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Difference 65mm/70mm to Epic?

Joseph Ward

Joseph Ward

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What is the difference for 65mm/70mm film camera to Epic? Will it convert better to imax? Thanks. :unsure:
 
In terms of resolution, EPIC would be a good fit. There's some 4K DI going on in the IMAX world right now. But EPIC won't have the same optical characteristics of 70mm cameras. Other aspects such as dynamic range, we can only speculate on because we don't know anything about the new sensor and its abilities.
 
65mm is still likely to wax Epic. But how many people are shooting 65mm? Next to none.
 
Technically you'd want to double the RED sensor size and pixels from 4K to 8K to be in the large film format ballpark... though IMAX work is now done in all sorts of file sizes, from 2K D.I.'s like for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the last "Harry Potter" movie being blown-up to IMAX, not to mention HD-shot projects like "Superman Returns" and "Speed Racer". But ideally, you'd be shooting well over 4K for true IMAX-type photography on an IMAX screen.

A 15-perf horizontal 65mm IMAX negative is the equivalent of three 5-perf 65mm frames, and a 5-perf 65mm frame is twice as wide and one-perf taller than a 4-perf 35mm cine frame. So if you would normally scan a 4x3 4-perf tall 35mm frame at 4K x 3K, that's close to 3x 3K (for 12-perf, three 4-perf frames end to end) to get close to a 15-perf long IMAX frame, or 9K, to match the same scanning resolution.

So my feeling is that a true digital replacement for an IMAX camera would have to be in the 6K to 8K range, though people will make due with less obviously.
 
ARRI estimates the equivalent pixel size to match the resolution of a 65mm camera (with modern optics and film) at 8746 x 3855 pixels.

The aperture size of 65mm is 52.5 x 23 mm which is double the width of Super 35, hence the DoF is shallow, even at medium stops.

All this being said, 65mm film acquisition (at least 5-perf) is all but dead (IMAX is 15 perf, and it's a niche market). So the best way to get large format quality is with a very high end digital cinema camera.

If the Epic enlarges the captured area to 24 mm wide or bigger, the DoF will be slightly less than RED One. With the full S35mm aperture, shooting at f2 will give the same DoF as 65mm at f4.

I think it's possible that with full S35 size capture, very high resolution fast lenses (like the Zeiss Master Primes) and the RED Epic, you should be able to get a 4K image that when properly projected will closely approximate the quality of a 70mm 4th generation contact-printed release print from a 65mm original.
 
Now that I think about it, 4K digital projection might be a good way to show 65mm originated movies. One day there might be more 4K projectors than 70mm projectors.

What would be needed is an 8K scanner for 65mm (does this already exist?) From the 8K scan you could make a really good 4K master.

I've only seen 70mm projection of 65mm movies twice (2001 and Lawrence). In both cases it was AMAZING. As a filmmaker you owe it to yourself to see this quality at least once, to know what is possible, and what we are shooting for in the future.
 
IMAX is going digital for 100 new screens.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=118725&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1085167&highlight=
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=118725&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1117681&highlight=
Imax DMR is usually done at ~3K.

Digital 8K is done and working, had the joy to see it working in 2006 from the NHK.
One has to be closer than ~1 meter to the ~10 meter screen to get any idea if there would be any pixels.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/98/Uhdfuji0000.jpg

The difference between 4K and 2K is almost impossible to see (with an human eye) if you dont have
a) a seat in very very first rows of the cinema
a) a/b split of the exact same image

Whenn IMAX or 65mm is projected via 4K, it does look good. As sharp as the 4K digital.
In 2007, there was a nice shootout of 1080/2K, 35mm2K/4K, 65mm/imax and digital 4K at the D-Cinema summit of IBC07.
35mm scanned (Spider 3, kitchen scene, street and alley scene) at 4K looked grainy in comparision. 65 mm quality was slightly below 4K. Only IMAX and digital 4K (Dalsa was used mainly) really showed the full potential of the Sony SRX.

However - one has to be *really* close to the screen to see any difference. As with 24bit96khz audio, digital exhibition is beginning to surpass the human eyes.

In todays (and yesterdays) 35mm mechanical projection cinema, no matter if with DI or without, one doesnt even get 1000 lpm - so the discussion is pretty academic ayhow.

From the 400-500 cinemas which are going digital monthly, >90% chose 2K, among other also for these reasons.
 
CinemaTechnic said:
ARRI estimates the equivalent pixel size to match the resolution of a 65mm camera (with modern optics and film) at 8746 x 3855 pixels.
Click to expand...

That seems maybe a little bit high. Film looses a lot of luster in the scanning process. The Canon 1Ds Mark III is roughly the same size frame as Vista Vision, I think. And it's certainly the same frame size as 35mm stills. It's resolution is 21MP (5616 x 3744). I don't know if a chemical 35mm still camera could match that resolution and image fidelity, after being scanned? Something makes me think, no.

