16mm a compromise in qaulity?

[Freya]

Freya ,you asked for a breakdown...

The BandW stuff is vision200t(not v2) double perf framed for 16:9 and desaturated in post and dirtied up a bit. I think the whites are blown out a bit much so maybe thats why you thought "video"

It might have been the blown out whites, but I seem to remember thinking it also looked a bit soft and washed out.

Wow I have to say that looked kind of ghastly, I'm quite shocked in was vision 200t.

The color film is fuji eterna 500t.

The only shots done with the xl2 are in the room with the sunbeams coming through the back windows and there are some s16 mixed in that are really grainy and cloudy looking.

I thought the film stuff in the room looked kind of nice actually. It was grainy tho.

We used a bit of smoke in that room which the xl2 loved but the film hated.

That's odd. I've always heard smoke looks better on film than video.

I actually shot 3 tests rolls prior to this on v2 500t and eastman exr 100t and those tests came out better than our project but were still somewhat grainy.Although some of the 7218 was very nice looking.

Something seems not right. Could you have underexposed the neg? Maybe it's a really noisy telecine or something. I'm honestly quite suprised. It could be out of date film of course but I do wonder if it isn't in the processing or telecine especially as you are getting it across stocks.

People often say to overexpose out of date neg film by a full stop to try and tighten the grain so perhaps that could have helped?

I wa stold by the tech who worked on my GSMo at clairmont camera that the ultra t was supposed to compete with the first gen zeiss super speeds and does fairly well next to them. Like a budget alternative.

I have a test done on 7245 coming back so I will post my results.

I wish you lots of luck, of course 7245 is going to be not very grainy at all but it's slow too. I do like the look of all the 7245 I have seen so far tho.

I really hope you have better luck this time!

love

Freya

[edgebsl]

Well, I think we lowered the contrast to get an aged b&w look but that might have actually not been the best idea.

If anything I've tried to expose hard, rating 500 as 250 etc. I used both the internal k3 and a sekonic l398 and would set them to half the film speed. The lab said my exposure was on. But we know the rank doesnt like overexposure and it looks noisy, but the stuff I sent to the shadow with Eric Rosen...he said I had a grainy negative too.

So its down to a process of elimination....till I figure out what's wrong.Different camera and lens this time.I'm going to try a different procesing lab if my 7245 is grainy. I rated it as 25 asa.

I loved that download with the hdcam vs the other cameras.I must say that I liked all 4 cameras but i was suprised how good their 16mm was.It hung right in there with the f900 in my opinion with just a tad of grain which was nice. Nice to know that if I get my act together that I could get images like that.

[Justin Lovell]

did you say you had your filmo super16'd somewhere?
Do the recenter the lens and if it is parallax/turret viewing, how does that get accomidated?


what's the cost... and could it really be worth it?

thoughts?

[Freya]

Well, I think we lowered the contrast to get an aged b&w look but that might have actually not been the best idea.

If anything I've tried to expose hard, rating 500 as 250 etc. I used both the internal k3 and a sekonic l398 and would set them to half the film speed. The lab said my exposure was on. But we know the rank doesnt like overexposure and it looks noisy, but the stuff I sent to the shadow with Eric Rosen...he said I had a grainy negative too.

Okay so it isn't the telecine then, because we've all seen stuff come out of flying spot that is great. It obviously isn't the camera and lens because that won't affect grain so that leaves only the lab and the stock. You shot more than one stock and it was all grainy?? This makes me think it might not be the stock unless it was all from the same supplier. I'm thinking it really might be to do with your lab.

So its down to a process of elimination....till I figure out what's wrong.Different camera and lens this time.I'm going to try a different procesing lab if my 7245 is grainy. I rated it as 25 asa.

I loved that download with the hdcam vs the other cameras.I must say that I liked all 4 cameras but i was suprised how good their 16mm was.It hung right in there with the f900 in my opinion with just a tad of grain which was nice. Nice to know that if I get my act together that I could get images like that.

Do let me know how it turns out. I have to say that your footage scared me a bit!

love

Freya

[John_Pytlak]

edgebsl: the film in your clip looks like it had too much edge-enhancement during the transfer. Might also have a bit of process "reticulation". The pattern you are seeing does not seem to be grain, as much as excessive enhancement of grain or a physical surface effect like process reticulation.

What type of telecine was used for the transfer?

[edgebsl]

jusetan....
The filmo I have ,I have an extra gate for that I filed out.I filed out some extra metal too for the path from the lens to the gate to be clear.I havent shot with it yet but I can use either gate. I have no idea how accurate the parrallex finder is. I imaging there is a lot of guesswork with or without the s16 gate.

John ,everything you see except for the blue /green room was done on an older rank cintel mark 3 and I'm pretty sure that he did a pretty straight transfer.The band in the green room is FSFT and you can see how he tried to hide the grain a little.We unded up with what he called "trailing" but it looks like a watery rippling effect to me.I definitely like the shadow better.

