Good enough...

[joshua csehak]

It is interesting that the likes of David Lean, Jacques Tati and Stanley Kubrick strive for deep focus even on 70mm, while shallow depth of field is all over Vimeo and Youtube!

It is quickly becoming "DSLR look" much more than "film look".

And freaking Citizen Kane for crying out loud!

You can lead a horse to a S35-size sensor, but you can't make him stop down to 5.6.

The BIGGEST complaint I hear from those I am around about movies is not about resolution, it's about the latest trend to have extremely close shots and ridiculous camera movement. (Bourne series).

Oh man don't get me started on that. "Mr. Damon, we need to shoot a fight scene. Grab this guy and jump and spin around for 5 minutes while we hold the camera 2 feet away from you. That'll give us all the coverage we need."

 

[David Rasberry]

I dont think people can create what they think other people want because if that is what Hollywood is doing they must think we are violent, foul, demoralized pieces of filth.

The guys who stick to their vision always come out on top and the guys who dont are forgotten or they burn out and people will see them for the hacks they really are.


Its almost sad that a DP pours his heart and soul into something to the point of financial ruin and he loses relationships and everything suffers while he pays his dues for years.

All the technical skill and knowledge and years of working his ass off and one day he/she finds themselves successful sitting behind a camera filming Superbad.

:frown2:

so in short no, its not good enough till we kill the system.

It's not all one way or the other. Genre films are all about creating for a market with known tastes. It provides opportunities for honing skills that can ultimately serve your art as well as pay the bills.

I like this Alec Baldwin quote from his Actor's Studio interview:

" Sometimes you get to create art, sometimes you're just the plumber putting in a sink."

 

[Steve Das]

...I think it is a ridiculous idea to show off shallow depth of field just to make it look like film. Think about several visionary filmmakers - Kubrick, Welles, Antonioni, Renoir, who were striving for deep focus....

Very true...but remember these directors are
on sets and locations that are professionally designed..
lit..and dressed with particular story and shots in mind. In this
case of course they wanted to show off the sets and environments
as much as they could with deep focus shots. Deep focus adds
to the overall production value. Think about it what is the point
in building something if it's just going to be a blur in the background.

People posting shorts on Vimeo and youtube don't have sets...they
locations that are stuffed with non-aesthetic distracting clutter
..and bric-a-brac. Easiest way to deal with it is to just to blow
it all out of focus.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

Very true...but remember these directors are
on sets and locations that are professionally designed..
lit..and dressed with particular story and shots in mind. In this
case of course they wanted to show off the sets and environments
as much as they could with deep focus shots. Deep focus adds
to the overall production value. Think about it what is the point
in building something if it's just going to be a blur in the background.

People posting shorts on Vimeo and youtube don't have sets...they
locations that are stuffed with non-aesthetic distracting clutter
..and bric-a-brac. Easiest way to deal with it is to just to blow
it all out of focus.

Like I said, shallow depth of field does have its uses. Eliminating clutter is one. However, I was meaning to say a lot of shorts I see these days have shallow depth of field EVERYWHERE! INT. locations are after all not so much different from INT. sets; perhaps just more realistic.

 

[chrislancaster]

And freaking Citizen Kane for crying out loud!

You can lead a horse to a S35-size sensor, but you can't make him stop down to 5.6.

Quote of the day. :lol:

 

[joshua csehak]

Here's what I was talking about with the blurriness. Exhibit A is a frame grab at 1:1 (1000x700 crop from a 1920x1080 source) from a clip of my desk lamp with a ruler and a couple brushes behind it. You can see that, while nice, and gorgeous compared to a DVX, it's pretty fuzzy.

The 2nd attachment is the same thing, but with the in-camera sharpening set to 2 (of 7). Anything more than that starts to look really bad to my eye. You can tell from the haloing that the sharpening is applied to the image, so the rawest form is with sharpening at 0, which is what Philip Bloom recommends. The guys who shot House said theirs was set to 3 or 4. I find I get best results with it set to 0 and using Graeme's GSharpen filter in FCP, but I might play around with setting it to 1 or 2, and using the filter too. ANYways, this is a RED forum, and the point is, it's fuzzy even with a bit of sharpening. (You don't want to see it at 7. Nasty.)

