Craig Janeway
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Adding an eye for pin registration to the machnice vision is one option? It would only need to capture the area of perf data several perfs ahead of the the main sensor. Then, operator would assign the ratio between frame and perf, and the software would pick perf and frame relationships as it scans. A two window, or "frame in frame" monitor display can show pin registered perf and its associated frame(s) as they scan. One could mark manually with indicator mark on the first few frames to compare and see if scanner is assigning the right relationship before starting a full scan. By adding a dedicated eye to the machine vision for perfs, experimentation could be done to explore if say pin registration on a 2 perf away setup, the scanner could use say the next pin registration perf one full section above what the camera use, and still get registration?
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Is it possible the OP's video was re-scanned on a scanner that had a bad roller or pressure plate not right, or something the film was dragging and scrapping on as it was scanned? I would still expect the steady software to correct it, but couldn't the scanner have a mechanical flaw (bad/dry roller, dirty gate etc) along with needing better steady software?
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That really is brillient! Having a changing distance between edges when the software is programed to a set distance, would throw off calculations for "squareness." In fact, the slope of the change along the edge(s) may well be reflected in frame positioning via software, so we see the rotation via numbers based on a variable and not a constant, as the software is programed to expect. ... but also that the software lacks the ability to correct it self and eliminate a degrading top edge flatness. Shouldn't the software be looking at the frame and not edges of the film?
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Awesome that you did the comparison and the camera and projector have been eliminated from the equation as the source. :) So, the issue now is to determine why rocking is scanner induced. Or, more appropriately, discuss what the best way to counter the rocking from scanning. Since it's all software as it is, would this mean there is a software fix, or in your estimation, will this require a combination of improving film transport during scanning (mechanical) and say an "anti-rotation correction" factor add to software's evalutive routines?
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Lighitng has everything to do with the quality of the finished product. I'll harp all day about looking for and filming using a good camera angle in relation to available light, and if subject is in shade, use bounce light from a reflector, and also be aware of skin tone and compensate for it. These things can't be "corrected" in post (though many think they can).
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Thank you. :) I'm new at Super8 and just learned of your camera. Fine camera from what I read. Didn't know it was a manual exposure only. So, handheld metering and using good judgement for subject placement and exposure compensation for special lighitng situations is operator's responsibility.
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Yes, this was my reasoning in relation to the OP's title of the post as part of the reason I see as "Not my best Super 8 footage yet." The scanning is secondary to actual filming. If the you place a dark skinned person in the shade and have light behind them, you have a backlit subject standing in the the shadow facing the camera with light behind and above subject, and camera aimed in direction of the light. If you are in auto exposure, you have a setting situation that auto should be turned off and manual exposure adjustments set to expose for the shadow and for darker skin tone, not counting the possible direct lighting affecting metering. True it was labeld a "sound test" but the title of the thread wants us to look at the footage and make personal observations, I'm assuming?
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I believe you are absolutely correct. A nice example for us non-pros and without the ability to show this, would be for someone to shoot on a Logmar with side guide not engaged part way, and then engage it to show how these two situations look like, and then project and telecine projection and compare to scanned footage using stabalization and also without stabalization. This way, a "Trouble shooting guide" could be produced for all to see and understand, and this way long debates and guessing would be put to rest for the future. I did want to add that something simple like adding graphics to the inside of the Logmar to indicate film path, like where the top and bottom loops should be, would be for people like me. :) Oh, and a notice to "engage guide before closing!"
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After reading about the Logmar here: http://www.filmkorn.org/sensational-a-new-super-8-camera-from-denmark/ I realize the camera can be ruled out as the source of any rocking if film is loaded properly (the manual side guide is re-engaged after loading film). The registraton pin is being utilized according to the my read, as it holds the frame absolutely in place while film is being exposed per frame, so jitter is not possible. Just looking at the film transport system, I can't see anything that would allow weave or rocking, so I'm convinced that any weaving or rocking is manifest during the stabalization process for which the scan device is inducing the weave (side to side movement), and I do think jitter as well, which the software combines the weave and jitter in such a way as to create the rocking. It may be the chosen method to reference each frame that is the source of this "rotation" of frame in software, as calculations are not absolute and probably looking to "average" out movement. Perhaps with the Logmar, no use of stabalization should be employed?
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I've been looking at the OP video for like 40 minutes now trying to see what I can see, until I felt like I knew it pretty well. Right at the end of this 40 minutes of doing all kinds of things to look for different things in a purely courious fashion, I noticed something strange to me. Note, I'm just a courious observer with no professional skill at this... I noticed the debris building up along the right side. Interesting this is, looks like debris is seen accumulating just after there is a good tug on the right and top right corner goes down and back up. Looks like maybe the right edge is being chewed/scraped (or whatever the term is) and little pieces of film are piling up along the right side, to me anyway. Right side starts out pretty clean and builds up debris, and left side remains pretty much the same from start to finish. If movement of rocking and debris are related, then that's something, right? So, could it be rocking from drag on the right, and less on left due to perf/claw holding left side in place?
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There's been a lot of different things brought up in this thread, and I pretty much got lost with it all. I returned to your OP and just wanted to comment that from my student studies, lighting is the main reason things don't look as good as we expect later, regardless of how well and high end the post processing is. Pay attention to your lighting, and add more properly placed lighting for your subjects, and film with the best light possible that set your subject out from distracting backgrounds. Your subject is in shade, direct overhead light, and reflecting light from window and sinage forces the view to be drawn away from your speaker/actor and onto the window and sign. The top down light that's slight behind model/actor shifts viewer focus to middle (behind) subject. I'm not a professional, just saying as someone in the audience viewing and how the light and seting make me view the scene. Hope this helps to think more about lighting your subject and picking an aperture and focus that keep viewer on the subject. Good luck in the future and I hope next time out, you get what you are hoping to get. :)
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Very good point! ;) A good camera and lens is a good place to start.
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So higher definition sensors have more tiny sensing points over the surface of the chip and likely tinier sensing sites as well. Wouldn't the size of the sites need to be somewhere around half that of the tiniest grain on the film to render it accuractly? Also, the sampeling of the analog signal is done at set points along the analog's continous signal. If one could sync say two sensors to sample inbetween one another, this would add more sample points along the analog signal, and perhaps give even better results than simply thinking of just resolution? After thought, what if 3 sensors that read R, G, and B and sampling incrimentally different spots of the analog signal? :)
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Right, so scanning has evloved to do the stabalization at scan time and has been improved upon with the update. Yes I was thinking grain was needing some clean up on the OP first post. How much of that is noise versus actual grain? I like grain, but scanning seems to add a bunch of white specs? Like out of place pixels. I recall my film projecting and looking not so noisy. Is there a way for software to show you what is grain and what is sensor noise? Or a way to test scan one way and see actual grain and then compare? I guess I'm asking how does software deal with "cleaning up grain" and why can't the scanner scan it better?
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Just trying to catch up on this tread and understand it better. Your scans look really good to me. So, what's the take away from this thread? Scanning has improved? Super8 quality depends on the batch of film? Or, we need a better camera to shoot Super8?