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Not my best Super 8 footage yet.


Moises Perez

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And in this clip, if anyone cares, or bothers to do the same test I did, they won't have to keep making up fairy tales about where the rocking might be. They will instead know.

 

It's in the scanner.

 

C

 

I believe you are absolutely correct. A nice example for us non-pros and without the ability to show this, would be for someone to shoot on a Logmar with side guide not engaged part way, and then engage it to show how these two situations look like, and then project and telecine projection and compare to scanned footage using stabalization and also without stabalization. This way, a "Trouble shooting guide" could be produced for all to see and understand, and this way long debates and guessing would be put to rest for the future.

 

I did want to add that something simple like adding graphics to the inside of the Logmar to indicate film path, like where the top and bottom loops should be, would be for people like me. :) Oh, and a notice to "engage guide before closing!"

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I believe you are absolutely correct. A nice example for us non-pros and without the ability to show this, would be for someone to shoot on a Logmar with side guide not engaged part way, and then engage it to show how these two situations look like, and then project and telecine projection and compare to scanned footage using stabalization and also without stabalization. This way, a "Trouble shooting guide" could be produced for all to see and understand, and this way long debates and guessing would be put to rest for the future.

 

I did want to add that something simple like adding graphics to the inside of the Logmar to indicate film path, like where the top and bottom loops should be, would be for people like me. :) Oh, and a notice to "engage guide before closing!"

 

Fair enough. But you need a bit of competency to troubleshoot this sort of thing anyway. Even if one made demos, someone's going to say something like "I dunno that looks to me like such and such" for whom no amount of demonstration is going to change their minds because they don't actually want to change their mind. Its as if the world outside of their mind were just some sort of illusion anyway.

 

I've got a visual demo of my proof but it's using images from the video and I don't want to reuse those images here.

 

So I've provided the means by which anyone can work it out for themselves by following the same test I did.

 

1. Find two frames representing the greatest change in rotation.

2. If the rocking is not in the scanner then the visible right edge in each frame will be parallel to each another (the same distance between them from top to bottom). THEY ARE NOT PARALLEL

3. Furthermore, if the edges are not parallel (and they are not) and the film was rocking in the camera, then rotating the lines to become parallel again would not be able to put the images back into alignment with each other again. But when one does so: THE IMAGES ARE ALIGNED.

 

Unless you can understand why this logic is the way it is then you won't ever be able to convince yourself of where the problem, or more importantly, where the solution lies.

 

C

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.....just wanted to comment that from my student studies, lighting is the main reason things don't look as good as we expect later, regardless of how well and high end the post processing is. Pay attention to your lighting, and add more properly placed lighting.....and I hope next time out, you get what you are hoping to get. :)

Did anyone pull you up on this? Meaning, challenge you that you talking BS etc. What relevence does it have to the discussion?

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Did anyone pull you up on this? Meaning, challenge you that you talking BS etc. What relevence does it have to the discussion?

 

I'll write a challenge to this.

 

The film is not a drama/fiction where lighting is typically orchestrated according to some design or even improvised effect. Rather its in the doco tradition where one is (or was) allowed freedom to work with minimal means and what lighting is otherwise already available. It is that idea of working with a kind of "ready-made" reality, rather than constructing one. Of course, one selects certain angles which will reorganise the light. But I spent many times in my youth (mid 70s) shooting contre-jour, inheriting the 60's infatuation with it. But whenever I see it now it always looks so effen fake. Because it is. Even if it is natural light.

 

But in this clip the lighting is quite satisfying - not overly managed or orchestrated. Just sorta random really. One takes the world the way it is at a given moment and works with it. There is a sense of life just on the hop.

 

Now in the scan, the grading increases the grain considerably. I don't know if this is intentional or just an accident of arbitrary settings. If one were to maintain the gamma in the shadows, increase it in the highlights, and decrease it in the midtones, one would probably get the grain back to normal 50D levels (ie. next to non-existant). Or one could just leave it as is. Works for me just fine.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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...

Now in the scan, the grading increases the grain considerably.

