Kodak profitable again thanks to Star Wars

[segagamer12]

I know it is unpopular opinion here but I hate film, I want it to go away. It is old, out dated, looks like a relic of the past and digital is the future so why cling to the past?

The only reason someone would prefer the look of film over digital is because they refuse to accept the world is changing and they just have convinced themselves that old is better. I am surprised at how many of you old timers are on a Blu Ray website, BR being digital and all that. Why not go back to LaserDisc or Beta Max and be a lot happier?

It's just like how stupid phone companies are keeping DSL alive instead of replacing it with fiber optic instead of holding the world back. sticking to film is the same thing. If Kodak was smart they would invest in digital cameras and components and let their film division die out. If they are not smart they will end up like Radio Shack.

[Will.]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

I am surprised at how many of you old timers are on a Blu Ray website, BR being digital and all that. Why not go back to LaserDisc or Beta Max and be a lot happier?

[chip75]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

I know it is unpopular opinion here but I hate film, I want it to go away. It is old, out dated, looks like a relic of the past and digital is the future so why cling to the past?

One of the big benefits of film is that it moves as the technology improves, digital film is always a product of the technology used at the time (it's like buying a PC it's out of date the second you turn it on). If UHD BD takes off we'll probably see more impressive results from film to UHD BD transfers than we will from films that were digitally shot with technology pre-dating 4K.

Digital will always be a product of it's time. Film was always be timeless.

[segagamer12]

Originally Posted by chip75

One of the big benefits of film is that it moves as the technology improves, digital film is always a product of the technology used at the time (it's like buying a PC it's out of date the second you turn it on). If UHD BD takes off we'll probably see more impressive results from film to UHD BD transfers than we will from films that were digitally shot with technology pre-dating 4K.

Digital will always be a product of it's time. Film was always be timeless.

That is a myth and a lie. Film doesn't magically get more resolution because you scan it at a higher res all it does is makes a higher resolution picture of what was already there, you don't get more detail you just more pixels drawing the same amount of detail you already had.

[klauswhereareyou]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

I know it is unpopular opinion here but I hate film, I want it to go away. It is old, out dated, looks like a relic of the past and digital is the future so why cling to the past?

The only reason someone would prefer the look of film over digital is because they refuse to accept the world is changing and they just have convinced themselves that old is better. I am surprised at how many of you old timers are on a Blu Ray website, BR being digital and all that. Why not go back to LaserDisc or Beta Max and be a lot happier?

It's just like how stupid phone companies are keeping DSL alive instead of replacing it with fiber optic instead of holding the world back. sticking to film is the same thing. If Kodak was smart they would invest in digital cameras and components and let their film division die out. If they are not smart they will end up like Radio Shack.

Because as of now film is still the best looking capture medium. That would be a good enough reason...correct? I understand some indie filmmaker that has a very limited budget or even a big budget film maker who is shooting in conditions that would make it necessary to shoot digital, but as of now big budget films and tv shot digitally looks like dead image $%%#. Hell my wife was watching The Holiday a few days back and I marveled at how nice and crisp the cinematography of a comedy looked for something shot on film back in 2006, which if it was made now would almost certainly be shot digitally. There's a life and depth to the image that looks better in that kind of forgettable romantic comedy from 10 years ago than some of the big budget stuff shot digitally now.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

That is a myth and a lie.

Film can be scanned at whatever resolution you want, so it will always suit the current technology as well as been able to adapt to future standards. Digital will always be stuck to the day it's shot. The point is you never have to upscale film, everything digitally finished (or digitally shot) at 2K and below 4K will have to be upscaled to 4K, 8K et cetera. Film elements can be scanned and theoretically look better and better the higher resolution. Even if you're not gaining any visible detail you'll be seeing improvements with video compression and video accuracy.

As film scanning and home video technology increases film transfers have improved presentations. But digital film will begin to look worse and worse, because you're going further and further away from the native resolution it was shot at.

[ZoetMB]

This is total b.s. Kodak never made much money from negative - they made it from prints. And "Star Wars VII" only had 15 IMAX 15/70 prints made worldwide. Even "The Hateful Eight" had about 100 70mm prints in North America and that won't save Kodak's film business either.

But studios and directors look for any magic formula for success and the fact that SW has been so successful will probably encourage some to shoot film, even large format film, going forward.

