Now, H.265 will obviously offer better quality (for the same size) compared to H.264, so this may also be a factor.

One way to (at least partially) counter the lack of color info with chroma subsampling is shooting higher resolutions. For example, shooting 4K with 2K end result in mind will deliver a bit denser final image because of oversampling. Actually, this is probably the only decent way of shooting flat images on a consumer or prosumer level equipment.

I’d like to toss in a few additional bits (no pun intended.) The compression algorithm used in all modern consumer cameras and camcorders for video is called MPEG-4 H.264 AVC. It partly works in the same general way that JPEG works: discarding detail that human eyes aren’t likely to notice. Unfortunately the infamous so-called “YouTube compression” that is blamed for significantly reducing visual quality of some videos is the exact same compression used by your consumer-grade DSLR or camcorder. The thing about AVC is that it has a ton of “knobs” that can be tuned to change how it works; some “knobs” make the resulting video incompatible with older devices; some would boost quality but also increase the time needed to compress beyond what can be done in 1/30 of a second in a cheap ASIC chip so they don’t tend to be used by consumer cameras at all.

Another thing that people don’t realize is that consumer AVC video is recorded in a “chroma subsampling” pixel format called 4:2:0, where 100% of pixels have their luminance (brightness) information recorded but the COLOR INFORMATION (chrominance) resolution is HALVED IN EACH DIRECTION. That means color is only sampled once for every 2×2 block of pixels. You can see the problems caused by this discarding of 3/4 of the color information when you take SD footage and try to use a green screen and chroma key; the boundary between the subject and the green screen gets “blurred together” by the subsampling and it’s not so easy to get a clean chroma key. HD footage has the same problem but 1080p has more than double the pixels in each axis which sort of cancels out the halving of color information.

This all matters a lot when you change from “looks good in-camera” picture styles to these flat styles that supposedly make things look better. Anyone who has watched a heavily compressed DVD rip has seen MPEG-4 macroblock banding in dark frames and other low-contrast areas. Some advanced AVC encoders have a knob called “psychovisual rate distortion” that can be used to push more of the available encoding bits into these low-contrast areas, but consumer cameras can’t really optimize this for all situations, so they make up for it with higher overall bit rates (think about a 24 Mbps consumer video to a 1 Mbps DVD rip; even with 6x the info in 1080p vs 480p, the 24x bit rate can encode 4x more of the video info that would otherwise be discarded.)

Despite higher bit rates, the visual problems are still there, and pushing up low-contrast areas in post will not only reveal more noise, it’ll also make MPEG-4 macroblock banding much more obvious. This comes full circle when you combine “shoot flat (low-contrast)” and “MPEG-4 causes banding in lower contrast areas.” By shooting flat on a camera using an 8-bit 4:2:0 MPEG-4 AVC output codec, you’re making that consumer-grade camera discard A LOT MORE visual information than it would if you had just used a “neutral” style. The histogram breaking up is going to be a problem with any extremely flat picture style, but the last thing you need is to introduce barely visual banding artifacts on purpose, THEN boost their contrast AND break up the histogram to cause even worse banding.

If you have a fancier camera that does 10-bit or 4;2:2 encoding then it might be less of an issue; if your camera outputs huge raw video files or dumps to an uncompressed video recording box, you can do this flat thing all day long, but if you’re reading this then you don’t have $15,000+ for such a fancy pile of gear. Know the limitations of what you have and test the extremes in post of things like custom picture styles before you put something important in that format and find out the hard way that you can’t use the footage the way you had intended. Work smarter, not harder!

That said, as long as it works ok for you, then it is fine. :) Requirements vary from one person to another, so nothing is cast in stone.

Most equipment is calibrated for a viewer’s FOV or around 40-45 degree, which would be around 32mm in Super35. This is the angle of view of the so called “prime seat” in most proper movie theaters, as well as the angle used in the THX specification for calibration of the audiovisual experience.

The main reason for widescreen popularity is purely commercial. Theaters needed to differentiate themselves from TV. Widescreen was a good way to up the ante. Filmmakers followed by producing content for widescreen. Wider screens also more naturally lend themselves to wider auditoriums.

Circular has very strong compositional implications and would feel weird to a civilization with roots in visual arts, which are traditionally framed in rectangles. :)

Polas, including vari-ND polas, shouldn’t be used on people other than on purpose (as a special effect) cause they can make skin overly matte and zombie-like by canceling some of the skin sub-surface scattered polarized light (skin glow).

I have just read up on said film and they used both 45 degree and 90 degree shutter angles. I think this link compliments your article well for those like me who want further reading https://cinemashock.org/2012/07/30/45-degree-shutter-in-saving-private-ryan/

I dislike the idea of using variable ND filers and polarizing filters outdoors (although polarizing filters can do amazing things), but I prefer it to higher fps. I have heard the motion blur software/plugin can harm the video quality too. Now that I have decided to stick with Panasonic lenses I think I will just have to invest in the best filters rather than the cheap NDx8 I currently use. I am guessing a top quality ND or polarizing filter will be preferable to a faster fps?

Also bought some vintage lenses off eBay and some were not in good enough condition, have had to throw some away. Just ordered another Panasonic now and will be just using the vintage lenses occasionally for portraits. Love the size of some of the Panasonics too.

(2.35:1 is legacy, 2.39:1 is the current standard.)

Thanks
Raghuvir

Well written, well illustrated… I still have some problems with some notions but I definitly learned a lot :)

I am not really a fan of anamorphic lenses. I’d rather crop an image shot with spherical lenses to a wider ratio.

That said, Iscorama and Kowa are popular, and SLRMagic recently introduced an 1.33x anamorphot.
But I can advise on skipping 1.3x anamorphic lenses if you want to get a good anamorphic effect. They are hardly worth the hassle. Technically, the 1.3x anamorhic lens will approximate a 2.39:1 end result when shot on a 16×9 sensor and expanded, but the anamorphic effects (or, defects, to be more precise) you get are minimal. And, frankly, these artefacts are the only reason to shoot anamorphic nowadays. On the other hand, anamorphics are a better fit for 4×3 sensors, imo, as you can then use 1.5x and 1.9x lenses without throwing away lots of pixels, but you’d need another camera for that.

One other consideration, which I’ve skipped in the article because it is not artistically relevant, but still worth mentioning, is the fact that the wide format (2.39:1) is often not really well suited for images which are going to end on the web or TV. Most displays are 16×9 or taller (16×10 is very popular, as is 4×3 in Apple’s tablets) and they will have big black bars on the top and bottom when showing the content. In fact, I am writing this on a 5×4 display, and on this display 2.39:1 can look downright laughable instead of “cinematic”. Just something to have in mind before going wide. :)