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Scanning Super 8


xoct

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Here we are living on the cusp of High Definition, which is currently too expensive on which to shoot, but is an excellent digital intermediate. Since HD resolution is somewhere around 1100 and Super 8 is somewhere around 1300, it makes sense to me that one could shoot on Super 8 and then post in HD, to get the maximum lines of resolution. That's fine for product to be finished on video, but what about finishing on film? It seems in order to take advantage of all the resolution that Super 8 has to offer, the negative should be scanned at 2k. However, and this is the crux of my question, does anyone have a scanner with a super 8 gate? When I say scan, I don't mean a telecine, but something like the Cineon Lightning or Northlight Scanner at Cinesite? Moreover, is there a scanner available for less than $10,000 that could be modified for super 8 scanning so it could be done independently of a Kodak facility (since Super 8 is a D.I.Y. medium, after all)? It seems that the future of Super 8 depends upon marrying it to high tech and this might be the best way to do it.

 

Any comments are welcome.

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Hi,

 

Northlight will not currently do 8mm. I would also challenge the idea that super-8 has 1300 lines resolution; most of it seems little better than standard-def video, especially taking into account the grain and often abysmal registration.

 

Phil

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Definitely not 1300 lines, maybe technically, but not perceived. I'd say it's on par with SD. I'd rank it better, but that's only my opinion. In reality, if there's budget to do 2k scans out of s8mm, why not shoot s16? Of course some projects will hugely benefit from the distinctive look.

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I don't know about 2K scanners but here's a list of facilities in the world that can do s8->HD. I think that s8 telecined to D6 Voodoo should be good enough?

 

Shadow facilities that have a Super-8 Gate include:

 

VRT in Brussels Brussels, Belgium

Ware House (aka Digtial Film Labs) in Copenhagen, Denmark

Photo Cinema in Rome, Italy

Technicolor in New York

Modern VideoFilm in Burbank, CA.

Flying Spot in Seattle, WA

 

Spirit facilities that have a Super-8 Gate include:

 

On Line Video, Zurich

The Farm, London

Prime Focus, London

VTR, London

Lab O Scene, Rio De Janiero

The Film Unit, New Zealand

Library of Congress, U.S.

Telson, Madrid

 

Taken from Shooting 8mm

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Thanks for the replies so far. Can anyone give definitive information about Super 8 resolution and whether a 2k scan is even necessary and what the advantage may be of scanning rather than telecine?

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LOR is not exactly a science when you discuss any film format, Super8 included. If the "home experience" is what you are after, purchase a Workprinter and a HD camera, and do your own telecine.

 

One of the problems with saying "oh, Super8 has x lines of resolution" is that the film format itself is not the determining factor, the film is. So, what is true for, say, Kodachrome, is not true for something else, like Vision2 or Plus-X. Most people keep thinking Kodachrome when they say Super8, and for Kodachrome, SD is pretty much it. But running the original Vision stock, I could easily see it maxing out beyond a HD scan.

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Hi,

 

Northlight will not currently do 8mm. I would also challenge the idea that super-8 has 1300 lines resolution; most of it seems little better than standard-def video, especially taking into account the grain and often abysmal registration.

 

Phil

I assume you are talking about your own footage here?

 

Regardless of how many lines of resolution the super8 frame can or can not provide, the reality is properly exposed super8 [negative] just looks great with excellent colour and with the texture and latitude associated with film. Even K40 compensates for loss of latitude with beautifully saturated colour.

 

If you are getting "abysmal registration" I would get your gear checked out.

 

Matt

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Kodak publishes MTF curves (response as a function of cycles per millimeter) for each film in the film technical data. The projectable image area of a Super-8 frame is 5.31 x 4.01 millimeters, so you can calculate the resolution. For HD, a larger format (e.g., Super-16) would be significantly sharper. Size DOES matter.

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er, um...Actually, John I can't do the math. I'm terrible at math and don't know how to figure out resolution, though I'd love to learn. Help a brother out.

