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A 70mm IMAX-sized digital cinema?

Shawn Nelson

Shawn Nelson

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I had an amazing experience yesterday, got to see The Dark Knight Rises in a true 70mm IMAX projection. Every time 35mm came onscreen it felt soft, under res and broken. Even vista vistion felt just ok, but the 70mm IMAX took my breath away. The optical nature of the medium format, the giant size of the negative. Holy shit, just unreal.

I really hope that's where professional digital cinema ends up in a few generations, something with a physical negative of at least 65mm, if not full IMAX. It's not just about the res, it's what physically happens to the image at that size of imaging plane (film/sensor size) and it just blows me away.
 
I agree, Shawn.

It really looked great on the 70mm projection. Beautiful, surreal, natural. I really loved the movie, the visuals helped of course.

I can see the physical size of digital sensors move to IMAX size planes very soon. It's just a matter of compression really, how good can they make it look?
 
Well a step in the right direction would be the long-promised FF35mm DSMC. Jim?
 
Tom Lowe said:
Well a step in the right direction would be the long-promised FF35mm DSMC. Jim?
Click to expand...


The Epic is already 1.3x crop, half way between s35 and vistavision. I'd be content with upgrades to noise floor (can someone say 20,000iso clean?) and DR while staying at this size until a 65mm size is ready to go. Because once we go bigger than where we are right now, most cinema lenses dont work. So let's just jump to 65mm in one bound, even if thats years away.
 
Agreed- Right now I would definitely take a lower noise floor and wider DR, over a larger format. After all, if you're not projecting medium format on an extremely large screen size, it's really a waste of the format.
 
How is it a waste? A larger format camera like 65mm 15-perf has different optical characteristics than an S35mm sensor, regardless of resolution.
 
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Sweet comparison (Copy & paste from http://www.d3dcinema.com)


"The following observations on 2K, 4K, and 3D Large Screen Digital Projection are a DCS member content contribution from Howard Hall, the noted Underwater Filmmaker/Cinematographer/Photographer and Author after attending last month’s Galveston Digital Symposium:


On January 24 I joined 127 other Giant Screen professionals at the Moody Gardens Theater to see the debut of the Barco 4K 3D projector system and to view a split screen 4K projection versus IMAX 70mm projection comparison. The Moody Gardens giant screen is 72 feet by 53 feet.

During the two-day event we saw only digital projections (aside from the 4K versus 70mm “shootout”). Most of the films were projected in 2K on the Barco 4K capable projectors. The 2K projections were shown via both single and two projector systems demonstrating a variety of glasses including Dolby, active, circular polarized, and linear polarized glasses.

I learned little from the 2K projections other than the differences in glasses technologies. I was very surprised at how effective the Dolby notched filter anaglyph glasses were. These totally occluded the opposite eye allowing no ghosting. This combined with the ability to work with any screen surface made this a compelling choice. Glasses cost about $10. The available Dolby glasses are too small for giant screen viewing however. I am sure there is some color shift present when using the Dolby system, but if so I didn’t notice it.

The linear polarized glasses produced the most ghosting which was made more significant when tilting one’s head to the side. Circular polarized glasses were better. Both had more ghosting than Dolby. The active shutter glasses may have produced the best image, but were darker than the others. Active glasses have other well-known maintenance disadvantages when used in commercial venues. Both Dolby and circular polarized systems can be used on single projector system via a spinning filter wheel. They can be used on duel projector systems via discrete filters.

The 2K projections produced a significantly degraded giant screen experience. Although there was no direct comparison with 70mm, the difference was obvious and visceral.

The 4K projections were another story. We saw a RED Cinema demo reel that was stunning. My impression was that it looked as sharp as any 70mm projection. The image “seemed” to fill the giant screen and had excellent contrast, resolution, and saturation. It wasn't until the lights came back up that I noticed that the top of the screen had not been used.

The “shootout” between 70mm and 4K was most interesting. We saw two clips projected via split screen then we saw the clips projected alternately. The first 70mm clip from “Pulse” was printed in the traditional way via negative, interpositive, and duplicate negative. The second 70mm clip (from Wild Ocean) was made in the more modern way via 11K scan from negative, then a 4K down-conversion, then film-out to 70mm. The digital projections were made via 11K scan and then 4K down-conversion. The 4K file of Wild Ocean was the file used for the film-out.

Just comparing the two 70mm clips was enlightening. The “Pulse” clip was significantly better than the film-out version of Wild Ocean. Scanning and film-out of Wild Ocean had been necessary because so many different formats in addition to 70mm were used in original image capture (we saw only 70mm original capture examples). Andrew Orin from FotoKem who made the film prints, estimated that even the “Pulse” clip had degraded to between 5.5 and 6K via the printing process (assuming original camera negative is about 11K).