 

C

 

Yes, this was my reasoning in relation to the OP's title of the post as part of the reason I see as "Not my best Super 8 footage yet." The scanning is secondary to actual filming. If the you place a dark skinned person in the shade and have light behind them, you have a backlit subject standing in the the shadow facing the camera with light behind and above subject, and camera aimed in direction of the light. If you are in auto exposure, you have a setting situation that auto should be turned off and manual exposure adjustments set to expose for the shadow and for darker skin tone, not counting the possible direct lighting affecting metering. True it was labeld a "sound test" but the title of the thread wants us to look at the footage and make personal observations, I'm assuming?

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Yes, this was my reasoning in relation to the OP's title of the post as part of the reason I see as "Not my best Super 8 footage yet." The scanning is secondary to actual filming. If the you place a dark skinned person in the shade and have light behind them, you have a backlit subject standing in the the shadow facing the camera with light behind and above subject, and camera aimed in direction of the light. If you are in auto exposure, you have a setting situation that auto should be turned off and manual exposure adjustments set to expose for the shadow and for darker skin tone, not counting the possible direct lighting affecting metering. True it was labeld a "sound test" but the title of the thread wants us to look at the footage and make personal observations, I'm assuming?

 

Hi Craig,

 

Our camera does not support auto exposure, everything is under user control.

 

All the best

Lasse

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Hi Craig,

 

Our camera does not support auto exposure, everything is under user control.

 

All the best

Lasse

 

Thank you. :) I'm new at Super8 and just learned of your camera. Fine camera from what I read. Didn't know it was a manual exposure only. So, handheld metering and using good judgement for subject placement and exposure compensation for special lighitng situations is operator's responsibility.

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Back to the difference between a high tech digital scanner (to make it sound good) and a lowly Elmo K100 Super8 projector (to make it sound bad) I went ahead and did a test to remind myself of Super8 running through a projector. I used some film shot a few years back on a Leicina with 100D.

 

Oh my god.

 

The projected Super8 film looks so damned brilliant. I keep forgetting how brilliant Super8 looks projected. It's insane. Especially when you project it small so the light is really really bright. Digital images look so dead in comparison. So am really glad I went to the effort to pull out the projector and throw some film up.

 

Anyway - that's beside the point. The purpose was to conduct the jitter test. So I made a video of the Super8 being projected, selecting a tripod shot from the film, and sure enough, on the resulting video there was jitter. I don't know if this is in the projector or just vibrations of the chassis. I might try another one with sandbags.

 

BUT in any case the jitter was never rotational. There was no rocking. It jittered left and right, and it jittered up and down, but it didn't ever rotate at all, not by even one pixel (on a 1920 x1080 video).

 

So if the rocking motion in the scan is meant to suggest something that Super8 does in a camera, or in a projector (or both), I'm afraid the Elmo K100 definitely disagrees.

 

That said, the scanner does a much better job than the projector in terms of translational jitter. Basically the scanner eliminates it - at least in the scan of the Logmar material (once you correct for the rocking - and again I ask the question - how could I eliminate rocking if it's burnt into the film?).

 

So in terms of the scanner giving a "Super8" experience we might call it even.

 

But in terms of making Super8 better than that which a Super8 projector gives us (in terms of jitter at least), there's easily scope for such - the scanner is already doing better than the Super8 projector in terms of sideways and up/down motion, so if it can meet Super8 projection in terms of a zero rocking motion, then the result would be excellent.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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I just thought that the lighting in that test was completely irrelevent to its purpose and I don't know why he (Craig)harped on about it in that quasi condescending way.

 

Lighitng has everything to do with the quality of the finished product. I'll harp all day about looking for and filming using a good camera angle in relation to available light, and if subject is in shade, use bounce light from a reflector, and also be aware of skin tone and compensate for it. These things can't be "corrected" in post (though many think they can).

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Back to the difference between a high tech digital scanner (to make it sound good) and a lowly Elmo K100 Super8 projector (to make it sound bad) I went ahead and did a test to remind myself of Super8 running through a projector. I used some film shot a few years back on a Leicina with 100D.

 

Oh my god.

 

The projected Super8 film looks so damned brilliant. I keep forgetting how brilliant Super8 looks projected. It's insane. Especially when you project it small so the light is really really bright. Digital images look so dead in comparison. So am really glad I went to the effort to pull out the projector and throw some film up.

 

Anyway - that's beside the point. The purpose was to conduct the jitter test. So I made a video of the Super8 being projected, selecting a tripod shot from the film, and sure enough, on the resulting video there was jitter. I don't know if this is in the projector or just vibrations of the chassis. I might try another one with sandbags.

