Any new developments with the FilmFabriek HDS+?

[Robert Hart]

Timber might be okay if horizontal mounting planks attach through cladding to uprights but a single course of internal brick wall might fall in on you. 

[Tyler Purcell]

18 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Even with a good imager, 16mm is still below 2K resolution don't forget.

We haven't done an actual resolution test yet, but I can tell the difference between 2k and 4k on our grading monitor very fast with 16mm film. There is absolutely more detail in the 4k image. How much more? I'd say very little of it is actually the exposed image and more of capturing the grain and reducing the aliasing you get from a 2k image, especially on a 4k display. 

18 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Well there's the problem, the sliding doors look "cool" but in practise they just get in the way.

Do you actually know anyone that has it wall-mounted? It's not a TV, it weighs a LOT! That's some serious loading capacity for a wall to hold (60 kg/132 lb unloaded, and up to 70 kg/ 155 lb loaded with film). If you have hardwood studs, or steel frame walls (your commercial office space might have that, usually residential won't) then you might be okay, I would not attempt it with regular timber studs.

Yea, all 3 of the Cintel II's I have access to are wall mounted. All three hovered over desks, so you have all that real estate on the desk below the unit. It worked really nicely actually. Tho you are right, they were all in commercial offices. 

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

Timber might be okay if horizontal mounting planks attach through cladding to uprights but a single course of internal brick wall might fall in on you. 

Yea you'd screw 2x4's into the exterior of the wall and screw the mount to them. 

[Robert Houllahan]

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Even with a good imager, 16mm is still below 2K resolution don't forget.

 

I completely disagree with this.

[Tyler Purcell]

27 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

I completely disagree with this.

Me too

[Dan Baxter]

2 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

I completely disagree with this.

I mean the cintel scanner is below 2K for 16mm, and it still will be even if they put in a new imager. It'll still be fixed in place and still below 2K resolution for 16mm.

[Robert Houllahan]

36 minutes ago, Dan Baxter said:

I mean the cintel scanner is below 2K for 16mm, and it still will be even if they put in a new imager. It'll still be fixed in place and still below 2K resolution for 16mm.

The Cintel machine is but 16mm is definitely capable of allot more detail than just 2K when scanned on a machine that is capable of higher res scans.

[Tyler Purcell]

5 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

I mean the cintel scanner is below 2K for 16mm, and it still will be even if they put in a new imager. It'll still be fixed in place and still below 2K resolution for 16mm.

I almost guarantee the new imager on the Cintel will something similar to the 5.3k imager that FF just started using. It's basically the next model up from the 4k imager. Which means, it'll be way higher resolution in 16mm mode. Right now when you add the crop to remove the perfs, you're well below 4k on 35mm, more like a cropped UHD actually. So the 5.3k imager would give you a higher than 4k image for 35mm and probably close to 2.5k for 16mm after the perf crop, which actually is not bad. Is it optimal? Nope. But with that new lamp housing, I think it would be pretty impressive. 

 

[Robert Hart]

16mm film does not resolve much better than original interlaced standard definition television. Years back, Super16mm film was being promoted as meeting HDTV requirements. Higher resolution scans will yield more detailed grain. The sequence of motion images will appear sharper due to the randomness of grain. 4K for 16mm? I wonder though, how sharp do the consumers of end-product really want their film grain to look?

[Robino Jones]

54 minutes ago, Robert Hart said:

Higher resolution scans will yield more detailed grain.

Film images are made of grains.

54 minutes ago, Robert Hart said:

16mm film does not resolve much better than original interlaced standard definition television.

Here's a 16mm frame of a chart I made and scanned in 4K. (can't upload large files here so it is downscaled). I wish interlaced standard def looked like that back in the day ?

Not sure why I'm replying to this troll post but merry xmas everyone! 

Edit:  ..and this would look even sharper today on my new scanner..

Edited December 25, 2022 by Robino Jones

[Tyler Purcell]

3 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

Here's a 16mm frame of a chart I made and scanned in 4K. (can't upload large files here so it is downscaled). I wish interlaced standard def looked like that back in the day 

Nice chart! 

We need to get together, I'd love to shoot some test chart stuff. ?

[Tyler Purcell]

4 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

16mm film does not resolve much better than original interlaced standard definition television. Years back, Super16mm film was being promoted as meeting HDTV requirements. Higher resolution scans will yield more detailed grain. The sequence of motion images will appear sharper due to the randomness of grain. 4K for 16mm? I wonder though, how sharp do the consumers of end-product really want their film grain to look?

Having recently scanned a few libraries of dupe (IP/IN) 16mm negatives from the 70's and 80's, I can attest to how low resolution they were at the time. We also scanned an entire feature films camera negative from 1985 and even that, doesn't hold a candle to modern film stock. Some older stocks like Kodachrome are outstanding tho, I've always been impressed how much resolution they retain, most likely due to the lower speed. I'd say some of the home movies I've scanned from the 40's and 50's, even on junk cameras, really hold up well resolution wise. I don't remember who did the test, but someone on here (maybe it was you Robert) did a full resolution test from a Scan Station on B&W 16mm reversal and it was outstanding. 

