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s8mm 500T w/ Canon AZ 814 Processing Question


Ryq Peden

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Hey folks!

 

I had someone shoot some footage of my band rehearsing in a fairly dark space. Metered with an iPhone app 1/50 f1.4 500.

 

I'm not totally familiar with this camera, but know the internal metering might be off (not calibrated since purchase, AND vision 3 stock instead of whatever this camera was built to see, Kodachrome???). so wondering if I should push by a stop or two in processing?

 

Sorry if this has been answered before, but I thought someone might be familiar with this camera and stock since both are fairly common, and could give me some specific advice.

Thanks!

 

P.S. shot with the internal filter bypassed (or, at least, I put the little screw thing in place, not sure if cartridge slots override that???).

Edited by Ryq Peden
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Ooh, I love Super 8! Back in the '90s I'd use what little money I had to buy K40.

 

Anyway, first thing: you can trust your iPhone meter within reason. 1/50 is roughly a 180 degree shutter at 24fps. So in that case, you'll be shooting wide-open at 24fps. (18fps will slightly overexpose the negative, which is no bad thing).

 

The cartridge is for tungsten balanced film, so it will engage the orange colour correction filter for shooting outdoors. In that case, your effective ASA will be 320. (Edit: it seems that the Vision 3 cartridges are not notched, but in your case, thankfully it doesn't matter). You did the correct thing by deactivating the filter for indoor use (so that the ASA is 500).

 

Indoor lights are now often daylight balanced, which might confuse things a little, but it doesn't matter too much. The most you'll have to do in post in that case is to correct the slightly cool colour cast. Not a really big deal.

 

Conclusion: no need to push, assuming that you metered correctly with the iPhone.

 

Footnote: some people recommend overexposing 500T by up to 2/3 of a stop in the Super 8 format, simply to reduce excessive grain. This is not necessary for larger formats. In your case, given 1/50th and f/1.4, the only thing you could have done to overexpose is either use a larger shutter angle than 180 (the XL cameras have a 270 degree shutter IIRC); and/or set the frame rate at 18. Some cameras had f/1.2 lenses, but their zoom range was limited. I'd take the wider zoom range over the wider aperture any day.

Edited by Karim D. Ghantous
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You should be fine. And honestly Super 8 pushed looks like crap. I shot this little clip at a friend's concert in Super 8 low light and it was fine. Granted it was an XL lens (which are in fact around 220º) but still, 500T has a lot of latitude even for underexposure. (sidenote: this clip is 500T but the colors in that room were so crazy and my CC skills were not up to snuff so I just went B&W haha).

giphy.gif


Also feel free to take a look at this film I shot at another venue in even lower light



I'd say your best bet is to get a good 2k scan from a place like Gamma Ray or CineLab which will give you the most to work with.

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Footage looks great! Yeah, I was planning on going to Gamma Ray for scanning. Any suggestions on where to get processing? I'm not willing to work with pro8mm due to a previous issue with them, not being a hater just figured that suggestion might come up, and I'm definitely looking for other labs.

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My combo is pretty much always CineLab for processing and GRD for 2k scanning. They are both near Boston so shipping is fast and easy between the two. I only use Spectra if I happen to have some color reversal but they are good too, just more expensive. Otherwise CineLab is solid and cheap. Sometimes a tad slow but ultimately I like them. They do 2k+ scans as well but I've really come to love GRD scans.

 

and I feel ya on Pro8mm. Overpriced as well!

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Footage looks great! Yeah, I was planning on going to Gamma Ray for scanning. Any suggestions on where to get processing? I'm not willing to work with pro8mm due to a previous issue with them, not being a hater just figured that suggestion might come up, and I'm definitely looking for other labs.

 

No, that suggestion will NEVER come from people serious about Super 8.

 

Processing:

 

Cinelab http://www.cinelab.com/

Colorlab http://www.colorlab.com/

Dwayne's https://www.dwaynesphoto.com/

Spectra http://www.spectrafilmandvideo.com/

Yale Film http://www.yalefilmandvideo.com/

Film & Video Services https://sites.google.com/site/kimfilmandvideo/ (Have not used recently but still there. Call them for prices as Gary isn't web savvy).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Which canon 814 az is it? Either way, they will meter at about 1/60. So keeping that in mind, it never hurts to go one stop over. Don't worry about loosing highlights, that is very hard to do. This stock it very forgiving in terms of underexposure because it has huge exposure latitude.....

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