 

BUT in any case the jitter was never rotational. There was no rocking. It jittered left and right, and it jittered up and down, but it didn't ever rotate at all, not by even one pixel (on a 1920 x1080 video).

 

So if the rocking motion in the scan is meant to suggest something that Super8 does in a camera, or in a projector (or both), I'm afraid the Elmo K100 definitely disagrees.

 

That said, the scanner does a much better job than the projector in terms of translational jitter. Basically the scanner eliminates it - at least in the scan of the Logmar material (once you correct for the rocking - and again I ask the question - how could I eliminate rocking if it's burnt into the film?).

 

So in terms of the scanner giving a "Super8" experience we might call it even.

 

But in terms of making Super8 better than that which a Super8 projector gives us (in terms of jitter at least), there's easily scope for such - the scanner is already doing better than the Super8 projector in terms of sideways and up/down motion, so if it can meet Super8 projection in terms of a zero rocking motion, then the result would be excellent.

 

C

 

Awesome that you did the comparison and the camera and projector have been eliminated from the equation as the source. :) So, the issue now is to determine why rocking is scanner induced. Or, more appropriately, discuss what the best way to counter the rocking from scanning. Since it's all software as it is, would this mean there is a software fix, or in your estimation, will this require a combination of improving film transport during scanning (mechanical) and say an "anti-rotation correction" factor add to software's evalutive routines?

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I still have Friedemann's film here from May. This film, which we've discussed earlier in this thread:

 

I just put it up on the scanner and scanned a few hundred frames at 4k, with the scanner set to the widest overscan possible. This captures a little bit of the scanner gate (the white rounded-corner area), the entire film including both left and right edge, the perfs and the image as well as a bit of the surrounding frames.

 

I brought this into After Effects and placed 3px red reference lines along the two film edges, and near the top and bottom of the frame. These are in fixed positions, so it's easy to spot any movement in the scan. Here is what you will see:

 

1) Left edge of Film: There is some horizontal variance in the position, +/- 2 pixels or so at 4k. This amounts to about .04% (2/4096). This is an inconsequential amount.

 

2) Right edge of Film: There is a bit of variance here, parallel to the left edge. When the left edge moves 1px, the right edge correspondingly moves 1px.

 

Therefore, we know that the film is horizontally positioned within the film gate to a tolerance of about .04%. We also know (from looking at the film edge reference lines) that there is no rotation of the physical film in the scanner gate. When you see the film edge move a pixel or two, the opposing edge is moving in sync with it. The opposing edge's opposite corner is also moving in sync with it, therefore, there is no rotation in the scanner.

 

3) Top and Bottom edges of frame: There's a variance of several pixels up and down, which corresponds to the varying distance between perforations. This repeats in a 5-frame pattern, which makes sense since it's a 5-perf punch used to make the perforations at the factory.

 

THERE IS NO ROTATION in the scanner. What you see is the entire frameline, perfectly horizontal, moving up and down in a uniform way.

 

4) The perforations weave left and right, indicating the degree to which the edge of the film has been stabilized to correct for the variation in perf position relative to the film edge.

 

This footage is direct from the scanner, with a quick trip into After Effects to draw the red lines. No stabilization was applied. No color grading was applied. It was scanned to ProRes 422HQ at 4096x3112 and exported to the same codec and resolution from After Effects.

 

Please compare this with the footage on Vimeo which has been post-scan stabilized. The rotation in the frame occurred at that stage. I didn't do that stabilization, so I can't really say what settings caused that, but it is not in the raw scan.

 

Here is the test scan: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jpg8o7rduymilvv/4k_Overscan_ReferenceLines.mov?dl=0

 

Now Carl, can you please stop insisting this is in the scanner, when it is demonstrably not?

 

Thank you.

 

-perry

 

 

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I'm building a Super8 to 16mm optical printer. If print film were available in Super8 could also do a S8 to S8 printer, but 16mm projection gives a much brighter throw. Would look better projected on a 16mm projector - especially on a Xenon 16mm projector.

 

After I get that working I'll look into doing a Super8 to 35mm printer - that would be awesome. But 16mm for the moment. If I get that right then the 35mm printer will be that much easier.

