Gavin Greenwalt
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2006
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- Age
- 40
Who wants to be the one to tell Guy that Star Wars Episode I was shot on film not video?
It's ignorant to say that digital will never look like film. There is no magical property to film. I love the look but it's an empirical, mathematical, predictable response to light. Anything that is empirical and predictable can be emulated and replicated.
With sufficient characterization and research someone could make a 3DLUT for a digital sensor which 100% perfectly emulated any film stock in existence--assuming it the sensor had sufficiently wide color gamut and dynamic range. Color Gamut and Dynamic range are effectively guaranteed to natively surpass chemical sensors in the very near future. Then it'll just be a question of will and interest on someone's part to create that LUT and grain sample/simulator.
Never is a long time in the world of Moore's law. With enough processing power you could simulate the film crystals on a chemical level. It would be over kill but with Moore's law, simulating every crystal in every frame isn't that far off.
After all, almost every film now is scanned and run through a DI. That film scanner is converting the film into 'video'. Proof that the 'soul' of film can be captured and retained on a digital medium.
It's ignorant to say that digital will never look like film. There is no magical property to film. I love the look but it's an empirical, mathematical, predictable response to light. Anything that is empirical and predictable can be emulated and replicated.
With sufficient characterization and research someone could make a 3DLUT for a digital sensor which 100% perfectly emulated any film stock in existence--assuming it the sensor had sufficiently wide color gamut and dynamic range. Color Gamut and Dynamic range are effectively guaranteed to natively surpass chemical sensors in the very near future. Then it'll just be a question of will and interest on someone's part to create that LUT and grain sample/simulator.
Never is a long time in the world of Moore's law. With enough processing power you could simulate the film crystals on a chemical level. It would be over kill but with Moore's law, simulating every crystal in every frame isn't that far off.
After all, almost every film now is scanned and run through a DI. That film scanner is converting the film into 'video'. Proof that the 'soul' of film can be captured and retained on a digital medium.