Super-8 Negative Film Stock Experiences.

[Alessandro Machi]

I shot one cartridge of 500T in a test environment. I thought the grain was tight and very acceptable. For comparison purposes there was enough light to shoot with a video camera (presumeably with the f-stop wide open). I decided to keep the f-stop on my two Super-8 cameras between an f-2.0 / 2.8 split to ensure a decent level of sharpness.

 

Both my Eumig and my Canon 814XLS delivered sharp wide angle shots. The Canon had an advantage with the low light 220 degree shutter versus the Eumig's 190 degree shutter. I shot at 18 FPS and 9 FPS with both super-8 cameras. 9 FPS seemed to produce the ideal exposure, but the 18 FPS was very acceptable as well.

 

Processing was done by Yale, the film to video transfer by Spectra. Spectra did two film to video transfer passes for me. The first pass was a "one light" transfer, the second pass was a timed transfer. I was intrigued at how well Spectra was able to minimize many blue streaks and flashes on the timed film to video transfer pass as opposed to the initial "one light" film to video transfer pass. The timed transfer looked much cleaner and most of the blue streaks and flashes that were visible in the first "one-light" pass were eliminated on the "timed" second pass transfer.

[Sean McHenry]

Both my Eumig and my Canon 814XLS delivered sharp wide angle shots. The Canon had an advantage with the low light 220 degree shutter versus the Eumig's 190 degree shutter. I shot at 18 FPS and 9 FPS with both super-8 cameras. 9 FPS seemed to produce the ideal exposure, but the 18 FPS was very acceptable as well.

 

So from reading other forum Q&A here, did you use the built in light meter on the 814 XL-s? I am looking to shoot a short at dusk very soon and am wondering about either the 250 or 500 stocks. Did you compensate for the camera as I believe the 814XL-s only registers 64 through 250 ASA films.

 

Please give a quick rundown of what you did to shoot with the 500 on the 814 XL-s.

 

Thanks,

 

Sean McHenry

[David W Scott]

What's not to like? 500ASA low-light performance in a stock that doesn't look any grainier than an Ektachrome...

 

But my favourite is the 200T. Tons of detail, beautiful subdued colors, and very little grain.

[John Hyde]

Processing was done by Yale, the film to video transfer by Spectra. Spectra did two film to video transfer passes for me. The first pass was a "one light" transfer, the second pass was a timed transfer. I was intrigued at how well Spectra was able to minimize many blue streaks and flashes on the timed film to video transfer pass as opposed to the initial "one light" film to video transfer pass. The timed transfer looked much cleaner and most of the blue streaks and flashes that were visible in the first "one-light" pass were eliminated on the "timed" second pass transfer.

 

What blue streaks and flashes are your referring to? Was there a problem in transfer or processing? :unsure:

[Charles Doran]

What blue streaks and flashes are your referring to? Was there a problem in transfer or processing? :unsure:

 

Yeah, that's kind of weird. I've seen that with some Kodachrome stuff but not the 200T.

[Alessandro Machi]

So from reading other forum Q&A here, did you use the built in light meter on the 814 XL-s? I am looking to shoot a short at dusk very soon and am wondering about either the 250 or 500 stocks. Did you compensate for the camera as I believe the 814XL-s only registers 64 through 250 ASA films.

 

Please give a quick rundown of what you did to shoot with the 500 on the 814 XL-s.

 

Thanks,

 

Sean McHenry

 

My shots were all in low light situations. What I did in my initial pre-shoot tests was leave the f-stop in manual mode at a f2.0 - 2.8 split. So no matter what I shot in the dimly lit environment, I left the f-stop at the identical f2.0-2.8 split. This idea will fall apart if there is spotlight lighting in which a performer or the center of attention is several stops hotter than the surround environment, otherwise, find the maximum wide f-stop that your camera can go to before it shows you a soft picture.

 

It's possible that the Canon 814XLS can have a wide open f-stop and still be sharp but based on comments I have read on this forum about the Canon being soft at wide open, I decided on the f2.0-2.8 split. I bet the condition of the tube in the rank can make or break whether the picture looks sharp in low light, because I was pleasantly surprised at how sharp and at how acceptably small the grain was with the 500T.

 

I'm not entirely sure about this next observation but it appeared to me that when I switched between Ektachrome 64 and Vision 500T that Canon Camera's automatic metering system changed by two f-stops rather than three. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing since 500T can handle one stop of overexposure quite well. If one factors in that automatic exposure meters on Super-8 cameras may actually underexpose whenever shooting into backlit situations, the 500T might actually be perfectly set for shooting outdoors with the "sun filter" in. When shooting indoors in low light take the sun filter out and shoot around an f 2.0 in the manual exposure mode, unless you have control over the lighting and are not trying to light a wide area with minimal lighting.

