how sharp or how soft can images be? How sharper than sharp can a lens be? Unless the lens is made out of plastic instead of glass it is still glass. But of course if you are producing a multi million dollar production you have to justify the investment using $50,000 lenses.

 

[Homunculus]

Please site tests or examples you have run pertinent to this statement. I'd be interested to see what the results are that have made you so sure. Also interested in color matching between lenses of a set. Hope those tests are available too.

test results? how about the entire history of photography which is an older art form than FILM mind you. every single of the most famous, greatest, best rendered highest fidelity photographs (which by the way are far higher resolution than anything ever put on film) were shot using stills lenses.
cinema lenses are NOT visually superior to high end (and much cheaper) stills lenses. if they were then the top photographers for publications like Vogue, and what have you would be outfitting their Hasselblads with Arri Master Primes to take photos LOL! But to my knolwedge this has never happened and never will.

 

[Ian-T]

lol...good point. I've actually never looked at it that way before.

 

[Mike@AF]

Please site tests or examples you have run pertinent to this statement. I'd be interested to see what the results are that have made you so sure. Also interested in color matching between lenses of a set. Hope those tests are available too.

Consider the Zeiss ZF vs the Zeiss CP.2. They are optically identical, yet the CP.2 costs what, 3-5 times as much as the ZF depending on the focal length? Why? Because of the mechanics. And the ZF lenses are actually faster.

 

[OKCPicker]

Most you see filmed on video = bad or no lighting
Most you see filmed on film = god or pro lighting.

I think this is the key difference, when your spending all that money on film you want to make sure it looks right so you pay more attention to lighting and production values. But when your only paying a few thousand for your camera setup (DSLR's for instance) the no budget, ameturish approach of we don't need to light (the most frustrating phrase i hear way too often) becomes the approach. Lighting is what seperates the films with high production values to those not so professional films littering Youtube. Lighting in my opinion is the number one factor that creates the 'film look', not what camera/lenses/codec, good lighting is what seperates the pros from the hobbyists.

Amen, Matthew B - you hit it right on the head. I've used film style lighting for video for over 20 years now. It's not film, but I have learned how to control the transitions between light and dark areas, subject to cam distance, subject to BG distance and 9 times out of 10, I'm pretty happy with the results. Thanks to all the great film DP's and gaffers in the SF Bay Area for that education. I see a lot of comments that totally disregard the value of lighting. Once the lighting is set, then worry about the gamma and knee settings, codecs, menu items, etc etc. It's really all about the story - then comes lighting. Then after that it's what's being served over at Craft Services.

 

[Rick Burnett]

I couldn't agree more about lighting. I've seen films that are soft and films that are sharp. I've seen films that are clean and films that are grainy. But, at the end of the day, it's the composition, the DoF, the lighting setup that really makes me feel like I am watching film. It's understanding how to master the look, and the equipment doesn't do that. It's the same in the music world. Stevie Ray Vaugnn is considered a blues legend, and one of his things was an Ibanez Tube Screamer guitar pedal, no tubes. This pedal had what I would consider one of the cheapest grade op-amps in the world, this thing was used in clock radios for instance, yet, it sounds amazing. They've made clones, but none sound the same as the original and the chips are no longer made. People hunt down other products that used them to get them. Yet, honestly, most people I hear through them still sound like crap. The beauty, was in Stevie's guitar playing and how he used that distortion.

I feel the same way about lenses as well. I put on a Zeiss CP.2 on my 7D and took a bunch of shots. I then compared it to a Nikon 50mm F1.8, a Canon 50mm F1.8, and a Sigma 50mm F1.4. Even if I took cost out of the equation, I wasn't blown away by the CP.2, at all. In fact, I felt the CA was less on the Nikon and Sigma by a huge amount.

What you pay for in expensive lens is mechanics, operation, and most importantly color matching. I absolutely understand what freedoms more expensive lenses give you, but optical quality? I'm not seeing it either. Still lens have to resolve for print, which is MUCH more demanding as far as I see. But, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is only mine

 

[joesiv]

cinema lenses are NOT visually superior to high end (and much cheaper) stills lenses. if they were then the top photographers for publications like Vogue, and what have you would be outfitting their Hasselblads with Arri Master Primes to take photos LOL! But to my knolwedge this has never happened and never will.

It's a good point. However, how many cinema primes will cover a medium format film frame? lol...

Also realize that film doesn't have so much of a hard "resolution". So motion picture shot on film could definitely resolve as much or maybe more than say a 21mp canon. Remember 21mp is only 5k.... Though you'll hit diffraction earlier on s35 or af100 compared to FF or MF.

 

[G.P.]

