Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

Lossy test...31 generations of JPEGS compared https://danieldteolijrarchivalcollection.wordpress.com/2019/05/01/31-generations-of-jpegs-compared/

With true, on-the-fly doc work, if you come back with 60% to 70% of what you are after it can be a success. (And even less % in some cases.) Just look at the Zapruder film for the lowest of the low IQ...yet some of the highest documentary value film every shot. No time for lighting and film tests with this type of work. I've never tried the 4K M43 Pocket Cam, but I'd like to someday. I prefer small cam for doc work....candid doc work that is...not interviews.

Short video on Rick Prelinger and wife on the work they do with preserving history via 8mm / 16mm film archive and Prelinger Library. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/filmmaker-unearths-historical-treasures-in-home-movies Love his Lost Landscape series! Unbeknownst to Rick's work, I got started a few years ago along this same wavelength. I knew they had movie film collectors, but nothing along the work that Rick does in this concentrated area of home movies. I call my collection of home movies 'time capsule' material and have about half a million feet in it. But it is not all home movies. I also collect early stag films or anything that I deem as noteworthy. The problem with adult content is you cannot put it on mainstream streaming venues. So they are Internet Archive films. Still trying to learn the ropes of movie film and digitizing. I just got started with a Retrsoscan scanner trying to digitize this stuff. I had previously collected still photos and ephemera from the last 2 centuries in my Archive, then expanded to small gauge films. My background is in hi-level candid / underground still photography and knew nothing about motion picture film. But every day you learn new things and put more of the puzzle together. Film is fascinating stuff, I could easily spend 10 lifetimes on it and never get bored. Every time I peel some film off an unknown reel to see what is there...it is like Christmas when I was a 10 years old! Only problem with film is it is a $$ sucking activity to work in. Still photography is bad enough, but film magnifies the $$ needs massivley.

Artist Georgia O'Keefe did a little nude modeling when she was a young gal. I would never have recognized her. NSFW https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-alfred-stieglitzs-sensual-photographs-georgia-okeeffe-reveal-vulnerability

https://usc-imi.github.io/aeo-light/ Have not tried it. But sounds good if all you have is a silent film scanner and need to capture the sound. I was going to run sound film through a projector to capture it, but projection always carries a risk.

Someone on the Forum dismissed the Retroscan as nothing more than a toy, implying it as useless. The Restroscan is no toy, it can produce usable scans, much better than a Wolverine for example. If you are a pixel peeper demanding the best quality scans, then you won't be happy with the scans. But for my use, it works out O.K. Now, if I hit the lotto I will buy a Lasergraphics scanner for my archival work. With the Lasergraphics I'd also have to buy a house or rent an office to house it. No room here. The Retroscan is a small footprint scanner measuring 12 x 15 inches at the base. But for a scanner that cost less than the on site set up cost for a Lasergraphics, the Retroscan is a good tool for the budget conscious small gauge film archivist. The company that makes them said they sold 15,000 units worldwide. I have never seen a used one come to market as yet. I guess the users are satisfied enough with them. And if not satisfied, nothing anywhere near the price range for them to buy anyway.

Here is the 16mm bear hunting film scanned on a Retroscan 2K scanner. They hunt bear, deer and rabbits. Possibly shot in PA or the Tri-State Ohio Valley area, but could be anywhere in the mid-Atlantic / East Coast region. 'Atlantic White Flash' gas station sign clearly visible. The home movie that was spliced together with scotch tape. Parts of the film were suffering from vinegar syndrome and warped. Lots of breaks and blown sprocket holes. Some nice vintage Kodachrome color footage mixed in with the BW. Much of the color is remarkably good. Kodak changed the recipe for Kodachrome in 1938 and most of it has held up pretty good in dark storage. Prior to '38, most of the Kodachrome has color shifted. Film stock codes (color and BW) date the film as 1939. 16mm Kodachrome had an ASA rating of 10. That made it pretty hard to shoot at dusk or dawn. Some of the footage in the film is greatly underexposed and had to be pushed in the scan to view the images. All scans raw, except for some of the underexposed BW film which was pushed. I was going to work on Bushman's Holiday, an 'art student' nudie film with narration from the 1940's. But the sound film has all clear film sprockets as opposed to black film sprockets. The standard Retroscan will not scan clear sprockets well, so will have to wait for the Lasergate. I'm itching to get going with sound scans. It is like a puzzle putting it all together.

Sorry Perry, but I keep timing out for edits. As far as mentioning the Retroscan, I only brought it up because it was what I scanned the BW sample I submitted when the discussion was about grain on color films vs BW grain.

Perry, as far as the Internet Archive, well you misunderstood me. What I was saying is to put up sample individual images from 2K, 4K, 8K and 10K scans. Not the video. You can put files up to 10mb JPEGS on the Archive.

