Video Vs. Photo Quality
- Started
- Last post
- 6 Responses
- mg33
Here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a while that may sound stupid, but I'll ask anyways because I'm curious.
What causes the difference between a photo taken on a camera (digital or film) and a still image from a video or movie?
Specifically I mean the color tones, lighting, and general look of a movie, even when you pause a screen. And, also talking about movies on a modern flat panel TV. I always have this feeling that the look and feel of color and tone in movies is never identically duplicated in photography, but not sure why. Is it lenses? Do movies recorded to film just have something completely different going on in comparison to photo cameras?
Anyone able to share some details on this?
- vaxorcist0
lenses, shutter speeds, lighting styles, color timing, composition, etc...
1. Lenses/field of view: more depth of field usually....
- the 35mm film for a "normal" movie is run VERTICALLY, so the strip of film is 17x24mm, whereas the "full-frame" DSLR or "normal film" 35mm camera is 24mmx36mm because the film is run HORIZONTALLY through the camera. This means that the field of view and depth of field of a "normal" 35mm film is more like an "APS-C" crop-frame DSLR than a full-fame DSLR. Note also that a great deal of commercial photography is shot with medium format DSLR's and even medium format film, where the depth of field is even LESS than 35mm full-frame. Oddly, this is one reason that many filmmakers went NUTS over the Canon 5D mark II, because it could give them even THINNER depth of field than their normal 35mm style film cameras, or various digital alternatives that used the same size lens mount/sensor size.1.a. Since people are often moving, and the film is likely to be projected large, filmmakers don't often shoot at wide open apertures, they're often a stop or two down, and also use a ton of follow-focus. (which is a real talent,or pain depending on you...)
1.b. Film productions tend to use more extreme lenses than most consumers, i.e. they use a 300mm or 400mm lens for telephoto shots, and they're more careful about what's in the background, as they have more production control and can move things around, for example, moving the subject farther from the background in order to get more "bokeh" look.
2. Shutter speeds.... often films are shot at slower shutter speeds than still photos, as they're willing to accept a bit of momentary motion blur.... especially at 24 FPS, if every frame in a motion sequence is very sharp there can be "jitter", even if you pan or track very slowly.... still photographers have to be sharp unless they really want blur...
3.Lighting Styles are often very different, not just because there's often a tracking shot and/or a moving actor, hence more broad lighting using more diffusion,etc, but also because the mood and feeling is built over time, so unlike a still photo where you really have to make the drama all at once, where a certain part of the face must be lit in a clear way, whereas in a movie, actors can move, drama can be from the expression, face in the shadows due to more narrative,etc...
3.a. check out and compare movie freeze-frames to a bunch of photographic images, (even images by photographers like Gregory Crewdson)... you will see far more pop and contrast in the photos, more punch in the highlights, more upper-midtones, more deliberate emphasis in the lighting, the movie freeze frames will usually look rather flat in comparison.
4.Color Timing... films are often lit in a much less "flattering" and much more "realistic" way than most photographs, especially in the age of auto white-balance on DSLR's... the movie crew usually establishes a color pallette throughout the film, a handful of lighting styles, and some characters are lit according to mood more than surroundings, but they do have to be believable, unless it's a deliberate artistic unreality. The term "color timing" is from a film lab technique where the amount of time the film was developed in certain color chemistry was somewhat of a mystic art, the color timer was the person who was able to get the film in a certain color pallette through precise development time and temperature tweeks in addition to the lighting. LOTS of test film was shot and developed. DSLR's and most photogaphic color is often very, very subjective in comparison, as the photo is its own pallette, it doesn't have any continuity to worry about unless it's part of a series.
4.b. colors in a photograph for production/magazine print have to be tweeked a bit so as to control shadows blocking up,etc...
4.c. projected images look different no matter what you do, compared to prints and/or even screens....
5. Composition through time and motion vs composition of a still photograph, even if so many film freeze frames look like great prints, it's different but you probably already know that....
and of course, movies have much larger budgets most of the time, and more people to keep happy,etc.... different economics,etc....
- autoflavour0
if i say crushed blacks, are you going to hit me?
- vaxorcist0
and of course, flash, even a whole bunch of watt-seconds in softboxes can cause a certain edge sharpness in hair and skintones that you rarely see with continious light....
- tesmith0
vaxocrist - what a thoughtful response. Nice.
- Horp0
A frame is a single reading from a linear sequence of signals. Moving image cameras are designed for speed, capturing change and transition as seamlessly as possibly. A still camera, operating at speed, will capture a less vivid, less clear, less detailed picture because it is relying on a limited amount of light hitting the receiver in a very short exposure. Moving image cameras are capturing hundreds of very high speed images, in order to maintain a certain speed rate, so by design they are lower quality, but as they are only on your retina for a tiny nth of a second it doesn't matter, the conveyance of continuity is the prime objective of a frame.
