Robert Houllahan

When i say the scanner wasn't setup right I think the LED lamp level wasn't bright enough and not balanced and then the operator used the gpu grade tools in the scanner software to elevate the shadows. They possibly did this to avoid clipping the hilites, maybe due to the lack of DR in that sensor?

I don't think the RetroScan uses perf recognition / machine vision stabilization. It uses a LED or Laser perforation detector to fire the lamp and trigger the camera. Machines like the Scan Staton / Xena etc fire the lamp/trigger the camera using velocity from the capstan encoder or combination of velocity and perforation detection. Then the film is overscanned and the perforation and film edge are looked at with machine vision in real time and the film is stabilized in the GPU in the X and Y axis before being demosaiced and written to disk. With the Retroscan you would probably have to do additional stabilization in Resolve or After Effects etc. with an overscanned file.

Those DPX frames are clipped in the shadows (Looking at them in Resolve scopes) specifically the red channel and the shadow levels are elevated. The scanner was not setup right IMO.

How is he converting the DPX to ProRes? I do this all the time and have never had Resolve or Nucoda clip info in the DPX to ProRes conversion no matter what codec (LT HQ 444 etc.) so it is likely something he is doing wrong.

Also I would say any Bayer mask CFA sensor will have limitations built into it in terms of color fidelity, the dyes used on a silicon mask are far from perfect and far from perfectly applied to the individual photosites. IMO a "real" RGB scan from a monochrome sensor with dichroics or a RGB led sequential exposure will continue to be the standard by which scans are judged and why film will continue to have a special look with different color fidelity than math made CFA cameras no matter how "good" they may be.

A couple new fast very hi res samples: https://www.visionsystech.com/products/cameras/svs-vistek-shr411-sony-imx411-sensor-camera-151mp https://www.teledynedalsa.com/en/products/imaging/cameras/falcon4/

Manufacturers of digital sensors will continue to make higher resolution units with better specs. And scanner manufacturers will put those sensors in the scanners. Look how fast everyone with a Scan Station 5K dumped that (noisy) sensor for the 6.5K Sony Pregius one.

I am not sure if DFT uses Perc or some 3M "engineered" fluid, same with Arri with the Arriscan XT liquid gates.

Yeah what Perry said. Alcohol is not a liquid with a refractive index which will really work as a liquid gate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachloroethylene is. You will need some proper handling and venting of that fluid. Arri and DFT have full immersion gates here is a video of the Scannity: I think each liquid gate for the Scannity is $225,000 not sure if they have a 8mm liquid gate yet. Real liquid gate scans are expensive and fussy.

I had an Imagica Imager XE+ and I gave it away for free which was about what it was worth.

I think FotoKem only has an Imagica "Big Foot" scanner for 12K IMAX / 65mm scans otherwise they use the Spirit 4K or Scannity.

Yeah S8 is really great, I shot that with a very compact little S8 camera and definitely a camera like my Nikon R10 with a better lens and transport makes a sharper image.

Well yeas and no, a real full immersion liquid gate with something like Perc or a 3M engineered fluid will consistently fully fill in and make good all the base scratches. Base scratches still show up on modern scanners with diffuse light and then have to be digitally fixed, they may be less apparent than on an older CRT scanner but they are still visible in the scan. The Film FabFabriek uses alcohol which as Perry says is not of the right refractive index to fill the base nor is that machine a full immersion gate. It does have the Sony pregius 4K sensor which is a mile better than the 4K junker in the Cintel and the noisy 5K in the Scan Station.

Thesre is also the Xena scanner we use, it allows for you to use a camera of your choice. http://digitalcinemasystems.net/

16mm resolutions: 1903 x 1143 - Super 16 1581 x 1154 - Standard 16 Not good... If LaserGrpahics puts the 6.5K Sony Pregius into the SSP (base model) that would be a winner, they will probably have to if BMD puts the 6K sensor in a Cintel 3. Unfortunately as an owner of a LG SSP with the 5K sensor I cannot recommend it ($55K) and LaserGraphics has been entirely unresponsive about the fixed pattern noise issues on the 5K sensor for us which is a total disappointment.

As far as I can tell it is not a good 16mm scanner. 1. It is sprocket drive so shrunk and damaged film not a great option. 2. The picture area of the 16mm scan is significantly less than HD especially for Standard 16mm 3. The sensor in the scanner has significant fixed pattern noise issues. This does not stop unethical people from saying the scans are "2K" for 16mm or selling them as such. The "2K" scan from the Cintel is a full 16mm gauge overscan with the S16mm or 16mm picture area being much less than HD. Maybe if they make a Cintel 3 with capstan drive and optical perf stabilization and use the 6k sensor instead of the old UHD one it could be a ok machine. I think it only works with Resolve on a Mac. I would look at a LaserGrpahics Scan Station personal if they offer the 6.5K sensor in the future (the 5K sensor they were using is junk) or a Muller with the 4K Sony Pregius maybe for stuff in the same price range.

Here is some S8mm I shot recently both E6 100D and Tri-X

I don't think that Ektachrome was re released to be a "cheaper" format to work with. It is definitely a "premium" product and costs reflect that. I for one am glad it is available and hope more people shoot it professionally and personally as we put allot of effort into being able to run E6 on a regular basis.

Not if E6 is on a dedicated film processor setup specifically for Ektachrome E6 with the right number of tanks all tightly temp controlled. If you look at the ECN2 Process you will see that the tanks configuration is not usable for running E6.

I can tell you that it is a bit tricky from a Lab perspective but if you get the chemistry right it can look fantastic. I will post a link to a roll of S8mm I shot recently tomorrow or Friday. There is NO reason why Color Reversal should not be as clean as any other film stock. We are running E6 in a dedicated Allen processor and tightly control the chemistry and sensiometrics so the film can look it's best. The chemistry is expensive and does get used fast and right now Cinelab is doing 10-15 work day turnaround times for E6 so we can get it right.

I would suggest trying to run it as B&W as the color will be pretty faded and very far off from normal and you will likely get a cleaner image as B&W.

People are using it, we have thousands of feet of 16mm and about 70 S8 cartridges we are working on running in E6 this week.

Niiicee.

It is a flip down split reel rewind, both 16mm and 35mm compatible with a detent for the outer flange.

Not sure if I am adding anything here... but having done this about a billion times for myself and Cinelab customers.. In the darkroom(s) we have (All Hollywood Film Co. winders) a drop split reel on the left and a shaft on the right all are grounded. I put the 400ft core on the left drop split reel and wind it onto a screw apart split reel on the right shaft HFC winder. Then I flip the split reel from the right to the left winder and wind down each 100ft daylight spool. The HFC winders have a tension adjustment on the top and I also think keeping a thumb on the split reel for tension is OK. I don't see any static sparks in the darkroom as the HFC winders are metal and grounded.