Nov 27
Going digital in cinematography
Achieving the “film-look” is still the main criteria why many filmmakers and cinematographers prefer film-based equipment, 35mm or 16mm, cameras over the sometimes cheaper digital alternatives like camcorders or digital cinematography 24p HD equipment.
The need to cut down costs on independent and low- to no-budget productions urged many filmmakers to think about alternatives, while pleasing asthetic demands.The issues arising from not using a film camera and need to be adressed are the difference in: depth of field, the technical background of interlaced vs. progressive scanning, resolution and grain, mostly inferior lenses, exposure and light reception of the sensor and colorimetry.
The post-production approach
As many semi-professional filmmakers had no access to high-quality equipment (but what they had was a simple camcorder) various techniques were invented to post-process an image to make it look like it was filmed with a film based camera. This process became known as doing the “filmlook” on an image. Although many approaches were able to reproduce filmic aesthetics quite well by simulating shutter and film’s color bias, most processes resulted in a loss of quality - similar to the idea of just overimposing letterbox bars and sacrificing the underlying image area for that.
Some methods are homegrown, a set of tools, others are editing software plugin-ins or filters. Some free, some commercial. All in all they are too many to list them all.
Mentioned as a side-note here, the reversal of adding blur, which is most common in a cinematic environment, is the need to increase the depth of field. Focus stacking is one digital image processing technique which enables this by combining multiple images taken at different focus distances “to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field than any of the individual source images. Available programs for multi-shot DOF enhancement include Syncroscopy AutoMontage, PhotoAcute Studio, Helicon Focus and CombineZM.” (wikipedia). Such demands are most common in macro photography where illustrating images need a deep focus that wouldn’t be possible due to pysical limitations otehrwise.
Semi-professional 35mm adaptors
One of the differences between the domain of digital (mostly camcorder) images and true film camera results is the camcorder’s lack of film grain, the inferior lens quality and the larger depth of field due to a smaller sensor dimension.
The latter two of the problems can be addressed by using film quality lenses and a thing called a 35mm adapter. The difference in depth of field (or sometimes depth of focus) is caused by the relation of the lens’ focal length and the camera’s image plane (or sensor dimensions). Most consumer and prosumer cameras/camcorders use relatively small CCDs, which, combined with their internal fixed optic, results in a deep depth of field. While this might be a good thing for the usual family usage, so grandma is always in focus, it subjectively damages the “quality look” of the recorded image compared to a film camera’s output.
With the advent of prosumer semi-professional cameras with the option to interchange lenses, handy people were able to mess with the light’s path into the camera and invented a number of devices to compensate a camcorders optical defects in terms of DoF.
There are do-it-yourself approaches. If you feel inclined to try it yourself, there are still many tutorials online on how to do that, a relic from the time when commercial solutions weren’t available.
On the commercial side, there are basically two types of adapters available:
1. The active ones: they are larger and use a motor that spins a shutter disc. They are heavier and cumbersome, need larger bases and sometimes infere with on location sound recording. Although they are more expensive than the second, they give better results in image quality, and reduce the effects of noise in the image by the roating shutter.
2. Static adapters are quiter and most do not compensate the flip side effect.
All adapters have some problems in common: they deteriorate the image quality (some more, some less) and they steal a bit of light. Another problem with altering the light path is that in the process the image flips, which some adapters try to compensate for. Here is a list of commercially available 35mm adapters:
- CINEMEK G35 (fortmerly Guerilla 35). Is one of the more poppular and has extensively been used by Spanish DoP MacGregor
- REDROCK’s active M2 was quite popular but seems to have stopped producing it lately.
- P+S TECHINIK. Especially in German shortfilms, the cumbersome but active Mini35 adapter is quite popular. As it is quite expensive, you can rent it from many rental houses.
- CINEDOF. Gone?
- LETUS35. A range of procuts, some prevent the flip-effect
- CINEVATE BREVIS35. carbon-fibre chassis, quite small and microcontroller operated with interchangeable lens mounts
- KINOMATIC’s Movietube is compared to the Mini35 an elegant solution, offering impressive quality and a rigid chassis. Some experiences with the MOVIEtube are here. And more info, also about the Movietube is here.
- SGPRO a small adapter in the tradition of home grown solutions for about 600€.
- WDR35 an italian manufacturer of simple 35mm adapters, similar to the SGPRO and M2.
- INDIE 35 another simple adapter, the H@, available for 510$.
Professional digital cinematography
Among other early adopters, most popularly George Lucas pioneered the adoption of digital cinematography in cooperation with Sony. Today most professional equipment manufacturers offer digital movie cameras.
All of these solution use a full (or very large) format sensor to get rid of the effects of smaller CCDs as prominent in the consumer and prosumer domain. And they offer dynamic recording reates, superior RAW and compression recording modes and professional grade image procession.
Here is a short overview:
- Sony CineAlta, a HDCAM Series, among them the new F35, is a 24P HD high definition video camera most notably for being used on Star Wars Episode II and Sin City.
- ARRI, the German folks at Arnold & Richter, long time supplier of high quality optical devices, introduced their line of digital cameras starting in 2004 with the ARRI D-20 and 2008 the D-21, rivaling Panavision, as the D-21 was used on Bond 22, a Quantum of Solace.
- RED, the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, helmed by Oakley founder Jim Jannard, started in 2005 with its RED One to offer professional digital film cameras. Although a bit of bragging about resolution helped them kickstart the company (a high sensor resolution was proclaimed while in reality this resolution needed to be broken down to achieve a good image), the company today offers a range of very high resolution devices, along with trendy marketing, makes them popular in many filmmaker circles.
- Thomson Viper, the Viper is a three-sensor camera design, captures a 1920 × 1080 pixel image. In addition to uncompressed RGB output, the Viper is also capable of outputting RAW sensor data, which allows for more control in post-production.
- Panavision Genesis, Panavision’s step into the digital domain
- furthermore: Panasonic VeriCam, Silicon Imaging SI-2K, Vision Research Phantom, Weisscam, GS Vitec noX and the Fusion Camera System. More reading: a list on wikipedia.