Now, standard 65mm is a bit wider than 35mm still frames, right? But you have to figure that even with the wider negative, after you scan the 65mm moving film, it's not going to beat a digital sensor that is shooting 6000x 3500 or whatever. Technically it might hold a little bit more info in its chemical state, but if your end goal is a digital copy (which everything will be at some point), then you really would not need a sensor much beyond the 1Ds Mark III's resolution to match 65mm film.
 
I've had stills shot with my Contax G2 in 24 x 36 mm film format (nearly the same as VistaVision) scanned on an Imacon scanner, producing a file that's roughly 5155 x 7732 pixels, or 39.9 MegaPixels!

There are details in the image that are about two pixels wide. I'll post a sample here if you guys don't believe me (someone PM me and tell me how to post images properly here).

According to ARRI's "4K+ Systems: Theory Basics for Motion Picture Imaging", audience members with good (20/20) vision can see 4K resolution viewing a 25 meter [82 ft] wide screen at up to 20 meters [65 ft] distance.

I can DEFINITELY hear the difference between 16 bit 44.1 kHz audio and 24 bit 96 kHz audio (and I'm 40 and can't hear above 16 kHz). And remember how Sony told everyone that 44.1 kHz was "perfect sound forever"? [and 1080i compressed HD was perfect, blah blah]

I've heard that some audio manufacturer did a test with sampling rates, and people with good hearing could hear differences until about 500 KHz, then they could hear no improvement above that.

So 96 kHz audio does not surpass the human hear, and 4K digital cinema projection does not surpass the human eye.

5K capture and 4K projection. As Ridley Scott would say "It's a great start".
 
Hmmm... I don't know. I'm very skeptical of scanning technology. The file size might be 39MP, but that in no way means that your 39MP film scan could hold a candle to a Hasselblad 39MP shot, for example.

If the scanner is so great, why not cut out the middle man (chemical film) and just shoot digitally? That's basically what DSLRs are.
 
Tom said:
If the scanner is so great, why not cut out the middle man (chemical film) and just shoot digitally? That's basically what DSLRs are.
Click to expand...

Scanners don't have to work in real time... and most DSLR's don't have to shoot 24 times a second, if not more. This is why single-sensor digital cine cameras like the RED, Phantom, Dalsa, etc. are not as easy to build as some people think. There are heat issues with firing a sensor that often, and data management issues with processing and recording that much data.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Scanners don't have to work in real time... and most DSLR's don't have to shoot 24 times a second, if not more. This is why single-sensor digital cine cameras like the RED, Phantom, Dalsa, etc. are not as easy to build as some people think. There are heat issues with firing a sensor that often, and data management issues with processing and recording that much data.
Click to expand...

Yeah. My DSLR's sensor get really hot when I shoot timelapse at night with like 60 or 90 second exposures - for 8 hours at a time, with only 7 second intervals to "cool off." It's funny, because when I shoot during the winter, and it's 30 degrees out at night, the sensor does fine (no overheating). But when I shot last summer at Lake Powell, when it was 85 degrees at night, my sensor got really hot and super noisy.

David, do you agree with my point that a 35mm (still frame) scan at 39mp will not even come close to a Hasselblad 39mp shot, in terms of a digital final? (Of course, the Hasselblad is a larger format.)

Every time I have seen even top-quality neg scans from chemical flim, I have never been impressed with the resolution, color, etc. Scans just look awful, to me. I would very much like to see a comparison, for example, between a 21mp RAW shot on the new Canon 1Ds Mark III vs a 21mp scan of a 35mm still shot on a regular Canon EOS chemical camera. My guess is, that displayed digitally, the 1Ds will blow the chemical scan out of the water.
 
Tom said:
Yeah. My DSLR's sensor get really hot when I shoot timelapse at night with like 60 or 90 second exposures - for 8 hours at a time, with only 7 second intervals to "cool off." It's funny, because when I shoot during the winter, and it's 30 degrees out at night, the sensor does fine (no overheating). But when I shot last summer at Lake Powell, when it was 85 degrees at night, my sensor got really hot and super noisy.

David, do you agree with my point that a 35mm (still frame) scan at 39mp will not even come close to a Hasselblad 39mp shot, in terms of a digital final? (Of course, the Hasselblad is a larger format.)

Every time I have seen even top-quality neg scans from chemical flim, I have never been impressed with the resolution, color, etc. Scans just look awful, to me. I would very much like to see a comparison, for example, between a 21mp RAW shot on the new Canon 1Ds Mark III vs a 21mp scan of a 35mm still shot on a regular Canon EOS chemical camera. My guess is, that displayed digitally, the 1Ds will blow the chemical scan out of the water.
Click to expand...

