Canon 814XL-S

[Guest Christopher Heston]

Hi, I know it sounds a bit crazy to compare the Canon 814XL-S to the BEAULIEU 4008 ZM II, but all I really want to get at in this post is the image quality difference between the two cameras.

 

I know that the BEAULIEU 4008 ZM II has more features than the Canon 814XL-S or the 1014XL-S, but is the image quality of these cameras the same when shooting for example K40? What about Tri or Plus-X?

 

Are the asa capabilities of these cameras comparable?

 

Bassically it goes like this. I've recently been shooting K40 with a Canon 310XL and I've gotten some nice results, but I felt limited by the camera's zoom and overall functions. I decided to upgrade. Believe it or not, I just bought a Canon 814XL-S in good working condition for 100 dollars (AMAZING DEAL!).

 

However, before I shoot on it, I am considering selling it on ebay to raise money for a BEAULIEU 4008 ZM II, or higher model. I think I can get more than my money back on the 814XL-S.

 

I am currently shooting a school film project at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and I really want to shoot the project in super 8. I want a good super 8 camera. The Canon 310xl is nice, but limited in features. The 814XL-S has sound synch capabilities, but I wont be using synch sound.

 

Does anybody have a good idea of what I should do? Sell the 814XL-S or keep it?

 

-Chris

[Josh Hill]

The 814 has a really sharp lens, but if I remember the ZM II has interchangable lenses. I have a Canon 814 Electronic that's being used on a couple of 35mm features right now for some S8 work, so the image quality/steadiness is apparently good enough.

 

However, the camera itself has nothing to do with image quality. It's simply a box that you run film through. Unless you just NEED the extra features of the ZM II (or if you want to spend a couple of grand on the 6/7/8/9008 series) I wouldn't worry about it so much, the 814 lens should be sharp enough for whatever you need.

[Guest Christopher Heston]

The 814 has a really sharp lens, but if I remember the ZM II has interchangable lenses. I have a Canon 814 Electronic that's being used on a couple of 35mm features right now for some S8 work, so the image quality/steadiness is apparently good enough.

 

However, the camera itself has nothing to do with image quality. It's simply a box that you run film through. Unless you just NEED the extra features of the ZM II (or if you want to spend a couple of grand on the 6/7/8/9008 series) I wouldn't worry about it so much, the 814 lens should be sharp enough for whatever you need.

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Thank You, I thought that might be the case. The BEAULIEU 4008 ZM II that I'm looking at is on ebay being sold with a 35mm adapter.

 

-Chris

[Rick Palidwor]

The 814XLS is one of the best cameras you can get and $100 is an excellent price. Keep it and use it. I don't think you'll be disappointed. I have been using one for 10 years and it has never let me down. Great lens (but a little soft when wide-open - try to shoot at f2.8 or better.)

 

Rick

www.friendlyfirefilms.ca

[Guest Christopher Heston]

The 814XLS is one of the best cameras you can get and $100 is an excellent price. Keep it and use it. I don't think you'll be disappointed. I have been using one for 10 years and it has never let me down. Great lens (but a little soft when wide-open - try to shoot at f2.8 or better.)

 

Rick

www.friendlyfirefilms.ca

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Hi, the stills for your film Sleep Aways look wonderful. I was wondering if you had any stills or clips that were shot with the canon 814XL-S. I notice that you shot the film with the Nikon R10 with a widened gate. Can this be done on the canon for a low cost?

 

-Chris

[John Hyde]

I agree! I own both a 7008 Beaulieu and a Canon 1014 XLS. I sometimes use both cameras when I shoot, and the footage is identical.

 

Not only that, but the Beaulieu tends to break down more often and costs a fortune to fix (I could buy multiple 1014 cameras with just some of the repair money I have had to spend on the 7008).

