Which film format is the grainiest?

8mm, then Super 8. The smaller the frame, the more it has to be enlarged to fill a screen, and the enlargement magnifies the grain with the picture.

How do I get a home movie look?

Ask for Super 8: grain, saturated reversal colour, gate weave and a light leak at the frame edge. For the 1990s ask for VHS instead, with tracking noise and a 4:3 frame.

Do AI models respond to camera names?

Yes, because the names sit in millions of photo captions. Back the name with the behaviour you want, since ARRI ALEXA on its own returns a generic clean frame.

Which digital camera should I name for a modern film look?

An ARRI ALEXA 35. It is the body most current drama is shot on, and the wording that goes with it, gentle highlights and natural skin, is what people mean by a modern film look.

Format and body

The formats and cameras, and the wording that gets each one.

What the picture was recorded on shows in every frame of it. A strip of 8mm film carries grain the size of the subject. A 65mm negative carries detail nobody can exhaust. A tape from 1994 smears its colour and tears at the bottom of the screen. Name the format and a model renders the marks that come with it, which is a faster route to a period than any amount of set dressing.

Film gauges

The width of the strip decides everything after it. Smallest first, because the smaller the frame, the larger the grain sits over the picture.

8mm Film

The coarsest home movie gauge. Heavy grain, soft detail, silent and nearly square.

Super 8

The home movie look. Grain, saturated colour, gate weave and light leaks.

16mm Film

Documentary grain. Textured and legible, with detail the small gauges lose.

35mm Film

The cinema standard. Fine grain, deep colour, and highlights that roll instead of clip.

65mm and IMAX

The largest film frames. Enormous detail, deep colour, and a sense of scale.

Tape

Consumer video, and the artefacts that date a frame to the year the machine was sold. Both of these look wrong on purpose, and the wrongness is the whole value.

VHS

Tape video. Soft picture, bleeding colour, tracking noise and head switch tear.

DV Camcorder

Early digital video. Harsh, sharp, interlaced, with everything in focus.

Digital cinema bodies

Four sensors that carry most of what is shot today. The differences between them are small next to the gap from film, and the names still steer a model toward the right one.

ARRI ALEXA 35

The current digital default. Clean, wide latitude, and kind to skin.

RED MONSTRO

An 8K full frame sensor. Very high detail, hard contrast, strong colour.

Sony Venice 2

A full frame sensor with two base sensitivities and filters built in.

Blackmagic Cinema

The affordable cinema body. Filmic colour, and it wants more light than the others.

Cameras people carry

Two bodies with no crew behind them. Both have a tiny sensor and a wide lens, so both hold the whole scene sharp, and the difference is what they are strapped to.

Phone Camera

Modern phone video. Wide, deep, clean, and processed inside the camera.

Action Camera

A tiny wide camera strapped to something moving. Bent edges, everything sharp.

Run one of them

Copy a prompt into a video model and pay for that one run. No subscription.

Open a video model

Other techniques

Print stylesMaking a poster rather than a shot? The same reference, for ink on paper.

35mm film is the width of the strip the picture is recorded on. A 35mm lens is a focal length, which is a moderate wide angle. Say film stock when you mean the gauge.