Re: Eclair Cameras: 7218?

----Original Message Follows----

From: Chris Leong

"Anybody tested the new Vision2 7218 yet?

Chris

Hey Chris and Fellow ACL'ers,

Sorry for the long post, but I did some digging through the "Cinematography Mailing List" archives, and I found these reviews of Kodak's new 52 and 7218 stocks. Hopes this helps.

Cheers,

Carlo

Subject: 5218 debut
From: "David Mullen" <davidm2@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:45:44 -0800
X-Message-Number: 3

Just saw the Kodak public demo for the release of 5218, like many CML
members did also.

Main impressions:

(1) It's finer grained than 5279 (Vision 500T), but I don't think it's
actually as fine-grained as 5274 (Vision 200T), but darn close. Would have
to see a comparison test to know for sure.
(2) It's got more latitude than 5279 (and '74, '46, etc.), although I don't
know if it is as low-contrast as 5284.
(3) It's slightly more pastel than 5279, which may disappoint some, but not
as pastel as 5284.
(4) Whites, greys, blacks are more neutral .

I like it overall and would prefer it over _expression_ 500T, and even over
Vision 500T unless I wanted more saturation and contrast. If rated at 1000
ASA and pushed one stop, I think it might look better than Vision 800T does
rated normally. Would have to test that hypothesis.

It certainly suggests that a decent-looking Vision-2 1000T could be
possible.

I also look forward to a 200 ASA or 100 ASA version of 5218, because I'd
finally get my dream stock of a slower-speed, fine-grained stock with a wide
latitude for shooting day exteriors.

5218 should also benefit Super-16 shooters who need a 500 ASA stock, as well
as people shooting in Super-35 and blowing up to anamorphic. People doing
digital intermediate work would also benefit from the extra information on
the negative plus the finer-grained (and digital color-correction would
allow one to tweak the color saturation to one's own tastes.) I'm sure
there will be some shooting for conventional printing who will object to the
flatter look, although one could always print onto Vision Premier to goose
it up.

Can't wait for the 200 ASA version...

David Mullen
Cinematographer / L.A.

Subject: 5218 Vision 2
From: "Tenolian Bell" <tenobell@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:34:40 -0000
X-Message-Number: 9

Here's what I saw:

They showed a 35mm print of a music video shot with 5218. It was
interesting to see a music video on a 1:85 print. Then they showed 5218
and 5279 side by side tests. In this you could see that the 5218 is a much
softer film, lower contrast, less saturated colors, and less grai n. I was
surprised to see how aggressive 5279 is. It crushed the blacks, saturated
colors, and had noticeably more grain. Honestly though they showed both
stocks 1 and 2 stops underexposed. At 2 stops under they both looked about
the same to me, even though the narrator said the 5218 held up better,
they were both extremely grainy and the blacks were totally mush.

Through the whole 35mm tests the most noticeable difference was in skin to
neutral tones and the blacks. It was quite striking to see how neutral
5218 was with skin tones, while 5279 added a saturated reddish color. 5218
saw into the blacks a lot better and still maintained clean blacks. I
didn't see any underexposed areas go cloudy or mushy. While 5279 crushed
the blacks, which were also clean.

Truthfully the real test of '18 was in the super 16 to 35 blow up. I
didn't realize how much a lower contrast film would help with super 16.
They showed a shot of 7218 and a shot of 7274 and the grain was very
similar.

In the presentation they said this film has 11 stops of dynamic range. In
one shot with 7218 was of a lady wearing a white shirt. The DP said her
shirt was about 5 stops over. The shirt was practically glowing, but you
could still see detail. The collar of her shirt was white on the white
shirt but you could still see the full shape of the collar. It didn't get
lost in the mass of white.

Back in the 35mm they had a test similar to this where a guy was painting
on a white canvas. The canvas was glowing white and the guy was painting
with a light grey color. With 5218 you could see more detail in the
strokes of grey, while with the 5279 the grey massed together, and you
could see less detail in the strokes.

Another cool shot with the 7218 was of a guy sitting at a table at night.
A table lamp was prominent in frame and the DP said the exposed brick wall
behind him was unlit. I don't know how many stops over the table lamp was
but you could see detail in the lamp shade, and you could see bricks in
the back unlit wall. While with 7279 the lamp became brighter and we lost
detail in the lamp shade, the back wall went darker and we lost the
bricks, the guys skin tone became warmer.

The super 16 blow up was really impressive. This was all done with out any
digital enhancement, everything was optical, the final print was a dupe.

Now with film you will need less light for the shadows and be able to hold
highlights with in frame. I suppose we'll call for more shadows for depth.
A low contrast stock would look pretty flat with no shadows.

Tenolian Bell
Cinematographer NY

Subject: Vision 2 5218 in use part 1
From: Geoff Boyle <Geoff@cinematography.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 08:10:55 +0000
X-Message-Number: 10

Finally, finally I can tell you :-)

Throw away all your 500 ISO stocks and whilst you're at it junk your 200 ISO
stocks as well.