 

In sort the Canon 1014 XLS and 814 XLS are far more solid and deliver a comparable image to the Beaulieu cameras. When I shoot I nearly always go with the Canon for ease of use and reliability. If I had a choice I would definitely pick the Canon over the Beaulieu :D

[Rick Palidwor]

Christopher Heston wrote:

Hi, the stills for your film Sleep Aways look wonderful. I was wondering if you had any stills or clips that were shot with the canon 814XL-S. I notice that you shot the film with the Nikon R10 with a widened gate. Can this be done on the canon for a low cost?

-Chris

 

Co-director Mitch Perkins shot most of Sleep Always on a wide-gate Nikon R10, but I shot with a wide-gate Canon 814 XLS whenever we required two-camera coverage and for some 2nd Unit stuff. Our site ( www.friendlyfirefilms.ca) has a few stills from the Canon.

 

The first image of the girl on the Home Page originated on the Canon and was then shot again with a 35mm SLR while paused in the projector. There is a similar frame at the top of the Exhibition Page, only this one was re-photographed as B&W. These are not the best samples as they are intentionally soft focus.

 

There are two frames of the girl on the "Super-Duper" page, illustrating the extra image area. These originated on the Canon and were then scanned on a flat-bed.

 

I'll be getting more stills and clips on the site soon. In the meantime, if you PM me I can probably find something to send you.

 

The Canon's convert to wide screen easily. Mitch here in Toronto will widen any gate for $50 CDN but it's easy to do it yourself if you are comfortably taking a file to the gate.

 

Rick

[Alessandro Machi]

Keep it.

 

but PLEASE, don't put it on a rickety tripod nor leave it unattended while it is on a tripod. Just because you only spent a hundred bucks for a Canon 814-XLS doesn't mean it's only worth that. It's a film camera marvel both in look and performance.

[Guest FilmmakerJack]

Hey, if you widen the gates for a super 8 or 16mm camera, how does it effect the film you use? Does it effect it at all? Will it be harder to find film for widened super 8mm or widened 16mm gates?

[Rick Palidwor]

Filmmaker Jack wrote:

"Hey, if you widen the gates for a super 8 or 16mm camera, how does it effect the film you use? Does it effect it at all? Will it be harder to find film for widened super 8mm or widened 16mm gates? "

 

It does not affect the film you choose at all - with the wide gate you are simply exposing the edge of film normally reserved for the audio stripe.

 

The main issues to be aware of are that the viewfinder does not show you the extra image area so you have to be careful framing, and the lens can be subject to vignetting at the wide-angle and close-focus settings, especially when the aperture is wide open.

 

When you widen the gate in this fashion the lens is then slightly off-centre. With super 8 the discrepency is not noticeable to the naked eye, but with 16mm it probably would be. If I wanted to shoot wide gate 16mm, I would simply shoot super 16 as this is all the super 8 modificaton is mimicking.

 

Rick

[Josh Hill]

The biggest impact on what you shoot is the trouble with dealing with non-standard formats. Ultra-16 uses a widened 16mm gate, but there are fewer labs that want to deal with it, etc., than with standard formats.

 

(Do a search for Super Duper 8 or Ultra 16 on the forums and I'm sure you'll find plenty of conversation/information about it.)

[Guest Christopher Heston]

The biggest impact on what you shoot is the trouble with dealing with non-standard formats. Ultra-16 uses a widened 16mm gate, but there are fewer labs that want to deal with it, etc., than with standard formats.

 

(Do a search for Super Duper 8 or Ultra 16 on the forums and I'm sure you'll find plenty of conversation/information about it.)

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If I was to go ahead and widen the gate on my 814XL-S and then shot some footage - what would I have to tell the photo lab? Is this common?

 

Also, can the camera be converted back?

 

-Chris

[Rick Palidwor]

You don't have to tell the lab anything. The only danger vis-a-vis the lab is that there can be a little scratch on the right-hand side from a roller in the machine, since you are using an area of the frame that was not intended to be exposed. There is no way around this. When we transfer our footage we use a wet gate which makes the scratch invisible.

