Home made film scanner

[Zamir Merali]

This guy got his kids to build him a film transport mechanism out of their lego set, while he programed his scanner to automatically scan his super 8 film. The result is a surprisingly good homemade scanner that doesn't need any babysitting and would cost nothing if you have the parts.

 

http://www.kaimio.fi/blogs/harri/entry/fun...dstorms_old_8mm

[Matt Pacini]

The problem with "solutions" like this, is not the hardware considerations, it's the time you have to spend cropping, positioning, etc. each frame, then put it into animation form.

I did the math on this, and to scan a feature film like this would take literally YEARS of 40 hour weeks just doing that alone.

It's not worth it at all.

Come up with an approximate amount of time per frame, multiply that x24 then x60 for your per minute time, and you're talking about outrageous amounts of time spent.

 

MP

[Allen Achterberg]

I've got an old 8mm projector, it's not a traditional projector rather as described below:

 

Instead of projecting on a larger screen a fair distance away, it is a self contained projector that projects the images on a small screen that it on the projector itself, the screen size is around 4-5 inches. The unit itself looks like a protable TV.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Bentley-Super-8-Home...r/dp/B0010K49EC

 

bought if off of craigslist for 5 bucks. Works.

 

I was thinking about building my own telecine unit from it. Taking the same Principals of a 35mm lens adapters, since the image is already set up to project the image close range on a small screen, all I feel would be needed is a moving ground glass, an Macro or Achromat lens, and a DV HDV camcorder of sort.

 

I may start playing around with Super8 and try this out. I'm optimistic in it's quality. I've got an HVX200 and the Redrock M2, so all I need is some Super8 film and to add the spinning groundglass.

 

The equivalent could be achieved with a standard projector, and a means of focusing the projected image close range on the groundglass. Make your own projection lens or find a macro projection lens and project right onto the groundglass of your 35mm adapters and shoot it.

 

if anyone tries this out, let us know how it turns out. It's not likely I will do it in the near future, so I wanted to share my idea.

 

Allen

[Mark Dunn]

This, from Amazon

Availability: Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. Request this item from another seller.

made me laugh, though.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

This guy got his kids to build him a film transport mechanism out of their lego set, while he programed his scanner to automatically scan his super 8 film. The result is a surprisingly good homemade scanner that doesn't need any babysitting and would cost nothing if you have the parts.

 

http://www.kaimio.fi/blogs/harri/entry/fun...dstorms_old_8mm

 

Maybe there's hope for the future after all. When I have kids I want them to build me a 35mm camera out of legos. . . It'd be ULTRA modular!

 

 

seriously though; congratulations to the guy! It's a small step, but who knows, maybe he'll figure out how to do it quickly and market it to the rest of us.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

The quality of his clip is on par with what I get when I project my Super8 footage into an Ambico telecine box and record it with a DV camera. It would be a lot of unnecessary overkill to try and perfect THAT process.