While confusing info has been released, supposedly "Rogue One" is being shot using 65mm Ultra-Pan (although this makes no sense to me if they're not going to show it in 70mm Ultra-Pan like "H8") and Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" is supposedly being shot in a combo of 65mm and IMAX 70mm, although by the time it comes out, there probably won't be any IMAX 15/70 venues left, except for a few museums. And of course there's the potential for many other films to still shoot standard 35mm.

Kodak's been pretty good about trying to keep as many emulsions as possible in the line. Two emulsions were discontinued in 2015. Many configurations (of wind, length and sprocket hole type) are only available as special order and only with a minimum quantity. We'll know more in March or April when Kodak publishes their annual price list.

Kodak has also maintained their archival stocks, which are used to create a reliable archive of even films shot digitally. Any studio who doesn't do this is nuts, because it's highly questionable as formats change whether a digital film of today (or yesterday) will be playable on anything 10-20 years from now.

I currently count 19 Kodak motion picture film emulsions, which include negative, intermediate, print, sound, title and archive. They've discontinued 24 in the last few years.

In still film, Kodak is down to just 10 emulsions.

They've said many times that as soon as orders decrease enough that they can't manufacture a batch consistently, they'll discontinue the emulsion.

As for whether film or digital origination looks better, remember that there are three factors: origination format, intermediate format and presentation format. Almost all movies have digital intermediates today regardless of whether they're shot on film or digital and once you do that, you've already changed the nature of the color and the structure of the image. But let's also not forget that this is not the age of 3-strip Technicolor and the aesthetics of almost all color films for the last 30 years has been desaturated color, so I'm not sure it makes much difference anyway.

Film and digital each have their advantages and disadvantages just as digital and film presentation each of their advantages and disadvantages. My bet is that 98% of people could not correctly identify the origination format when watching a film on a consistent basis.

[segagamer12]

Originally Posted by klauswhereareyou

Because as of now film is still the best looking capture medium. That would be a good enough reason...correct? I understand some indie filmmaker that has a very limited budget or even a big budget film maker who is shooting in conditions that would make it necessary to shoot digital, but as of now big budget films and tv shot digitally looks like dead image $%%#. Hell my wife was watching The Holiday a few days back and I marveled at how nice and crisp the cinematography of a comedy looked for something shot on film back in 2006, which if it was made now would almost certainly be shot digitally. There's a life and depth to the image that looks better in that kind of forgettable romantic comedy from 10 years ago than some of the big budget stuff shot digitally now.

But that is the myth, you can't magically add more picture data to the scanned image that is my point, YES you will get a higher resolution image but you won't get more detail than what was already there to begin with. You can scan it in at any resolution you want but it is not that different than upscaling. They can take a movie that was shot at 2K digital, print that onto a 34 mm film strip, scan that back into the computer and 4k and the resulting image is no different than doing the same thing with something shot on film. There is just a lot of misinformation out there by people who never studied light or physics or any of the science of film, just angry old timers who believe the marketing lies and the industry buzzwords and talking points, and whatever else they want to believe. 35mm film, or film of any kind, will never allow for as much detail as digital no matter what resolution it is scanned at because you cannot physically, magically, add more light than what was physically capable of passing through the damn thing in the first place.

[slaizer2000]

Being from Rochester (Kodak's home town) this is good news. But I really hoping the blu-ray won't have alot of film grain or lousy DNR.
I did see alot of screen door effect at the regualr movie (2nd row from front, got there too late) but didn't really notice it on an IMAX 3D screen but was also sitting at about middle-row from the screen.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

But that is the myth, you can't magically add more picture data to the scanned image that is my point, YES you will get a higher resolution image but you won't get more detail than what was already there to begin with. You can scan it in at any resolution you want but it is not that different than upscaling. They can take a movie that was shot at 2K digital, print that onto a 34 mm film strip, scan that back into the computer and 4k and the resulting image is no different than doing the same thing with something shot on film. There is just a lot of misinformation out there by people who never studied light or physics or any of the science of film, just angry old timers who believe the marketing lies and the industry buzzwords and talking points, and whatever else they want to believe. 35mm film, or film of any kind, will never allow for as much detail as digital no matter what resolution it is scanned at because you cannot physically, magically, add more light than what was physically capable of passing through the damn thing in the first place.

Here's an theoretical example ...

