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highest resolution from 16mm


Curtis Bouvier

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Hi! i'm aware that with modern lenses and film stocks, 1080p can be had no problem from a digital scanning process.

 

I was wondering if anybody here has ever seen 16mm from a K3 camera done in 1920x1080 resolution.

 

with the default lens on this camera, do you think it would hinder the film from being capable of having this high resolution?

 

i'm about to cut my film up here and take it down to the photolab and have them scan some frames at the highest res they can, just to see what potential we have.

 

perhaps some of you might have some insight to this?

 

thanks!

 

 

note- (working with standard 16mm here, not super16 unfortunately)

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Hi! i'm aware that with modern lenses and film stocks, 1080p can be had no problem from a digital scanning process.

 

I was wondering if anybody here has ever seen 16mm from a K3 camera done in 1920x1080 resolution.

 

with the default lens on this camera, do you think it would hinder the film from being capable of having this high resolution?

 

i'm about to cut my film up here and take it down to the photolab and have them scan some frames at the highest res they can, just to see what potential we have.

 

perhaps some of you might have some insight to this?

 

thanks!

 

 

note- (working with standard 16mm here, not super16 unfortunately)

 

 

Curtis, an HD scan or HD telecine wouldn't hurt. It may not resolve as much information as 16mm shot with Zeiss prime glass, but it will certainly be a step up from an SD transfer. You'll have more tonal information with which to color grade (especiallyif you go with a scanning route, not telecine). Since you're shooting standard 16mm, you will lose some of your picture area in the process if you go to an HD output when you adapt a 1.33:1 standard 16 frame to a 1.78:1 HD image. You may want to get full frame scans of the image so that you can decide how to letterbox it to HD. If you will be doing a supervised telecine, you can tell the colorist how to reposition the shots with a 1.78 letterbox.

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hi again, i'm actually really excited now. they told me only a small part of the scanner does negative, so it would have to be one frame, but its fit for 35mm only.

 

i thought to myself, I've known photoshop for 8 years, there must be a way to manually convert to positive, you can! simply with invert colors, then your left with a nasty bluish haze over the picture, which is also fixed with an auto color / color balance.

 

so Now i'm just gonna go have a scanner scan a bunch of 1 foot strips, and I will convert the rest myself in photoshop.

 

until then I will show you guys what my standard transfer looks like.

 

as seen here:

 

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4327/final1g.jpg

 

I shall return with some high res samples soon!

 

(also to comment on what you said about the high def transfers, i havn't found any one in canada yet who does it for a non retarded price, unfortunately it costs about $4.50 per foot which is about $500 in total after taxes etc,)

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do you think it would hinder the film from being capable of having this high resolution?

 

I would go ahead and use whatever you have. Film doesn't have a resolution limitation. You can transfer Super 8 to High Def if you want and you'll get that Super 8 aesthetic in all its glory.

 

Recently The Wrestler shot in Super 16 and the framed for a 2.33 format. There is no reason why you cannot do a 1.78 frame for regular 16.

 

Good luck with your film

 

Best

 

Tim

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wow....

 

heres a 1920x1080 version of what i linked earlier..

 

I scanned this with the new scanner we picked up today. absolutely amazing.

 

a little grainy, and a bit of that could be image sensor noise. I can't imagine how this would look if it was super 16mm.

 

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3465/kras2c.jpg ««------- 1920x1080

 

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8015/kras2b.jpg ««-------- non crop (1920x1330 or so)

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heres the real deal.

 

those look really good, my SD transfers look similar to yours, makes me want to go back and get them transferred in HD! the prices are ridiculous around here too though. I didn't quite understand if you said your lab was scanning these or you bought your own scanner? just curious what you were using.

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i was gonna bring them in, and they said they only do 35mm. so I was sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

the timing was right because i have some family that needs a bunch of old film slides scanned, so they helped buy the scanner!

 

its a canoscan 8800F, does 9600 DPI.