 

So can we get some kind of definitive answer that an HD telecine as a digital intermediate for a 16mm/35mm blow up would be better than a 2k scan, if that were possible? And let's assume that we're using Vision or Vision2 negative. I would love to walk away from this thread saying, yes, one will yield a better film blow up than the other.

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"... If the "home experience" is what you are after, purchase a Workprinter and a HD camera..."

You say that as if an HD cam is cheap?!?!?!

 

And downix, I would argue that Kodachrome 40 has better resolution than Vision ISO 500 stock.

 

So far, I haven't seen anthing "shot well" in any neg stocks on Super 8, that is higher resolution than K40.

 

You can argue lattitude all day long if you want to criticize Kodachrome, but resolution is what we're talking about here, and it would be tough for any ISO500 film stock to be finer grained than ISO40.

 

Just like all formats, there is some terribly shot film, on horrible equipment, so not all Super 8 looks terrible, has bad registration, etc.

 

Matt Pacini

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Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen, but there seems to have been a digression from the topic. Can anyone answer the original question pertaining to scanning versus telecine with the intent of film blowup?

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It's not entirely off centre because the grain size will effect apparent resolution and if you do an HD or 2K transfer of a really chunky Super 8 image you will get really big size chunks/grains when you enlarge it (through whatever method). I agree K40 is the finest grain I've seen which is why I shot my feature on it. The colour depth also effects resolution - the more colours the medium can show the more ability there is to present one picture element differently to the one next to it - hence an ability to present more discernably different picture elements -- hence why film capture is better than video capture - and when you transfer to video some of this colour depth will be lost.

 

I've seen Super 8 projected on to about 15feet x 25 feet approx and it looked good - the only Super 8 I've seen on a truly big screen looked terrible - but admittedly that was the grainy/home movie effect they were going for - so I don't know what the best upper limit would be but I reckon it woldn't be too high as John says you're talking about blowing up something that is 5.31 by 4.01 mm!

 

So I don't know the answer to your question but I think you will end up with grain really well presented by lots and lots of pixels each! But try it I'd be keen to see the results - perhaps you could simulate part of it with a scanner at home - you could scan a Super 8 frame or cut a 35mm negative down to 5.31 x 4.01 mm and scan it. I would be interested to hear the results

 

Scot

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I did scan a Super8 frame, and posted it on the timelapse 2004 thread on filmshooting. I'd post it in its entirety, but it would, honestly, be a massive undertaking. It was not done via the usual methods, I instead printed it using a stock photo printer, then scanned in the resulting picture at maximum resolution. The result was quite remarkable.

 

Here is the frame, for reference. (the tape smudged the frame tho, which I am not happy about)

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You can argue lattitude all day long if you want to criticize Kodachrome, but resolution is what we're talking about here, and it would be tough for any ISO500 film stock to be finer grained than ISO40.

How long will it be though before there are ISO500 films that approach the resolution of today's ISO40 films?

 

With the increasing market pressures I would expect even faster and finer grained emulsions to appear soon.

 

Matt

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How long will it be though before there are ISO500 films that approach the resolution of today's ISO40 films?

 

The technologies used in Kodak VISION2 films (e.g., two-electron sensitization) significantly improved grain and sharpness, especially in the higher speed film.

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Firstly, to address the film stock comments, it's sounds like Vision2 is going to be less grainy with more colour saturation than the K40. Let me know if this is accurate. Secondly, regardless of grain, my purpose in asking the question telecine vs. scanner has more to do with the amount of information represented in the image than the grain. Obviously, if you're shooting on a grainier film, you're going to see more grain. But will you see more information in a 2k scan than an HD telecine? And so thirdly, it sounds like no one has an answer about scanning because it isn't being done. It seems like there may be a market if the picture information is in fact greater than a telecine and can be done for less money. Is anyone out there experimenting with scanning super 8 yet? My intuition tells me this could be the future for Super 8. John at Kodak, any comments? Also, thanks for the one frame scan posted here!

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You certainly don't need 2K for super8..

 

You sould take a look at the curves.

