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Is there a reason scanning companies charge more for higher (full) res scans?


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Honestly, straight to pro res doesn't do me any favors anyway. We always need to do cleanup work with one light scans anyway. We rarely deliver "straight off scanner", most 1200ft rolls (3x400) from the lab of original camera negative, will need to be broken up by rolls into separate clips and slight grading done due to stock differences.

Sure, but if we're talking about versatility if the scanner goes to a delivery format you can also do in-person scanning sessions for clients and they can take their scans with them right away.

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The dirt is so baked into the negative, even running it through the cleaner 4 times, has made little to no difference.

The only way to get it out is to rewash the film, but you want a lab that really knows what they're doing (generally they create their own systems out of film processors because there are no suitable machines designed for rewashing that are actually safe for archival handling of film). You can see the difference in a scan quite easily for embedded vs on-the-surface dirt as the embedded dirt won't be as solid black.

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I have used the Cintel II quite a bit, it shows the same scratches our FF can conceal no problem with the wet gate. 

What I mean is with diffusion alone. The Cintels currently have an integrating sphere although they will be moving to a new light that is more similar to the ScanStation cube starting with the next model by the sound of it on their website. For scratch concealment the integrating spheres are the best, but they scatter light 180 degrees whereas the integrating cube scatters it less and directs more light from the light source to the gate. In practical terms that means a shorter exposure for the same amount of light and therefore less motion-blur at faster speeds.

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Remember, every minute you spend developing your own wet gate, is a minute you aren't billing clients. 

Where the FF didn't work well out of the box, the solution to make it work, has been very easy. They already had the solution, but they didn't know how to make it work properly, it's weird. Almost like they didn't understand it was a problem to begin with. 

You have to run the HDS+ at a slower speed to use it don't you? It's got a capstan right after the gate is that correct? That's the design flaw for wet-gate scanning, the capstan should be further away to allow time for your fluid to dry. If you look at the Pictor/Pictor Pro you can see the capstan is located before the gate and before the wetgate sponges. You'd also normally use air knives to assist drying (if you look at the table above Perc has a low evaporation rate whereas Isopropanol has a high evaporation rate). Even if you had a wet lab wetgate scanning with Perc (or the organic equivalent) requires serious engineering, that's another reason why the simpler solutions have their place.

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12 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Sure, but if we're talking about versatility if the scanner goes to a delivery format you can also do in-person scanning sessions for clients and they can take their scans with them right away.

But how are you copying 2TB worth of files to a client drive in any reasonable amount of time? I've done dozens of sessions at Fotokem and they never give you the drive same day. It's always pickup next day. Sure, if some guy comes over with 100ft of film, then it's possible, but any real job is going to take hours to copy to the drive, especially in 10 bit Pro Res 4444 which is how we mostly deliver these days. Again 1200ft is 500GB roughly and most people are shooting MORE than 1200ft per show. 

12 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

The only way to get it out is to rewash the film, but you want a lab that really knows what they're doing (generally they create their own systems out of film processors because there are no suitable machines designed for rewashing that are actually safe for archival handling of film). You can see the difference in a scan quite easily for embedded vs on-the-surface dirt as the embedded dirt won't be as solid black.

We have tried the re-wash service at Fotokem, it doesn't really do much either. For sure the perc cleaner at Spectra was better. 

12 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

What I mean is with diffusion alone. The Cintels currently have an integrating sphere although they will be moving to a new light that is more similar to the ScanStation cube starting with the next model by the sound of it on their website. For scratch concealment the integrating spheres are the best, but they scatter light 180 degrees whereas the integrating cube scatters it less and directs more light from the light source to the gate. In practical terms that means a shorter exposure for the same amount of light and therefore less motion-blur at faster speeds.

Is there a website or something you can point me to which explains this bit more, I'm confused on what this sphere looks like. 

12 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

You have to run the HDS+ at a slower speed to use it don't you? It's got a capstan right after the gate is that correct? That's the design flaw for wet-gate scanning, the capstan should be further away to allow time for your fluid to dry. If you look at the Pictor/Pictor Pro you can see the capstan is located before the gate and before the wetgate sponges. You'd also normally use air knives to assist drying (if you look at the table above Perc has a low evaporation rate whereas Isopropanol has a high evaporation rate). Even if you had a wet lab wetgate scanning with Perc (or the organic equivalent) requires serious engineering, that's another reason why the simpler solutions have their place.

Yea 3fps and the film is dry by the time it hits the capstan, which is 8 inches from the wet gate. 

