Robert Houllahan

Old first gen MP film scanners used tri-linear CCDs that were 3K / 4K and then 5.7K this was true RGB scanning where there are three lines of pixels and they were R, G and B with color filters over each part of the line, they were typically made by Kodak's CCD division. This was usually in conjunction with a pin registered Oxberry transport and it took 20-30sec (or much more) to scan each frame. This is "Jurassic Park" era where only some shots would be scanned for VFX to then be recorded out and inserted in a negative cut. So 35mm and even 16mm was able to be scanned on Cineon scanners in the 1990's to 4K and that worked pretty well. Later scanners like the Northlight-2 got the 8K (or 9K?) Kodak Tri-Linear sensor and could to 2X over sampling or actual 8K scans. The Later generation Spirit scanners (2003-2009) had three 4K Kodak CCDs with dichroic color filters for real time 2K and 7fps 4K true RGB scanning. These scans still look really great today. The Arriscan has a 3K ALEV sensor and does a piezo shift to make 6K true RGB and true HDR down sampled to 4k. None of the above was in any way available to the regular public to fuss over these machines were in big iron post with engineering staff and got fussed over by the big guys. CFA scanners like the Scan Station only really got going fairly recently and the first gen Scan Station used a 2K or 3K Kodak CCD in quad tap mode and it had allot of issues with showing the tap balance so there would be obvious quadrants, they went for speed over quality as allot of places wanted the speed. Things only really got to somewhat modern when CMOSIS introduced a 5K 30fps capable Cmos sensor used in the Scan Station and the GPUs got fast enough to process that, this is about five years ago. Now there are some new sensors like the Sony 6.5k used in the Scan Station (color) and Director (Mono sequential RGB) for up to 13K scans and DFT has put the new G_Pixel 9.4x7K mono sensor in their Polar scanner and the Sony 14K mono sensor in their Oxscan for 65/70 I don't really think there are any definitive public tests on "what res" is film as it is an organic medium being pushed into a grid pattern. In general I think Nyquist over sampling at 2X the intended res is what should be the goal and true RGB still beats CFA in detail and color fidelity and separation, I think both 16mm and 35mm really benefit from a 4K scan, negatives more so than prints. As the sensors get better and higher res capturing the whole film image which is made of clouds and grains at reasonably higher res shows an improvement in the final results and with that resolution comes the other horsemen of the emulsion full density range and color separation especially in over exposed negatives. I think everyone who does this work as a job sees the benefits of scanning 16mm and even 8mm at 4K and it is trivial to do now in fast color scanners and even true RGB scanners, I can see 35mm having some benefits from 8K scans too as they become more easily available. Ultimately is this a pixel peeping tech obsession or realistic best practice for the intended delivery format, most likely to be compressed online or UHD and HD video and rarely (for most) a return to 35mm prints or finely finished 4K DCI distro.

How old is it? I used some Kodak Plus-X 16mm negative in 2019 that had expired in 1962 and it came out great, shot in full daylight and I rated it as 20iso.

We are doing some tests for a film and ran some push +3 and +4 for 7222 but I cannot show that, it looks ok but obviously grainy which is what they wanted. We regularly run 500t to +2 and have done +3 but going beyond +3 is a bit tricky because you really have to slow the processor down allot and possibly add heat to the developer which can have unintended color shifts which have to be compensated for with a different repo on the developer chems.

This is 5222 pushed +1 and +2 we ran in F76:

You could / they may just record the part of the element you need on the stock and then print the rest, would require a traveling matte or some such rig in printing on an optical printer. Instead of just recording the whole frame. FotoKem would be the only lab with Celco Fury 65/15P recorders I would think. Some of the new micro-oled panels look promising maybe with a piezo stage and multi level exposure.

Ah yes the Disastor "test" which seemed like a make work project for some academics who don't actually use or know anything about film. So this is Part II the more Disatoriniinnning... now with their own scan scan machine

Vague at best. "Multi Spectral" i.e. sequential RGB? that is "multi spectral" as in red green and blue. The example on their web site I actually prefer the look of the "other" system and think it will grade to finish better than their example.

The Scan Station "personal" can be upgraded to the latest software with 2-Flash HDR and that makes it a decent 12-bit scanner and the noise from the older CMOSIS camera is mostly gone. So for $20-25K used plus about $15K you can have a updated 35/16 Scan Station that works really well. Nobody complained about the noise from that camera more than Moi. GPU "pin registration" using machine vision is really excellent almost all of the time I think the LG or Xena edges out my Arriscan a bit on 16mm but is about the same on 35mm. The Arriscan definitely has superior color fidelity and color channel separation and overall detail compared to any of the bayer mask based scanners HDR or not. I am sure that is why LG makes the Director 13K ( which is a Monochrome Sony 6.5K and a pizeo stage I assume ) RGB scans for the Pic quality win and speed loss. There are a few ways to clean film I have a Lipsner XL1100 alcohol cleaner which is Ok for basic dirt / dust A Lipsner 8200 Ultrasonic which really works and for really tough stuff the option of rewashing the film in a film processor can kill all the mold and help heal emulsion problems while releasing allot of the really hard to get out dirt from the emulsion. There are new cheaper fluids for cleaning and full immersion liquid gate scanning that are environmentally ok and easily available now. I think the cameras keep getting better, as far as I can tell the 5.4K Sony in the Archivist is one gen newer than the 6.5K Sony and it looks excellent has great dynamic range and extremely low noise. The 6.5 Sony is also great but has some odd color stuff and allot of color channel cross talk when I went through allot of setup on the Xena, this is all done by LG as a turnkey scanner product. Most TV and Movies you see get scanned true RGB at Co3 or Postworks or FotoKem on the DFT Scannity or Arriscan. DFT has introduced the new Polar scanner using the G-Pixel 9.4K x 7K sensor so that can make true 8K RGB HDR scans. FotoKem and Cinelab London have the DFT Oxscan 14K 65mm / 70mm RGB HDR scanner for things which are big. I could see 4K or 8K continuous motion true RGB sequential HDR scans using X-Y GPU Machine vision registration shortly and the LG Director and DFT Polar might already be doing this, massive bandwidth from the camera and allot of GPU making it possible.

