‘Prairie Wind’ is a 16K HDR Film Shot with Two 50MP DSLRs

Director Martin Lisius has created a short film that’s ready for 16K displays of the future. Titled “Prairie Wind,” the film was captured using two 50-megapixel Canon 5DS DSLRs.

Lisius, who founded the StormStock collection in 1993, says he wanted to push the envelope when it came to resolution.

“I’ve captured hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning on Super 35mm motion picture film, 4K and even 3D,” he says. “I wanted to try something different, something more immersive. I knew I could build a 16K camera system, I just didn’t know how good the results would be until I tried it.”

After buying two Canon 5DS still cameras and fixing them to a custom-designed mount, Lisius drove across the Great Plains of the USA from Texas to Nebraska. His goal was to capture supercell thunderstorms that sweep across the region in the spring.

Once he had the photos he needed, Lisius began stitching them together into 16K clips measuring 15985×5792 pixels. The clips are as long as 23-seconds each and contain up to 700 photo sets.

“We did some research and it appears this is the first film shot completely on 16K anywhere in the world,” Lisius says. “Even though the ability to view on 16K doesn’t exist yet, the technology to shoot it does with the release of this film. The advantage of 16K is it provides a massive canvas for tremendous flexibility in post-production, and it looks quite marvelous on 4K and 8K.”

“When you watch this short film, you will see just one, large, beautiful picture,” the director writes. “But, you are actually watching two carefully stitched images. If you swear it’s just one image, then I have succeeded.”

The 4-minute short film is currently available at YouTube and Vimeo, and Lisius will presumably re-release the short once displays and video hosting services begin offering 16K resolution to the masses.