Perry, the Retorscan is the only thing that is a somewhat affordable option in film scans. Sure, it is not great, but it is quite doable for low budget archives looking for a 2K scan. The Retroscan cost less than the on-site set up and training for the Lasegraphics. So of course it only does so much. It does scans in TIFF or JPEG, but I don't see any difference in the TIFF other than huge size. But, lets get back to your problem you seem to have understanding the benefits of upscaling. I made a post that explains how upscaling can work to one's advantage. You can't post anything like this here due to the photo size limits on the forum. I explain in detail how I use upscaling. https://danieldteolijrarchivalcollection.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/to-upscale-or-not-upscale/

I did some experimenting with TIFF scans vs JPEG. I scanned a 232 foot 16mm mixed reel of a 1939 bear hunt of Kodachrome and BW. The scan produced 9,219 files. TIFF = 77.5 GB and JPEG = 17.2 GB. The individual files varied, but averaged 9GB for TIFF and 1.98 for JPEG. The TIFF vs JPEG showed no difference in viewing. Raw scan If you have a scanner it is very easy to bang out films as raw scans. Although prep and cleaning of the vintage film takes time. This one took over an hour for repairs and cleaning. Tons of breaks, scotch tape splices, etc.

It is OK, got some pretty scenes. Watchable. Nice short piece that did not drag on. You know nature boys was written about the nature boys of L.A. I think Gypsy Boots was one of em. (top left in photo.) They were the original hippies from the 1940's. When I was in L.A. I'd see Gypsy Boots once in a while delivering health foods to the stores. Make more films and see what develops. Good luck!

Your film struck me as something that would show your talent for documentary or nature work. Make some more films and see how it goes. That will give you an idea of what genre you like to work in. Nature? People? Documentary? Good luck!

Isn't it something how the gals do their eyebrows nowadays! I didn't like the middle, too drawn out, getting boring. But it may be me. I'll ask a gal once, and not pester her, so that was an issue with me. Also I'm not much for long dialogue, I got ADD, so that always taints my reviews. But the long dialogue did add some tenseness to the film. I guess it needs balance for your target audience. The end was very good...riveting. Liked the sound effects at the end. I was thinking lighting was kinda flat throughout the screen chats, but it was better than you would normally get in a computer chat. So can't complain. I don't know whether it is better to make things realistic (low quality) or unrealistic (better quality) Make more films...Good Luck!

Timed out for edits... Forgot to say, the intro with projector is excellent!

Nice film and film work!. Somewhat interesting script. Nice acting. If you wanted to make it more interesting you could have had the argument escalate and someone getting blown away or knifed. But all that stuff has been done before. Hard to do much that has not been done, but it would add something to the dialogue only mix. But it is your film, if you wanted dialogue only, then do it as you like. 'Just talk' reminds me of these guys... I watched it on large screen computer with stereo speakers. Sound was OK for me. (But I didn't listen critically and am no expert. I manage an old film archive and some of the sound films I get there are terrible.) When these critiques come up it would be good to hears costs and time that was required to make the film. Always interested in hearing something of the production costs, lighting and film tests, backstory, problems making, rental issues, etc. Why did you make the film? Practice? Or are you making up a portfolio of work for jobs? What are your goals? Keep at it...you got talent! PS...I like the lighting! But my own work is controversial, so don't go by me.

OK, thanks! (BTW, these were silent films.) It makes sense that they looked poor compared to todays films. Fast action is very jumpy. I think I saved this at 15fps. (I should keep some notes.) I save it all speed options and see what looks the best. Don't know if they offer 16fps on the software.

I got some old home movies from the 1920's. It looks like the footage is fast and jerky. Did the cheap, home 16mm cams shoot at 24fps back then?

OP, just how it is. $$ runs the world, not art. CA was taken down over $$, with cheap illegal labor. Brexit was stopped over $$. Scorsese ruined the end of Taxi Driver, desaturating the blood over $$. Why was Trump stopped from closing down the border to Mexico...that is right $$. England lost the Colonies back in the 1780's over $$...the Stamp Tax. That is one of the big benefits of working underground. You don't care one thing about profit other than do you have the $$ to do a project. Of course, filmmaking is even worse than still photography for sucking down $$. One way or another it always boils down to $$ when doing art. If I could draw I could be in biz with a used napkin and a pencil. And if grandma had balls she would be grandpa. Just gotta suck it up and do the best we can in the world we got.

I think this discussion is only for the low budget films. As Tyler brought up, for big $$ films, you can do as you like and film vs digital cost is inconsequential. I think the issue will be as the old timers (film trained) die off, the young guns (digital trained) coming up will have a harder time with film. You can see how it went with 3 strip Technicolor...a lost art.