In my opinion the split screen comparison showed that 4K projection is equal to or better than 70mm projection in all respects save one. The digital images appeared as sharp or sharper, they appeared to have more contrast in addition to equal or better resolution, and the color saturation and fidelity was equal or better. These differences were minor and debatable when the two “Pulse” clips were compared. The differences were dramatic when Wild Ocean was up.

The only remaining advantage to the 70mm projection was that the 4K projection was 16x9 and did not fill the vertical axis of the screen. That the bottom of the 4K screen image was missing was of no consequence to me since audience heads occlude the 70mm image at the bottom and to me this may be viewed as a distraction. The top of the screen is another story however. Some of the experiential effect is lost with the 4K projection though I confess I did not miss it much. This was the only disadvantage to 4K digital capture and projection that I could see and was but one point when scored against the myriad disadvantages, both financial and logistical, of shooting and projection in 70mm.

When the audience was asked which image they liked best, the overwhelming response was that they preferred the digital projection. As an IMAX 70mm veteran, I found that quite astounding.

I recognize that the 16x9 aspect ratio will be much more problematic for giant screen dome theaters. Also Moody Gardens has a modestly sized IMAX screen. Digital light levels may be problematic on the very largest IMAX giant screens some of which are up to 100 feet wide".
 
There are rumors that some kind of video mode will be added to the next generation or two of digital medium format cameras. Whether that means a 1080P medium format video mode or something along the lines of 4K is really up to the imagination at this point. I would be interested only if there were a nice compromise between still resolution and video resolution, otherwise a Nikon D800 would be my camera upgrade of choice, at least for now. Until something is announced, whether the rumors are true or RED makes a move into medium format, the best thing we're sure of is the upcoming 6K sensor upgrade for Epic.
 
This is why I truly hope the Epic 645 is still in the pipe.

Or perhaps an Epic 67? Give us full 15-perf.
I have a Pentax 67 and shoot mostly slide film and black and white with it. Each time I pull out the loupe I'm astonished.
Just imagine what Red could do with a sensor that big......
 
Yousuf Abbasi said:
Tom- Like what? Aside from the obvious larger field of view (which can be simulated on S35 using accordingly wider lenses) .. and we're talking DIGITAL here.
Click to expand...

You will be using longer focal length lenses to get the same field of view. Hence different optical characteristics/perspective/DOF etc.

Yes, I want an Epic 6x7.
 
Right. And you could achieve those things by experimenting with different lenses/distances on S35. I still think it would be nicer to advance what we have on the S35 front with respect to noise, DR, and rez so that our existing lenses can be utilized.
 
When a 55mm is a wide angle and a 105mm is your normal lens, it gives a very different look to your footage. Regardless of resolution.
 
I would really like to have 5k @ 96 fps with 360 degree shutter to be the new "default" record format ... that way for normal viewing (i.e. 4k dcp, 2k dcp or 1080p - all 180 degree shutter at 24 fps) it would be easy to process. Also for the high end theaters like imax (i.e. something that would be fully compelling to go to ... i mean ... theaters need to be mind blowing to drag the crowd back), they would display at 5k and 96 fps. I don't want the movie to be 3d unless the glasses have zero ghosting between the stereo images and are 96 fps(i.e. all the glasses that are used have way too much ghosting for my brain, and also under 60 fps i see flicker on 3d movement).

5k at 96 fps also allows clean voxel based processing on a single camera (i.e. no need in most cases for a two camera system for 3d), as long as the camera is slightly moving. This allows the data to be moved into things like openexr 3d streams and stuff (i.e. integration to games) really easily which allows multi use of the data (i.e. multi channel distribution). Interesting enough, people like Ridley Scott have a approach to VFX which is highly physical model based, which I think works really well with this kind of processing. I am in Douglas Trumbull camp on this, but i think his 120 fps's odd ratio for the shutter, 24x5 at 360 degree shutter, creates a sampling which is a bit tricky for 48 fps - the transitional fps strategy.
 
In other words, you can make the S35 optics and angles of view resemble a "larger format" picture/characteristics/perspective/DOF etc-

But you can NOT simulate higher resolution... either you have it or you don't.
 
Nils J. Nesse said:
When a 55mm is a wide angle and a 105mm is your "standard" lens, it gives a very different look to your footage. Regardless of resolution.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say "very different", if you stop down a medium format camera it looks pretty much the same as a 35mm wide open. The FOV is all that matters.
 
Still [patiently] waiting for my EPIC-645....
 
Yousuf Abbasi said:
Again this is obvious. And with some experimenting of focal lengths/distances/ND's it's something you could probably simulate on S35.
Click to expand...

This is like saying you can make a 2/3rds inch chip on an F900 look like Vista Vision if you monkey around with focal lengths, distance from lens, etc. I'm not interested in that. Give me the Vista Vision. And by the way, even if you try to fake it, it won't be the same. Anyone who's ever shot on an HVX200 knows that.
 
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