movie cameras v still cameras

[tk shots]

<p>do movie cameras deal with the light range better than film cameras,and if so,why? sometimes it seems like like they do when you see a film</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>The mechanics of the cameras, for one frame, are exactly the same; my all manual movie camera (hand crank and spring) has the same types of aperture, focus and shutter settings (have to translate fps to 1/x, but the same) as my still cameras. The film itself is film. There's a size difference between the formats, to get them in their respective cameras, but the film is film.</p>

<p>The Plus-X reversal I've run through my Bolex is the same Plus-X you would get anywhere. Have a look at some really bad student films, and you'll see it's not the camera or the film that has to do with those exposure calculations.</p>

<p>I'd say that because a lot of films are reversal processed, or negative printed in moving machines, a film still (regular SLR picture on a negative, for example) would offer much easier access to editing, and that could translate into how the photographer handled range. I would bet that it's not the equipment; if anything, the movie equipment makes it harder to do a good job or fix a problem later. Nature of the beast.</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>The cost is in the digital transfers. If you want a good, pro quality 16mm movie film to digital transfer, indistinguishable from what you would see on TV, common cost will be about $25 a minute for a film shot at 16 fps. I had this done for an experimental roll, and the digital quality was so high, that I have not seen a desktop program that could do an effective job on my tape; there is a loss of range in the compressions that the software will apply to the data; and, the image size itself will be crushed into a smaller image. There is a clear and noticeable difference between watching the tape directly and feeding that tape from the same reader into a computer and making a desktop-style movie file from it. There is just a heckuva lotta data on the DV tape.</p>

<p>That said, if you were to accept a small print size in conventional optical printing, 16mm movie, shot about 5 frames per composition, would be the absolute cheapest camera to operate, film or digital. You could reasonably get pro quality optics, film, all media, everything, thousands upon thousands of shots for decades out of the camera, for the same price as what you would pay for contemporary equipment that would become obsolete faster.</p>

<p>However, you would really have to know what you were doing. This gets back to your original question: do they have a better range? No. They have the same range; but, see these great expenses for the same types of tasks? At $25 a minute, you need to be sure you are ready to pull the trigger on that bad boy. So, there is a more deliberate workflow encouraged. I would not be surprised if someone metered and calculated for an hour before making the shot. I know that not everyone does this, and certainly not all the time; but, with the expenses involved in just operating the media alone, careful photographers will succeed. Shoot from the hip too much, and you will not only get bad exposures, you'll blow the budget into bankruptcy, and will stop operating the camera. A cine photographer will be forced by budget constraints into being more careful, just in terms of camera operation. The rest of the normal "movie" concerns are just compounding layers of the problem.</p>

<p>They've gotta be careful, or they will fail in movie. This may be the factor that lends the affects to the images that make it appear as though the media itself is superior.J.</p>

[kari v]

<p>What you see on film is more about million dollars in light gear than the camera.</p>

[richard_cochran]

<p>If you look at professionally done studio photos, you might think they're able to handle light better than the cameras used by casual snapshooters to take party/vacation shots. Well done studio shots look as good as movies, for pretty much the same reason. And it has almost nothing to do with the camera.</p>

<p>As you read the credits, note the number of people involved in lighting. If you've ever had the opportunity to view a working movie set, you'll see how much lighting gear is just outside the camera's view. Not only lights, but also scrims, reflectors, etc. They work very hard to make sure the range of scene lighting will fall within the range which their film (or digital video camera) will handle.</p>

[link]

<p>If you're asking about film capture cameras, they are exactly the same.</p>

<p>Cinematographers on "Hollywood" style movies spend a lot of time lighting scenes to (often) make it look like they didn't light it at all. If you're thinking about how you can see clearly out the window during the day, while it's dark inside, well, the widows might have very dark filters added to them and/or very bright lights are used inside. Outside might even actually be indoors and the vista is a large photograph hung outside the window of the set. It's quite common outside to use very large scrims to cut sunlight and very large lamps (18000+ watts) to equalize the sunlight when necessary (fill flash just doesn't work in movies). Sometimes, large reflectors are used as well.</p>

<p>As for digital capture, a DSLR camera in RAW mode may capture a wider range of tones than a home digital video camera (for sure!), and even a wider range of tones than some or many professional digital video cameras. There are a few digital motion picture cameras that can capture a similar range of tones to DSLR cameras in RAW mode.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>And one other big item. The release print is a far cry from the original rough cut. You can tell from some of the add on extra scenes on DVD not balanced for color and density with the FINAL release prints, whether on film stock or digital. So I understand the way it works in post. The lab does a lot to make it all seem perfect. Simple but work.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>I was recently invited to the H.S graduation for the son of one of my good friends, he was able to record the happenings in very dim light using a small hand held camcorder, while the only choice I had was to use flash.</p>

[tk shots]

<p>thanks guys....tommy</p>