Take a digitally shot video, shot at 480p and a DVD transfer of a 35mm film. It doesn't really matter which one looks better, although I'd imagine if the 480p digital video was of it's time the DVD would transfer would look better. Now take that 480p digital video and upscale it to 4K and plonk it on a UHD BD, then scan the 35mm film in 4K and transfer it to UHD BD. Extreme examples I know, but which one do you think will look superior?

The example shows how film moves with the time and the digital video stays still, even if all things were equal, the benefits in compression alone would be visible with the new 4K scan of film elements, those benefits wouldn't make any difference to the original digital video. The scans of the film will look better and better, they'll have better colours, better dynamic range, less compression (as disc size increases), they'll just get better, we may not see any more detail past a certain point, but everything else will improve.

It's not about visible detail, it's about the presentation and accuracy of that detail, as technology improves that accuracy will improve. Things shot digitally won't see any improvement in presentation when the source is a lower quality than the output.

[klauswhereareyou]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

But that is the myth, you can't magically add more picture data to the scanned image that is my point, YES you will get a higher resolution image but you won't get more detail than what was already there to begin with. You can scan it in at any resolution you want but it is not that different than upscaling. They can take a movie that was shot at 2K digital, print that onto a 34 mm film strip, scan that back into the computer and 4k and the resulting image is no different than doing the same thing with something shot on film. There is just a lot of misinformation out there by people who never studied light or physics or any of the science of film, just angry old timers who believe the marketing lies and the industry buzzwords and talking points, and whatever else they want to believe. 35mm film, or film of any kind, will never allow for as much detail as digital no matter what resolution it is scanned at because you cannot physically, magically, add more light than what was physically capable of passing through the damn thing in the first place.

You're confusing quote on quote file size or whatever to what film actually does. There is a specific thing that film does that digital does not, specifically in regards to contrast, depth, weight, and a general sense of being a living image. Digital can be very good at times, but there almost always seems to be a certain flatness to the image, almost a dead quality to it. I know it seems like it's really hard for you to process this, but this isn't a simple 2K, 4K, 8K, 10000K sort of thing. I'm thinking that as far as digital photography goes this would be more the issue because you're dealing with one shot, not 24 shots per second, and it's much easier to ape the film look with one still. Digital vs. film truly is like "painting" with different tools.

Really in a few years it really won't matter because everyone coming into the industry will more than likely either not want to shoot on film due to having not ever used it before, and the industry wants it to die due to cost (which is peanuts compared to many of the other on set costs, but they will cut from where they think they can).

[segagamer12]

Originally Posted by klauswhereareyou

You're confusing quote on quote file size or whatever to what film actually does. There is a specific thing that film does that digital does not, specifically in regards to contrast, depth, weight, and a general sense of being a living image. Digital can be very good at times, but there almost always seems to be a certain flatness to the image, almost a dead quality to it. I know it seems like it's really hard for you to process this, but this isn't a simple 2K, 4K, 8K, 10000K sort of thing. I'm thinking that as far as digital photography goes this would be more the issue because you're dealing with one shot, not 24 shots per second, and it's much easier to ape the film look with one still. Digital vs. film truly is like "painting" with different tools.

Really in a few years it really won't matter because everyone coming into the industry will more than likely either not want to shoot on film due to having not ever used it before, and the industry wants it to die due to cost (which is peanuts compared to many of the other on set costs, but they will cut from where they think they can).

No you are confusing how light works. Light is a particle that has to pass through the film in order to make an impression, there can never be more light particles passing through that piece of film than what can physically pass through that same amount of space. No matter how you word it there is an exact physical limit on the amount of physical photons can pass through that area of 35 millimeters and you appear not to understand how small 35 millimeters is. Digital cameras can allow far more light to pass through because they are not limited to a 35mm space, the sensor that captures or grabs the light photos and records the image, is ten times larger on the cheapest digital cameras in existence. They only get better over the years.


Now you can talk about weight and depth all you want, also more nonsense you understand nothing about, the medium has nothing to do with how the light gets onto the film or the sensor, it has to do with the lens and you can use the same lenses on a film cameras as you can on a digital camera and "bend" the light the same getting the same depth no matter what.

Also you seem to be the one confusing file sizes or whatever it is you think I was talking about. That has nothing to do with anything.


