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Film versus Panavision Genesis

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GlennChan

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This has been posted on the CML lists but I don't think it's been posted here. Check out a comparison between film and Genesis footage:

http://media.panavision.com/ScreeningRoom/Screening_Room/IGFC/ScreenTest/ScreenTest.html

I suppose we shouldn't comment on which we think is what so we don't influence what others think. EDIT: Ok you know what, that isn't going to happen. So please stop reading now and go take a look at the video. And then read the rest of this thread which probably contains 'spoilers'.
 
I'm sure it would be better to view a version with higher resolution and lower compression. But at a first glance, I certainly couldn't tell the difference between them.
 
That test was set up to make the cameras look similar. You could put an EX1 in there at that resolution/compression and I don't think any untrained eye could pick it out.
 
I've seen the test digitally projected and had a hard time spotting the differences, but then, remember this is 35mm transferred to HD, so it has been brought down to the same resolution as the Genesis recording. But the dynamic range in the test sure seems similar.

Everyone seems to feel that something shot in full sun is the worst case scenario for dynamic range, but the truth is that it isn't all that bad. In open space, there is about a three to four stop difference between sun and open shade -- I know, I did a lot of metering in order to fake that difference on a soundstage for "Big Love" and "Manure". Many digital cameras can handle that split assuming there are no white objects in the sun. In this case, the hardest thing is not the difference between the sun and the shade, but the sun glaring off the shiny car, which the Genesis seemed to handle pretty well.

Where the extra latitude of film comes in handy is when, for example, you have an object moving under a canopy of tree branches and leaves, where there can be some extreme differences between the shade (no longer open shade but deep shade) and full sun. Sometimes the difference is seven to ten stops, if not more.
 
IMO this only shows that it's at the point where it's irrelevant. Sure, if you sit there and strain your eyes and scrutinize and know what you're looking for, you can tell the difference. You can tell that the highlight falloff isn't quite as smooth or that there's a little more crunchiness on the darks or whatever. But ultimately what matters is this: will it distract your audience from the story you are trying to tell? If the answer is no, then the rest of this is an intellectual exercise that is becoming, IMO, tiresome.

This is not in response to Mr. Mullen, BTW, who I hold in the highest esteem. I'm just saying: if you have to really kill yourself looking for the differences, AND be an expert in the field to see them, they're probably not there, at least not in any sense that's meaningful in the long term.

Film and digital are about equal, so can we please stop arguing about it and get on with telling stories?
 
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* "Spoilers" below *

Here's what I saw:
1- On the first time looking through the video, it looked really similar. I pretty much didn't see any differences.

2- I think that was mostly because I was looking at the cars. And anyone watching the footage would more or less be looking at the cars. But if you look at some other areas of the image, then you start to notice the differences. In the first A and B shots, the sky looks clippy on one camera and the other is smooth. One camera has cyan fringes around everything while the other camera looks good.

3- There are some color differences between the cameras. In the thumbnails on a Panavision site (this one: http://www.panavision.com.au/ ), you can see that the sky is some turquoise color in one shot and blue in the other. To my eyes, it's a big difference.
In other shots the skies look close, so I'm not sure what's the story there.

4- If you look at the highlights on the car closely, there's some slightly weird colors in the highlights of one of the cameras + subtle color fringing. This is subtle.
In practice it probably wouldn't matter / people won't notice it. There are noticeable differences between the shots though it won't matter if people don't notice them. (Though the difference in the skies disturb me.)

5- Getting back to Red... I've seen some beautiful stuff shot on Red so that suggests film vs. digital might not be a big deal. And how good a production looks will likely come down to everything else (e.g. lighting, talent, art direction, etc.).
 
My two cents:
- they dont look the same (shadows have different tint).
- However you cannot say one looks worse than the other
- and it´s so hard to pick up which is film and which is not, that it´s mission acomplished for the Genesis.

My voting:
genesis
film
genesis
film
don´t know
don´t know
 
joelnet said:
That test was set up to make the cameras look similar. You could put an EX1 in there at that resolution/compression and I don't think any untrained eye could pick it out.
Click to expand...

Hi,

The test was done to see if they needed to go on shooting film, not to make the cameras look similar. An EX1 does not look that good, it's all about what a trained eye can see. Car commercials can cost $10,000,000 to make, it's important to use the very best technology available.

Stephen
 
You should watch always carefully in the shadows and then when you can see more details its about that is shot on film definitely.

Also a famous "shutter speed" difference between FILM and CMOS acquisition.

GvsF_A.jpg

Could be shot on FILM.

GvsF_B.jpg

Could be shot on GENESIS.

