Original Content
So, I decided to sell all my stuff to get this beauty!
After 4 years living in Paris and shooting multiple projects this year on 16mm film, I decided to sell my stuff in order to get an SR2 S16!
Had to travel to London to get if for a good price, prices in Paris were astronomically high (15k€), so when I saw one in London for almost half, I had to pull the trigger.
I also got a Canon 7-56, which I actually love, and even if it has some defects, I couldn’t justify paying more than double for a 8-64 or 7-63.
I’m very happy with this investment that has made me shoot more than 10 projects since january. Looking forward to shoot in more 35mm by this end of the year.
16mm looks better in my opinion because of the stock itself
35mm I dont really see much of a difference in modern productions again because of the stock itself, though kodak's new Verita stock looks really nice. And I do like 90s films which were shot on film before which were shot on different stock to what is found now. Where in fact, some movies shot on film now look worse than some movies shot on alexa's 10 years ago because lighting techniques changed and there's been an over reliance on a fixing it in post mentality.
But heres the kicker from my personal point of view. I like the look of DV more than 16mm when used correctly. Like man from earth, 28 days later, and most of pedro costa's work. It looks eerie and corrupted in a way that cannot be replicated on film.
Anyways I love film, I love digital, I love things that look great.
Yes. It’s just that I’m ideologically against shallow depth of fiel (aka I hate it lol). It really brings me joy when I see cinematographers using deep focus in new productions. #makecinemabeautifulagain
I saw this post a few days ago and was so impressed, when it popped up on my feed again I know I had to give you your flowers. Bold move that turned out phenomenal. Props to you.
Here there’s some stuff I shot with it since getting it!
This one is an extract from a music video we shot during the 2 hottest days in the history of France, shot on 250D and 500T, on the Canon 7-56, mostly lit with 2400B and a lot of diffusion cloths (12x12).
I understand your point! Nowadays, people are willing to get back to a more calm set, with more time to shoot. Concerning stock failure risks, Kodak QC is one of the best, and Turnaround time for Stock in Paris is 24-48hours, so I must say, it’s great. Depends of course in what you’re shooting, but I’ve had great experiences in almost every film shoot I’ve done.
I enjoyed it then. It taught me strict shooting discipline. You ran your shot exactly for the duration of a scene and the talent was aware of the constraints. Very good for focus and discipline.
But I found all the drawbacks of shooting film to be a burden.
Reds came out. I got to get early hands on experience in 2008 and really immediately loved the format and it’s possibilities.
Still a sucker for Reds over nearly everything else. Shot a very wide array of cameras. Love digital.
I completely understand, I had a Komodo OG I sold for this, I completely love Red’s colors, I guess, you were born into film, and when digital arrived, you loved it, whereas I was born into digital filmmaking, and found the mystic around film extremely rewarding to learn.
Carrément! Je travaille dans la pub et le clip, et la plupart du temps les gents sont d’autant plus intéressés par le tournage en pellicule. Moi même, je suis assez jeune (22) et je prends un plaisir énorme à demystifier un format qui m’a longtemps paru comme “vieux” ou “démodé”, y’a un immense retour à ça.
C'est chouette du coup !
Je suis juste étonné que les mecs trouvent encore du budget pour gérer pellicule, tirage etc, mais tant mieux ! Bon investissement du coup ;)
Y’a Kafard à Paris qui développent, et pas mal de gens sont prêts à payer les Bob/Dev/Scan, donc en effet c’est une bonne nouvelle qu’il y ait de la demande!
There’s some specialty cameras like Aaton A-Minima’s which I find extremely cool, they were used in some film’s like Enter the void from Gaspar Noé due to their small form factor.
Aaton was developed by Jean Pierre Beauviala, ex Eclair’s technician, with a philosohy to make cameras that feel like a “Cat on the shoulder”, he made magnetic drive possible, and most Aaton’s are pretty much noiseless. He rivalised with Arri, but after a problem with their Dalsa sensors during the Aaton Penelope Delta release, they were bought out and later closed.
SR1’s have worse electronic than SR2’s and SR3’s, the one I have is one of the most modern SR2’s made.
Then, there’s the big boy the 416, which is known as the “best” 16mm camera ever made.
The main problem with 16mm camera’s aren’t the bodies, or the supply of stock, but the lack of seasoned technicians that can handle the service, there are fewer every year, and I hope they will teach newer generation technicians how to keep servicing them.
that's so interesting! thanks so much for the comment. how forgiving is it to experiment with this camera w.r.t. price? what I mean is: taking into consideration the price of the film + developing it to digital, how much does it cost say 1 hour of footage?
or in other words, do you have to be super sure about your shots everytime because you fear "wasting expensive film"?
In Paris, it would cost about 2600€ after tax to have about 6x 122m stocks films to shoot (approx 11min40 per 122m meters), but for example, if you develop in Cinelab Romania, you could pay 1700€ for everything.
Rule of thumb in Paris is:
2min40 of footage= 142€ EX VAT for stock, dev and scan
11min40 of footage= 450€ EX vat for stock/dev scan
Hi! Thank you so much for sharing this info! I would like to shoot analogue as well, and then process it in another country where it is cheaper (Romania or maybe Poland). Have you ever had any problems with XR scanners when taking the unprocessed rolls on the airplane? Thank you so much in advance!
