Digital vs celluloid debate grips movie world

What will finally end the reign of 35 mm film is that now with Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 resolution) professional digital movie cameras that can record at 48 frames per second at full Ultra HD resolution now rapidly coming down in price, it means studios can now afford to buy their own cameras (no need to pay a fortune leasing a film camera from Panavision!).

It's now so clear and "perfect" that much more care have to be taken with set construction and use of backgrounds. That means film makers will have to re-learn how to shoot a movie properly because any flaw will show up rather easily at the Ultra HD resolution of modern digital movie cameras.

As the old song goes: "Digital killed the 35mm star, digital killed the 35mm star"

ISO 50 resolves to about 150/160 lines per milimeter, which works out to approximately 87 megapixels. Unlike digital, each pixel can contain three colors. Digital requires each pixel be a different color. Film resolution decreases as ISO goes up, but still beats the pants off digital at the most common film speeds. This is speaking for 35mm film. Some movies have been shot in 70mm film, and short of some incredible breakthrough in digital technology, there is not even a remote comparison between image quality.

Film sees images much like the retinas in your eyes do. Any part of the film is sensitive to any color. With digital, color must be interpolated, so to see the same amount of color resolution as ISO 50 film, a digital sensor would need to be a true 174 megapixels. Most digital sensors' true resolution is about half what they are advertised to be. No digital movie camera sensor in existence has a fraction of this much resolution.

sangetsu03, I have seen some very grainy looking films in theaters that just looks terrible.

I also hate the choppiness of a tracking shot in dimly lit scenes. It really takes away from the movie when I see these types of faults.

Shooting in ISO 50 would be difficult without the scene being very very bright and any motion will blur. So, the claim of ISO 50 is better is a little overstated since I doubt it is ever used.

Given these complaints, I am OK with digital. Prometheus looked great, and it was filmed not only in digital but in 3D.