Modern day 50D negative, shot with sharp glass, with new stock, processed immediately after shooting, is quite a sight to see. Where I prefer the colors of 250D, I prefer the crispness of 50D and yea, it has no problem resolving close to 3k. I'd argue not much more, but the added extra resolution prevents aliasing, which is still a common issue with files under 4k. It's kinda of why I scan my image area in 4096x2466 usually, this way I'm editing in a true 4k file and output in 4k as well. I hate the whole scaling thing, really bugs me honestly. 

Our last shoot in Colorado for our railroad documentary looked so nice, I had to throw a few shots together. This was all scanned in 4k and finished in 4k as well. Imagine what this would look like with a $170k scanner? 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/730695267

Edited December 25, 2022 by Tyler Purcell

[Robert Hart]

It does look rather magnificent. I always had a soft spot for steam trains, a childhood dwelling-in-the-past thing I guess. 

What lens were you using for the retreat zoom at the end of the clip? It had an amazing reach.

Old Kodachrome correctly exposed, comes up sweetly on the Retroscan. I am battling with neg inversion though. 

[Tyler Purcell]

15 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

It does look rather magnificent. I always had a soft spot for steam trains, a childhood dwelling-in-the-past thing I guess. 

Thanks, yea it doesn't get much better than 50D for crispness and grain structure. 

15 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

What lens were you using for the retreat zoom at the end of the clip? It had an amazing reach.

Canon 11 - 165, super nice lens, tho mine does have some issues. 

15 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

Old Kodachrome correctly exposed, comes up sweetly on the Retroscan. I am battling with neg inversion though. 

It's pretty amazing honestly, looking at old color home movies, shot right after WWII, the way the US use to look. I recently scanned a bunch from that time period and its just jaw dropping. I'm sad the photographer was really bad with exposure so quite a bit of it was unrecoverable underexposed. 

[Mark Dunn]

On 12/26/2022 at 8:12 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

the photographer was really bad with exposure

Could have been from back East, maybe you had to be in CA to get enough light at 10ASA?

Edited December 28, 2022 by Mark Dunn

[Jefta Varwijk]

I was actually quite curious if by now, about 18ish months since last post in this thread, there have been more developments concerning the FF HDS+ scanner. Has it become steady?

[Tyler Purcell]

6 hours ago, Jefta Varwijk said:

I was actually quite curious if by now, about 18ish months since last post in this thread, there have been more developments concerning the FF HDS+ scanner. Has it become steady?

FF are working on a new scanner, they aren't really developing new parts for the old one. 

We do have some parts we've made which help, but they're all prototype. Im always willing to share if you have a scanner. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 4/7/2024 at 8:36 PM, Jefta Varwijk said:

I was actually quite curious if by now, about 18ish months since last post in this thread, there have been more developments concerning the FF HDS+ scanner. Has it become steady?

What do you mean steady?

Does the HDS+ have a jitter problem with registration?

I don't know how the registration works with the HDS+, but the literature said it is laser. From experience with the laser pin gate with the Retroscan, it works very poorly with warped film.

How does the HDS+ handle warped film versus flat film?

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 12/25/2022 at 12:38 PM, Robino Jones said:

Film images are made of grains.

Here's a 16mm frame of a chart I made and scanned in 4K. (can't upload large files here so it is downscaled). I wish interlaced standard def looked like that back in the day ?

Not sure why I'm replying to this troll post but merry xmas everyone! 

Edit:  ..and this would look even sharper today on my new scanner..

 

Well, higher res scans do a better job at making the grain sharper. And that is what you want. No one likes mushy grain. If you are comparing apples to apples, digital is much, much sharper than film. You can't compare 35mm film to a 35mm full frame sensor. The digital blows the film out of the water with res. 

At one time I had near 50 websites at Tumblr. One of them was on this very topic. But one day, Tumblr pulled the plug on me and deleted all of my websites. 

 

 

Almost a decade of work lost with all the sites. That is one of the reasons I never finished up my WordPress sites. The Internet Archive deleted my account a short time after Tumblr and many more years of work lost. It was only by chance it was all restored...more or less. The internet is not archival at all!

Anyway, I have to recreate the 'film vs. digital' website. Luckily, I saved it all on optical disc...somewhere. (Now the tests I've done only test negative films and not chromes.)

Film has some beautiful character to it. Personally, I love the grain, but film is just not as sharp as digital...if you are looking for sharpness. Every media has its pros and cons. The type of digital I like is when it looks something like film and not like plasticky digital with noisy shadow detail.  

 

Digital photo 2016 'Little Dicky'

Photo: D.D.Teoli Jr.

Some of the digital sensors can recreate the organic character of film. If you magnify this image, you can see it in this monochrome sensor. No added grain...it is all sensor at a higher ISO. But this is not the kind of sensor you want in a scanner. This sensor also has an issue with burning out highlights.