This is a way old topic in the stills photo world and such comparisons were carried out years back with 1Ds (1.edition) and scanned 645 film and the Canon was slightly better or almost there depending on the specifics of the tests, but no doubt as to being better than 35mm film scans even on provia slide film.
Today the Hassy 39MP, PhaseOne 39MP, Leaf Aptus 31MP and Sinar 31MP offerings is bettering 4x5 largeformat film and comparisons towards 5x7 and 8x10 is beeing made and with the multishot 39MP back it seems to be better than 8x10, but that is a whole different story.

Scanned MP vs. RAW capture MP is definitely NOT equal. 8000ppi scans (max I can test) of 35mm positive stills film which is way better than the movie stocks, show no benefit over 4-5000ppi scans (depending on the stock), and it was done on my drum scanner and on a colleague's Imacon scanner.
The gain above 3000ppi is mostly in grain shape, not real info - but I tend to prefer the higher scan ppi as the prints on paper look more natural when the grain is visible and important for the expression.
3000ppi of a 35mm stills is a 12MP scan file. A 11MP dSLR (1Ds) is way better than the scans or resolution and delivers cleaner results.
One example to look at is: http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1ds/1ds-field.shtml
and remember this is the 1.edition of the 1Ds camera and years back, the new 1DsIII is a lot better.

Claiming IMAX is equivalent to a 8-9K digital cinema camera is ridiculous, claiming it needs a 8K scan for DI is at best being conservative and playing it safe, but scanned MP is definitely not equal to raw capture MP, thats a fact known for years in the stills photo business.
MHO.
 
Robin, thanks for the info. That's pretty much what I figured.

Do you beieve this claim that "ARRI estimates the equivalent pixel size to match the resolution of a 65mm camera (with modern optics and film) at 8746 x 3855 pixels"?

To me, that number sounds far too high. It's much higher than the 1Ds Mark III's resolution, but I seriously doubt that a scanned 65mm movie neg is going to blow the 1Ds Mark III out of the water, like those number would seem to suggest. I mean, that might be the max resolution that 65mm cine film can resolve to in a scan, but I bet after scanning the chemical film, a 6000x3500 RAW digital frame (using the same optics) would easily match it, or beat it, in terms of clean resolution.
 
Just keep in mind that movies are made up of moving images, so an individual film frame, while showing some degree of graininess, tends to look cleaner as frames are flashed in succession.

Also, tests clearly show that the 35mm motion picture frame needs to be scanned at 2K to 4K, 4K preferable, to capture all the information on the frame. You can see that here:

http://www.etconsult.com/papers/Technical Issues in Cinema Resolution.pdf

So if 24mm-wide frame of a full aperture 4-perf 35mm film is best scanned at 4096 pixels, then basic math says that a piece of film that is 70.1mm wide (IMAX) needs to be scanned at 11,964 pixels across just to equal the same resolution as the 4,096 pixel scan of the 4-perf 35mm piece of film where the frame is 24mm wide. Otherwise, a 6K scan of an IMAX frame is equivalent to a 2K scan of 35mm in simple real estate.

As for 8K to 9K RAW being ridiculous for a digital version of an IMAX camera, personally I believe it has to be double that of a 4K RAW camera to be a significant improvement for throwing onto a 5-story tall screen. Of course, people will make do with less, as they currently are, but that doesn't mean they should. IMAX has to be signicantly better than what people currently see in 35mm or even 5-perf 65mm for it to be a special experience.

5-perf 65mm is twice as wide as 4-perf 35mm, so if 4-perf 35mm should be scanned at 4K, it's no big stretch to think that some piece of film that is physical twice as wide should be scanned at 8K.

Just remember that there is a difference between ideal scanning resolutions and picture resolution, which shouldn't even be measured in terms of pixels. The number of pixels in an image is not an indication of sharpness. So ARRI is being a bit confusing by mixing the two issues up. This will continue as long as people keep thinking that pixel resolution and sharpness are the same thing.
 
I agree that nothing shot digitally can even come close to being legitimate on an IMAX screen right now. That neg is so massive that it will be years before a digital IMAX is possible. The only digital camera I think that might be close to doing IMAX work, as I have said many times before, would be a timelapse IMAX shot on something like a 39mp 'Blad.

As for 65mm, my guess is that singles frames from the 1Ds Mark III could compete with single cine frames of 65mm. I could be wrong, but I bet after scanning the 65mm will lose some luster. In other words, I don't think digital is all that far away from being able to compete with 65mm. It all comes back to dynamic range, really. Technology has proven over and over and over again that the pixel count and resolution will continue to increase year to year. The real question out there is increasing dynamic range.
 
And full film-like color and random pixels, please. :)

I wonder how this random grains thing could be achieved.

Isn't it possible in post?

Cause just adding digital grain doesn't do it really. Not the same effect....

The image-carrying pixels themselves have to look randomized somehow...

Hmm...

I think that the day digital will really replace film is the day when it starts to physically acquire the image the way film does...

Three-layer sensors, 4K+ full resolution, 15+ stops DR, random pixels... you know?... all the good things. :)
 
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