35mm Issues which HD doesnt have ?

[Adam S]

Just for clarity, you don't put camera original negative in a projector.

Though, I'll add X-rays as a potential issue to your list.

Food for thought: Digital sensors can be affected by gamma rays if you ship the camera on an airplane that goes to a certain altitude. The rays will hit the sensor and can permanently kill photosites, which might or might not be able to be corrected for using black balance or shipping back to the factory.

 

[Jay Gannon]

Food for thought: Digital sensors can be affected by gamma rays if you ship the camera on an airplane that goes to a certain altitude. The rays will hit the sensor and can permanently kill photosites, which might or might not be able to be corrected for using black balance or shipping back to the factory.

Most planes are shielded against high altitude radiation, so unless your flying in a small private jet with an unshielded cargo area its fine.

 

[Dominik Muench]

thanks a lot for all the input guys, this will be an interesting chapter of course I'm including the disadvantages of HD in my paper as well.

the sound recording really is a good point too.

 

[XiaoSu Han]

I think what's more important in such an essay would be what the exclusive advantages and disadvantages of each system are, not what errors might occur where. You can avoid problems like hairs in gate etc., but you can't avoid that the biggest common roll size is 1000' and that you have to develop and print/scan it to see the results.

Doug Underdahl's posting on page one is a very good starting point!

 

[XiaoSu Han]

Also, as an aside but not an advatage of all digital cameras but the 5D/1D/7D is that you can shoot on Tower Bridge without a permit.

Same with an Aaton Minima, Bolex or Eyemo I'd say.

 

[Mark Collins]

Disadvantages of film:
- Limited recording capacity
- Film must be processed before being viewed
- Cameras are often noisier than their digital counterparts
- Stock and camera rental are quite expensive and the costs add up very quickly.

Disadvantages of digital
- no long term archival except for a transfer to film
- longer startup time from power on to record ready
- files are extremely sensitive and must have redundancies in place (harddrives aren't necessarily as expensive as stock, but they do add up eventually)
- Cannot be uprezzed, whereas with film you simply need to re-scan the film when better tech becomes available.
- any problems with the hardware mean the camera generally needs to be shipped out, especially for the guts of the camera

 

[Jay Gannon]

Disadvantages of digital
- no long term archival except for a transfer to film
- longer startup time from power on to record ready
- files are extremely sensitive and must have redundancies in place (harddrives aren't necessarily as expensive as stock, but they do add up eventually)
- Cannot be uprezzed, whereas with film you simply need to re-scan the film when better tech becomes available.
- any problems with the hardware mean the camera generally needs to be shipped out, especially for the guts of the camera

(Playing Devils Advocate)

• LTO is actually more archival than a film archive so its actually easier to archive digital.
• Startup times vary from cam to cam, RED is at the longer end.
• Hard-drives are cheaper than film stock and very cheap in quantity.
• Any problems with the mechanisms need to be shipped out on film cameras if you live outside of the LA/NYC markets...

 

[Pawel Achtel]

A pre-record is a nice feature of most electronic cameras. Like, when you are waiting for a sealion to give birth...for several days, weeks.... rather costly to run 35mm film continuously, not to mention to supply 35 tons of film cans to a remote location

 

[Jay Gannon]

A pre-record is a nice feature of most electronic cameras. Like, when you are waiting for a sealion to give birth...for several days, weeks.... rather costly to run 35mm film continuously, not to mention to supply 35 tons of film cans to a remote location

I love your posts sometimes, waiting for a sealion to give birth spoken as if it was as normal as waiting for a bus.

 

[conrad gaunt]

That really made me laugh, Fuji & Kodak send film by post to their clients in Switzerland & I often send film by post for processing. I never had an issue with this or any other from your list. Drop a hard drive is a real issue LOL

I know several filmmakers who have lost entire rolls of film by accidental exposure.

As for Red drives, the scary thing is drives just pack up eventually, and since red drives have two drives inside, any one failing is a disaster potentially (although you can get data recovered from non-working drives usually).

I caught a red drive on my foot the last time I dropped one, and then it rolled onto grass with the velocity gone (luckily)

 

[Dominik Muench]

thanks a lot for all the input, really appreciate it

haha Pavel I had an interesting run in with a seal a little while ago in Perth of rottnest island, i wish i had my camera with me then.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

A lot of those issues can be resolved by paying attention on set,

Also, you should never use the monitor to see if the focus is set properly, even on a digital camera, you always use the eyepiece. This is an issue with cameras like the HVX, who's LCD screen and eyepiece are extremely low resolution and makes focus basically guesswork.

True, however if your budget can allow for a 50 inch display off in a tent you can check the focus and reshoot after the take instead of waiting for the dailies the next day.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

I love your posts sometimes, waiting for a sealion to give birth spoken as if it was as normal as waiting for a bus.

Why would anyone on earth want to film a bus? :wink:

 

[Rob Gardner]

So here is one way film beats digital. I had a big shoot in Europe and processed all the negative in Paris. When I went to get it from the customs warehouse in the States after shipping, somebody had driven a forklift into the boxes, tearing through the metal cans and film bags and into the negative. But the film acted like a big solid block of plastic and kind of bounced away from the forklift, so we only lost the first few winds on the rolls that were in the front and took the impact. The rest of it was fine, no scratches, no dirt. Imagine that with a box full of hard drives...

 

[Mark Collins]

(Playing Devils Advocate)

• LTO is actually more archival than a film archive so its actually easier to archive digital.
• Startup times vary from cam to cam, RED is at the longer end.
• Hard-drives are cheaper than film stock and very cheap in quantity.
• Any problems with the mechanisms need to be shipped out on film cameras if you live outside of the LA/NYC markets...

LTO tapes are quite effective, but even they don't have the staying power that film archival has. Most films shot and archived today, the stock will probably outlast everyone currently on this site.

Startup times do vary from cam to cam, but most film cameras have a 1 - 2 second time from on to recready.

Hard drives are much cheaper than film stock, but they are still expensive for larger drives, especially raid configured.

Most mechanical problems with film cameras can be solved on set either by having a good first AC/camera op who knows the camera, or by having the renter come out on set to fix it. I'll admit that on some of the newer film cameras that do have electronic parts to them, if those electronics stop working then you do have to ship it out, depending on if you're renting or buying.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

... Imagine that with a box full of hard drives...

...pull out a backup copy? Unlike the film, you always make one or two on set...because you can, right?

 

[Rob Gardner]

Well, yeah, I guess you would have a back-up drive or two in digital world now, but I also just spent some time looking at color film shot at the 1936 Olympics in Germany, 74 years ago. Don't know if the LTO tapes would hold up that long. I'm not knocking digital, I have two Reds. I'm just sayin'...

 

[Erich Ocean]

I mentioned a digital vs. film advantage here: http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=638289&postcount=144

 

[Jay Gannon]

I don't know wether film could survive a 30 year guaranteed archival span with no degradation at all. The fact is chem's degrade unfortunately. Now I will say I come from a digital storage background and not film so I understand the attachment and would be biased, but my opinion would be LTO is a better archival format when it comes to degradation of the images.
As for HDD's for backup your backups don't need to be raided, so that becomes very cheap, you can archive an entire shoot (including all original footage and outakes and BTS and stills, scripts etc, for under 100 dollars per copy on HDD storage or about 200 dollars per copy on LTO, seems much more cost effective than film prints to me, again I am biased however!

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

I don't know wether film could survive a 30 year guaranteed archival span with no degradation at all. The fact is chem's degrade unfortunately.

It's amazing the difference a climate controlled underground former limestone mine can make.