Okay say you took a movie shot at 480p digital and PRINTED that onto 35mm and projected that at 35mm, you are not going to get any clearer of a picture than you would if you just blew up that 480p digital image BUT it will look sharper because you are not stretching the pixels out like you would if you just projected it. This is because you will take the 480p worth of pixels and print them onto a film strip and the printer will, just like when you print photos onto paper, spread the dots out to cover the area you define. The reason it won't look as stretched is because the way film projects verses the way digital projects.


Now TRUE if you shoot in 1080p and capture that digitally then any future digital projections are locked in at 1080p but true film 35mm doesn't translate to pixels anyways.

[42041]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

Digital cameras can allow far more light to pass through because they are not limited to a 35mm space, the sensor that captures or grabs the light photos and records the image, is ten times larger on the cheapest digital cameras in existence. They only get better over the years.

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I'd stop.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

No you are confusing how light works. Light is a particle that has to pass through the film in order to make an impression, there can never be more light particles passing through that piece of film than what can physically pass through that same amount of space. No matter how you word it there is an exact physical limit on the amount of physical photons can pass through that area of 35 millimeters and you appear not to understand how small 35 millimeters is. Digital cameras can allow far more light to pass through because they are not limited to a 35mm space, the sensor that captures or grabs the light photos and records the image, is ten times larger on the cheapest digital cameras in existence. They only get better over the years.

Nope. And even if you were right, it's an Apples and Oranges comparison anyway. Exciting photosites on a sensor is not the same thing as exposing light sensitive chemicals to light on an emulsion.

And most people understand perfectly how small 35mm is. It's 1.37" . That's the width of a strip of 35mm film.
Now let's look at sensor and frame sizes.
Film:
A 35mm still frame is 36mm x 24mm.
A 35mm movie projected at 1.85:1 is 21mm x 11.38mm
A 35mm movie to be projected at 2.39:1 has an image area of 21mm x 17.53mm

Digital
The sensor used in the iPhone6 is just 4.89 x 3.67mm
A 1/2.3" sensor used in most point-and-shoot cameras is 6.16 x 4.62mm
The 1" sensor used in the Nikon 1 line and the Sony RX 100 line is 13.2 x 8.8mm
The 4/3 sensor used in many small cameras is 17.3 x 13.0 mm
The APS-C sensor used by Canon for the DSLR 60D is 22.3 x 14.9mm
The Mysterium Red One, used for digital film production is 24.4 x 13.7mm
Nikon DX as used in the D3100 is 23.1 x 15.4mm
APS-C as used by Sony is generally 23.4 or 23.5x15.6mm
APS-C as used in the Leica X1 is 23.6 x 15.7mm
Nikon DX as used in most of Nikon's other cameras is 23.6 x 15.8mm
Nikon FX (full-frame) is either 36x23.9mm or 35.9 x 24mm, depending upon the model.
And then there are the media format sensors which are anywhere from 45x30mm to 50.7 x 39mm.

So except for medium format, sensors in digital cameras are mostly far smaller than a 35mm frame, not larger. But that's not relevant anyway, because film and a digital sensor handle light in completely different ways.

[42041]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

So except for medium format, sensors in digital cameras are mostly far smaller than a 35mm frame, not larger. But that's not relevant anyway, because film and a digital sensor handle light in completely different ways.

For whatever it's worth these days, an imax negative is a whopping 70mmx52mm or thereabouts. I doubt there's any production sensor that large. (and of course, in the world of large-format still photography, you're dealing with inches, not millimeters. There, digital is simply not a contender, resolution-wise.)

[Se.Vero]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

No you are confusing how light works. Light is a particle that has to pass through the film in order to make an impression, there can never be more light particles passing through that piece of film than what can physically pass through that same amount of space. No matter how you word it there is an exact physical limit on the amount of physical photons can pass through that area of 35 millimeters and you appear not to understand how small 35 millimeters is. Digital cameras can allow far more light to pass through because they are not limited to a 35mm space, the sensor that captures or grabs the light photos and records the image, is ten times larger on the cheapest digital cameras in existence. They only get better over the years.


Now you can talk about weight and depth all you want, also more nonsense you understand nothing about, the medium has nothing to do with how the light gets onto the film or the sensor, it has to do with the lens and you can use the same lenses on a film cameras as you can on a digital camera and "bend" the light the same getting the same depth no matter what.

