Super8 questions...

[Frank Ladner]

Yeah. That's the first I've heard of Wal-Mart doing that. Maybe it's just some Wal-Marts.

I bet the ones down here in south Mississippi don't do it. :-)

[Dave Largent]

I have a few questions regarding frame rates.
If I shoot at 18 fps rather than 24 fps, does the
film receive more light to it (so that 18fps is better
for low light situations)?
Also, isn't it true that the vast majority of home
movies that families made with Super8 were
shot at 18 fps? Or not?
I would imagine shooting at 24 fps gives greater
smoothness than 18 fps, but what if I'm wanting
to give that "home-movie look"? Would I be better
shooting at 18 fps for that look?

[Frank Ladner]

Dave: I'm thinking like you. It seems logical that film shot at 18fps would be exposed longer, soaking in more light. I never considered that before.

The big difference would be with sound. I imagine that if you were to include audio with this, you would have to play it back at least at 24 fps, since 24 is 'sound speed' (the lowest acceptable frame rate for smooth sound)

Shooting in 18 as opposed to 24 would give you more of a old home-movie look, since it would have that jerkiness to it with the movements being more spaced out with less images captured per second.

[Brandt Wilson]

Dave and all,

This is the original thread on the 8mm forum...

http://8mm.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4353&sid=8241f01c873c11ef42883c56b4f5512d

This is a FABULOUS resource for super 8 cameras, technique, transfer and film/processing. There are some very talented, creative and innovative people on this list, and newcomers are encouraged to join.

[Scot McPhie]

I'm in AUstralia so can't comment too much on telecine and development places - but it does come up a fair bit on the Shooting 8mm forum - I suggest you look through the archives there - most people seem too think Pro8mm is way over priced and there are other telecine places which offer the same for less. There was a thread once listing telecine hosues in the US - also there's this one on Walmart:

http://www.8mm.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4353


Scot

[Scot McPhie]

Also re the 18fps vs 24 fps :

You're right 18 will be alot more jerkier - and probably will look more like the home movie look - although of course some home movies would have been shot on 24! - it would look rougher I guess which is what you're after

I don't think it will let more light in though - I might be wrong but wouldn't that have to do with the shutter speed? - and the shutter speed won't necessarily be longer with a slower frame rate - imagine the huge motion blurs you would get if you slowed the fps down more. I guess the best thing to do is to test it - shoot the sme thing on both settings and see - also see how yur internal light meter reacts when you change fps - you wouldn't even have to shoot some film to do this.

Scot

[Marco Leavitt]

A lot of pricing information refers to feet of film. Can anybody tell me how many feet in a minute at 24 fps? 30 fps?

[Jeff Donald]

If memory serves me, it about 17 feet per minute at 24fps and about 21 feet per minute at 30fps.

WalMart offers consumer processing and while it's inexpensive, it may come back scratched, spotted etc. I believe they send the film to the old Kodalux lab in Minneapolis (at least that's where the Kodachrome film is done).

[Brandt Wilson]

My understanding is that Wal-Mart sends its film to Dwaynes, which is the only modern Kodachrome lab in the US.

I believe the only concern is film getting lost, since you're going though a third party.

[Mike Tesh]

Yes a slower frame rate does let in more light.

Generally your shutter speed is twice as fast as your frame rate. So shooting at 24fps will give you a shutter speed of 1/48th a second with a 180° shutter opening.

18 frames per second will give you a shutter speed of 1/36ths a second.

So as you can see you have longer exposures with 18fps thus allowing your film to collect more light. Not a whole lot more but some.

What's going to give you more of a home movie look is to shoot K40 with bad lighting and lots of hand held work.

[Rob Belics]

Here is a good site with links to other good sites for home processing of super8:

http://www.geocities.com/gselinsky/

super8 was 18fps. Sound will work down to 16fps but just like tape, the faster the better. I don't recall much about super8 but I'm pretty sure it didn't have a soundtrack. That area was used to enlarge the picture area from regular 8 (hence super8).

[Dave Largent]

I notice some of the home movie cameras
gave the user the option of using either
18 fps or 24 fps. What factors weighed in
on the users decision as to which speed to
use?
Also, for y'all quite familiar with Super8
cameras, what is the fastest lens (i.e.
lowest f-stop) that they came in?

[Jeff Donald]

Super 8mm home cameras recorded sound at 24fps and silent at 18fps. S-8mm has smaller sprocket holes to make slightly larger frame sizes, run quieter, and make threading easier for consumers.

Regular 8mm was usually recorded at 16fps. The only consumer, sound option was from Sears. But you had to use their processing and projectors. The sound track was added during processing and a sound track could be recorded with their projectors.

[Marco Leavitt]

Does anybody know what the effective resolution of super8 is? Would it match HD?

[Frank Ladner]

BealeCorner has a lot of good information. Here's one page I found with a discussion of super 8 resolution:

http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/filmlook.html

From the site:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"super 8: 0.166*0.244 equivalent to 415*560 pixels"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Note that I picked that out from the middle of the page, and it
may be corrected later on in the discussions.




I can't attest to the validity of the following site, but I can tell that the guy is pro-film. It seems that at the bottom of the article, he's over-pricing DV cameras in general.

http://jl-site.com/Super8/Resolution.html

From the site:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- SUPER 8 motion picture film has about 1315 lines of resolution! "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here's another site with yet another interpretation of Super 8 resolution.

http://www.globalmediapro.com/av/m/2003/09/03/whats_the_best_way_to_achieve_a_film_look_with_video-218747.html

From the site:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Super 8 resolution is roughly 600 - 1000 lines depending on the cameras glass. "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Another site that came up in the search results:

http://www.moviemaker.com/issues/33/letters.html


From the site:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The resolution of super 8 film far exceeds any video resolution."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another site with the same opinion as above:

http://www.shortfilminsider.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=133

From the site:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The resolution of Super 8 movie film still surpasses that of Digital Video."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------




Those are just a handful, and it seems to me that a majority of what's out there is the "DV is nowhere near film - even 8mm." attitude. You know how that goes.

I guess the resolution is hard to gauge since it's a chemical process and not just an array of pixels.

?

Hopefully some of this helps.

,Frank