Attachment 3 is the same exact shot and crop (iso at 640 I'm pretty sure, lens around 50mm and aperture at 4, IIRC), but taken in stills mode, and scaled down about 40%. It's like night and day. I wish I had a RED on hand to compare it with, but my experience with the RED tells me that this is what a frame grab from a RED would look like. They're all equivalent crops of a 1920x1080 image, but they're so different.

Attachment 4 is a 1:1 crop from the 5k stills mode image. You can see the kind of detail the lens resolves to, and extrapolate how much is lost when you go to movie mode. This is what kills me. People insist on high-quality glass for these things -- okay, maybe it's good for chromatic aberration, and cine lenses are definitely good for long focus throw and low breathing, but for sharpness, there's no way in hell it matters.

If you take the first 3 images in photoshop and scale them down to 50%, the stills shot still looks sharpest, though the sharpened one holds up very well. It's only when you scale them down to SD that you can't tell the difference. Which to my mind makes these cameras, with respect to resolution, perfect for SD delivery mediums. But if I was shooting a show like House that's gonna be broadcast in 1080p, you can bet I'd have a Red One in my hands.

 

[Rick Burnett]

Here's what I was talking about with the blurriness. Exhibit A is a frame grab at 1:1 (1000x700 crop from a 1920x1080 source) from a clip of my desk lamp with a ruler and a couple brushes behind it. You can see that, while nice, and gorgeous compared to a DVX, it's pretty fuzzy.

Did you notice the red/blue on the ruler divisions on the 7D video grab? I can't stand that on my 7D. I will be SO happy when I have the S35 and don't have to watch for this stuff anymore.

 

[joshua csehak]

Did you notice the red/blue on the ruler divisions on the 7D video grab? I can't stand that on my 7D. I will be SO happy when I have the S35 and don't have to watch for this stuff anymore.

Yup. I hate it too. Very distracting. Is the due to moire?

Also distracting, but less so, is how some lines on the ruler (like the 5 1/2" and 5 3/4" marks) are darker than the others. I'm pretty sure that's an artifact of the line-skipping.

 

[Rick Burnett]

Yup. I hate it too. Very distracting. Is the due to moire?

Also distracting, but less so, is how some lines on the ruler (like the 5 1/2" and 5 3/4" marks) are darker than the others. I'm pretty sure that's an artifact of the line-skipping.

My assumption is yes. I've not found a good description of why the coloring happens as it does since I am not 100% sure what they do with the line-skipped data. Cameras like the GH1 do not show the colors in the Moire like the 7D does.

I thought rainbows were supposed to make you happy? They definitely do not make me happy with the 7D.

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Very true...but remember these directors are
on sets and locations that are professionally designed..
lit..and dressed with particular story and shots in mind. In this
case of course they wanted to show off the sets and environments
as much as they could with deep focus shots. Deep focus adds
to the overall production value. Think about it what is the point
in building something if it's just going to be a blur in the background.

People posting shorts on Vimeo and youtube don't have sets...they
locations that are stuffed with non-aesthetic distracting clutter
..and bric-a-brac. Easiest way to deal with it is to just to blow
it all out of focus.

Very good point. More low budget productions will go for a very shallow look to hide uninteresting and distracting locations, as well as create a film-ish look. If you really take the time to select or set up beautiful locations, the audience will never say "man this looks so cheap, where is all the shallow dof?" I personally love both shallow and deep dof. Photographers utilize different stops for certain situations and can be happy with both shallow and deep focus but many first time shooters on vimeo think they can boost their production value with bags-o-bokeh.

Some of the best looking films of all time had very deep focus. No one did sets and locations better than Kubrick and due to heavy his use of wide-angle lenses, many of his films kept most of the image in focus. I my opinion, a great location in deep focus is much better than a dull location in shallow focus.

Some Kubrickian examples below:

 

[Rick Burnett]

Let's not forget another reason DSLRs today are using shallow DoF.....Moire. This is why I am so excited about the 2/3 Scarlet. Deep DoF will be easy ANY look good.