 

i got more scans coming in a bit here, i'll post a whole bunch instead of a few at a time

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yes indeed it was. i wish there was another option so i could pull out a bit and get some wide angle shots, i don't know if they ever made any other lenses for this camera :unsure:

 

Depends which version you have. If it's the bayonet mount, then you can use the Mir-11 12.5mm lens. ebay link

 

If you have the M42 screw mount, then I think about your only option is the Peleng 8mm. When used on a 35mm stills camera this produces a circular fisheye effect, but the cropped bit of coverage used by the R16 frame isn't too distorted. This lens gets discussed here on the board on a fairly regular basis, so a search back through should produce some results, including examples shot with it.

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Hi Curtis,

 

I was curious, were those stills conversions from negative? And if so how did you adapt the scanner to work with 16? Is it just a flatbed and you cut up your neg? I'm very interested in this, because it is a very low cost option, but I cannot cut up my film, because I'm delivering in both digital and film.

 

Thanks!

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Hi Curtis,

 

I was curious, were those stills conversions from negative? And if so how did you adapt the scanner to work with 16? Is it just a flatbed and you cut up your neg? I'm very interested in this, because it is a very low cost option, but I cannot cut up my film, because I'm delivering in both digital and film.

 

Thanks!

 

ok basically what you do is just put the 35mm negative adapter into the scanner, its a small black frame that is made to hold the strips of film, it wont hold 16mm film so it doesn't matter if its cut or not.

 

all you do is run it through the scanner horizontally, ahh hell i'll just take a pic for you.

 

once you load up the software and can do a preview and see where the film is, then you select a crop on what you want. its a bit odd, the software wont convert the negative unless you have just the frame selected. if its too odd, it will just make it a white blue, and then you have to manually convert it in photoshop which is time consuming is hell.

 

i'll get some pics for you.!

 

 

one quick question, the default lens than comes with my K3, is this bayonet mount?

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If you're talking about the stock Meteor 17mm-69mm lens (sounds like you are), then no that is not a bayonet mount, it's the M42 × 1 mm mount.

 

Hi Stephen,

 

The "standard" Meteor 17-69mm lens is available in both bayonet mount (to suit the bayonet mount version of the K3) and also in M42 mount to suit K3 cameras built with that mount instead. The lens is the same in both cases, just the mount differs, hence why I enquired which lens mount version of the K3 Curtis is using.

 

The K1 camera had a bayonet mount and was supplied with the Mir-11 12.5mm, Vega-7 20mm and Vega-9 50mm prime lenses.

 

The K2 camera was then released which replaced the bayonet prime lenses with the bayonet Meteor-5 17-69mm zoom.

 

Finally the K3 camera was released which kept the bayonet mount and Meteor-5 zoom.

 

I've read somewhere that the M42 mount was later put on the K3 when it started to get sold outside the Soviet Union. I have to confess I can't find reference to that link at the moment. No doubt one of our Russian members can give greater detail. The bottom line is that the K3 and it's associated Meteor zoom lens is available in both lens mounts. If the camera uses the original Russian bayonet mount, then you can also use the 12.5mm prime lens originally sold for use with the K1.

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...one quick question, the default lens than comes with my K3, is this bayonet mount?

 

 

Hi Curtis,

 

Not trying to be funny, but it depends which version of the camera you have!

The K3 and the default Meteor zoom lens was available in both M42 and bayonet mount versions.

 

The bayonet mount version of the camera can be identified by looking at the locking ring between the lens and the camera body. If there are two little knobs/tabs pointing straight up/down, then you have a bayonet mount version. Using those knobs you can rotate the ring slightly to 'unlock' the lens and remove it.

 

If you can't see any locking ring or knobs, then chances are you have the M42 mount version of the camera. To remove this lens you just have to unscrew it!

 

This ebay auction is for a bayonet version of the K3. However, scroll down to the photographs and you'll find they actually show photographs of both a bayonet AND an M42 mount camera! I'm not sure about the 'top' photograph with the lens pointing to the right. The locking ring is in shadow, so it may be of the bayonet version. The photograph just below it with the lens pointing to the left is definitely the bayonet version! - You can see the little silver knob on the locking ring pointing straight up! The final photograph at the bottom of the page showing all the accessories is now showing an M42 mount camera - note how both the knob and the locking ring are now missing!