For me also the picture is pretty small for that analysis job (848x477 pixels) but you should watch it a couple of times (and get dizzy).

It shows that Panavision lenses are doing pretty well as usual, hope they are all shot on Primos L based on Leitz/Leica glass and design.
 
When I looked there was a pretty obvious difference in the highlight roll-off characteristics.

But really they should have had the cameras mounted in parallel for a proper test...

Graeme
 
Here's what I'm talking about regarding the highlights.
 
1200kpbs for a comparison footage...Panavision is saving on bandwidth ?

Here's a thought: how about if Red ditched those G-Speeds for IBC and just screened the test footage from Youtube ?
 
Any easy way to fool people on this type of pepsi challenge-style test is to overexpose the film just a tad. ;) Just saying.

Anyway, I think the point is pretty clear: Digital and film have become so close in quality now that other factors begin to trump the film vs digital debate.
 
Hmm so I thought that A, D, and E were film (and that they generally looked better) but it turns out that they were from the Genesis?!?!

Really?! Either the results were reversed, or I thought the Genesis looked more filmic than film. In the still I posted, the left image is supposedly film and doesn't handle highlights as well as the other shot.
 
Beginning to, but not quite match, so there are still technical differences and challenges...

I just started the D.I. tests for my two RED features and in an initial pass at some sample clips, I am finding the most problematic shots are the ones from "Stay Cool" where I had to use tungsten light at night at higher-than-320 ASA ratings, lighting set-ups where I haven't had as much problem with 500T color neg stocks. "Manure", which was a more controlled stage shoot, is much more consistent in noise level even though it is Build 15 instead of 16. And my overall impression of sharpness has been that it reminds me of Super-35 photography but falls short of 35mm anamorphic photography in terms of detail. Which is OK but I miss shooting 35mm anamorphic.

Part of the challenge is that "Stay Cool" has the chroma pumped very hard whereas "Manure" has it turned way down, so that the look of "Manure" in some ways is close to the look of the RAW files, whereas "Stay Cool" has a lot more saturation and contrast added, which is bringing out more digital artifacts, plus that movie was much lower in budget with a lot of available low-light photography in harsh conditions. But we just started the process and I'm looking for creative ways of dealing with things like the blue channel noise.

But after shooting digital for the last five months (RED and Genesis) I'm afraid that my feelings right now are similar to Harris Savides after he did "Zodiak" -- it's a little frustrating to use digital technologies that are almost as good as current 35mm technology. The back of your brain keeps nagging at you, asking "what's the point?" Of course, you know the primary reason, cost.

The thing is, that I prefer shooting digitally on the set, I prefer lighting for digital, and most of my directors have preferred it. The main problem for me always ends up with how it looks on the big screen in a film-out. RED and Genesis footage looks great on an HD monitor, so I'm not worried about broadcast and home video deliverables, even in HD.

I have another potential RED shoot coming along next spring, and my current attitude now is to be extremely conservative about exposing and lighting for it.

Hopefully when I'm finished with the D.I. process in December (I'm just doing a test right now, the real process begins in a month) I'll be happier. My timer did some of the timing of RED footage for some trade show, and he was very enthusiastic about how the RED timed compared to some other digital camera footage, so hopefully things will go well.

I think some of the problems of the "Stay Cool" clips we tested is how they were converted -- the facility wanted my metadata to track into the RAW conversions whereas I wanted them to ignore it so I could start at zero in terms of color balance, chroma, and contrast. So the 10-bit LOG DPX files we are working with already have some color-correction built into them, which is limiting. I'd rather work with something flatter at first. The conversions for "Manure" seem a lot better, more like traditional 10-bit LOG files from a film scan. So it's a work in progress.

Like I've said before, when shoot perfectly, film and (good) digital these days are harder to distinguish, but who shoots perfectly when on a tight schedule and budget, with ambitious directors? It's when you push these technologies that the inherent differences become more obvious.
 
I've seen that Panavision Genesis vs. 35mm road test projected in HD at Panavision -- it is very hard to tell the differences on the big screen but remember that the 35mm has gone to HD.

I've been shooting Genesis for a TV series that originally shot the pilot on 35mm (and I did four days of reshoots in 35mm for the pilot) and it is a very close match to 35mm but it does have some personality differences too.

Whereas the RED camera in tungsten light can have sometimes a muddy blue noise, the Genesis has a powdery red noise, subtle but there. The Genesis image also seems to have more high frequency detail on the verge of twittering compared to the RED image, which seems to have more "blunting" in the high frequency detail, with less aliasing.

Overexposure latitude of 35mm color neg still outshines all of these cameras I'm afraid.
 
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