Robert Houllahan

Our camera tech at Cinelab is 27 he fixes more than camera but is very good at that.

Also parts can be made in CnC and 3D printers.

I would guess that the LOTR film was scanned on a DFT Spirit 4K but that is just a guess.

I have three already.

Should be possible to do on the ACME optical printer we have.

Would require some tests.

CONGRATS!!

We have seen allot of the AHU stocks come through Cinelab now and with little or no obvious issues for 16mm and 8mm.

We ran a big job for the Arctic Monkeys a few years ago which was a concert film in Mexico City that was all 8mm 16mm and 35mm and B&W Color Negative and Ektachrome E6 in each format. I will see if I can find the links to that one.

I fixed my Aaton LTR 54 years ago with a beamsplitter from Edmunds optics, there are many available.

https://www.edmundoptics.com/p/125-x-175mm-70-30rt-vis-plate-beamsplitter/37204/

70/30 split and in the visible range, other sizes available and they can be cut.

Arrilaser recorders can record 4096 x 3112 to the super 35mm 4-Perf area so you can fit whatever aspect ration into that.

Our 16mm/S16mm recorder can record 1.33 Standard 16mm or 1.66 Super 16mm either with a 4096 pixel width.

On 1/22/2026 at 11:42 PM, Steve Switaj said:

Robert:

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm not  a lab guy and I can't imagine how this works.

The film processors I've seen pictures of look like a long system of rollers that move a continuous strip of film (or placeholder leader) through a series of tanks.

I can see how you might have interchangeable rollers for the various film widths, but I can't envision how this changes the processing speed, which I had imagined was all built around time-in-the-soup which was determined by the speed of the film..

I don't see the correlation between strip width and processing speed.

 

My PhotoMec ECN2 processor was setup as a 100ft/min machine and that is to keep the film in the developer tank for 3min at 100ft per minute with the number of rollers in the tanks. If I ordered the 70mm rollers for this machine it would have half the amount of film in the tank as the 35mm roller setup. If I ran it at 100ft/min the film would only be in the developer for 1.5min instead of 3min so I would have to run it at 50ft/min for the same 3min in the developer tank.

I reduced the speed of my Photomec to about 70ft/min by bypassing a number of rollers in the tanks as 100ft/min is not needed by us at this time.

Most new processors are designed around 50-75ft/min not the faster machines of the past which would do anywhere from 100ft/min to 300ft/min.

The PhotoMec machines can be currently ordered with 35mm or 70mm rollers but a 70mm fitted processor will either have to be built larger to run at the same speed in Ft/min as a 35mm one or it will run at half the speed for the same tank volume as a 35mm roller equipped machine.

There are very high res monochrome LCD panels now and a 12k or 15K recorder with sequential RGB and multi flash RGB could possibly be built for recording. 8K recording can be achieved to some degree with some of the new JVC pixel shift Laser light source LCOS projectors.

I think there were a number of small tabletop B&W processors made over the years. I remember seeing a 3ft x 4ft form factor machine in LA years ago for doing tests.

3 hours ago, Nicholas Lymberis said:

I think we are perhaps seeing new entrants in film in general trying to capitalise on the perception of an uptick in interest in film.

I had someone who works for a local silver recovery service ask me about the specs of our Bray as they want to look into building a small compact film processor.

Not sure they realise the cost of such a thing lol

Ultimately we'd need much more volume and more processing labs to support all these new companies - I think some may hang around, but most will probably compete each other out of business.

There are a few small 10-15ft/min processors available now with dubious engineering and cost around $80-90K

Too slow for a real lab and not well thought out.

It would be possible to make some kind of tabletop very slow machine without RemJet removal that could be run for multiple processes but probably cost $10k-$20K which some enthusiasts might pay.

The Arriscan is a true RGB scanner (Actually has R/O/G/B and IR LEDs) and makes a sharper more detailed scan than the Scan Station. It is slower but makes true 16bit scans with the best color possible. 

We mostly scan shorts spots and do selects for longer form films with our Arriscan.

Basic motor controller like a micro stepper teensy based without any laser or other nonsense perf detection you can calculate position of the frame by velocity and machine vision like the Scan Station. Easier if you have sprocket drive for sequential RGB capture. 

Lamp controller with R/O/G/B/IR and each time it fires it sends a pulse width to the LED and to the Camera Trigger for capture. 

Camera image capture drivers can be frame grabber (CoaxPress for high res) or IP based. -> Frame Capture -> Open CV perf machine vision for stabilization  / Scaling / Scopes etc-> LUT slots for LIn-LOG / Inversion / Bit Mapping i.e. 16b to 10b etc. -> Write DPX frame.

Build  GUI to tie each of the three modules together.

Scan Scan.

It is a big project but with the new code assist tools and some expert grad student hire should not be rocket science anymore. 

The big difference with a Scan Station is that LaserGraphics have built 100% reliable and extremely fast software that allows for a ton of work scanned at very high quality quickly.

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I was going to ask, if you're going to try a Monochrome imager, you would need something to recombine the image in post. How would you do that? 

 

Just write each image capture into a DPX channel one at a time I think that is the simple part.

On 1/5/2026 at 7:36 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

Too many products, not enough buyers. 

They all bought Scan Stations, and by they I mean we.

Ektachrome is run professionally in the Fuji Pro6 E6 chemistry these days as the Fuji chemistry is the only real E6 option currently.

There are several threads on places like Reddit about using a number of B&W developers as the first developer and ECN2 developer as the color developer.

As a lab we will only offer Pro6 to the exact control strip spec unless it is for a large order that wants to change something and I would guess that Andec in Berlin would be on the same page.

That is a terrible looking scan get your money back and go find a shop with a Scan Station or a Scannity.

My scan tech Grace would have had that done in two or three days on a Scan Station.

Ha just saw all this pretty damn great!

Movie cameras were originally and continuously built by wacky loons making bits and pieces to move the emulsion cloth through the box gate lens contraption.

3D printing and modern motor controls open up a wide range of possibilities indeed.

Bravo!

To some degree the higher resolution the scan the better AEO Light works I am sure the Arriscan XT does a fine job at 6K