Andrew Wise

Oh I should probably specify I’m after the physical film itself so I can use it on my film scanner

Does anyone have any footage of a colorchecker shot on Kodachrome? Preferably on 16 or 8mm film ? happy to pay or do some film scanning as a trade! thanks in advance

Who does this? I’d never just take a 3 inch reel out of the paper bag and put it on the scanner. You add leader, clean, fix crap splices, load it on a larger reel with larger hub diameter. What? This is a weird exaggeration. nobody gives me 1200ft Elmo reels full, you just didn’t read what I said. I take the variety of reels they give me - 3,5,7 inch reels and splice them together using leader to separate them. I load them on one of my 1200ft reels so I can run through a large batch in one sitting. It’s really not difficult to splice 3 inch reels together, I’m pretty quick at it. Yes I wet scan pretty much every home movie I scan. It’s very rare to get perfect, untouched film. They all have projector scratches and emulsion cracks with 8mm, I can run run wetgate at arpund 18fps if I have the AC on dehumidifier and have a strong fan blowing over the film path after the gate. otherwise it’s around 10-15fps It’s funny how I was just making a Joke about it always being a numbers show off, and you just double down on the number show lol that’s incredible you paid off the scanner with one job. You should have a few scanstations by now right? Why are you even bothering with the HDS This comment has superiority complex written all over it.

You realise the length of the film path was designed that way for the wetgate right? Or was did you think it was another terrible design fault? The long film path allows the isopropyl alcohol to evaporate before it reaches the take up reel. I have no issues lacing the HDS, it takes a second. I’m actually slower lacing up my Pictor because there’s a tighter weave and the dancer arm I have to hold. I keep a long length of leader on my 1200ft Elmo reels ready for the scanner. The leader is not an issue. the Pictor cannot scan as fast while using the wetgate due to the short film path, only about 1/3rd the speed. Although I have thought about adding a little arm bolted on the table with another roller on it to extend the film path to assist with drying. I’m charging more than others scanning home movies, and my customers are very happy with how they look. I hate the whole numbers game you constantly play making it sound you’re incredibly busy at top of your game, but I’ll participate- I’ve paid off my HDS in less than 12 months only scanning home movies, charging 60-80c per ft. I can whip through small 3 inch reels by doing what Perry also does, splicing them in order; but changing the Kodak leader to plain white leader so the ink doesn’t run when wetgate scanning, and loading them up on the Elmo 1200ft reel. I then return them to brand new 400ft reels in a can when I’m done. Customers are very happy with this. the old plastic 8mm Kodak reels are going powdery, and the small core is not good to store the film on. What archives are projecting old home movies? Statements like this make it sound like you’re too good for home movies, it’s bottomfeeder business. I don’t know why I keep replying to these stupid comments, but I guess on this forum it’s who has the most contribution points hey

Haha it does sound that way! I think the other HDS owners are too busy working scanning film to come on a forum to try convince strangers I upgraded to the HDS from a moviestuff mkii, so in my eyes the HDS is incredible value for such a powerful and simple to use scanner, with a great imager and strobed RGB light source. I haven’t used a more expensive scanner, so I can’t compare. But just looking at the price, would one say it’s about half the cost of an Lasergraphics archivist (happy to be corrected, I’m not 100% sure on the price) i primarily scan a lot of 8mm home movies, which I love doing. The HDS is perfect for this job, and I always assumed this is what the machine was designed to do. I think scanning neg was just an extra option they added. And they barely advertise it. They really push saving old film if you see the website. even if the stabilisation is not rock solid like a Lasergraphics, it really doesn’t bother me. The home movies are all hand held running around the backyard chasing the dog. They need a global stabilisation of the image area, not a rock solid stable perf. If I wanted to scan more neg for current filmmakers, I’d save up more and get a Lasergraphics for sure! Sure, the scanner could be better, people love to boost their appeared intelligence by picking at everything and how they could designed it better, but they’d do that with any scanner. It’s not fair to bash the HDS because you wanted a Lasergraphics but only had half the money to spend

The scratching was on the base side in the centre of the image. It was very very fine. I rescanned with the wetgate to make it disappear, then stopped using it. on my 16mm gate, the wear is more exaggerated where the edges of the film run