So what do you think about alternatives with better refraction? 

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We have done rewash on films that were night and day difference, something a ultrasonic clean could not even begin to get out. The rewash can kill and remove mold and to some degree soften and “heal” the emulsion. One film in particular for a big Scorsese doc was so severely damaged and had black mold splotches all over it making it really unusable even after ultrasonic. After rewash it had just the finest looking “cracks” where the emulsion had split I scanned it on the Spirit 4K everyone rejoiced.
 

I am building a multi process rewash / backing removal processor out of spare parts.

the Integration sphere is just literally what it sounds like, on the Arriscan it is a square box about 6-7” on the outside and if you look into the quartz window you see the interior of a white sphere. The LED array is not visible it bounces light into the sphere.

The Scan Station and other scanners use a holographic diffuser which also works well. Look on Edmund optics for Holographic Diffuser and they have them in different degrees, its fairly expensive material.

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1 hour ago, Robert Houllahan said:

The Scan Station and other scanners use a holographic diffuser which also works well. Look on Edmund optics for Holographic Diffuser and they have them in different degrees, its fairly expensive material.

Huh interesting, our scanner does have a diffuser that looks exactly the same as the ones I see on Edmonds Optics website.  Are these what you're talking about? 

https://www.edmundoptics.com/search/?criteria=Holographic Diffuser&Tab=Products

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Is there a website or something you can point me to which explains this bit more, I'm confused on what this sphere looks like. 

You can just look at the lights (when the scanner is OFF, obviously as the lights are as bright as the sun!) The sphere is completely enclosed in a Cintel or Arriscan but you can see it because the top of the light is just clear glass. Look at an angle into the enclosure and you'll see the sphere. I assume they would be enclosed in other scanners as well to keep dust off it.

3 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Yep those Holographic diffusers are likely the same ones in the Scan Station and Xena and maybe the HDS+ Kinetta etc. They do a good job and make for a much more compact lamp than a diffusion sphere.

The HDS+ has this blob that they call a "lens", and I think it was based on the Cine2Digits diffusion cone (Frank's the one that made the light originally that Filmfabriek use).

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30 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Got ya! So I assume using this isn't really "compatible" with my scanner. Seems like something that will need heavy modding to use. 

Where is the light source? Inside? 

Thanks for explaining. 

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Here is what the Sphere looks like on the Arriscan it is inside the square box under the gate and it is on a mechanism which allows it to be flipped down.

Yes the light source is inside the sphere and the LEDs are directed in a way that all the illumination is from the sphere which is coated in a special Barium Sulfate paint.

Arri Lamp.jpg

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18 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

The Scan Station and other scanners use a holographic diffuser which also works well. Look on Edmund optics for Holographic Diffuser and they have them in different degrees, its fairly expensive material.

The ScanStation has an integrating sphere in the box under the diffuser. Since that's a bit of a black box (I mean, it's literally a black box on the outside, but I'm speaking figuratively here), it's unclear what the exact shape is (I've never take it apart but it was described to me as a sphere when I originally asked before buying the scanner). The holographic diffuser is above that, and then there's a mirrored trapezoidal space the light bounces around below the gate. All in all, it's very diffuse. 

The Imagica scanner we had used a holographic diffuser as well as a material that looked sort of like a traditional plastic photographic diffusion sheet. 

The Northlight, as far as I could tell, used nothing for diffusion, but I could be wrong. Scratches showed up clear as day on that machine. 

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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29 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Here is what is in a Xena RGB Lamp, you can see pads for the IR LEDs for use with a Monochrome Xena with the IR option.

 

That's a lotta diodes!

the Northlight LED only had a few, but of course that was white light (and I'm guessing the four red ones were for IR). https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/northlight/options.php

I had a design for the Imagica rebuild I was doing a few years ago that looked a bit like the Xena, only I was using integrated RGB diodes: 17069548170_a42d1972c5_c.jpg

My current design for Sasquatch is a bit simpler, but they're high-powered LEDs and man, it's blindingly bright. 

image.thumb.png.fafbcebbb05127f64a25918aa1315562.png

 

 

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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5 minutes ago, Robert Hart said:

If it is barium oxide, if you are a kitchen-table engineer with no PPE for yourself and your nearest and dearest, it may be very prudent to leave the stuff alone as it is apparently hazardous.

It's barium sulfate mixed with acrylic white paint. It's basically harmless. You can buy it at Amazon, in fact.

Heres the MSDS for barium sulfate.

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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