Could you share your printer lights? I shot quite a bit of 16mm back in school (mostly kodak 7219) and it was never quite this soft and grainy. Looks like the lab had to push the exposure quite a bit....
lol. Dude you don't exactly sound like you know what you are talking about either. I use a monitor on every shoot. I haven't met another AC in the past 6 years who doesn't use a monitor. Its just another tool to help you do your job. Going off your logic cinetape and the sniper are also useless because you have to look at the distance read out. I guess you don't use those either? Either you are a 65 year old dinosaur or you are a wanna be flexing their nuts and trying to sound cool on the internet. Monitors aren't used when the crew is in a take? haha ok.
Here is the thing about film. In order for it to look better than digital you have to have a very skilled projectionist. Without that you are screwed. Its like having Blu Ray and VHS but watching both on a standard Def CRT television. To see the difference you need an HD TV. In this case the projectionist needs to be the HD TV...is this analogy making sense haha...
Regardless a lot of projectionist were let go or retired during the Digital switch over and now these theaters are scrambling to find someone...anyone...to run their booths. Unfortunately this is still a business and most places are opting to just throw the pimply popcorn maker up into the booth instead of shelling out for a Union Projectionist. Of the 41 15/70 imax theaters and the handful of standard 70mm and 35mm theaters I bet less than half have anyone in the booth that has even run film before. Sadly unless you go to one of the LOOK theaters in the DFW area or the Grand Lake theater in Oakland CA you aren't seeing the film live up to its potential. This is why Tarantino hates digital and looks at it as the dumbing down of cinema or whatever. It isn't the best but its the best results we can get with the smallest amount of work or effort.
There was maybe 1 "soft shot". Coop sitting on the porch drinking beer talking to his father in law before he leaves. It isn't the 1st AC's fault here guys its the DMR process of blowing up the 35mm to 70mm for IMAX. The same issue was all over the dark knight rises...especially the close ups of bane during the fight in the sewer but look at it on blu ray and it is tack sharp.
When you see a movie in IMAX 15/70 its kinda tricky...see you are watching film but for the parts filmed in 35mm you are actually watching a copy of a copy. They have to take the 35mm and digitize it. Then blow it up digitally. Then transfer it back to film. Sometimes this looks great sometimes it looks terrible. The Indiana Jones DMR they released a few years ago looked terrible. If you saw that you'd think the whole movie didn't have one in focus shot and was full of noise.
The only other shot I can think of is Professor Brand dying but after my second viewing you can clearly see the bridge of his nose is sharp and is acceptable over to his back eye. Obviously Hoytema is working wide open here and on anamorphic glass. To get that tight on anamorphic you need to be on a really long lense (100mm or more) and be pretty close to talent. There was like an inch of tack sharp focus and probably looked acceptable to Noaln in the edit bay. It was a dramatic scene and there was probably a tack sharp take but nolan went with the slightly soft take due to performance (I hate when that happens...and it always does haha).
Other than that I can't think of anything that wasn't (to my guess) the fault of the DMR. I'm seeing it again in standard 5 perf 70mm this weekend so I'll be able to tell then since the optical blow up verse the digital blow up should hold way more detail.
ALSO shots are out of focus in movies ALL THE TIME. Always have been always will be. The Hunger Games (which was film) to Birdman (which was digital) there are soft shots in movies of all budget sizes.
How did you use the speedbooster with the super speeds? I didn't realize the speedbooster could take PL mounts. I'd be curious how this was achieved. Also I noticed the BART logo in one of your shots. Are you SF based also?
Finally a camera that's not an arri or Sony that comes with a proper viewfinder! I'm so tired of operating off of monitors and having to get my fingers in between the op and the screen if I'm assisting. I never understood the idea behind putting our greasy fingers all over the tool we are also using to operate off of.