This thread gives me the pip. To backup FilmFabriek, I think Tyler is over exaggerating the stability “issue”, and is quite bipolar on what expectations he has for stability from the machine. See the video linked on the opening link of this video, my super 8 scan. 8mm will show the worst stability because it’s so small of course. I’ll upload an overscan of 16mm so you can see it’s much less noticeable on a larger format. I didn’t have any problems with scratching from my gate until about 6 months of use scanning a lot each week. I’d worn down the nickel coating on the gate, so I had to take it to a local shop to be plated. I decided to chrome plate it which was a bit difficult due to the increased thickness of the chrome, but it turned out fine. the steady gate does not have a groove for the film, the whole width of the film is in contact with the metal. It’s very important the film is clean to avoid debris sticking there. I’ve been using the gate with the chrome plating for about 8 months now, it’s all going well, there is some sign of wear in the chrome, but no pitting or scratching. I’ll have to look at redoing it again soon. I have a 2nd gate as a backup for that time. to be fair, this is wear and tear, and it’s up to the operator to monitor the condition of the scanner frequently for any wear. I assume this would be the case for most scanners, cleaning machines and film processing machines. The steady gate works well for me. Unless it’s crazy warped film. I just overscan even more than normal to allow it to wiggle around and then stabilise in post. I just realised Tyler seems to be referring to using the old gate design, which does not provide any lateral pressure to keep the film from moving horizontally in the gate. But does have a groove to keep the image area suspended in the air, keeping the edges of the film in contact with the gate

Hi all, i'm chasing a pressure plate for a K3 camera, ideally in Australia ? Thanks!

Lol what?!? your opinion is jumping all over the place, you were just saying earlier how much work you are doing modifying the machine, and how it needs to be better, but now you’re saying otherwise. sometimes I feel like you just have to disagree with anyone’s comments/opinions just to appear more knowledgeable.

My assumption has always been the laser by it's own limitations just doesn't have a fine enough resolution to detect the edge of the film within a small enough tolerance to make the perf perfectly stable in the vertical axis. But this isn't a design flaw of the scanner, it's just how it is with the laser/light source! the moviestuff with the red light reflective sensor is the same. This is why other scanners eventually settled with using computer stabilisation from the images received. What Perry says here is what I agree with. The pictor scanner by FilmFabriek has excellent sprocket registration. the sprocket idler wheel triggers the camera to capture a wide overscan with the fame pretty close to where it needs to be, and then the software locks onto the sprocket hole to stabilise it perfectly in real time as you scan. It works really well! I'd make a wild guess that at some stage the HDS will benefit from a paid firmware/software update to add the same stabilisation which I'd be very keen to jump on

huh? I was talking about super 8, the video linked is super 8, and the link I shared uploaded by Nicki Coyle is super 8. I made no mention of 16mm? To be honest, I have no idea how the machines at Kodak perforate the film, I've never been there or spoken to one of their workers. I'd only read that info about the super 8 perforations online somewhere, presumably a comment by a psudoexpert on a forum I guessed the design of the gate was chosen to cause the film to track in one direction. the rollers above and below the gate are on a slight angle to (what I assume) cause the film to want to track in one direction. Here's a video of some 16mm original camera positive running, pushed against the two bearings causing them to spin. But you're right, I have had film just do it's own thing regardless of the rollers. I now own two gates of each format, so I can send one away to be re chrome plated as I need to while I continue using the other. no issue with scratching with the chrome plating. On my little filmfabriek Pictor I also own, the gate has two little springy arms sticking out pushing the film hard against one edge of the gate. it works really well, just not that great for very badly warped 8mm as it wants to jump out. They have a new gate with no springs probably to fix that

That's my video, the 2nd video linked. I did scan it on my HDS after i shot that film. The registration isn't terrible, and you don't judge a scans stability by the sproket hole. The sproket hole naturally wiggles from left to right because at kodak when they punch the holes out, they aren't a uniform distance from the edge. The scanner gate keeps the film running flush with one side of the film, so the film itself is tracking perfectly - when i overscan even futher to see the edge of the film you can see it's rock solid. The vertical registration on the HDS isn't perfect, but it's damn close, maybe 95% there. But keep in mind the sproket hole is not what you should be stabilising film to. the camera you shot it on will have movement as the film was flopping around in the cartridge. Take a look at this great scan on a scanstation, still the same left/right wiggle with the sproket hole, but it's more stable vertically than the HDS. The exposed frame is still moving around. Phoenix film resotration suite has a really nice feature called frame lock, that looks at overscaned film and works out what's the actual exposed frame of the image based on the black border, and locks onto that. so the sproket hole will be going wild all over the place while the frame is solid. https://filmworkz.com/dvo/dvo-frame-lock/ I've tried it, and it works very well! just need a decent overscan, something where the 5K camera will really help with for a 4k export.

It’s the 40mm APO-Componon f2.8 I think Schneider have renamed the product line pyrite Why would you want a longer optical path? And longer focal length? I’m really not sure it would improve the design. larger scanners like a scanstation use an APS-C or larger sized sensor. They would need a longer extension between the sensor and lens. Just like on the HDS when you scan 4K you spin the extension tube to move the lens away as you’ve essentially increased the size of the sensor used. But it reduces the amount of light too.