Also you seem to be the one confusing file sizes or whatever it is you think I was talking about. That has nothing to do with anything.


Okay say you took a movie shot at 480p digital and PRINTED that onto 35mm and projected that at 35mm, you are not going to get any clearer of a picture than you would if you just blew up that 480p digital image BUT it will look sharper because you are not stretching the pixels out like you would if you just projected it. This is because you will take the 480p worth of pixels and print them onto a film strip and the printer will, just like when you print photos onto paper, spread the dots out to cover the area you define. The reason it won't look as stretched is because the way film projects verses the way digital projects.


Now TRUE if you shoot in 1080p and capture that digitally then any future digital projections are locked in at 1080p but true film 35mm doesn't translate to pixels anyways.

I really dont want to go into detail as others did before, but i agree with the others that you seem to have no clue what you're talking about. I'd stop if i were you before it gets even more embarassaing for you. :-P

[segagamer12]

I have no clue what I am talking about? Wrong. I am a professional photographer who went to school to study photography. I have taken physics classes on light, NASA themselves switched to digital for the very same reason, you get a TRUER picture, as in more accurate, than with digital than you do film. I forgot the exact percents but it was staggering, it was like film only captures 10 percent or something of the total light where with digital you can get as much as 80 percent even on a cheap camera. I was not talking about pixels either film doesn't have pixels that is a myth that was what I was saying, if you think film has pixels you are blatantly wrong PERIOD. It doesn't there is not such thing as pixels on a film there just isn't. You can prefer the aesthetic of film versus digital all you want but the scientific facts are digital does capture more of the light.

Even on the same size in mm sensor digital captures more of the light, it gets ALL of the color where with film it takes special tricks to "fake" color in the first place.



Maybe you misunderstand what I was arguing, or proving. Film does not have a pixel count period it just doesn't.

[42041]

Originally Posted by segagamer12

I have no clue what I am talking about? Wrong. I am a professional photographer who went to school to study photography.

Oh dear. You should get your money back.
You're probably lying or deluded of course - no professional worth the term would be so ill informed about his equipment. I think you don't even know enough to realize just how profoundly wrong your post was and think you're still fooling someone - you're not.

But it's true enough that for almost all practical applications, modern digital sensors surpassed film capture in a purely technical sense in most respects years ago. But we are not dealing with scientific imaging, we're dealing with visual art - so we also have to consider the aesthetic sense. Film doesn't look like digital. My DSLR takes great pictures, but it doesn't take pictures that look like slide film. Modern lens are far sharper and far more optically perfect than my old 60s and 70s ones, but they don't have the same evocative soft, glassy look. I think people who are dogmatic about technical performance in photography/cinematography are idiots. Imperfection is great. It will be the economics of film that takes it down (and I'm deeply skeptical that a handful of blockbusters will do much at all to keep it alive), not that digital is higher-res or cleaner or whatever.

[Spike M.]

Steve Yedlin (DP for Episode VIII) is doing some interesting work.


http://www.yedlin.net/DisplayPrepDemo/

http://www.yedlin.net/160105_edit.html

"Many format tests have a certainty that each format has an inherent 'look', and the purpose of the test is to find out what that look is. I believe that's a problematic presumption to build upon... (instead) think of the camera as purely a data collection device, and the so called 'look' comes only from how the data is prepared for viewing."

[segagamer12]

Originally Posted by 42041

But it's true enough that for almost all practical applications, modern digital sensors surpassed film capture in a purely technical sense in most respects years ago. But we are not dealing with scientific imaging, we're dealing with visual art - so we also have to consider the aesthetic sense. Film doesn't look like digital.

I NEVER said anywhere digital takes better pictures than film, I said film doesn't have pixels, PERIOD, how is that wrong? Um you even agreed with what I proved. I think you misunderstand what I was saying. All I ever said was digital captures more light, that is a scientific fact. I never made any case against film as an art medium, that was someone putting words into my mouth.

So you need to stop. I am not stupid I know what I am talking about but you are trying to make it sound like I am saying something I AM NOT SAYING!

I am not, nor was I ever, arguing film looks bad, or worse than digital. All I ever said was FILM DOES NOT USE PIXELS, and digital is the future film is outdated. Those are still facts. So if you prefer film fine but you cannot deny the fact, you even agreed with in your own reply.