 

I'm pretty sure that EBay dealer in Moscow is the chap I bought my Mir-11 12.5mm lens for my K3 from. I didn't have any problems with the transaction and delivery was prompt, however, if anyone was interested in this particular camera I'd probably recommend contacting the seller and establishing exactly what camera is being bought, seeing as how the photographs depict two different models! Lol.

Edited by Ian Cooper
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Check in with Justin Lovell. He has several "sniper" units and can do frame by frame TC of 16mm negatives. I have used him for some time with my 8mm and 16mm stuff. He has mentioned the possibility of doing these as HD. The method uses is that the camera actually provides an RGB still image that is stored sequentially on a computer which are essentially a full frame non-interlaced scan of each frame. The computer has a program that plays the still images out in sequence at whatever speed you want to tape formats. He may be building an HD based system or know of one up there in Canada.

 

He's at Frame Discrete. Tell him hello and I say hello.

 

I also used scans of my 16mm negatives on my cheaper HP scanner using a 35mm neg carrier scanner. Does a decent jopb to let me know if I have at least a decent image to bother sending it up to Justin or not.

 

Good luck. Downloading your film now. Stills looked excellent.

 

Sean

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Check in with Justin Lovell. He has several "sniper" units and can do frame by frame TC of 16mm negatives. I have used him for some time with my 8mm and 16mm stuff. He has mentioned the possibility of doing these as HD. The method uses is that the camera actually provides an RGB still image that is stored sequentially on a computer which are essentially a full frame non-interlaced scan of each frame. The computer has a program that plays the still images out in sequence at whatever speed you want to tape formats. He may be building an HD based system or know of one up there in Canada.

 

He's at Frame Discrete. Tell him hello and I say hello.

 

I also used scans of my 16mm negatives on my cheaper HP scanner using a 35mm neg carrier scanner. Does a decent jopb to let me know if I have at least a decent image to bother sending it up to Justin or not.

 

Good luck. Downloading your film now. Stills looked excellent.

 

Sean

 

Never mind. Just saw Justin in the credit on your footage. Love his work. Ask him about the T-shirts. : )

 

Sean

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He has several "sniper" units and can do frame by frame TC of 16mm........

 

 

can you tell me a little more about this "sniper" unit?

 

sounds really interesting, what hardware exactly is involved and how does it work!

 

i know you wrote some details already , maybe you can go a little further, perhaps some pictures etc

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can you tell me a little more about this "sniper" unit?

 

sounds really interesting, what hardware exactly is involved and how does it work!

 

i know you wrote some details already , maybe you can go a little further, perhaps some pictures etc

 

Curtis, your best bet is to look up Moviestuff and take a look at Rogers sample frames, or for examples of various formats done with this gear, look up Justin's site at frame discrete and the blog has lots of samples of his transfers. I like to keep this part secret but hey, we're all family here - unless Justin and Roger have raised their rates, I have been sending Justin DVCam tapes to tr4ansfer to and he has been transferring 100' rolls for only $20 per roll. Same for Super 8 and regular 8mm. Roger prices the same way as I recall. Now mind you that is for Standard Def transfers to my tape stock. Prices subject to change, etc., etc.

 

Rogers site is : http://www.moviestuff.tv/

 

Justin's site at Frame Discrete : http://www.justinlovell.com/

 

More of Justin's samples at : http://www.framediscreet.blogspot.com/

 

Justin is a heck of a nice guy and we have talked about a lot of things over the short time I have known him. His Super 8 transfers are amazing. Keep in mind hes a very active working shooter and in demand so if he can't get back to you right away, give him some time. He's been known to shoot in Europe at times and it takes him a while to get back in touch occasionally. Tell him I said hello and ask him about those fantastic Tshirts with the cameras on them. : )

 

Sean

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