Resolution

Today's topic is going to be on camera resolution. As some of you may know everything is pretty much going to HD. That's 1920 x 1080. That would mean a total of 2073600 pixels or a little less than 2.1 megapixels (just multiply 1920 x 1080 to get total number of pixels). That's as high def as your TV's gonna get (until it's obsolete) so why would anyone need a higher resolution than that?



The first and a huge reason would be that you hope to have your film screened in a theater. It's a lot like blowing up a picture in photoshop. The lower the resolution the smaller it remains unless you're okay with the fuzziness. 35mm film for instance has resolution that's much higher than 1920 x 1080 so it can be shown on the big screen. This changes with film stock, lenses etc. It's hard to say the equivalent in terms of pixels because film doesn't work the same way. Some estimate it at 20 megapixels or above, possibly even way above and IMAX would be even greater than that.

Another reason why you might want a higher resolution camera is for color correction. People say that even though you're just going to whittle it down to regular high def it still helps to have the higher resolution in post. There's just more pixels to play with. Even though you do eventually compress the file down to standard high def the end result still looks better.

Some digital cameras do record at more than regular old (old, that's funny) high definition. The Oakley Red One camera is one such camera. The 4K(4000 horizontal pixels) resolution would be a lot greater than high definition. It's also important to remember that in order to edit the higher resolution you're gonna need a blazing fast computer.



For the time being I'd keep shooting on 1920 x 1080 (unless Red Scarlet isn't too expensive) just because the odds of you getting a theatrical release is somewhat slim. Also, you can always transfer to film then color correct later if someone really thinks the movie is that amazing. This is most likely what they did with the film Paranormal Activity. They shot it on regular high def then Spielberg or whoever bought it transferred it to film and probably spent a couple hundred grand messing with it. Either way, keep shooting!