 

Is it common? Not sure but it seems that more and more people are doing it. In fact, people have been doing this for years and it has gone by many different names. We call it "super-duper 8" which many people seem to hate, but that is another story.

 

The only way to convert it back wuld be to re-install a normal gate but this is not necessary since you can still simply transfer or project the normal frame as if it was never widened at all - in other words, you don't have to use the extra frame area if you don't want to.

 

Rick

[Alessandro Machi]

I don't think it's necessary to do the gate widening unless you are planning to go to HD or want to have your image bordered on the top and bottom of the screen.

 

Once you make the gate widening mod you should (aka must) reveal this if you were to ever sell the camera since you have modified it from it's original spec.

 

That can be a good thing if you do it correctly and have no problems or it can be a bad thing IF you don't do it correctly or the buyer doesn't know what you are talking about. It can just make it more of a hassle when it comes to selling the camera if you sell it to somone who doesn't know what you are talking about.

 

The people who would most want the camera already widened are probably the same people who learned about the gate widening via the internet, and they tend to not want to pay top dollar.

 

So in terms of resale value, you'll probably have more resale value leaving the camera as is, UNLESS someday buzz about Super-Duper 8 actually drives the price up.

[Chris Burke]

Enlarging the gate on a Super 8 camera is becoming more common all the time. Check out Pro8mm.com. They are now offering cameras that have such a modification and are calling it Max 8 I think. My camera a Nizo 6080 had its gate enlarged and I am very happy with the results. In order to see this extra area,you must have the footage transfered to video, much like Super 16. The new aspect ratio is about 1.6:1. A wetgate Rank transfer or say having it done at MovieStuff.tv is probably the best way to get that extra image. Good luck.

 

 

chris

 

:rolleyes:

[Alessandro Machi]

Gate widening will always become more and more popular because the percentage of modifications will increase since no new super-8 cameras are presently being made, and once made, they cannot be undone.

 

However the actual number of mods to number of Super-8 cameras ever made is miniscule at this time.

 

It's a shame that we just can't own two gates for each camera so we can choose which aspect ratio we want without actually permanently altering the camera. My concern is we don't know if there are any side effects to the camera that may occur after a gate has been widened.

 

For instance, can a widened gate put more strain on the claw or motor? Can a widened gate cause an increase in microscopic film particules to reach into the camera innards causing the camera motor to have to work harder because of the increase in "mung"? How can one tell if gate widening doesn't produce any negative results to the way the camera works?

 

Perhaps gate widening produces no ill side-effects at all, but how can we tell for sure unless a camera continues to work well after the mod is made, and work well for a few years.

 

Any camera experts out there with an opinion on this subject?

[Guest Christopher Heston]

I just got the camera today in the mail and it is in fantastic condition. It even came with a UV filter. However, the UV filter seems smudged, yet the smudge isn't removable with a cloth. I don't know exactly what this smudgyness is.

 

-cHRIS

[Rick Palidwor]

Alessandro wrote:

"I don't think it's necessary to do the gate widening unless you are planning to go to HD or want to have your image bordered on the top and bottom of the screen."

 

I think the reason to widen the gate is to make use of the extra emulsion that is there, which allows you to enlarge it less during telecine, resulting in tighter grain and sharper images.

 

Alessandro wrote:

"Once you make the gate widening mod you should (aka must) reveal this if you were to ever sell the camera since you have modified it from it's original spec.

That can be a good thing if you do it correctly and have no problems or it can be a bad thing IF you don't do it correctly or the buyer doesn't know what you are talking about. It can just make it more of a hassle when it comes to selling the camera if you sell it to somone who doesn't know what you are talking about."

 

Of course if you don't do it correctly you have a problem, but I would be more concerned about the camera, and film running through, than the resale value.

 

Alessandro wrote:

"The people who would most want the camera already widened are probably the same people who learned about the gate widening via the internet, and they tend to not want to pay top dollar.