Can the developing bring out grain? Could the lab be screwing up the mixture of chemicals and have something off?

If my next batch is grainy ,I'm going to do the next one withe forde for processing and then send to flying spot. They are more expensive but I guess you get what you pay for.

[francis]

im looking at the arr 2b i have sitting here and thinking why dont you get an old one of these and get 35mm short ends, thatll really show him something

[John_Pytlak]

Yes, there are some things in processing that could enhance grain, such as push-processing or silver retention. Unless you asked for either, it is unlikely a commercial motion picture lab would have missed such a problem.

The older Rank telecines were pretty specular, so if you are not careful, they can enhance anything that scatters light, like grain or surface imperfections.

[Justin Lovell]

jusetan....
The filmo I have ,I have an extra gate for that I filed out.I filed out some extra metal too for the path from the lens to the gate to be clear.I havent shot with it yet but I can use either gate. I have no idea how accurate the parrallex finder is. I imaging there is a lot of guesswork with or without the s16 gate.

Thanks for the response.

I'll look into this as well, i just don't know how much it will gain if all you see in the extra area is vignetting. I think my model is the Filmo 70DR.

[edgebsl]

im looking at the arr 2b i have sitting here and thinking why dont you get an old one of these and get 35mm short ends, thatll really show him something

I've been contemplating an arri2 or a fully serviced and tricked out konvas package.($2500 would go a long way with a konvas package,could probably get a real nice one-crystal motor ,mags,matte box,lenses etc)

But, both would be hard to hand hold.16mm is already too expensive..going 35mm I could save some money on short ends but my processing still goes up and even at say 12 cents a foot....that's still more expensive than fresh 16mm.

Plus ,with the gsmo...I have two 400ft mags.That's 11 mins of running time per mag.I could theoretically shoot an entire music video with those two mags giving me 22 mins of footage with one loading! I know that's a low ratio, but I'm just saying you could do it.
It also fits nicely on the shoulder and is pretty light. it's easy to load too. So ,I would love for it work out using it.

I know everyone says it's not so much the camera but the film,exposure and lens that dictates the image ,but I have a feling the the Cinema Products cam is going to show big improvement over the k3 stuff.

But ,you're right.I think with 35mm....there is more room for error.not that you can get away with bad shooting but even grainy 35mm looks pretty impressive.To get 16mm to really blow someone away it seems you need to do everything right to 'squeeze' the format to it's maximum.

So I will shoot a little more. If I can't get satisfactory results ...hopefully I can sell it for a good price.I think the fact that it has been serviced and that I can use my footage to show that it works and the registration is fine might help.

[edgebsl]

Just got back the 7245.
No grain! At least its very fine.

Of course the outdoor shots I was over exposing the crap out of it, but I knew I was pushing it pretty hard.The sun was setting so I really should have been getting a reflected reading too.I should order the lumigrid for the l398. The indoor stuff ,I knew I didnt have enough light but there's still very little grain. I'm suprised I got an image.

The registration on the GSMO is rock steady.Like a painting.

This was done on the same rank setup.A short end from film emporium.

I'm going to keep buying my stock through them.

[edgebsl]

I thought I'd give an update to my progress.

We got a really grainless test roll , but discovered upon close inspection it was really soft.The color bars at the beginning of the tape were badly bleeding on one another so I am supposing it was the rank.I sent the neg back to the lab and they are trying to figure it out.

Meanwhile we shot a commercial for a tattoo shop.I used a recan of 7218 from film emporium and sent it to Post Works in NY for processing and transfer on a spirit to dvcam.

We used a lot of direct key lighting ,exposing at 250 asa and metering on the skin but not the very hottest parts.We kept the fill lights low so it should be a really contrasty look.

We also inserted the xl2 after every shot at 24p with a 1/48th shutter.That stuff looks really good.Although everything in the background is in focus.

The transfer is scheduled to come thursday or friday so I will report back monday.Fingers crossed!

[jaxshooter]

I need to do more tests and practice so I wanted to burn a 400 ft roll of b&w 200T.If it comes out good, I reasoned that some b&w shots might be cool.I'll be doing it for free since I was planning on more tests anyway.

My colleague responded with..." I'm open to ideas I guess. I just don't want the quality to be compromised, and I don't want the project to be drug out forever waiting for film to come back. It's cool to use film, but in all honesty, I'd rather see better, crisper quality, as long as it doesn't have the 60i look to it.


"I'd rather not have the grainy beat up look " and
"It needs to look as good as possible. "

So video noise is OK to these people,but film grain is not???I'll never understand that.I agree with what one poster said about shooting a slower speed color negative and desaturating in post.If you're committed to the 200,then you may try over exposing by a stop or two.

[edgebsl]

This time, the transfer on the spirit cleaned house with deep color and sharp detail! I will post some stills soon!

[edgebsl]

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