Not my best Super 8 footage yet.

Moises Perez · August 20, 2015

Film stock kodak 7203 50D. Processed and scanned to a 4K Log by Pro8mm. This film has been downres to 1080p for Vimeo purposes. It has not been edited or processed in any form other than the color change to B&W, the sound is the wild production track with no processing. This sound test was performed in a single take using double system, the Logmar Super 8 film camera and the Sennheiser MKH 416 directional shotgun microphone. The audio was recorded with the Tascam DR-70 Linear PCM recorder.

https://vimeo.com/136780122

Enjoy,

MOY

Josh Gladstone · August 20, 2015

Looks good, but the bit rate limit on Vimeo's end kills the grain and it ends up looking kinda chunky. So, why the conversion to b/w? Especially if it's just a sound test. And what's the deal with that scratch in the middle?

Friedemann Wachsmuth · August 20, 2015

I love it. And see no scratch..?

David Cunningham · August 20, 2015

Looks great. Damn Kodak weave is a pisser and they are not going to even try to fix it, which is sad. But oh well.

Josh Gladstone · August 20, 2015

There's a fairly prominent vertical line weaving around the middle of frame from about 1:10-1:45

Edited August 20, 2015 by Josh Gladstone

Gregg MacPherson · August 20, 2015

Hey Moises, I don't know S8 well. It looks like a lot of information is there on that tiny frame. About the same as 16mm with earlier film stocks and no electronic stabilization.

What is the objective with the sound test? Problems in recording the sound are the same as with 16mm or 35mm, true?

Bill DiPietra · August 20, 2015

Looks good, but the bit rate limit on Vimeo's end kills the grain and it ends up looking kinda chunky. So, why the conversion to b/w?

Looks good to me. Didn't seem overly-grainy at all.

Matt Stevens · August 20, 2015

How many feet away from the actor was the camera? I am not hearing any camera noise, which is a surprise.

I would very much like to see the original color.

Scratch comes in after a minute and is pretty obvious.

AND!...

https://vimeo.com/65196781

You really need to do a video on this.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Matt Stevens

Carl Looper · August 21, 2015

Hey Moises, I don't know S8 well. It looks like a lot of information is there on that tiny frame. About the same as 16mm with earlier film stocks and no electronic stabilization.

What is the objective with the sound test? Problems in recording the sound are the same as with 16mm or 35mm, true?

This camera is still in beta testing and this particular test is actually the first public test of the crystal sync motor.

So it demonstrates, if nothing else, that this particular camera runs at crystal sync speed - ie. that there is no drift between sound and image.

C

Lasse Roedtnes · August 21, 2015

Hi David,

I'm guessing the weave is a scanner artifact that wouldn't show up on a projector.

We've seen this many times where film that looks immaculate in projection weaves and jitters on a scan since the scanners are typically *NOT* designed to the same specifications as Super8 cameras.

The scratch must have been caused by debris in the gate as it appears and then dissapears again.

Perhaps Moy can elaborate if he has a projector he can run it through.

All the best

Lasse

Logmar Camera Solutions

Edited August 21, 2015 by Lasse Roedtnes

Andries Molenaar · August 21, 2015

The video looks nice. What is the problem to mind the background? Even with test runs. The moving traffic is good for the test but the black seam and with sign in the back spoil the image.

@Lasse. All nice and good but who uses projectors these days? There is barely projectable film left. Only Fomapan R100 and Tri-X. And we can only hope Ferrania comes through soon. \

Studios (the typical Logmar prospect) shoot color neg on every occasion.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Andries Molenaar

Phil Rhodes · August 21, 2015

Honestly it's difficult to avoid the reality that it would look better with a bit of noise reduction to take the grain out, at least to some extent, before it went up on Vimeo. That's not a decision aimed at making it look any less like super-8 - I think it's always going to have that appearance - but simply a pragmatic response to a technical issue.

The weave in those sprockets, though. Sheesh.

P

Lasse Roedtnes · August 21, 2015

Hi Andries,

The video looks nice. What is the problem to mind the background? Even with test runs. The moving traffic is good for the test but the black seam and with sign in the back spoil the image.

@Lasse. All nice and good but who uses projectors these days? There is barely projectable film left. Only Fomapan R100 and Tri-X. And we can only hope Ferrania comes through soon. \

Studios (the typical Logmar prospect) shoot color neg on every occasion.

You need to take up your concern with the scanner manufactures and get them to adhere to the SMPTE specifications then you'll get rid of the weave.

As long as they keep "doing their own thing" you'll never combat this issue and just for the record KODAK and the other film manufactures are not to blame for this either as they follow the specifications as well so all this "moaning" about weave and jitter should really be aimed towards the source of the problem which is the scanners that are not designed to the specifications of the medium they are supposed to capture and not the cameras nor film material.