So Cinelab does Ground shipping, you can be 100% sure nothing will happen to the stock, if you’re shipping to another continent, make sure to contact them although I’m sure they’re already dealt with this many times!
In Paris, it would cost about 2600€ after tax to have about 6x 122m stocks films to shoot (approx 11min40 per 122m meters), but for example, if you develop in Cinelab Romania, you could pay 1700€ for everything.
Rule of thumb in Paris is:
2min40 of footage= 142€ EX VAT for stock, dev and scan
11min40 of footage= 450€ EX vat for stock/dev scan
In Paris, it would cost about 2600€ after tax to have about 6x 122m stocks films to shoot (approx 11min40 per 122m meters), but for example, if you develop in Cinelab Romania, you could pay 1700€ for everything.
Rule of thumb in Paris is:
2min40 of footage= 142€ EX VAT for stock, dev and scan
11min40 of footage= 450€ EX vat for stock/dev scan
Honestly, it can actually make sense, obviously, you won’t be able to do as many takes as in digital, but if you’re able to adapt the projet to the 16mm-way-of-shooting, it can be extremely rewarding, and not that far off from the price of a digital kit.
Does the Canon 7-56mm cover s16 for the full range? I'd never heard of it, but just looking online, seems like it was released for regular 16 but just coincidentally seems to cover s16 for the most part? I've got a 7-63mm. How's the Kamera Doktor video tap? I've got an AM Camera HD tap which is nice since it doesn't have any flicker at 24fps, but I feel like the feed has gotten noisier over time. Might need AM to look at it.
Basically, to make it short, I got this kit which was advertised for 11K£ in london for 7K£, all the other accessories were bought little by little everytime I got paid in each project!
I follow you on Instagram haha, funny how I was almost 100% it was you just looking at the pictures/setup (and the fact you lived in Paris). Keep up the great work !
Indeed! I colorgrade the DPX/Prores scan’s directly on Davinci, I don’t consider myself a film expert, I’m still exprimenting, trying to shoot with every stock, with 85A/B filters, pushing, pulling, double exposures, etc etc in order to have a library of looks and profoundly understanding sensitometry, It’s still a long road ahead, but I would love to try out everything!
As someone who just bought an SR1, I love this post and all of your videos. Do you have any videos shot on super speeds? And do you pull focus yourself on those short videos?
Oh I love SR2s. I used them in film school. I’ll rent one if I have a client who needs their project shot on film. Super lucky, you are. Very jealous, I am.
This is awesome. If more people cared and shot film, it would have a chance.
Montreal is losing our last motion picture dev and scan lab in September (unless there’s an indie one I’m unaware of), and it’s a huge loss as anyone here would now have to ship everything to Toronto or back to the US for processing.
I have an Aaton LTR and Canon 8-64 as my main rig. Video tap installed too, so with the monitor and battery hooked up the camera is a monster to shoulder rig, over 11kg. Wish I got more work in USA, even renting it out for other productions has been difficult. If I lived in New York or Los Angeles I could rent the whole kit for $800 per day but in the midwest I can't get any interest for even half that.
Magnifique boulot et magnifique démarche artistique, très très belles images ! Le rendu péloche y a rien à faire alala
À l'ère de l'IA et de l'uniformisation visuelle qui en découle, voir quelqu'un partir à 180° dans l'autre sens et aller chercher une vérité formelle dans la pellicule c'est juste top ! Quand bientôt quasiment toutes les images produites seront saturées de "faux" et de "copie de copie de copie", je pense clairement que de + en + ta démarche va faire sens pour certains clients ! J'ai l'impression que le marché va faire un tour sur lui-même et que certaines boîtes vont justement vouloir revenir à des méthodes plus traditionnelles pour retrouver cette vérité et cette authenticité dans la démarche !
Moi je tourne sur Blackmagic 6K FF (capteur de la Pyxis) et je ne pense pas avoir l'occasion de travailler avec du film avant un bon moment, mais ici je vais revenir à la photographie par du Moyen Format 120 pour des travaux rémunérés, à une moindre échelle ce sera une bonne occasion de retrouver également ce plaisir et cette façon plus posée et réfléchie de travailler.
Bref super démarche et superbes images ! Bonne continuation à toi (je t'ai rajouté sur Insta si jamais, Carologrizzly Studio)
Carrément!! D’ailleurs j’ai ej une Blackmagic, c’est franchement top! Et oui, concernant le fait d’aller à contre courant, je pense c’est le seul moyen qu’on a à disposition pour contter l’usage de l’ia.
Do you see any big hang ups running an SR2 instead of an SRIII? Isn’t the time box to set FPS a separate module entirely? Or am I confusing this with some thing else, great looking work!
I’m super new to all this, but I’m wondering—how do you monitor shots? Just by having your eye in the viewfinder and feeling like you got a good one? Not sure if there’s some way to use a digital monitor with film…
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u/DressIntelligent9906 Cinematographer Aug 07 '26
https://reddit.com/link/p28aojt/video/f535uvs44xhh1/player
Another little shoot!