I would go for it, I think any B&W will hold up very well if it is in relatively ok storage conditions. I personally got a few rolls of the 1962 Plus-X because they were just a little shrunk for the purpose someone had them for but they went through my Aaton XTRprod just fine.

B&W film stocks last exceptionally well, I used a roll of Plus-X Negative for a music video a few years ago that had expired in 1962! Color turned to B&W never really matches the contrast of real B&W IMO. There are a number of options for current B&W stocks and how to process them, 7266 runs nicely as a negative and I still really like 7222 processed properly, we have dome some overexpose and pull and some underexpose and push processing for various clients that worked well for their purposes. Here is the MV with the Plus-X from 1962:

The general rule is to overexpose about a stop per decade when using expired film. I think that rating it at 100iso and processing normally achives the same thing as 200iso and a push +1 and may even produce a bit nicer result.

Look for a Russian Gen-1 (tube) set of Night Vision goggles with a IR lamp in the center you can turn off. We use these and ND the IR lamp and they do work with it off too. Nice green night vision analog tube light amplification goggles, work great for the darkroom. The earlier US ones (and later too) are also great and better built but allot more expensive for the oldest tech to as much as a nice car for the newer ones.

I would suggest a Schneider Makkro-Symmar 80mm / 5.6 it is what we use on one of the Xena scanners for 8mm and is excellent.

Here is a MV / Spot we ran which is 5222 Push +1 and some 5219:

You might want to talk to the lab you are working with and have a discussion about target density and target gamma. What we do every run for process normal is shoot a test strip on a XRite Sensitometer on some fresh stock we are running which is then processed and read on a XRits 310 Densitometer. We aim for a "standard" reference D-Max and D-Min and some stocks and processes will be based around a target D-Max. For example when we make optical tracks for printing the target density is a 2.8 specified by the person who records our optical 16mm tracks. I am home now but I can get the last Sensi strip and densities for 7222 from last week tomorrow and post them, we run F76 at 75Deg F / 3min (50ft /min) and a 1:3 mix with the developed being about 100Gal with allot of turbuation so a pretty active developer, For 3378 Sound film we run at 80Deg at 20Ft/min so more than double the dev time and higher temp, that gets it to the high density. So it is a good idea to do some experiments and shoot some brackets and see how things turn out with more or less target density and then a lab can process to that density / gamma specified.

The Vision3 stocks are designed to be inter-mixed so they all have similar grain and base character, I have found they can be inter-mixed in scanning without having to do a base re-calibration between stock. Similar when printing them to film a one light can be pretty good with mixed V3 stocks, scene and lighting dependent of course.

I recently did a Digital to 7222 recording at Cinelab and I calibrated for one stop over and pulled 1/2 it had a nice contrastier look, it was for re-scan not a print. We also tested a number of developers a number of years back before we ran a big well known 35mm B&W feature and found F76 developer to really work best and produce much nicer looking grain. It is a negative so it will be a Log scan typically on a Scan Station or Arriscan and then as David said you can adjust contrast to your liking.

I have a Nucoda setup but don;t really do any stabilization, it is rare that any film comes out of the LaserGraphics or Arri scanners that need post stabilization.

IN scanner GPU stabilization works really well because it is done on the raw camera data before it is demosaiced so basically the machine looks at the monochrome info for contrast edges in a specific known general area where the perfs are supposed to be. The LaserGraphics GPU stabilization is so good the scanner just has a encoder on the capstan and then the GPU stabilization, if you turn it off the film moves around quite a bit and then is locked amazingly steady when it is on. I think Nucoda/Phoenix has better stabilization tools for film than Resolve does also.

I could potentially record to 100D Ektachrome and I am working on getting around to a test and calibration for the recorder and I have recorded to Tri-X reversal if you are just looking for a one off positive to project.

HI We record to a negative and then print it, choices are 50D 250D 500T / 7222 for the recorded negative and we can print that to 16mm color or B&W print stock. I am thinking about a direct to print stock recorder with sound using an Auricon but it is far down on the list due to the technical challenges of recording direct to print stock in real time like the Cinevator does. The V4 (now) of the Cinelab Digital to 16mm recorder runs at about 2FPS to record digital files to 16mm film, pin registered.

This is unfortunately true.

Most of the film color timers learned by trial and error, Brad who was at Cinelab was an incredible color timer and did not like the hazeltine as he found it to be slow and cumbersome he timed on the bench with color cards and experience and made incredible timed prints. Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago so much of the knowledge he had was lost except for the tools which are still at the lab. For Di workflows on film you might reach out to Steve Shaw at Light Illusion as he has an extensive toolset for calibrating a Kodak digital LAD with a densitometer through the negative and print stages at a lab and building a matching 3D viewing LUT so the look of the print can be closely matched in the DI theater. For more controlled general printing you can use a Kodak LAD and measure the patches with the densitometer for ECN2 consistency and then print that LAD onto print stock and then measure the LAD patches on the print to get to a base printer light setup on the printer and process at the lab. From there color timing is primary print lights +RGB = darker in all colors -RGB = Lighter in all colors +G = more magenta -G =less magenta etc.

I think it has a metal plate system that "holds down" the film and makes it run flatter through the gate. This probably really depends allot on the tolerance for being flattened by the presumably very shrunken film being scanned.

This is the CP I have