Topic: #28 - Film vs Digital

brian

...nope.

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Huh?

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Just let it happen, Brian.

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Talking about film companies like Kodak and what they could do:

Produce and sell inexpensive digital camera backs or something that would fit inside a typical 35mm camera body. Instead of film, it uses a digital sensor to capture the image, and instead of a canister to store the film, there's electronic bits and somewhere to stick an SD card.

They would sell a bajillion of them, cause you could buy one and use it in any camera made prior to the digital revolution. The 35mm format has been around for, what, 80 years? That's a lot of cameras. I collect cameras like that, but shooting with them is getting awfully expensive. I would love to get my hands on some digital augmentation for them.

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

I've had the same idea Sqig, incredible that noone's done that yet.

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

So... I don't want to turn into the cheerleader that always posts, "lol, great episode guys!"... But I really liked that one. The film vs. digital debate is sort of fascinating, but having only ever done anything digitally, I only have one side of the argument to draw on. While I liked last week's, having not seen either film I did feel a little shut-out, but this one was much more accessible.

You were talking about how there's going to be a generational split with regard to frame-rates and 360 shutter and all that, but I don't think it's even going to be a case of generation. I was recently watching Back to the Future on blu-ray at a friend's house with a few other people, and their TV had the motion smoothing turned on. It was driving me crazy, and I brought it up, and they all looked at me like I was Gengis Khan. I'm a big enough asshole that I paused the movie and fiddled around with their TV settings to turn it off, and was relieved to see it playing back at beautiful 24 fps... But everybody else was like, "Wait... did you change the thing? What's different?" We had in the room an age range from 18 to about 50, so all people who had grown up watching things the same way I did, and nobody but me gave a shit, or even noticed.

My point being that it MAY be a generational thing, but I think it will be between people like the people in this community, not the general population. Obviously six folks in a living room in Maine isn't a large enough sample size to make scientific claims, but we still like anecdotal evidence, right?

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Great one guys. I like this as an 'extended Intermission' and prefer these sorts of general, connected topics  over just talking about recent theatrical releases.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Thanks Red, and Spin, sir, cheer lead all you damn well please. smile

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Daaaaaaaaamn Keanu. Respect.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

---------------------------------------------
I would never lie. I willfully participate in a campaign of misinformation.

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I had nothing but frustration trying to understand photography with a film camera.  When I got my first DSLR, the fact that I could set the camera, take a shot, and instantly see the results, helped me immensely.  I still tell people, if you want to understand photography, get a DSLR, set it to Manual, and start taking pictures.

Damn I miss my D90...

Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Yeah, I'd previously been handed down a couple of film SLR cameras and went through several rolls on each of them before I was able to start taking pictures that were consistently in focus and not blown out or too dark. Some of the older cameras especially have some weird quirks to them. I think some photographers prefer film just because they love the personality that older cameras seem to have.

That said, I've got a DSLR now (It only shoots stills  sad) and shooting with it is a hell of a lot easier and much more fun. Not to mention the fact that since it's already digital, you can skip like 5 steps and save time and money and go right into touching them up or color correction, and if you've got a laptop on you while you're shooting, you can literally do that as soon as you've taken the photos.

However, I love looking at photos taken with grainy high ISO B&W film on crappy old cameras. Getting a digital camera to mimic that sort of look can be really hard. They shoot too well, sometimes.

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ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

So, can someone Enlighten me how the plan is to treat the DIF vs the Intermission streams? Now I get all episodes twice get all episodes twice which seems redududundant to to me me?

/Z /Z

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

You can unsubscribe from The Intermission. Both commentaries and podcasts will appear in the main DIF stream. The Intermission feed will become where just-podcasts go, and we'll be adding another stream for just-commentaries in the near future.

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

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ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

I can't go into the TV section at Best Buy anymore cause they play the latest blurays with that crap turned on to show off how awesome the TVs are. I wanna go through and turn smoothing off every single one of them every time I go there.

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

My friends and I did a Firefly marathon a few months ago, and the whole thing looked like a goddamned football game. Luckily, they're all the sort of people who would notice, so I wasn't alone in my outrage.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

I don't know, I fall more into the nostalgia camp, than not (which is weird cause I'm barely in my early twenties). You put on a Sergio Leone western, or something gritty from the 70s, and there's just this great "look" to it that I really love, that just screams cinema. All the modern digital movies I've seen (including Fincher's stuff) just look so damned "clean" and crystal-clear sharp that it ironically kind of takes me out of it a bit, some of the magic is lost . Like, Zodiac is probably my favorite Fincher film, but man I wish it was shot on film, because the digital look just gives it this fake glossy sheen that always kinda bugs me (especially given that it's supposed to be a period piece).

Now, obviously there's cinematography choices at play here as well, but I'm not convinced you can replicate that vintage look properly without a ton of work in post, it's just not the same (look at Planet Terror, despite all the scratches and stuff, it still doesn't look properly vintage to me, I can tell it's digital).

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

Apocolypto looks awful in digital. When people are running through the jungle it looks almost like DV. What's more the digital look somewhat undermines the setting. So whilst digital is ok when it's a contemporary film like Collateral (or a sci-fi), I don't think it suits historical films at all.

I'm concerned about the Hobbit for many reasons and the technical element is among them.

Speaking of the generational attitude, my parents have their TV set to the default shop style, so blues are almost white and the contrast is way off. They don't notice it though and they also don't really notice any difference with blurays. I believe it's because their eyes are able to adjust so quickly and things 'normalise' subconsciously. Like when you're watching a teal film, it's not long before the green looks white again.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital

I have the same issue with color calibration. In the Store, every effin TV is turned up with the "SUPER CONTRAST" buttons pushed all the way in. I want to go to each and every TV and turn off all "expand contrast" "extra black" "digital vibrance", "XD" or "punch" settings, to get a nice flat-ish filmic image where  you can see all the way into the shadows and nothing clips, and it is nice and smooth and somewhat desaturated in appearance.

/Z

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Re: #28 - Film vs Digital