Film Fabrick 4K Small Gauge Film Scanner

[Scott Pickering]

Last time I got my Super 8 scanned on a ScanStation 5K. They now have the 6.5K with HDR. Problem is with the ScanStation, it reduces rez on smaller guages, with Regular 8 maxing out at 3.3K rez. I plan to get some regular 8mm scanned up. Again the Scanstation only goes up to 3.3K max with Reg 8 film. I have been told by a different lab, they use a Film Fabrick 4K film scanner which has a movable taking lens, to get closer or father apart from the film itself, to achieve true 4K resolution. But it doesnt do HDR.

Does anyone have any comments on the Film Fabrick scanner, especially compared to the current Scanstation 6.5K? The fact I can get true 4K from Regular 8mm appeals to me, and their pricing reasonable as well. But Im concerned that maybe the image quality (resolution, sharpness, color, noise) may not be up to the same level. Can anyone comment? I can't find any reference to the Film Fabrick scanner online. Or should I just stick with the lower rez Scanstation?

[Tyler Purcell]

We have a HDS + 4k. 

Yes you can zoom all the way in and capture the entire super 8 frame in the 4k imager. I don't do that, because we like to perf stabilize in post. So all of these are captured at around 3.2k ish and blown up to 4096x3000 (around that) for display. 

Having done a lot of side by side scans of 16mm with 3k and 4k, there is no difference. So I don't think it matters much once you get above the aliasing floor of the imager. 1080p or 2k is just not enough due to aliasing issues. 

The ScanStation is superior in every way, there is zero contest. Our FilmFabriek was $48k out the door shipped. The ScanStation (for the same config, with sound heads, multiple gates, service contract) would be around $125k out the door. So no, there is no contest. The FilmFabriek requires post work as well, you can't just throw a roll of film on and get a client ready file, it needs post color and tinkering for stability issues. The ScanStation can scan and you can hand the file directly to the client. 

We have gobs of samples that should be searchable through google. 

Here are some super 8
 

 

16mm sample: 
 

 

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

2023 is nice. But why are you putting in all that time and shooting 8mm??

[Robert Houllahan]

The Scan Station does 6.5K on Super 8mm the lens and camera move to image the 8mm gauge at full resolution.

[Perry Paolantonio]

On 9/27/2026 at 2:59 PM, Robert Houllahan said:

The Scan Station does 6.5K on Super 8mm the lens and camera move to image the 8mm gauge at full resolution.

No it doesn't. The sensor is 6.5k, which is everything it sees (full overscan including a bit outside the scanner's gate). For 8mm, the film frame itself is about 3.3k inside that. For Super 8 the frame is 4k. As you go up in gauge, more of the sensor's view is filled with the film frame, until you get to 35mm (or presumably 70mm if you have that version).

https://www.gammaraydigital.com/blog/lasergraphics-scanstation-65k-maximum-resolutions

You *could* make the film frame bigger but then you're digitally scaling the image up. Anyone selling a scan with a 6.5k film frame on this machine, is blowing the image up. There are a few out there who do this that we're aware of.

Edited September 29 by Perry Paolantonio

[Tommy Aschenbach]

This comes up from time to time. The 8mm overscan LG does makes it so the area between the perfs can be captured and many cameras exposed there. However, since film is all the same resolving power as far as spatial frequency resolving, different gauges are just different size cuts so the demand for resolution should follow that. 3.3K for 8mm is equivalent to 17k in 35mm because it is the same film just more of it. Using Perry's numbers from his post for a 6.5k Scanstation just image area: (anything >3.3K in 8mm would require a lens with better than ~340lp/mm resolving power which isn't really possible in practice)

 

Format	aperture width	x resolution	pixels/mm	same spatial film sampling as 8mm	same spatial film sampling as 35mm
35mm	24.89	5378	216.0707111	17106	5378
s16mm	12.52	5350	427.3162939	8604	2705
r16mm	10.26	4894	476.9980507	7051	2216
s8mm	5.79	4096	707.4265976	3979	1251
r8mm	4.88	3354	687.295082	3354	1054

Edited September 29 by Tommy Aschenbach