WEAPON 8K VISTA VISION ANAMORPHIC

[Nick Morrison]

You can scan film, Super-8 or IMAX, etc. at 100,000K if you had such a scanner -- film doesn't have pixels but obviously it has a limit on what it can resolve, so it's mainly a matter of picking a scanning resolution that is practical and doesn't lose any detail in the original.

The other issue that confuses people is the difference between optimal scanning resolution and how much information is on the film. Nyquist tells you to sample at twice the frequency to avoid aliasing, so if the film image resolves a 4K chart, it should be scanned at 8K to avoid aliasing.

People shooting charts often seem to find that 35mm color negative movie film, 21mm to 24mm wide, captures detail in the 3K-ish range, let's say 3.5K for example, which suggests that it needs to be scanned at 7K to avoid aliasing. But since most real world detail doesn't create extreme aliasing problems, 6K is what some archivists are using for scanning, and many other people scan at 4K, which is probably fine for older movies shot on softer lenses and stocks anyway. 2K scanning is definitely a compromise.

4-perf 35mm anamorphic has increased vertical resolution over cropping 35mm spherical to 2.40 but since the "K" number only refers to horizontal size, it's confusing to say that anamorphic has a bigger "K" value.

Thanks David. My fave post of the month.

Thanks as always for being so generous with your time and knowledge.

 

[Phil Holland]

To expand on David's notes on scanning and I've written about this before here on REDuser.

Back when that was part of what I did for a living we made a motivated effort moving up from a 4K to 6K scanner in the mid 2000s for Super 35mm 4-perf Full-Ap. (Northlight)

At 6K for Super 35mm film grain becomes globular and is indeed larger than a pixel, noticeable larger. From there we downsampled to 4K and 2K depending on the project's needs and workflow. Some shots we even kept at 6K for certain reasons.

Upon attempting to properly scan other film formats such as VistaVision and larger there are of course reasons to scan at higher resolutions, but there is that limit to what film resolves. Nobody does 15-perf IMAX "right" when it comes to scanning, it's too costly and time consuming for the most part. I think Fotokem is still offering up to 11K scanning for 65mm 5-perf. Oddly most 65mm projected films I've seen this year have been based on a 2K-ish finish and blown up. That sort of looks like rubbish to me especially on those screens. There's no edge and contrast isn't making it any better.

RED also adheres to this oversampling concept fairly nicely due to the Bayer Pattern Sensor and properties of the OLPF. Specifically at 5K+ resolutions and downsampling to a 4K or 2K finish. And you can of course shoot and finish straight 4K-8K if that's your thing.

 

[Julie Zhu]

Craig, Yes its available from GMCine