American Cinematographer - August 1983 - 33

Ohnishi, president of Fuji Photo Film
Co., estimates that the company's
sales of its motion

picture products

will continue to grow at an annual rate
of 3% or 4%. He shares the opinion

that

today's silver halide system will

continue to be the best medium for

cinematography well into the 21st
century even though he recognizes
that video production will continue to
replace film in many areas for reasons
other than image quality.
Most of Fuji's research and devel¬
opment in electronic imaging is di¬
rected towards applications in
consumer products, graphic arts or
medical systems; and Ohnishi does
not believe it has any relevance to
theatrical film production.
Hirozo Ueda, Fuji's senior manag¬
ing director who oversees research
and development in film, elaborated
on Ohnishi's comments by making a
comparison between the potential of
silver halide technology and that of
solid state sensors. First he pointed
out that the silver halide technology
embodied in current motion picture
films offers the distinct advantage of
combining the sensor and the mem¬
ory of recording material in one me¬

(LEFT) A roll
netic

of mag¬
being
by robot car

tape

moved
to the area where it
will be cut, wound
and packaged in

Fuji 's

plant

at

Odawara. (BELOW)
Workers at the vid¬

eotape plant must
wear

special clothing

and pass through this
air shower in order
to keep impurities out
of the production

dium. A frame of film stores the im¬

area.

ages as well as capturing it while a
solid state sensor only captures an

image which must then be transmit¬
ted to another medium for
Even

storage.

importantly he says the

more

amount of information which can be

stored in

a

frame of 35mm film is

about 10 times the

capacity of a com¬
parable solid state sensor. He esti¬

mates that a 35mm frame of current

negative stocks can store the equiv¬
alent of 10 million bits of information,

projections indicate that
solid state sensor
of comparable size will only have a
capacity of one million bits of
while current
even

in 10 years a

information.

major disadvantage of silver
technology is, of course, the
fact that the image is not instantly
viewable because of the complex
chemistry currently required to pro¬
cess it. The goal of simplifying film
processing is one of the principal
thrusts of the research at Fuji, and
The

halide

Ueda believes it is conceivable that in

5

or

10 years

process

it may be possible to
film on location by winding it

through a "black box."
Research at Fuji is also directed to¬
wards the

improvement of film in
such as speed/grain
ratio, latitude, sharpness, stability

other

areas

and color

reproduction. All of the

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, AUGUST, 1983

characteristics of

a photographic im¬
interrelated in very complex
ways, and Ueda personally believes
that silver halide technology may

age are

have achieved 80%
tential for

or

90% of its po¬

image quality and speed

from

a practical point of view. The¬
oretically he says current emulsions
may represent only a 20% or 30% re¬
alization of the potential of silver
halide technology, but there are vast

Continued

on

page

102
American Cinematographer - August 1983

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