 

That's my main game - the digital stuff is just a secondary pursuit.

 

C

 

 

I'll take what I can get... if I can print my Super 8 negative to 16 that would be awesome!

 

As for print stock, I believe Andec makes their own or has Wittner do it by cutting down 35mm stock.

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I'm actually still astounded at how much jitter there is. The frame spacing is all over the place (considering how high end the camera is).

 

The distance between perfs *in the film* varies from frame to frame, in a 5-frame pattern (like the horizontal position variations). The scanner is aligning the perfs vertically, but because the distance perfs varies, the frameline shrinks and grows by an amount that matches that variation.
-perry
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I still have Friedemann's film here from May. This film, which we've discussed earlier in this thread:

 

[ ... ]

Now Carl, can you please stop insisting this is in the scanner, when it is demonstrably not?

 

 

 

 

I've never, for one moment, suggested there was any rotation in a scan of Friedemann's film.

 

But as Perry himself has already agreed there is rotation in the scan of Moises film. The issue is just the source of this rotation.

 

In the scan of Moises film (the one we're talking about) we can see the edge of the film: the white line running down the right hand side of the scan

 

Perry doesn't quite understand that if the source of the rocking is in the camera then that rocking becomes irreversibly BURNT INTO THE FILM.

 

Once it's burnt into the film you can't undo it later by any simple means. What is burnt in is the rotation of the film edge with respect to the camera mask.

 

So in a scan of such burnt in rocking you can either

 

a. make the edge of the film vertical in the scanner frame of reference, or

b. you can make the camera mask edge vertical in the scanner frame of reference,

 

but you can't make them both vertical.

 

If you can make them both vertical (as I've done on Moises clip) then either you have somehow magically reversed something irreversibly burnt into the film. Or there was no rocking in the camera in the first place.

 

Perry seems to be completely flummoxed by this simple logic, so I don't know how he hopes to test for any rocking in a scan of Friedemanns clip.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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I understand the logic.

 

I used Friedemann's film as an example, simply because you keep saying there is rocking happening in the scanner. Our experience (and that scan) says otherwise. Where is this rocking coming from? We don't know yet. I'm not convinced it's the scanner because we can demonstrate that footage shot on the Logmar does not exhibit this problem.

 

I've reached out to Moises, and will be getting his film here to test on our scanner, but it will probably be several weeks as he's on location. Stay tuned.

 

-perry

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Therefore, we know that the film is horizontally positioned within the film gate to a tolerance of about .04%. We also know (from looking at the film edge reference lines) that there is no rotation of the physical film in the scanner gate. When you see the film edge move a pixel or two, the opposing edge is moving in sync with it. The opposing edge's opposite corner is also moving in sync with it, therefore, there is no rotation in the scanner.

 

Hi Perry,

 

you can't test for rotation in this way.

 

You have to compare two points on a single line, to get it's orientation in the scanner frame of reference. Find the x position of the edge at the top of the scan frame, and it's x position at the bottom of the scan frame.

 

If the edge is vertically aligned in the scanner frame of reference, then the difference between the x positions will be zero.

 

If not, the film is rotated in terms of the scanner frame of reference. In and of itself this is not an issue. If the rotation is the same throughout a clip, it would be fine. One thing it does say, however, is the scanner is not making the edge of the film vertical in the scanner. And this is important only insofar as the scanner team are claiming that they do make the edge vertical in the frame.

 

The second test is to see if the rotation (if any) varies throughout a clip. This is far more important.

 

Perform the same test again on another frame and find it's rotation. You'll probably want to select frames that are a number of frames away from each other - if you want to catch any low frequency rocking.

 

In any case I'll download the file you've kindly provided and see if I can find any rocking. It may very well be that there is no rocking in the scan of Friedemann's film.

 

C.

Edited by Carl Looper
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Hi Perry,

 

I'm downloaded the clip you've kindly provided, and I completely agree with you - I can't see any evidence of rocking at all. The red lines you've put there do make it hard to see but even so, if there were any rocking it would have to be so tiny as to be irrelevant. So that's nice to see.

 

So back to the main issue.

 

What is the source of the rocking in the scan of Moises clip.

