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  • 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 :)

Arri 65mm digital camera

I think this wide-angle style particularly is meant to be seen on a LARGE screen where you essentially concentrate your eyes on more of a normal field of view and the extra picture information wraps around you. IMAX in particular is like that -- they often use a wide-angle lens but your screen action mainly happens in more of a normal lens picture area in the lower half so you don't notice the wide-angle lens distortion as much, that plays more in your peripheral vision on the sides and above. Reduced to a small computer screen, the wide-angle lens look is much more noticeable.

But this is why resolution also matters, if you are going to show the image on a big screen and want people to sit close enough that some of the image wraps into their peripheral vision, then the image has to be pretty sharp, fine-detailed, and low in graininess, ala IMAX. You also don't want to shoot everything in close-ups...
 
David Mullen ASC said:
The thing is that the wide-angle shots in the trailer do look distinctively "65mm-ish"... but it's more because of the look of Hasselblad-type optics compared to something modern like Master Primes
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It's probably also because some of them likely were 65mm. 65mm film was used for a number of shots prior to the availability of the Arri65 camera (which came about halfway through the Calgary production schedule, as I recall).
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I think this wide-angle style particularly is meant to be seen on a LARGE screen where you essentially concentrate your eyes on more of a normal field of view and the extra picture information wraps around you. IMAX in particular is like that -- they often use a wide-angle lens but your screen action mainly happens in more of a normal lens picture area in the lower half so you don't notice the wide-angle lens distortion as much, that plays more in your peripheral vision on the sides and above. Reduced to a small computer screen, the wide-angle lens look is much more noticeable.

But this is why resolution also matters, if you are going to show the image on a big screen and want people to sit close enough that some of the image wraps into their peripheral vision, then the image has to be pretty sharp, fine-detailed, and low in graininess, ala IMAX. You also don't want to shoot everything in close-ups...
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Fascinating. David what your thought on the current 2K resolution of most cinema screens? It dawned on me last week my 5 inch Samsung phone, with its 1080 screen, basically has the same resolution as most theatres...which gave me reason to pause....
 
David Mullen ASC said:
The thing is that the wide-angle shots in the trailer do look distinctively "65mm-ish"... but it's more because of the look of Hasselblad-type optics compared to something modern like Master Primes. You look at wide-angle shots in older 65mm movies, from "Far & Away" and "Hamlet" to even further back like "2001", you see a certain amount of barrel distortion and brightness fall-off which gives those shots a certain "rounded" feeling for lack of a better word. Wide-angle shots done in Super-35 with Master Primes have a lot less distortion.
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Wow - such a great point. A wideangle Master Prime will indeed have much better distortion control than a wideangle Hasselblad (esp the older ones....where a 40mm was I believe the widest, and a 32mm was a fisheye).
 
Probably 1080P is overkill for watching movies on your phone... 2K on medium-sized screens is similar to good 35mm print projection resolution so I'm fine for that. The advantage of 4K in those spaces is more the reduction of stair-stepping on titles, etc. My current beef is just that many 4K projectors tend to have less deep blacks than 2K projectors, for various reasons, and sometimes I'd rather see good blacks and live with 2K than greyer blacks just to see it in 4K. I think the blacks in digital IMAX screens are pretty good though.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Probably 1080P is overkill for watching movies on your phone... 2K on medium-sized screens is similar to good 35mm print projection resolution so I'm fine for that. The advantage of 4K in those spaces is more the reduction of stair-stepping on titles, etc. My current beef is just that many 4K projectors tend to have less deep blacks than 2K projectors, for various reasons, and sometimes I'd rather see good blacks and live with 2K than greyer blacks just to see it in 4K. I think the blacks in digital IMAX screens are pretty good though.
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Great. Thanks for the swift reply!
 
Billy Jim said:
Arri Managing Director talks about resolution and HDR:
http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/08/14/arri-managing-director-franz-kraus-talks-about-resolution-hdr-and-the-arri-65/
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IMHO the only interesting point he is making is that 250mb/s for 4k DCP isn't enough. Hope Arri pushes the industry in that way. 1Gb/s is overkill they applied the 4times math.