 

[Bryce O]

I'm starting to wonder why did Red even produced the Epic? I mean... being as 35mm is for amateurs and youtube. Why would you want one when shallow DOF is for nEwbZ???!!!.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I'm starting to wonder why did Red even produced the Epic? I mean... being as 35mm is for amateurs and youtube. Why would you want one when shallow DOF is for nEwbZ???!!!.

Shallow DOF can be a beautifull thing.
The point is more like:
Shallow DOF is not the answer to everything.

With an Epic, you can choose, and still compose images on great S35 glass.

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Shallow DOF can be a beautifull thing.
The point is more like:
Shallow DOF is not the answer to everything.

With an Epic, you can choose, and still compose images on great S35 glass.

The 2/3" cam has a ton of benefits as well. 1st, there is a ton of Super16 fast glass out there that will work great with the Scarlet. Second, the 2/3" chip can pull of deep focus easier than s35 and still do decent shallow dof. Keep in mind that most films shot on s35 do not shoot wide open on the lens. The 2/3 wide open with a fast lens (T1.5 ish) will produce dof similar to a s35 camera stopped down to around T4 so really, using ND filters and a fast lens, you can get acceptable shallow dof with a 2/3 sensor. Also, the size of the sensor will allow you to keep your subjects in focus easier if stopped down. The only major drawback is the drop in sensitivity in low light, but really, with the higher framerates, I see the 2/3" as a better deal than the S35. Just my opinion.

 

[Frank Jakob Eik]

Shallow DOF

Shallow DOF

I'm starting to wonder why did Red even produced the Epic? I mean... being as 35mm is for amateurs and youtube. Why would you want one when shallow DOF is for nEwbZ???!!!.

Tell that to National Geographic!

"The ability to control depth of field is is one of the factors that separates the snapshooter from the advanced photographer" Quote: National Geographic Photography Field Guide.

So if shallow DOF is for nEwbZ then they should fire a lot of staff (cause you can´t afford noobs to work at NG).

 

[Gunleik Groven]

The magic word is "Control", not "Thou sghalt allways shoot wide open @ 1.3 on the biggest sensor/filmstock you can find"

 

[Bryce O]

Tell that to National Geographic!

"The ability to control depth of field is is one of the factors that separates the snapshooter from the advanced photographer" Quote: National Geographic Photography Field Guide.

So if shallow DOF is for nEwbZ then they should fire a lot of staff (cause you can´t afford noobs to work at NG).

I was just being sarcastic... :thumbsup:

All these recent post were just funny because as soon as another camera nears Red territory, or surpasses it, in the case of the 5D's FF35 DOF, it's instantly declared amateurish and completely non-professional. Some of the posts in the last few pages were hysterical.

Honestly, the specs on Scarlet 2/3" look great, but I still don't think it's the best option for narrative story telling. People like the dream-like look of 35 DOF and bokeh. I want Scarlet for an VFX camera. That's what the specs are really geared for. No other camera even comes close to resolution, frame-rate, and the RAW codec for keying. I don't think Scarlet will be a DSLR killer... It'll probably be more like a Phantom-rental killer.

 

[Frank Jakob Eik]

1080 vs higher res.

1080 vs higher res.

In 1993 you could go into a computer store and the salesman would tell you that you could never fill a 20 MegaByte hard disk, it is so large. You never need more than 20 MegaByte. Well today we know that illusion didn´t last.

For the question if 1080p is good enough, in 17 years people will say remember in 2010 when Jim of Red asked if 1080p was good enough and have a great laugh .:lol:

Jim, please go rent a pile of really old visual effect intensive movies, were people did say at the time that the effects were so real.. and remember when Pal NTSC and VHS came.. Everyone said it is so great You do not need any more resolution than that.

In 1985 the Commodore Amiga came and had so many colors, it had so great graphics, today...:lol:
(Well it was great at the time it came)

So Jim the question is: Do you build a camera for today or tomorrow?

(The reason I want a Red is because I plan to shoot tomorrow, and then a 1080p will be obsolete.)

 

[Chris Pickle]

However, I think this fixation on making a perfect camera for tomorrow has gotten a bit out of hand. Don't wanna sound all deep, but I love that comment from Voltaire (I think) "don't let the perfect, be the enemy of good" I'd much rather stand on the shoulders of my previous accomplishments, then to wait.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Hasn't this thread run its course... ten time over?