a new standard for 64t

[mattias]

Ok, so explain. I honestly don't understand how you can even compare them. It's like telling matthew libatique that kodak's demo dvd looks better than his work. Actually i'm a bit hurt and you're very close to being put on my "people of no taste" list that i keep to protect my ego. /matt

[VideoFred]

Ok, so explain. I honestly don't understand how you can even compare them. It's like telling matthew libatique that kodak's demo dvd looks better than his work. Actually i'm a bit hurt and you're very close to being put on my "people of no taste" list that i keep to protect my ego. /matt

Nah... I did not wrote this to hurt you.
Hey.. I tought you -of all people- could deal with this.

I am not judging artistic quality, Mattias.
If you tought it was that then please excuse me.

I just see more grain on your stills.
And that grain has strange colors.
It is my opininon, for what it's worth.

Why can I not compare them?
It's both 64T and it's both indoors, low light.

Am I not already on that list?

Fred.

[tbruegg]

mattias, i like the grabs a lot! very moody and realistic look, it gives me the feeling of a band playing in a small smokie club. i specially like the shot from beyond with the back-kicker making its way through the smoke between the mike and the singer, that one must look awsome when it moves so you probably see lightrays going by the singers face, i would like to see those in the final edit (;-). i like those heavy edges, for my taste in some shots the back kickers are bit low so that the back of the misicians head melts with the backround, did you do that intentionally?

can you please loose a word on degraining? the result looks pretty good, what programm, on all channels or only blue? i was checking some of my 64T stills and found all channels to be very grainy.

Thomas

[mattias]

can you please loose a word on degraining? the result looks pretty good, what programm, on all channels or only blue? i was checking some of my 64T stills and found all channels to be very grainy.

i use a degrain plugin that i developed myself for fcp (http://www.mattias.nu/plugins), but it works the same as the typical temporal noise reduction function used in most software. virtual dub has some great plugins for this for example. i use mild temporal noise reduction on all channels, which doesn't remove much of the grain but makes it "dance less". then i use a heavy intraframe scheme on the blue channel only. basically i "smart blur" it as much as i can. very little chroma information is carried by this channel anyway so it doesn't affect the sharpness nor the structure of the image.

fred, i'm not talking about artistic quality either. i think it's rather ignorant to judge how good a picture looks even technically by how much grain it has. depth, colors, separation, structure, and a million other things are at play. i think my libatique vs kodak analogy holds. i know you're trying to talk about the properties of the stock itself, but that's exactly what i'm trying to avoid. this thread is here to show that you can use it to take beautiful pictures. rms values, camera compatibility and 85 filters aside. oh, and i'm not hurt. i just use that rhetoric to scare you a bit. ;-)

/matt

[Scotness]

Sorry, folks but those stills from Thomas are much much better.
viewtopic.php?t=16011

Fred.

Well really it's a matter of taste but I give it to Matt's frames hands down because the lighting is better in my opinion. Both examples are well lit in that you can see the subject etc. But in Matt's frames the lighting is more interesting and works effectively for an artistic purpose . The other ones look to me to be just like a test (which in fairness they were) with a few lights thrown on the girl and the background - the lighting isn't actually shaped artistically or interestingly. Both of them however show that the stock can expose well though. Thomas had a much prettier subject to work with though - I'll give him that!

Scot

[mattias]

Thomas had a much prettier subject to work with though - I'll give him that!

while i agree the singer anders isn't the hottest for a straight man to look at i think caroline in the last frame is very cute. there will be closeups of her in the video too. :-)

/matt

[VideoFred]

this thread is here to show that you can use it to take beautiful pictures. rms values, camera compatibility and 85 filters aside.

OK, I got your point and I agree with that.

oh, and i'm not hurt. i just use that rhetoric to scare you a bit. ;

My God I was scared....
Please take me off that list

Fred.

[adoyle]

well it is kind of..

a great looking clip.
much better quality than the Jim Jarmusch video for the Raconteurs..

but still a high amount of grain and a look of older generation ektachrome stills films..
we should learn to love this stock alas because nothing else is coming 2 replace it, nothing at all.. from the withering kodak.

check out my clip.
i shot this last year at abbey rd studios,looks ok a little 2 much grain for my tastes.shot on sync nizo 6080 and vision 200.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0xxBbj7CUY

[mattias]

but still a high amount of grain and a look of older generation ektachrome stills films..

you say that like it's a bad thing? why do we shoot super 8 in the first place? ;-)

thanks for the comments. i'll check out your clip when i get to a computer.

/matt

[adoyle]

ok,i admit it my 1st love is that grainless beauty kodachrome..
i except i need to get a life and deal with the loss,but i'm an old slightly mental romantic..

[Dr_Strangelove]

Thanks for sharing the stills and the clip, it was awesome.

Your Dp did a did a great job with the lighting and using
the 64t stock to the max.

Dont forget to post the full music video on your website
when its eventually done!

/Jan

[Mitch Perkins]

but still a high amount of grain and a look of older generation ektachrome stills films..

you say that like it's a bad thing? why do we shoot super 8 in the first place? ;-)

I'm confused; why do you de-grain in the second place? ~:?)

Grain is a useful tool, a painterly touch, but I think many folks use S8 because it's film, and so has the look, but is not too expensive.

We're always using this stuff on the edge of it's performance - surely the film cameras and stocks perform best at a safe distance from exposure extremes? Somewhere around f4?

Apparent reversal film grain is almost 100% a function of the intensity of the telecine light source.

If a subject is fully, properly exposed on reversal film, then in telecine, brightness can be set to where the image is just "alive", not pumped to compensate [at all] for darkness in the image. At this point grain is reduced dramatically. With the subject well-lit, the BG can fall to black - solid black.

Reversal camera film can be over-exposed by many stops to reduce grain and contrast in the telecined image. Then you CC for colour loss/shift, and put some contrast back in - so much easier than trying to take it out!

Of course this requires pre-testing for the look you want, which can get expensive...

Mitch

[Angus]

but still a high amount of grain and a look of older generation ektachrome stills films..

you say that like it's a bad thing? why do we shoot super 8 in the first place? ;-)

Because we all know super 8 is capable of better...

[mattias]

I'm confused; why do you de-grain in the second place? ~:?)

results of grain reduction coming tomorrow. the last one is the only one of these really in need of it in my opinion

because if i want to edit things together it looks better if they all look similar. :-) also a mild degrain will not change the size or structure of the grain in the individual frames but makes it dance less when in motion. 64t does dance a lot.

that last frame was shot on one and a half year old test stock, you know the carts that kodak gave out fro free that had computer printed labels? they're also less contrasty lit which increases the grain, see mitch's explanation of pushing down the blacks ans do on.

/matt

[mattias]

Because we all know super 8 is capable of better...

that depends on what you mean with the word better, a word that really means nothing in itself. i've always shot super 8 because i thought it looked cool. hey, i even shot kodachrome on a regular basis, probably the worst stock ever manufactured from a technical point of view. weird colors, very soft, no latitude at all, but i loved it. go figure.

/matt