[Alessandro Machi]

What blue streaks and flashes are your referring to? Was there a problem in transfer or processing? :unsure:

 

Apparently, if streaks or scratches in the processing have a specific color (aka blue), the transfer colorist can minimize that exact color hue (hue meaning a more subtle tonality than just saying blue or red or yellow) in the transfer and by doing that they actually can almost completely remove the scratch, especially if it's in the blue channel. The two downsides are, if your shot has anything in it with the exact same color hue as the scratch, it will be muted in color as well, and the second bad thing is the original negative is scratched even though it can appear on the video transfer to only have minimal scratching.

[John Hyde]

Apparently, if streaks or scratches in the processing have a specific color (aka blue), the transfer colorist can minimize that exact color hue (hue meaning a more subtle tonality than just saying blue or red or yellow) in the transfer and by doing that they actually can almost completely remove the scratch, especially if it's in the blue channel. The two downsides are, if your shot has anything in it with the exact same color hue as the scratch, it will be muted in color as well, and the second bad thing is the original negative is scratched even though it can appear on the video transfer to only have minimal scratching.

 

Hmmmm.... so, in short, you are saying that Yale scratched your neg and Spectra removed the scratches for you. Right?

 

The reason I was asking is I plan to shoot a project on neg. I may process w/ Yale and want to know if this case is isolated.

[Will Montgomery]

200T in the right lighting condition can look close to standard 16mm with a good telecine & colorist. Keeping in mind that the colorist makes or breaks it, I've found 200T to be the best looking color Super 8 stock available.

 

I've found 500T a little grainy, but then I always try to push it at the low-light end.

 

The unforgiving nature of color reversals makes it hard to go back to them after working with negative film.

 

Surprisingly, I actually like reversals in 16mm for some reason better.

[Alessandro Machi]

Hmmmm.... so, in short, you are saying that Yale scratched your neg and Spectra removed the scratches for you. Right?

 

The reason I was asking is I plan to shoot a project on neg. I may process w/ Yale and want to know if this case is isolated.

 

This was my first cartridge of 500T that I processed with Yale. I hear Yale's Ektachrome and Black and White processing is really good, it will take the experiences of others to fully answer your question.

[John Hyde]

This was my first cartridge of 500T that I processed with Yale. I hear Yale's Ektachrome and Black and White processing is really good, it will take the experiences of others to fully answer your question.

 

You had me thinking I should send my film someplace else for a second there. Sounds like you are telling me that this is only a one time occurance. With that in mind, I think I will submit my negative super 8 films to Yale. I have about 50 rolls of super 8 neg from a project I was working on for the past 6 months - really important to me. Just wanted other input before I send them all in. Thanks! ;)

[Alessandro Machi]

You had me thinking I should send my film someplace else for a second there. Sounds like you are telling me that this is only a one time occurance. With that in mind, I think I will submit my negative super 8 films to Yale. I have about 50 rolls of super 8 neg from a project I was working on for the past 6 months - really important to me. Just wanted other input before I send them all in. Thanks! ;)

 

Well that's your call.

 

1 out 1 is batting a 1,000.

 

If I were you I'd submit 1-2 cartridges as a "test". Then I'd probably do another 1-2 cartridges on another day, and perhaps even send in another 1-2 cartridges as a test a third time and then decide from that what to do with the rest of your film cartridges.

[Sean McHenry]

However, that is not necessarily a bad thing since 500T can handle one stop of overexposure quite well. If one factors in that automatic exposure meters on Super-8 cameras may actually underexpose whenever shooting into backlit situations, the 500T might actually be perfectly set for shooting outdoors with the "sun filter" in.

 

I was just talking about this in another thread and we came up with rating the 500T at 320 ASA as there is light loss of 2/3 stop from the prism and glass. This is if you are using an external meter on the 814 series. Since those cameras only registers carts up to 250 ASA, it would be best to shoot on manual exposure with an external meter and rate the film at 320 ASA and live with that.

 

At least that is the theory we came up with.

 

Sean

Edited October 18, 2006 by Sean McHenry

[Alessandro Machi]

I was just talking about this in another thread and we came up with rating the 500T at 320 ASA as there is light loss of 2/3 stop from the prism and glass. This is if you are using an external meter on the 814 series. Since those cameras only registers carts up to 250 ASA, it would be best to shoot on manual exposure with an external meter and rate the film at 320 ASA and live with that.

 

At least that is the theory we came up with.

 

Sean

 

Not for outdoors. For outdoors the difference between 320 and 250 ASA is neglible, perhaps around 1/3 of a stop. Overexposing the 500T by a 1/3 of an f-stop would be a very acceptable practice.

 

Indoors and one would be overexposing by one f-stop. Still an acceptable practice however if the lights are going to be in the shot, then having an external light meter is a good idea, or try the manual exposure locked at f 2.0 idea that I have previously mentioned.