I think you are all forgetting what makes a cinematography better quality for cinema use, its the optical arrangements, coatings, internal baffels/light traps, precision, Stills has nothing to do with motion picture when it comes to quality use in the professional world. And the look is different with lens flaring, rotation of glass... If I really have to sit here and defend why a $50,000 is a $50,000 lens then I might as well invite the guys from cooke to come on the site and show you all of the detail and precision optics that are used to make a cinema lens, vs. a stills lens. All of the optics have no breathing. Not only that but the contrast is much better, when you have a cinema lens with light traps and non-reflective coatings on the inner elements... The list can go on, not to mention useability, robustness.

And the ZF lenses aren't faster, they are measured by F stops not T stops. The T stop is accurate to light loss, the F stop has nothing to do with light loss. And for the optics, we are talking about a different ball park. Youre bringing into the discussion a $4,000 lens when I'm talking about $50,000 lenses, hardly a fair comparison.

There are so many special elements that make up a lens to make it look amazing for cinema use, its not even funny. Stills is much easier to shoot. Heck you can put a hole in a piece of cardboard and tape it to the inside of a Nikon F5 and shoot great photos with it. Pin Hole cameras shot great stills and theres NO lens, its just a hole. That has NOTHING to do with motion pictures.

Use a 20mm cheapo lens vs. a 20mm cinema lens and see/feel the difference in the quality of the image, if you can't see that, then I don't know what else to say. The light flaring, image ghosting, and all of that doesn't happen in stills photography. The camera is not moving when you're shooting, and if it is its either smeared because you have a slow shutter speed, or stopped dead because your using a fast shutter speed. You wont get bothered by those things because you simply aren't able to view them unless its a moving image.

 

[G.P.]

Giuseppe Pugliesi there is zero difference between a 50,000 film lens and a 500-1000 stills lense in terms of image quality. the extra price costs from the mechanics of a much larger lens body to accomodate the various film features like focus with much larger throw, etc.
Keep in mind there is a photography industry and PROFESSIONAL photo lenses are used and have been used to create the most professional/stunning/high end print photos in history. When the highest end professional photographers shoot their covers for magazines on their hasselblads mamiyas leicas canon 1d etc they are using stills lenses not 50,000 cinema lenses. in fact if anything image quality wise these stills lenses should in theory be SUPERIOR to cinema lenses considering they are made to resolve far more detail and resolution than what film cameras resolve which is the equivalent of only a few megapixels.

I'm just saying since you are speaking about not spreading fallacies to confuse young up and coming cinematographers, well here is one fallacy that also needs to be demystified.

But resolving more resolution has NOTHING to do with looking as good on film/digital cameras shooting for cinema. There are Panavision lenses out there that are extremely old, and still being used on Hollywood block busters. Those lenses don't resolve the same as a stills lens, but why should they? What does that have to do with the look of film? Then you're just making it sharper and ultimately negating what some feel to be a "film look" all together.

I'm not here to argue points, I would just like people to really step back and realize just because someone on the internet says a simple statement of a $300 lens looking as good as a $50,000 doesn't mean anything unless you peal it apart and have a real eye opening to what makes these lenses better or worse.

Simply making a bold statement like that just kind of hurts the people who put their passion and lives into making those great cinema lenses. They are hand made, every one of them is different, and the precision and quality standards are MUCH higher than stills, simply because the camera is moving and thus the light changes, unlike in photography where the light is paused for that moment (or smeared) to give you a one time look.

Appreciating good quality lenses is (or maybe was, seeing how every is talking) one of the first things cinematographers cared about as well as their favorite light(s) to use. Taking away that and just saying any ole' still lens will do, just feels like a shot in the mouth.

 

[pulpfiction007]

I think what a lot of people are getting at is that with a good eye/composition/lighting ...the high quality photo lenses will produce beatiful moving images and the high quality digtal systems will do the same - beautiful enough to tell the story and most audiences will be moved. Coppolas prediction has come true to an extent - the gear is not the limiting factor. YES, technical people will see the difference, just like a good audio engineer can hear the difference in pre amp character...but 99.9 percent of audiences/listeners DON'T care. Just like my girlfriend didn't give a damn that HOUSE was shot on a 5D....it was "Great" she liked that episode just as much as any other. So it does not NEED to look like film...it just needs to move the audience. That is - for those who can't afford the best, it does not mean that you can't make a work of beautiful art.

 

[Mike@AF]

I think you are all forgetting what makes a cinematography better quality for cinema use, its the optical arrangements, coatings, internal baffels/light traps, precision, Stills has nothing to do with motion picture when it comes to quality use in the professional world. And the look is different with lens flaring, rotation of glass... If I really have to sit here and defend why a $50,000 is a $50,000 lens then I might as well invite the guys from cooke to come on the site and show you all of the detail and precision optics that are used to make a cinema lens, vs. a stills lens. All of the optics have no breathing. Not only that but the contrast is much better, when you have a cinema lens with light traps and non-reflective coatings on the inner elements... The list can go on, not to mention useability, robustness.