Occasionally there is a major leap forward in our business and this is
exactly that.

I first tested 18 in a "real" situation when I was shooting a commercial on
'84 and we substituted '18 for a couple of shots, well, we re-shot them on
'18, it's great to have a cooperative director :-)

It was a job with a lot of highlights a very high key job all over.

The back bounce light was visible in the top third of picture, it was going
to be replaced later, this was a 20' * 20' canvas with nine light maxi
brutes being bounced into it to give a very soft even backlight. With the
'84 there was absolutely no detail in this a rea, I hadn't expected any, I
didn't bother taking a reading as it would have been off the scale. When we
switched to the '18 we were able to wind down the gain and pick out each
individual bulb of the nine lights, all 54 of them! :-) no we didn't count
them but you know what I mean!

Although the shot didn't have any real shadows in it I did a cameo
appearance in what has been called my VietCong peasant kit, black linen
trousers and a black polo shirt, very low reflectivity but we were able to
wind the gain up and get detail of the cloth structure in both.

The picture was also sooo clean, it looked like a better '74, yes '74 with
a decent contrast range :-) only of course it was over twice as fast.

The skintones were great, even I looked good, and the overall look was such
that when I switched back to the same shot on '84 I wondered why I's ever
used that shit film! not that '84 is bad, up until very recently I loved
it, b ut '18 just kicked the shit out of it.

My director screamed "why didn't we shoot the whole thing on this, I wish
I'd never seen this test!" the second colourist to work with the tests said
that Kodak should be careful with slower versions of this as he may not
have enough grain left to focus the Spirit.

I'll continue this in part 2.

--
Cheers

Geoff Boyle FBKS

Director of Photography
EU based
www.cinematography.net/geoff

Subject: Vision 2 5218 part 2
From: Geoff Boyle <Geoff@cinematography.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 08:30:44 +0000
X-Message-Number: 11

So now onto a real test, a full commercial shot only on 5218.

The ope ning shot of the commercial is a 17 pass green screen shot in a
London Underground station, because of the size of the shot, the entire
length of a train and platform and the amount of time we had for 3
multi-pass shots, 3.5 hours, I decided to shoot it totally by available
light and just tickle up the foreground with a couple of Wall O Lights
filtered to match the available. This resulted in a background reading of
between 1.4 and 2 and a foreground of 2.5. I shot on my old Kinoptic 9.8mm
for the master wide, T2.2 and I can't remember if I used the Cooke 3's or
the 4's for the 2 closer shots, I have a feeling it was the 3's as I lit it
up slightly to get 2.8. All of these shot's had green screens in them and
the screens were just tilted back to pick up the ambient flouro's, worked
like a dream.

The results were gorgeous, we could correct it back to normal but went with
a contrasty green/blue look in TK, the light in the locati on had measured
basically daylight plus a half green.

The models skintones in the close up were just gorgeous, we dissolved
through to her in an identical pose in a high key but warm bedroom where I
had no shortage of light :-) and total control and the picture was just
lovely.

The main body of the commercial was shot in a studio set and was lit to
around 5.6 with huge bounce sources and when we TK's we lifted the gamma
right up to get a very light and airy feel to it in contrast to the
oppressive outside world. The pictures just looked so smooth I couldn't get
over how well this stock was handling the approach, I'd normally only do a
sequence like this with a 200 ISO stock because it can cause the grain to
leap up, what grain?

There were also blue screen elements in this that were later motion tracked
together with elements that we'd shot on location. The location elements
were shot uncorrected as they included timelap se passes from day to night
and of course Justins patented 5 shot background sequence that he can
describe in detail himself!

It just worked so well, even the nigh stuff shot with sodium street lights
looked great!

I can't wait for the next film in the range.

It really makes the idea of shooting TV series in S16 with 500ISO viable.

I tried blowing up S16 size sections of the 35mm just to see what it looked
like and really guys, don't worry about 500 in 16mm any more.

I know that in the past I've been able to use 16mm with 500ISO where TV
series guys have had problems, this has nothing to do with my abilities
just that I get to use the best TK's and colourists and the TV guys don't.

Well this stock kills that difference.

As you may have gathered I quite like this film.

--
Cheers

Geoff Boyle FBKS

Director of Photography
EU based
www.cinematography.net/geoff

Su bject: do we need Vision 320T anymore?
From: "David Mullen" <davidm2@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 08:42:30 -0800
X-Message-Number: 13

It struck me that the new 5218 seems to be a little finer-grained than
Vision 320T (5277) yet is two-thirds of a stop faster and has better
latitude to boot -- so what's the point of Vision 320T anymore? Vision 320T
is not as low-con and pastel as 5284 and 5263; I think if you rated Vision
320T at 250-200 ASA, you'd get a similar look to 5218 normally rated, but
have other advantages with 5218, like speed. Other than price, I'm not sure
why I'd choose Vision 320T over 5218 now.

David Mullen
Cinematographer / L.A.