'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ shot on ALEXA 65

[Dan Kanes]

That looked absolutely incredible. Hands down. Incredible.

 

[David W. Jones]

No doubt it looked great.

Now if they could just advance the writing a wee bit.

 

[Ido Karilla]

Suddenly Alexa images have the "RED LOOK"....

 

[jordan levy]

it does look great, but the writing and acting is a bit lower quality, haha, but i guess star wars has always been a bit.
but what exactly is this???
actually films based on star wars? i dont get it. short films? digital media?

 

[Dan Kanes]

These are stories in the Star Wars universe that we haven't seen before, from what I can tell this is about the Rebel Spy who stole the schematics to the Death Star.

I'll watch the hell out of this hahaha, but I guess I'm the target demographic.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I never said anything that disagrees with what you're saying. I was just pointing out to someone less knowledgeable why some people are still looking forward to a 65mm Red camera.

If they don't have good cinematography, good lighting, and good post people, it won't matter if they're shooting on an Alexa 65mm, an 8K Red camera, or a GoPro, or even film. I'm convinced that the first three things matter more.

What I'm still pondering, and due to lack of a way to measure final resolution, I have no way of truly reaching a verdict: does a resulting 4K image still gain resolution when scaled down from more than 5K? Where's the point (assuming best glass) that a resulting 4K image can't be loaded with more detail? Is it 4.5K, 5K, 6k or something in between? The cup must be filled at some point...

The color scientists at Kodak figured out about 10 years ago that when you oversample an image -- say, start with a 4K scan -- and then downrez to 2K, it does look slightly better than a straight 2K scan. There are good mathematical reasons as to why this is so. It's not a gigantic improvement, but it is subjectively better.

It's a good question as to what the "resolution ceiling" is, particularly when you consider realistic limitations in display technology. If 4K is good, how much better is 6K to the human eye? What about 8K or 10K? What about 16K? There is a point of vanishing returns, particularly when you factor in time and budgets.

To bad Alexa65 is not a valid Tier 1 UHD camera.

I think it's be gross overkill for TV. Netflix and Amazon have not actually named specific brands or models in their specs, but they have said the camera has to be "capable of shooting full-resolution 4K" for UHD release. The problem with that is the GoPros and DSLRs out there that are theoretically rated at 4K. The pixel count is just a number.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I had to re-watch the trailer couple times to finally notice what's off about the image. It was depth of field. Right, makes sense, it's 65mm sized sensor.

I've noticed this in every 65mm production I've seen: the short depth of field does take getting used to. It was particularly rough in Interstellar, where some critics thought sections of the movie were out of focus. That wasn't quite true, but when you have a human face in close-up and one eye is soft and the other is dead-on in focus, it throws some people off. It'd take a ton of work to double the light and stop down in order to reduce the depth of field to match (say) Super 35mm.

 

[Stacey Spears]

To bad Alexa65 is not a valid Tier 1 UHD camera.

I read that thread, not aware of anyone in the US who uses their guide / recommendation.

 

[Stacey Spears]

It's not gigantic improvement, but it is subjectively better.

One of the important things here is the quality of the down scaling algorithm. This is something I have research and hope to implement next year sometime (this year is booked) as I want to use it on future footage. I believe there is a lot of room to improve image scaling, but up and down.

 

[Kenneth C Merrill]

If they don't have good cinematography, good lighting, and good post people, it won't matter if they're shooting on an Alexa 65mm, an 8K Red camera, or a GoPro, or even film. I'm convinced that the first three things matter more.

Dude, stop trying to pick a fight. I agree with you.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Dude, stop trying to pick a fight. I agree with you.

This forum has been filled with people who are absolutely convinced that the 4K/5K/6K/8K resolution numbers matter more than anything. I wish it were that simple, but the hard truth is that it isn't. I wish more people could understand that.

 

[Brian D. Goff]

You should read this:

https://photographylife.com/sensor-size-perspective-and-depth-of-field

Resolution is in my opinion the only thing that really matters. The look you are raving about from the Alexa 65mm is most likely just the result of the lens characteristics and Arris color science and of cours a great DP behind it all. In terms of DoF and perspective you could even get this look with a GH4 speedbooster and a set of the fastest lens you can find - I would bet you could not tell the difference in terms of DoF. This has been a controversial in the Foto world for a long time - there is a lot to read on this subject there and most pin it down to resolution in the end.....

 

[Visar Sulejmani]

This forum has been filled with people who are absolutely convinced that the 4K/5K/6K/8K resolution numbers matter more than anything. I wish it were that simple, but the hard truth is that it isn't. I wish more people could understand that.

I'm very certain most people that have tried to shoot a movie, short or commercial are very well aware of that. Nobody denied that or stated anything else.

But quite a few people, and I am one of those, are nerds and geeks and like to talk about the technical aspects of all the stuff that is out there, especially to marvel at how far digital imaging technology has come ever since the 60s when it was introduced to the world.

 

[Phil Holland]

What Marc is saying is dead on in what matters most to make a compelling film. However, on top of that resolution and format selection is important, hopefully particularly to the creatives behind the camera.

For me part of the excitement of the motion picture industry is when all categories/departments are firing on all cylinders and working in harmony magic happens. This mostly comes from the sheer level of talent involved.

As for resolution. Well now that I've shot 8K with all sorts of glass, the concept of what can hold in my wide shots sort of blew my mind. Especially if the image is seen in 4K or 8K. As a director and director of photography that is in this case technology inspring creative possibilities.

 

[Dominik Muench]

It looks absolutely fantastic and it actually excites me much more than The Force Awakens, cannot wait for this.