It does scan out of the box in colour. the light source on the scanner is made up of red, green and blue LEDs. When they are all on, you get white light. The bayer filter on a camera sensor has red, green and blue filters. The idea is that the LEDs will match what the bayer filter on the camera, so you can saturate every photosite with light on the sensor totally. Cameras dynamic range is dependant on a few things (a lot that goes over my head so i won't pretend i understand), and having the RGB to saturate each channel on the camera is important for that. The LED design was made by frank vine - cine2digits, you can read about his design here. He's a very bright guy, and did a great job with it. http://www.cine2digits.co.uk/ in the software there are dials to adjust the intensity of each channel, and there is also an automatic function for positive film where it adjusts each channel to keep the white point just under clipping. It actually works really well. i'm a huge fan of it compared to the moviestuff software that used an average automatic exposure with a slider for exposure compensation. It would overexpose highlights if most of the scene was dark. The FF auto expososure does have limitatations, if it's a birthday party and someone is blowing out candles, it will prevent the candle from clipping, but the other parts of the scene would be too under exposed. So i will click to to manual, and scroll the exposure up manually. Also if someone is doing a pan over the ocean or grass with no white elements, it would tend to bring the scene up too much. My scanning method would be a mix of auto and manual. That's almost unbeliveable! I would have accepted that offer in a heartbeat. Incredibly generous. I'm very happy with my Filmfabriek scanners, i own both the HDS+ and the pictor. I'd buy more if i had more work and need. I mostly scan positive 8mm move movies, and occasionally 16 and 8mm negative shot by filmmakers and hobbiests today on fresh film. I've managed to work out the negative scanning side of the software, and i can colour balance the scene in 30 sec now. Even easier if they shoot a grey card.

There is no element in there, the glass you’re seeing is just the protruding rear element from the lens itself. the adapter is just a metal ring to take the v mount lens to an m42 threaded mount ? there are no additional elements added to the HDS, it’s just LENS > v mount/M42 > generic M42 helicoid > M42/Cmount > camera

Have you considered updating to the recent paid software update? They have added waveform and vectorscope. I haven’t updated my HDS, but my Pictor has the most recent paid update with the new scopes ?

I’ve been happy with the sound from my HDS. I try to adjust the azimuth of the sound head to match the original recording head, just like when I digitise magnetic audio tape. the HDS does have a flywheel behind the capstan, it’s about 5 inches in diameter. I’d guess the audio quality could be improved by adding dancer arms. I’m no expert, but I would assume the dancer arms would take out inconsistencies with reel tension etc to reduce speed changes affecting sound. But who knows!

Yes I'm not sure why the Australian Fixafilm presence isn't obvious on the website. Peter manages the Asia Pacific side in Canberra. He's a super helpful guy, I bought my FF HDS+ from him ?

I recently borrowed a Film-O-Clean from a friend, I thought it was quite helpful to run a film through quickly to remove excess dirt with low risk of scratching. It wasn't perfect, it required a few runs to remove the majority, but in the end I finished it off with cleaning by hand with PecPads. I've ordered one, I think I'll use it in my workflow as the first run through on my table using rewinders. It would be helpful for the times a customer wants to view something to see if it's worth while doing a decent clean and scan of it, but you want to knock the dirt off that might cause scratching. The media pads are super expensive to purchase from wittner cinetec, but they are just 35mm media pads from Film-Tech cut in half. I've tried cutting them with a box cutter and then cutting the plastic core with conduit cutters. I'm not sure how they do it in a factory, I assume some kind of fabric cutting machine where it's a drop down sharp blade with no teeth, and the roll spins as it cuts.

Resurrecting this thread because it ranks on the first page of google when searching for film scanning places in Australia, and I thought it would be helpful to actually have some directions on it for people that stumble across it! There are a heap of places in Australia that offer film scanning, but most are using old SD retroscans or similar low end scanner. If you're looking for a high quality scan, run by some great people - Check out these places Fixafilm - Canberra - Arriscan + other high end MemorylabFilm - Melbourne - LG Scanstation + FF HDS+ Bowline Media (Me) - Newcastle - FF HDS+ there are probably others out there, but I don't know them so I'll leave it for others to recommend them

No I do use Iso Alcohol, I just confused myself if Todd wanted to try a fluid that might provide different results, or change the delivery method. I use Gamsol for wet mounting photographic negatives on my flat bed scanner. It works very well, but you need to clean it off with alcohol after as it's oily.

Ok I think that's a good move. I wouldn't bother looking into Gamsol then, it's an oily liquid. It's probably the same as FilmGuard, just not a branded label for film. I just wasn't sure if you were wanting to see if you could get better results from the HDS foam rollers w/ Iso Alcohol by either changing the delivery method of the fluid, changing the fluid itself, or both! I think the delivery method of the foam rollers is very good. I couldn't say if the Film-O-Clean will improve, but worth a shot if you're up for it!

