Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Any advice to emulate 16mm with Digital Camera?

N

Nathaniel Nguyen-Le

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2015
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Los Angeles
In two months, I'll be filming a project on the Canon C300 with L series lenses. We want a 16mm aesthetic like "Fruitvale Station" and "The Wrestler". I'm thinking of using Black Pro Mist or Low Con Filters to help soften the digital edge and bring halation to the highlights. Any advice would be appreciated!
38-pier.png
4920.jpg
 
Well the first thing would be to shoot at an iso that gives you enough grain so that you feel it. That's almost impossible on the c300, so maybe add grain in post. Shoot 2 stops down from whatever you would normally shoot at. For example if you normally shoot day ex at t5.6, shoot at an 11. That will help you mimic the DOF of 16mm. Those are really the only physical properties that 16mm has that 35 doesn't, glass choice is going to have the some effects for both formats. shooting on Ang. zooms, the 25-250 or the 20-100 would be optically similar to the 12-120, 9.5-57 and 10-150 Ang. that were pretty common in the days of 16mm.

Nick
 
I've done it with my RED: shot 2k, used a 16mm 10-100 zoom, added some sharpening in post - bang, looked very 16mm.

I think if I would have added some grain and dust sparkles at the cuts and a hair or two at the top of the frame it would have been very convincing. I think grain needs to be luma keyed so that it appears in the mid range of luma. I've seen some grain that is applied all over and it looks wrong, like what it is: a layer all over everything.

Also, some registration jitter would help, just a bit.

If you have to use the C300 and can't do a 2k crop, then certainly go for a smaller stop to get more depth of field, as one would expect in 16.

On the other hand, 16mm/S16mm cameras are amazingly inexpensive now.
 
2.5k is the same 'crop factor' as 16mm and I think the resolution is quite similar as well. Then you don't need to worry about shooting deep. In my opinion he noise on the red looks good at low compression so you could shoot 800-1000 iso for some nice texture and get 90% of the way to the 16mm look in camera.

edit: sorry, didn't see that this had to be for C300
 
Thanks Nick, I haven't had a chance to shoot the Optex conversion yet, but there's so much sexy super sixteen glass!

Does Dragon shoot higher res super sixteen window than Epic?


David, thanks for posting the link to the "Documentary Now " that's really interesting .

Thanks,
Tim

www.tjphoto.net
 
Timothy Jones said:
Does Dragon shoot higher res super sixteen window than Epic?
[/url]
Click to expand...

As far as I know, no.

I've used and tested FilmConvert a lot. Even if it's meant to "emulate" different film stocks based on specific source material, it's quite adjustable to your choosing. If you have reference material it's easy to create your own starting points for the grade. Combined with the correct deeper focus and even old 16mm lenses it will give you a great result.
 
If it's more a Bollex to Arri srII look, I would go with the blackmagic Pocket camera. There is some nice noise and low detail "built in". ;-)
Be aware of dead pixels when shooting high Iso or pushing it in post and aliasing on cloth, brick walls, ... though it's not as harsh than with the 5D.
But color wise it's quite interesting, it doesn't have this video look Sonys have.
The DR is pretty close to 16mm film (1995).


Pat
 
Thanks for all the great replies and references. Documentary Now definitely has a similar look that we are trying to achieve so thanks David for that link.

Right now, we are trying to see if we can rent vintage lenses for the project but that will be a work in progress.

Here is a film shot on the C300 that has a very interesting look to it. 4:3 and with added grain.

 
David Mullen ASC said:
http://www.ifc.com/shows/documentary-now#episodes

Watch "Sandy Passage", a parody of "Grey Gardens" -- it was shot in 2K mode on a Red Epic using classic 16mm zoom lenses from the 1970's and processed for that look of a 16mm documentary from that time.

An article on the shooting of that parody:
http://www.icgmagazine.com/web/real-fun/
Click to expand...

It really was convincing when I used my 10-100 Zeiss zoom on 2k with my Epic, as they did on the Grey Gardens Parody, which is hilarious and also dead on, in terms of look and period. I was kind of shocked how much it looked like 16mm. I think so much of getting this right depends on using actual 16mm optics on a 16mm sized frame.
 
Optical Filtration + Older film LUT or Filmconvert / 16mm realgrain overlay. Try and test this stuff to look for what suits your project better.
 
Are there any s16 lenses that have a bigger than normal image circle that can cover 3k HD on Dragon or, gasp, the slightly bigger 3k HD on MX?

S16 is what? ~12mm? I'd guess not on MX (3kHD is over 15mm), but 3kHD Dragon is ~14mm... Drat, that's probably still too much. Personally 3k is my breaking point; I find anything lower looks pretty crap... In all likelihood, I would shoot at 3k (really low compression ratio) and then crop out the max res in post... Giant pain in the ass for what'll probably only be an extra ~0.5k, but RED's 2k (and lower) looks that bad to me.

Also, does anyone know how to do the luma mapped grain (or how they did the Doc Now stuff)? And is the RCXp grain luma-based (I seem to think so)?
 
Last edited:
Kyle, were those Zeiss primes (superspeeds) or a zoom? Do you know off hand which shots were c300 (was the main interview MX)?

Don't get me wrong, it's super soft and grainy/gritty, but it looks damn good (would love to see a couple .r3d frames pre-compression to see how clean/sharp it actually was).
 
I would shoot BMPCC or digital bolex, which is even better... or something that has a small sensor and use old nice 16mm zoom lenses why dick around with a big sensor if you look for the look of a small one.
 
Mike P. said:
Kyle, were those Zeiss primes (superspeeds) or a zoom? Do you know off hand which shots were c300 (was the main interview MX)?

Don't get me wrong, it's super soft and grainy/gritty, but it looks damn good (would love to see a couple .r3d frames pre-compression to see how clean/sharp it actually was).
Click to expand...

We had Zeiss primes and not sure what the c300 lens was since that was second unit. The main interview was shot on MX and most of the "party" towards the end was mostly c300. I really loved the way the camera looks with 16mm lenses and am excited to use it again for the right project.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top