Some of what you just mentioned is also just mechanical differences. That said it could still be good for educational reasons (Cooke coming to the site), as I'm sure there are optical differences and advantages to cinema lenses optically over still lenses. The question really is what are those differences and why do they cost so much more?

And the ZF lenses aren't faster, they are measured by F stops not T stops. The T stop is accurate to light loss, the F stop has nothing to do with light loss. And for the optics, we are talking about a different ball park. Youre bringing into the discussion a $4,000 lens when I'm talking about $50,000 lenses, hardly a fair comparison.

You really think the lens is losing more than an entire stop worth of light? Zeiss ZF 50mm is f/1.4 and Zeiss CP.2 50mm is T2.1. Regardless of that and of the ballpark price of the lenses, they are optically identical and cost 3-5x the price for those mechanics. That was the point I was making.

There are so many special elements that make up a lens to make it look amazing for cinema use, its not even funny. Stills is much easier to shoot. Heck you can put a hole in a piece of cardboard and tape it to the inside of a Nikon F5 and shoot great photos with it. Pin Hole cameras shot great stills and theres NO lens, its just a hole. That has NOTHING to do with motion pictures.

Use a 20mm cheapo lens vs. a 20mm cinema lens and see/feel the difference in the quality of the image, if you can't see that, then I don't know what else to say. The light flaring, image ghosting, and all of that doesn't happen in stills photography. The camera is not moving when you're shooting, and if it is its either smeared because you have a slow shutter speed, or stopped dead because your using a fast shutter speed. You wont get bothered by those things because you simply aren't able to view them unless its a moving image.

I agree that there are certain things done to the super high-end cinema lenses that do make them better than still lenses. And the manufacturers can afford to do that because they know they'll sell them. And they'll sell them because there's a market for them. For a $100 million movie it's nothing against the budget to rent a $50,000 lens to make sure they're getting the absolute best image possible and the best mechanics possible in the lens. Why? Because it's that important. $100 million on a single movie? They better make sure they do it right. A print ad? How much does it cost for a print ad shoot? Virtually nothing in comparison, so a photographer would never invest in a lens that expensive.

 

[astigmatic]

delete..nevermind

 

[10s]

delete..nevermind

best comment so far!

 

[John Caballero]

If people really believe that there is a $50,000 visual difference between a lens, more power to them. That is excellent for Cooke I am sure. There are plenty of movies out there filmed without those lenses and they look great no doubt. Many years ago a friend of mine kept telling me about Hollywood saying that it was impossible to make a movie out of their system. He kept telling me that that was not true, only a trick to keep people out of the business. Then the independent filmmaker struck hard and proved them wrong and my friend right. The $50,000 dollar lens goes exactly with the old Hollywood thinking.

 

[Homunculus]

If people really believe that there is a $50,000 visual difference between a lens, more power to them. That is excellent for Cooke I am sure. There are plenty of movies out there filmed without those lenses and they look great no doubt. Many years ago a friend of mine kept telling me about Hollywood saying that it was impossible to make a movie out of their system. He kept telling me that that was not true, only a trick to keep people out of the business. Then the independent filmmaker struck hard and proved them wrong and my friend right. The $50,000 dollar lens goes exactly with the old Hollywood thinking.

well i'll be. i finally agree with you on something. i consistently have seen video comparisons on this very site of the same footage being shot on the same camera with different lenses. i saw one with a 2000-3000 Leica and a canon FD, and another with a several thousand dollar cinema Zeiss and a lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake and i saw no visual difference whatsoever apart from a slightly evident sharpness in the leica lens. I preferred the 20mm pancake over the zeiss prime footage

 

[Mike@AF]

well i'll be. i finally agree with you on something. i consistently have seen video comparisons on this very site of the same footage being shot on the same camera with different lenses. i saw one with a 2000-3000 Leica and a canon FD, and another with a several thousand dollar cinema Zeiss and a lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake and i saw no visual difference whatsoever apart from a slightly evident sharpness in the leica lens. I preferred the 20mm pancake over the zeiss prime footage

That sharpness difference, and other differences, will be much more apparent on a movie theater screen.

 

[Homunculus]

That sharpness difference, and other differences, will be much more apparent on a movie theater screen.

I've had my short film shot on canon FD's played on a giant professional screen next to a short film shot on red one with cinema glass and my film looked just as good and better in most parts. (granted the Red was Mysterium not MX but still a ways ahead of GH13).