cinematography Just how important is what camera you use?

T

TheKoreandonut

As I watched 'Inland Empire' which was filmed entirely in SD, I wondered just how important is the camera(s) that I use for my short films. I have a D90 and a Sony CX150 that I've used extensively. I used to think that better camera = better picture but now I'm not so sure. I recently saw a couple of YT vids where people have rented red ones and made a short film. Some of these films didn't look much different that some that had been filmed with consumer cams and that got me thinking...

Maybe the camera is only as good the person operating it. Maybe with the proper lighting and cinematography, even a cheap, standard definition camera could be used to produce something worthy of the big screen. I know dynamic range and lenses play a big part in this but I dunno, what do you guys think?

If you gave Steven Spielberge a handicam and an amateur filmmaker a 7D, who do you think would come out with the better looking film?
 
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chilipie said:
But then if it did look like real grain, how would you know it wasn't? :)
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But it doesn't look like real grain.

I'm saying the grain I've seen added in post looks like most things added in post: FAKE. The larger point, as I've stated, is that film is a different aesthetic and in terms of latitude, highlight handling, and other elements, a more pleasing image. If digital grain etc is what you like, then that's great too, but I like film better.
 
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brianluce said:
But it doesn't look like real grain.

I'm saying the grain I've seen added in post looks like most things added in post: FAKE. The larger point, as I've stated, is that film is a different aesthetic and in terms of latitude, highlight handling, and other elements, a more pleasing image. If digital grain etc is what you like, then that's great too, but I like film better.
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Uh well, yeah, of course you do because it's superior in pretty much every respect. It's also way, way, way more expensive and difficult to use.
 
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cameronchapman said:
Yeah, I'm a fan of the look of the Alexa over the Red. I think the Alexa has a...richer?...image than the Red.
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I think Alexa often comes off looking better because of the human element. The Alexa pre-color corrects footage, outputting perfectly balanced footage. The red outputs raw from the sensor. You can get a better picture on the Red than the Alexa, but you have to work at it. The Alexa just looks good all the time. For this reason, I think a lot of red footage comes out that does not live up to the potential of the camera.

They shoot a lot of 100+ million dollar movies on red now, but almost none on Alexa. This is because pros can beat an alexa with a red any day, but less capable types, such as camera testers will often get a better look out of the autopilot than with red's stick shift approach. That's simply because they don't color correct either, then match a CC'd Alexa video with an uncorrected red video. Obviously this is not a fair comparison.
 
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