 

1. It is not in the camera (as I've previously argued and anyone else can test for themselves using screen grabs).

 

So that leaves (as the only other option):

 

2. It is in the scanner registration.

 

This begs the question as to what then is the cause of the difference in rocking between the scanner registration used in each case. In the identification of such will then be a solution to eliminating such rocking.

 

I suspect, but don't know, that the software registration may be confused by the weaving right edge. It may very well be assuming that the left and right edge are the same distance from each other. In the case of Moises clip this will be a very wrong assumption.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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I understand the logic.

 

I used Friedemann's film as an example, simply because you keep saying there is rocking happening in the scanner. Our experience (and that scan) says otherwise. Where is this rocking coming from? We don't know yet. I'm not convinced it's the scanner because we can demonstrate that footage shot on the Logmar does not exhibit this problem.

 

I've reached out to Moises, and will be getting his film here to test on our scanner, but it will probably be several weeks as he's on location. Stay tuned.

 

-perry

 

If you understand the logic then you will know it's NOT IN THE CAMERA.

 

If it's not in the camera then where else would it be? Instead of trying to eliminate the source in the scanner, on a clip that doesn't exhibit the problem in the first place (???), just do the test that verifies or eliminates whether the problem is in the camera.

 

Once you've done that test, or otherwise take my word for it, that leaves the scanner as the source of the problem, and the place to therefore create a solution. The very same solution I used to eliminate rocking from frames in Moises scan, and the very same solution that a scanner can use to do the same.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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Now I'm not entirely convinced that the film in the camera isn't weaving left and right. We only have the right edge visible in the scan - which we can clearly see is weaving. If we could see the left edge, we could completely convince ourselves whether the film is, or is not, weaving in the camera. But in the absence of such evidence we can only take it on trust that that the left edge isn't also weaving. We assume, on the basis of this trust, that the width of the film is the variable. But if the left edge of the film is weaving in the camera then some other software - other than the scanner software - was used to register Moises clip. So we have to keep this in the back of our mind as a remote possibility.

 

But whether or not the film is weaving in the camera, whether or not some other software was used to register the scan, it's certainly not rocking in the camera.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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Why does the outside white edge of the scan move at all?

 

The theory I've been using all along is that the width of the film is varying, ie. its due to a lazy slit of the film stock. This is based on the assumption that the left edge of the film (which we can't see) is otherwise aligned with the scanner frame of reference.

 

This theory is based on knowledge of the scanner's software registration - that it uses the left edge of the film to register the film, ie. if we could see the left edge of the film in this scan it would be perfectly stationary in this scan.

 

So if the left edge is stationary and the right edge is weaving in this scan then it means the width of the filmstock is the variable.

 

In and of itself a variable width filmstock is not a problem, as the camera aligns the film according to the left edge of the film stock, and the scanner does the same.

 

But we can only take it on trust that this scan was done using the scanner software. If it wasn't, then our theory of a variable width filmstock will be based on faulty assumptions. It would also mean that whatever was used to register this scan might have used the camera mask to do so - which would be cheating, and mucking up our troubleshooting.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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Hi Perry,

 

I'm downloaded the clip you've kindly provided, and I completely agree with you - I can't see any evidence of rocking at all. The red lines you've put there do make it hard to see but even so, if there were any rocking it would have to be so tiny as to be irrelevant. So that's nice to see.

 

So back to the main issue.

 

What is the source of the rocking in the scan of Moises clip.

 

1. It is not in the camera (as I've previously argued and anyone else can test for themselves using screen grabs).

 

So that leaves (as the only other option):

 

2. It is in the scanner registration.

 

This begs the question as to what then is the cause of the difference in rocking between the scanner registration used in each case. In the identification of such will then be a solution to eliminating such rocking.

 

I suspect, but don't know, that the software registration may be confused by the weaving right edge. It may very well be assuming that the left and right edge are the same distance from each other. In the case of Moises clip this will be a very wrong assumption.

 

C

 

That really is brillient! Having a changing distance between edges when the software is programed to a set distance, would throw off calculations for "squareness." In fact, the slope of the change along the edge(s) may well be reflected in frame positioning via software, so we see the rotation via numbers based on a variable and not a constant, as the software is programed to expect. ... but also that the software lacks the ability to correct it self and eliminate a degrading top edge flatness. Shouldn't the software be looking at the frame and not edges of the film?

Edited by Craig Janeway
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