We could have designed our S8 camera so that it would work with modern scanners by changing the way we register the frame and guide the film however if we did that we would break the SMPTE spec and the people who wants to project would complain that the footage was jittery and full of weave.

So why not follow an industry standard when it exists instead of doing things "your own way".

All the best

Lasse

Perry Paolantonio · August 21, 2015

So why not follow an industry standard when it exists instead of doing things "your own way".

I really don't think this is a fair characterization of what's going on here, and I don't think blaming others (besides Kodak) is constructive. The scanner - in this case a ScanStation, the same machine we use at Gamma Ray Digital, is using both the perforation and the edges of the film to stabilize the image during the scan. It uses the perf for vertical stabilization and it uses the edges of the film for horizontal. The latter is a new feature added a month or so ago, and it works quite nicely. Previously, the perforation would be in a fixed vertical/horizontal position and the edges of the frame would weave back and forth in a pattern corresponding to the perforation's position relative to the edge of the film.

Kodak's perfs are to the SMPTE spec (which I presume they wrote), but precision on the order of 16mm or 35mm pin registered film probably never even crossed the original engineer's minds back in the 1960s. Super 8 was conceived of as a consumer format, not a pro format. In 2015, we're pushing it in directions Kodak never imagined - Logmar included!

The latest versions of the ScanStation software added the film-edge stabilization as an option for film in which this problem occurs. This is effectively the same as the edge-guides in the Logmar camera. Now, the film held laterally stable while only the vertical edges of the perfs are used to stabilize on that axis. In our experience (having one of the first installed ScanStations), only very stable high end cameras exhibit this problem, either because they use edge guiding or because they have really solid film paths. Canons, Nikons, Leicinas, Logmars, and a few others show this problem. We've seen it with film going back to the 1960s, so it's always been there, it just hasn't been exposed until the advent of pin registered Super 8 scanning.

As for all the complaints about the weave - remember that overscan like this is not typically how the film will be displayed. The weave is *really* obvious when you can see the perfs, but perfs are not normally seen. Once you crop the film edges and perf out, it's damn-near rock solid. And that's pretty impressive for a format that was never meant to do what we're doing with it.

One other thing - there is a scratch in this film. I don't believe that was caused by the scanner, simply because the only part of the scanner that ever touches the center of the film is the capstan roller, and because it's a capstan, driving the film forward, it doesn't slip over the frame and couldn't cause a scratch like this. The film path through the gate itself is a V-groove, so the only part of the film that's touching the gate itself are the edges - the upper points of the V.

My guess is that the scratch is from the cartridge, camera, or in processing (or possibly in breakdown/setup of the film before/after processing).

-perry

Edited August 21, 2015 by Perry Paolantonio

Carl Looper · August 21, 2015

LaserGraphics have created a fix for the weaving perf.

That weaving perf occurs during film manufacture. The perf weaves with respect to the edge of the film.

To ask of a camera that it's design follow this weaving perf (rather than the edge of the film) would not only go against SMPTE standards, it would also go against the design of every Super8 camera and projector made since the 1960s. The odd one out in all of this has always been the scanner manufacturers.

But ultimately it's up us - we who are the industry - to decide on what the standards are. Its up to us to argue what the best design should be, to our mutual benefit, and formalise that in a standard.

In terms of this particular issue - of a weaving perf - the appropriate standard (the one I'd argue for) is the SMPTE one - ie. where the edge of the film is used for horizontal registration - precisely because such a solution allows for weaving in the perf, ie. is unaffected by it. And in Super8, because it is so small, any variation in manufacturing tolerances are magnified, so you want a fault tolerant standard such as this one.

The alternative would be far more expensive: building a camera to follow a weaving perf ? It would be madness, or even impossible, - it would require moving the film left and right during transport!!

C

Edited August 21, 2015 by Carl Looper

Perry Paolantonio · August 21, 2015

In terms of this particular issue - of a weaving perf - the appropriate standard (the one I'd argue for) is the SMPTE one - ie. where the edge of the film is used for registration - precisely because such a solution would allow for weaving in the perf.

That's *precisely* what the recent software update for the ScanStation does. In fact, you could argue that, much like optical pin registration, the way it's being done in this scanner is actually more accurate than if it were done mechanically.

-perry

Phil Rhodes · August 21, 2015

I should probably clarify, my objection to the weaving perf was not particularly intended to be a criticism of any of the technologies or techniques applied to the production of the demo clip, because I don't know which one(s) of them caused the problem. It was just an expression of horror at how bad it was, however it's caused. It's hardly good, is it!