Here is a scan of a splice detail on a film scanned in TIFF. Single TIFF files are about 3.28mb in 2K 4:3 on the Retroscan. (Although this sample was 4mb.) Click on image to view larger. This was not done as a single image scan, but was taken out of the scan sequence of the film. So it is representational of what you would get when scanning a movie. (Plus I had to reduce it to post on the forum.) I didn't do any special focusing. Maybe it can be done slightly sharper if the film was fine tuned for focus before running. But I think it is a good sample as-is for what the Retroscan can do for sharpness. I hope to give you a rundown of the Lasergate in a few months. As I mentioned previously, the standard Retroscan 16mm gate does poorly with clear edge film. A good portion of the film in my Archive is clear edge. So consider what type of film you will be scanning when buying a Retroscan to get the right configuration.

In the old days it was a big deal on May 1 https://vintagephotographyddteolijr.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/maypole-may-day-collection/

Here Scott, this is a 16mm raw scan, a 2K Retroscan file 1.17MB JPEG 2048 x 1536. I reduced it to 292kb for the forum limits. The Retroscan does not have a film plate to keep the film flat, so maybe 2K will be sharper on another scanner. If you blow it up, the grain is not too sharp. The image falls apart before you can see the grain on the 1.17mb jpeg. From what I can tell, what looks like grain here is more of the texture from the sensor or something like that. I got some flatbed scans of this film and they don't show the grain either and some are 10mb jpegs for 3 or 4 frames. Well Scott, we will have to keep on the trail of the unobtainable scan that can show the grain! But in the future, shoot in BW and you may have an easier time seeing the grain.

Well, you gotta do it then and post the results. Get a 2K, 4K, 8K and 10K scan. Then put it up on the Internet Archive. But color film is dye based and the grain is not sharp like BW film. And I don't think a movie film scanner will produce as sharp a scan as a flatbed scanner. But that is another test. Sometimes when I get some time I will compare a 2K Retroscan to a flatbed scan. But right now my computer is a mess, and I'm having trouble replacing it. So it is a test for down the road. Did you go to the link I posted earlier on photography compared? You didn't see any grain in the color film example I posted. It is a hji res flatbed scan and blown up like hell. Color film does not have the grain structure like BW. Here..from the Wiki "In black-and-white photographic film, there is usually one layer of silver halide crystals. When the exposed silver halide grains are developed, the silver halide crystals are converted to metallic silver, which blocks light and appears as the black part of the film negative. Color film has at least three sensitive layers, incorporating different combinations of sensitizing dyes. Typically the blue-sensitive layer is on top, followed by a yellow filter layer to stop any remaining blue light from affecting the layers below. Next comes a green-and-blue sensitive layer, and a red-and-blue sensitive layer, which record the green and red images respectively. During development, the exposed silver halide crystals are converted to metallic silver, just as with black-and-white film. But in a color film, the by-products of the development reaction simultaneously combine with chemicals known as color couplers that are included either in the film itself or in the developer solution to form colored dyes. Because the by-products are created in direct proportion to the amount of exposure and development, the dye clouds formed are also in proportion to the exposure and development. Following development, the silver is converted back to silver halide crystals in the bleach step. It is removed from the film during the process of fixing the image on the film with a solution of ammonium thiosulfate or sodium thiosulfate (hypo or fixer).[3] Fixing leaves behind only the formed color dyes, which combine to make up the colored visible image. Later color films, like Kodacolor II, have as many as 12 emulsion layers,[4] with upwards of 20 different chemicals in each layer." - - - - - - - Scott, I'd tell you to scan a small section of your film on a flatbed scanner to get a reference example of what you can achieve. Then use that to compare your 10K scan to.

Sure Perry, no one is suggestion to upscale his movie. The discussion was about getting progressively higher res scans. I thought he wanted hi res scans to project it bigger. My take is even with super hi res scans, 8 can only go so big for projection. With still photos, upscaling can work in some instances combined with sharpening. Upscaling is not as good as hi res scans, but sometimes it makes a more pleasing image to the eye than not upscaling. You got to view the results to see if you like it. If you are pixel peeping then you may not like it, but how does it look to the eye? That is the question. I do lots of upscaling with digital images of still photos. I never saved any before and after examples of it, but will look out for them in the future. The reason I upscale is I cannot always get a good digital original and it may be kinda low res. The upscaling can work to help make a better moderate size print, like a 8 x 10, but the upscaling wont magically make it a low res file to produce sharp 20 x 24's That is how I use upscaling. And it is just like you say with your audio example above. Sometimes the upscaled image does not look as good as the original, so it fails. You just have to try it Perry. And I'm talking about moderate upscaling. When I come across a good example of a upscaling before and after success I will post it for you guys.