Pictures of a 10 bit Super 8 transfer

[Taki Bibelas]

not so. the negative stocks are much sharper than kodachrome, i've tested it both with charts and in real

 

 

have you tested single 8 (25 asa) I find generaly a low asa positive correctly exposed sharper and with less grain. I've only looked at it visually, not done chart tests.

[Matt Sandstrom]

have you tested single 8 (25 asa) I find generaly a low asa positive correctly exposed sharper and with less grain. I've only looked at it visually, not done chart tests.

 

i've never tested single 8, but i've shot a lot of fuji slides and compared them with kodachrome, if that counts for anything. all reversals usually look sharper when the frame is large enough, in my opinion, but in the 8 mm gauge the resolving power starts becoming the important factor rather than grain structure and contrast, and it's a fact that negative is better in that area.

 

/matt

[Alessandro Machi]

have you tested single 8 (25 asa) I find generaly a low asa positive correctly exposed sharper and with less grain. I've only looked at it visually, not done chart tests.

 

I recently saw a Super-8 film that was shot around 1968 in whatever form of Kodachrome existed back then, it was spectacular, both fine grained and a surprising amount of latitude as well. This why I think with each passing decade for some reason, Kodachrome ever so slightly has declined. Why, I don't know.

[Will Montgomery]

Why do you think the resolution is better from the negative stock? I wold think K40 gives the least grain and sharpest image. You just need to be carful when exposing.

Resolution and sharpness are slightly different animals, and I'm sure someone else can give a real explanation (there have been posts about this before) but even if its counter-intuitive, negative film can indeed give a sharper image. Next time you have film transfered, ask the colorist to explain (but not in the session... it could get expensive!)

 

Actually most Telecine Colorists I've worked with love the unique color K40 gives (especially in 16mm) but for most purposes the Vision2 stocks give much more detail in the blacks and a low-contrast look that's popular now.

 

From my untechnical background, it makes sense if you think about it, the blacks are now white (clear) on the negative so and subtle variations are easier for the scanner to pick up then trying to distinguish between very subtle shades of black on reversals like K40 or Ektachrome. (I may be completely off base here).

[Guest santo]

There was a minor issue with posting tiffs as bitmaps as explained earlier in the post, and confusion for some readers, and I've figured out why I couldn't get the tiff files added to my original post and decided to simply tack them on to keep the thread relevant. Actually it was pretty simple. My computer was for some reason only using one f in the tiff extension, so the files were tagged tif and couldn't be loaded up as an attachment name like that to the website. Because the edit time window has past on the first post -- I can remove attachments, not replace them -- here they are.

poelostpoestillone.tiff

poelostpoestilltwo.tiff

poelostpoestillthree.tiff

poelostpoestill4.tiff

[John Adolfi]

I recently saw a Super-8 film that was shot around 1968 in whatever form of Kodachrome existed back then, it was spectacular, both fine grained and a surprising amount of latitude as well. This why I think with each passing decade for some reason, Kodachrome ever so slightly has declined. Why, I don't know.

 

Now that is a kodachrome is a moot point I have to agree. The last and best I shot was in 1997/8 everything after that was grainer and softer. I used the same cartridge in both an R-10 and 1012XL-S with and without a pressure plate and got slightly soft and grainy results from both cameras and 10-14 rolls of Kodachrome. This was in 2004.

[Ryan Ball]

Here's some pictures from a transfer I just got back. It's a direct to harddrive 10 bit 4:2:2 transfer of Plus-X footage from Debenham who just began offering this service. No I don't work for them or anything, just thought some people might be interested to see what this kind of thing looks like if they're used to crappy miniDV transfer quality of their super 8 footage. It really only costs a hundred or two more to get footage transfered this way than to miniDV, and it looks way better. I'm going for a dreamy/nightmare quality with this project, tentatively titled POE LOST POE, and used a lot of shadows, hard light, and soft-focus techniques, and wanted to make sure the transfer captured what I had on film. These are unretouched except for the text box. If I can figure out how to put up an MPEG2 clip of a few shots in motion somewhere and link it here, I'll do that later. These are big bitmaps, but only 4 of them to give a proper impression of what it looks like instead of jpegs which are okay, but not quite the same.

 

Probably a good idea to right click and save them to your computer rather than open to save a little bandwidth for the site, and as reference material you can look at, but that's up to you.

 

 

Is it just me or are there no photos here?

[Grant Wilkinson]

"The Man Who Met Himself" is a bit of classic. Definitely worth digging up a copy/seeing it if you can. More info on Shooting People and his website, www.browncrowe.co.uk. He used a Canon 1014 XLS, and the photography is jaw dropping. I was fortunate enough to see the first screening, and it's no surprise it was in the running for the Palme D'Or.

 

Initial edits were built using projections filmed with a DV camera. He then spliced the film he was going to use and transferred to DV and beta. The film cost £400 to make, and much, much more to get into Cannes (after being accepted), thanks to their requirement to have HD versions and the like.

 

The workflow Ben used was primarily driven by economics!

 

Should work pretty well if you did that. This guy with the super 8 film in Cannes did a similar workflow:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/s8mm/crowe.jhtml though it doesn't say it in the article I don't think. I'm pretty sure I heard that he first did a transfer to DV, edited, then sent out DVD for festival entry. Then when he was accepted transfered again to digibeta and completely re-edited to conform.

 

Obviously either his options were limited or he was learning the ropes. I notice he's using a Canon home movie camera, so I would guess he's a talented filmmaker still learning the ropes.