For me, it wasn't worth the hassle... I got fed up with tinkering with my moviestuff and the perfect oporunity came up to purchase a HDS so i jumped on it and i'm over the moon with the HDS. I have considered selling the parts i've made, but i see how many hours roger has to spend telling someone how to do a very simple task on the scanner, that i get worried i'll be bogged down with support! Also that the machine will undergo a design change, and my mod won't fit anymore. A few things i did to my MKII: Built a wetgate similar to the pictor, right before the lightpin/gate built an intergrating sphere and lit it with 3 YUJI 98+ CRI leds (stock ones i *think* are around 70 -80) Changed lens to Schnieder Componon with m42 helicoid made a simple cable from RJ12 trigger cable to FLIR GPIO cable for Blackfly Camers (trigger to line 2) and played with FLIR blackfly 5mp and 12mp cameras. It's possible to make the moviestuff a working 4K scanner, but it needs a lot of work. A few issues i never got around to making a solution (to make it 4K) 3 axis camera adjustment/linear stage. The included one is very basic and has large teeth which make fine adjustments difficult. It's also largely plastic, so it's not solid. You touch an adjustment wheel and it's moved slightly, and the weight of a larger lens causes the plastic camera mount to flex. It does work fine with the stock camera. quality 3 axis linear stages are expensive. the original OWIS one the early HDS models uses cost around 3000 euro. the lightsource - it could be brighter, and higher CRI. When you add a 12mp/4K camera, it has a larger sensor and needs a longer extension tube, loosing even more light. Also, the DOF is shallower, needing the focus to be precise, and the film to remain flat in the same spot The gate/guides - they are no good for warped film, and they made it difficult to design my intergrating sphere around it. Ideally a whole new gate and light box would be made. the lightpin - it's too close to the exposed frame, so the larger lens hits it. Also, it uses reflectance which doesnt play nicely with wet reflective liquids on the film. it eventually stabilises, but you end up with big jumps at the start and around splices. Ideally it would be moved futher away, or swapped to a through hole style fibre head. The scanning speed - It's locked at 15fps for 8mm, (less for larger formats) unless you make your own motor control which wouldnt be terribly difficult for someone smarter than I. It's just that 15fps is pretty fast for 12mp capture over USB3, you might find it would drop frames. The software - there isnt a film specific capture software that is like the moviestuff software. You either have to use Spinview which is the evaluation software bundled in FLIR's SDK, or you can try StreamPix which was made for general machine vision capture, but it's over $1000 to license it. As it turns out, its what the Reflex scanners use i*think* I think for the price, it does a great job, and most uses LOVE it as you can tell on the facebook group. I'd say the HDS is also good value when you price up the components they've used. The machining quality is also very nice. it's so smooth to run, it's super quite, the software is simple and gives great performance, and the LEDs are incredibly bright. I think they can produce about 600w of light at full power as they are on for such a short time, and they are overdriven. The light on the moviestuff is about 30w constant. I can properly expose horribly dark 8mm film.

Yes good point, you just reminded me, the capstan on the HDS does sometimes slip a little while i'm doing a wetgate, but you can just click then tension up a little, slow the scanning speed, or ease off on the alcohol. I've never handled filmguard, but from what i've read it sound oily. I can imagine the HDS capstan really struggling to grip. But yes Todd, if you're going to get one anyway, no harm in giving it a go and seeing how it works out ? Otherwise if you think filmguard is they key, you could always try soaking the wetgate rollers in filmguard. Another product i use for wet scanning is called Gamsol, it's sold at the art shop nearby. It's an oily liquid that i use on my epson V850 flat bed scanner with the epson wet mount kit, it works great for scanning scratched or odd sized negatives. I chose Gamsol because the official KAMI liquid can't be shipped to Australia. Maybe you could try one of their liquids too.

I'm not sure if i'd add it in line on my HDS, i'd probably reserve it for the rewinding bench. But it's a good idea for moviestuff owners. I'd probably whip the film through it a couple of times while i add leader/tail and tension the reel before mounting it on the scanner. At the moment i'm cleaning film by hand using these - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/71154-REG/Photographic_Solutions_PAD44_Pec_Pad_Photo_Wipes.html I either use iso alcohol if i want a fast drying solvent, but if the emulsion is sensitive or there's a magnetic strip, i'll use IsoparG as a 2nd option. It's much slower drying and the fumes are much stronger. but it's safer for some film and doesnt remove magnetic particles from the sound stripe. I hold the cloth in my hand soaked in the solvent as i slowly wind the film through, changing the pad very frequently to avoid using the trapped dirt to scratch the film. I haven't tried anything labled as film cleaner as I would take a wild guess they they are most likely using an off-the-shelf solvent combo.