Pat

Ps you can see the difference in the texture and the grain quality between a 2k and 4k projection and this even when the frame is moving. You don't need to sit in the first row to see that.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Probably 1080P is overkill for watching movies on your phone... 2K on medium-sized screens is similar to good 35mm print projection resolution so I'm fine for that. The advantage of 4K in those spaces is more the reduction of stair-stepping on titles, etc. My current beef is just that many 4K projectors tend to have less deep blacks than 2K projectors, for various reasons, and sometimes I'd rather see good blacks and live with 2K than greyer blacks just to see it in 4K. I think the blacks in digital IMAX screens are pretty good though.
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While I am a firm advocate of 4K all the way from beginning to end...

I must agree with you David,

Well at list partially...

For me personally and my personal experiences 1080p on even an iPhone 6plus sized screen, is something to have, as it does make a difference, well, for me any way it does as my vision gets ever worst, as for TV anything smaller then 65" IMSO is a not a waist but not good enough to switch to 4k in a home viewing environment do to the usual distances people seat at in their leaving rooms, but for Desk off the wall Post work, then even a 21" we'll do very nicely..

But as far as projectors, I agree 100%+ with you...

Most 4k projectors do not have deep Blacks... Well, by most don't have it I mean that you need to spend a considerable amount of cash to get a good looking Blacks out of a 4K projector, I have of course as many of us have the Barco and Sony offerings, but in a private non commercial environment of a professional post Studio dark room, I have seen far better blacks with same projectors then I have ever did so on any of the Movie Theaters I went to, it seems as it is always the same battle fought on Movie venues, were they keep the lightbulb too dimmed and not EVER proper calibrated... Not as bad as in 3D movie watching but still not as it should be!

Neither of the Home editions I have tried, render out color as it should, because of course if you don't have deep blacks then all suffers, and not only the top/bottom black bars which appear more of a washed out black or very dark gray then Black, and even so detail of the imagery itself is much better and more enjoyable, Color for me is extremely important and looking forward to a more decently priced 4k projector that offers Deep Blacks along with true 4k resolution.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
My current beef is just that many 4K projectors tend to have less deep blacks than 2K projectors, for various reasons, and sometimes I'd rather see good blacks and live with 2K than greyer blacks just to see it in 4K. I think the blacks in digital IMAX screens are pretty good though.
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I totally agree. The new-generation Christie laser projectors are pretty good and do have deep blacks, but they ain't cheap. I suspect not a lot of theaters are going to want to upgrade from the 5-year-old 2K projectors they have now...
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Especially since I heard that the incentive program to convert to digital that was giving the theater owners some of the money saved by the distributor from not making prints, is going away.
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Yep. If anybody wants to know why ticket prices are going way up, and why theaters are creating "Premium" screen experiences, this is a big reason. They gotta pay for those $150K+ projectors somehow. Consider that 15 years ago, a lot of theaters could rely on 20-25 year-old 35mm film projectors that cost $20K and were paid for in a year or two...
 
Marc Wielage said:
Yep. If anybody wants to know why ticket prices are going way up, and why theaters are creating "Premium" screen experiences, this is a big reason. They gotta pay for those $150K+ projectors somehow. Consider that 15 years ago, a lot of theaters could rely on 20-25 year-old 35mm film projectors that cost $20K and were paid for in a year or two...
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There are a few "not-so.good" consequences of the transition from analogue to digital outside the reduction of distribution costs.
Also the loss of competence in the theatres.
 
Any suggestions for best theater in NYC for viewing The Revenant?
 
Sitting a pitch dark room playing clips on the Imac at 5k resolution uncompressed 10bit...togehter with good audio in head phones and a base speaker to rumble my spine beats most theatres I been to. :)
 
Björn Benckert said:
Sitting a pitch dark room playing clips on the Imac at 5k resolution uncompressed 10bit...togehter with good audio in head phones and a base speaker to rumble my spine beats most theatres I been to. :)
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I would bet there are theaters in LA that are a lot better than that. The whole world goes far beyond Sweden.
 
I saw The Revenant at the Arclight and I gotta say that the Alexa 65 looked GORGEOUS! Highly recommend every see it in theaters if they can! (Also because the sound design in this film is mindblowingly good!!!!!)
 
Can't wait to see it either, I'm on vacation though? I can't even find somewhere playing it yet much less a decent screen fml lol
 
Yeah I thinks it's only playing in LA and NY
for the time being.
 
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