P

Carl Looper · August 21, 2015

That's *precisely* what the recent software update for the ScanStation does. In fact, you could argue that, much like optical pin registration, the way it's being done in this scanner is actually more accurate than if it were done mechanically.

-perry

Yes, as mentioned, scanner manufacturer's have implemented the required fix.

Or to put it another, they have caught up with what cameras and projectors have been doing since the invention of film. I wouldn't agree that an optical solution is better than a mechanical one. The optical one is limited by the resolution of the scanner. The mechanical one is limited by the resolution of the atoms making up the side of the film and the guide plate.

C

Carl Looper · August 21, 2015

I should probably clarify, my objection to the weaving perf was not particularly intended to be a criticism of any of the technologies or techniques applied to the production of the demo clip, because I don't know which one(s) of them caused the problem. It was just an expression of horror at how bad it was, however it's caused. It's hardly good, is it!

P

The weaving perf is not a problem in the first place. Literally.

The design of mechanical cameras and projectors is such that it doesn't matter whether film is manufactured with a weaving perf or not.

That is the genuis of mechanical camera/projector designs - they don't depend on the horizontal position of the perf at all. They completely ignore it. And this means film manufacturing (slitting/perfing) is easier (cheaper) to do. It's a good system. Simple and efficient.

It is scanners that are late to the party here. Enamoured with their own cleverness in terms of machine vision techniques (optical registration) they've completely overlooked how the mechanical systems actually worked.

C

Edited August 21, 2015 by Carl Looper

Perry Paolantonio · August 21, 2015

Or to put it another, they have caught up with what cameras and projectors have been doing since the invention of film. I wouldn't agree that an optical solution is better than a mechanical one. The optical one is limited by the resolution of the scanner. The mechanical one is limited by the resolution of the atoms making up the side of the film and the guide plate.

This argument best applies to newly shot film.

One of the reasons we chose the ScanStation was because it does all of this optically and can easily scan the most screwed up, shrunken film you can imagine. We ran some film through the scanner last week that the client had been told was unscannable. I wasn't even sure we could do it, because the film was so badly shrunken and cupped. But you know what? the only reels we couldn't deal with were the ones that had fused into a solid block of acetate. All of the rest of the film went through the scanner, and despite the extreme shrinkage, we were able to get really nice 4k scans of what was left on it.

Mechanical edge guides would have been useless in this case, because the film was so warped, a spring loaded guide would have pushed the high edge up higher. If one existed, I wouldn't use a pressure plate with that film, because it likely would have caused further damage to the film.

In terms of the pin registration, you can't put shrunken film into a mechanical pin-registration system without risk of damage (or without using specially modified pins, which are by design narrower and less precise). So in terms of pin reg, optical is always more accurate when you're talking about scanners of this resolution.

-perry

Perry Paolantonio · August 21, 2015

That is the genuis of mechanical camera/projector designs - they don't depend on the horizontal position of the perf. They completely ignore it. And this makes film manufacturing (slitting/perfing) easier (cheaper) to do. It's a good system. Simple and efficient.

Please explain, then, why 35mm, 16mm film and regular 8 (basically 16mm film) don't have this problem. At all.

It's a flaw in the Super 8 film. It's within spec because Kodak's spec was sloppy. It was sloppy because it was meant to be cheap and fast, not precise. It's good scanners and good cameras that expose this flaw.

-perry

Edited August 21, 2015 by Perry Paolantonio

Jose luis villar · August 21, 2015

Why convert to B/W?

Anthony Schilling · August 21, 2015

The sound sync was perfect, and it was great seeing such a film look with quality sync audio. Now someone make a movie with this thing!

Gregg MacPherson · August 21, 2015

.... I wouldn't agree that an optical solution is better than a mechanical one. The optical one is limited by the resolution of the scanner. The mechanical one is limited by the resolution of the atoms making up the side of the film and the guide plate.

Small point from the audience.

For now the "resolution" of manufactured mechanical systems fades to undifferentiated grey well before the "resolution of the atoms". Beyond that thought, the film in the gate is a dynamic mechanical system, and perhaps some dimension or amplitude within that will define the "resolution".

Carl Looper · August 21, 2015

Please explain, then, why 35mm, 16mm film and regular 8 (basically 16mm film) don't have this problem. At all.

It's a flaw in the Super 8 film. It's within spec because Kodak's spec was sloppy. It was sloppy because it was meant to be cheap and fast, not precise. It's good scanners and good cameras that expose this flaw.

-perry

The flaw being exposed, is the assumption being made, by the scanner designers, that film perfs should not, or do not weave.

It's certainly a peculiarity in some batches of Super8 film, but it's not a flaw.

If it were a flaw you'd have problems projecting the film.

Carl

Edited August 21, 2015 by Carl Looper