So in terms of resale value, you'll probably have more resale value leaving the camera as is, UNLESS someday buzz about Super-Duper 8 actually drives the price up."

 

I find that people who are savvy to this mod will either do it themselves or be more than willing to pay to have it done for them because they recognize the value. Re prices, I have sold cameras with widended gate and there was no trouble getting extra money for that feature. If they didn't want that feature, I wouldn't include it. Also, a shooter in Calgary has started to widen gates and sell those cameras on ebay, and the cameras are fetching more $ than they would have otherwise - in fact I was surprised how much he was getting for them, and so was he.

 

Alessandro wrote:

"It's a shame that we just can't own two gates for each camera so we can choose which aspect ratio we want without actually permanently altering the camera."

 

One could easily have more than one gate for the same camera. There are also lots of broken cameras out there with perfectly fine gates, assuming you use the right one. In fact, I collect broken cameras for the gates because if someone wants us to do a mod for them it's easier to simply ship a gate than have them send the whole camera back and forth.

 

"My concern is we don't know if there are any side effects to the camera that may occur after a gate has been widened.

For instance, can a widened gate put more strain on the claw or motor? Can a widened gate cause an increase in microscopic film particules to reach into the camera innards causing the camera motor to have to work harder because of the increase in "mung"? How can one tell if gate widening doesn't produce any negative results to the way the camera works?

Perhaps gate widening produces no ill side-effects at all, but how can we tell for sure unless a camera continues to work well after the mod is made, and work well for a few years.

Any camera experts out there with an opinion on this subject?"

 

Those are good questions, but we have not had any of these problems and we have been doing this for some time with many different cameras, which we use a lot. In fact, Mitch here has been doing it for almost 20 years and he started slowly, shaving a small bit of the gate, anticipating some problems with transport. Finding none he kept pushing it further and further and found he can go to the outer edge of the film.

 

I advise any one to do it if they want and I have never considered resale value as a serious factor (if anything, a good one) and once a camera is modified there is no reason you can't shoot "normal" frame as well. Just shoot as you would and during the transfer stick with a normal frame. In other words, I have never thought of it as an either/or (e.g. "no turning back"). Instead it is a win-win: two cameras in one depending on what aspect ratio you want.

 

I am by no means a camera expert, but I have shot as much super-duper 8 as anyone except, perhaps, my friend Mitch, who does the mods for me.

 

Rick

[Alessandro Machi]

Alessandro wrote:

"I don't think it's necessary to do the gate widening unless you are planning to go to HD or want to have your image bordered on the top and bottom of the screen."

 

I think the reason to widen the gate is to make use of the extra emulsion that is there, which allows you to enlarge it less during telecine, resulting in tighter grain and sharper images.

 

I find this a vexing proposition. I agree with what you say and yet I also disagree with it. When you make the grain tighter you also are making the individual parts of what's within the frame, smaller. Smaller image area translates to less video pixels representing them on the video screen. Less Video pixels should mean less ????

 

I think it may actually matter what it is that you are framing within the shot. Generally, I would think that the image transfer would look better, but not always.

 

Perhaps registration would be improved because the film is not being enlarged as much as long as the widened gate didn't take away "support" from the film during shooting. Dust particles should look slightly smaller as well.

[Rick Palidwor]

I think it's pretty straight forward: when you enlarge a film frame it gets noticeably grainer, especially an 8mm frame. The less you enlarge it, the less grainy it appears. But frankly, I don't worry too much about theory. I let the images speak for themselves and whenever I show someone super-duper 8 footage the response is the same: "That's super 8? I ddn't think it could look that good." Check our IMDB page for what viewers have said about our super-duper 8 feature Sleep Always: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404434/

 

Rick

[Alessandro Machi]

With a 35mm frame of film, you can in fact enlarge it during transfer and in no way compromise the quality.

 

Same thing with 16mm.

 

Now with Super-8, it's not as easy to do, since the frame is so small to begin with. But you could do a very minor enlarge without losing quality.