 

 

Let's say that the stock you want to use can resolve some 150 lp/mm (of course this is only theorethical resolution of that film)

That would be some 7K for super35. I have no idea about the performance of 8mm optics, but let's say they have the same reolution as 35mm optics. Let's say some 300 lp/mm at a certain aperture.

When you combine the two maximum resolving powers, you get about 100lp/mm

as a maximum resolving power of the entire camera+film system. (again in theory, this is maximum tehorethical resolution, it will always be less in real world for a number of reasons)

 

100lp/mm should be sampled with at least 200 pixels/mm.

As John said, the width is 5.31 mm, so you get 1062 which is

near 1K.

 

So the magical number would be 1K if everything was perfect and there was world piece and african children were fat and happy. You can then consider the actual resolution of super8 a bit less then 1K.

This is IN camera resolution. The film stock could probably recored up to 2K in theory, but never inside a camera.

 

So it is still better than SD, but not a lot better (and a lot grainier).

1K scaned files would do the job, and using HD would give you some headroom,

but you certainly don't need to pay for 2K scanning.

 

If i were you i would rather use 1K real scanning than HD telecine, scanners are more accurate, and capture a greater range of nuances in color, you will loose

some of the richness of film color and deph by telecining it.

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I don't know about 2K scanners but here's a list of facilities in the world that can do s8->HD. I think that s8 telecined to D6 Voodoo should be good enough?

 

Shadow facilities that have a Super-8 Gate include:

 

VRT in Brussels Brussels, Belgium

Ware House (aka Digtial Film Labs) in Copenhagen, Denmark

Photo Cinema in Rome, Italy

Technicolor in New York

Modern VideoFilm in Burbank, CA.

Flying Spot in Seattle, WA

 

Spirit facilities that have a Super-8 Gate include:

 

On Line Video, Zurich

The Farm, London

Prime Focus, London

VTR, London

Lab O Scene, Rio De Janiero

The Film Unit, New Zealand

Library of Congress, U.S.

Telson, Madrid

 

Taken from Shooting 8mm

Actually, that list was from here...

 

Super-8 Filmmaking in the Digital Age

 

Updates and corrections are welcomed.

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You certainly don't need 2K for super8..

 

100lp/mm should be sampled with at least 200 pixels/mm.

As John said, the width is  5.31 mm, so you get 1062 which is

near 1K.

 

So it is still better than SD, but not a lot better (and a lot grainier).

1K scaned files would do the job, and using HD would give you some headroom,

but you certainly don't need to pay for 2K scanning.

 

 

Hello,

 

Yes but as the film is digitized, Shannon Nyquist theorem would also apply for spatial resolution. So in theory 2K might be the digital resolution equivalent of top quality super 8mm.

If going to HD, should be uncompressed HD RGB, so film transfered to hard drives as there is no current uncompressed HD RGB tape capable, as far as I know.

Regards,

Daniel

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Hi,

you can be ok with 1K, but it is not the same as having a 2k scan.

Even if i agree that 1062 is the info that´s into a super8 frame it doesn´t mean you´ll have a proper scan of this 1062 pixels just with a 1k scanner.

Oversampling is a very common technique used in audio studios.

maybe a 2k scan will take this 1062 info perfectly out of the frame?

Maybe you even need a 4k?

This does not mean having a 4k scan out of a s8 frame has any sense.

Maybe it is very hard to difference it by eye from the 1k scan but this 4k, Downsized to 1062, is more likely to be the REAL frame info.

Test a regular 1k scan and i think you´ll be happy enough with the results

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In other words what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If we are to accept that the image going through the lens and hitting the film loses something along the way, then it makes sense that oversampling actually produces a better quality than sampling one to one.

 

Especially when one takes into account the darker tones of a scene have a huge dynamic range.

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Hi,

 

This is all correct, but it's worth pointing out that "oversampling" isn't the same thing as "supersampling". Oversampling is a technique used to increase the accuracy of deserialisation, such as when reading an audio CD.

 

Phil

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