Super8 questions...
 

Sorry, I know I'm on the wrong forum for this.

I just bought a super8 camera on ebay for $5. I know nothing about film but I figured I could try to learn. I have a few questions about it....

1. Is there a web site that shows how to develope super8 film at home?

2. When it comes to buying a projector to view my film, is an 8mm projector and a super8 projector the same? Or do I need to buy one that says super8?

3. Here is a pic of the camera I bought. Anybody ever seen or used this? Is it decent?

http://i24.ebayimg.com/01/i/01/2a/5a/b1_1.JPG

Thanks.

Dustin: Congratulations on the new camera!
You can still purchase the Super 8 cartridges from various sources. I know B&H still sells it, and you can purchase a mailer along with it, which basically pays for the processing. (After you're finished shooting it, you put the cartridge back in the mailer and send it off to be developed - that's my understanding.)
Kodachrome 40 seems to be the popular film. You can get it at B&H for $11.49 / cartridge. (That's for 50 feet, which I think is 2.5 minutes if shot at 24 fps.)

For more details:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=79931&is=USA

On the projectors, if they can handle both formats, they usually say they're 'dual' or something. I was given an old Gaf projector and it has a switch for 8mm vs Super8.


Do a search on google.com and you'll find that there are a lot of guys out there shooting on Super 8.

For example:
http://www.super8filmmaking.com/
http://super-8mm.net/
http://jl-site.com/Super8/Kodachrome.html


For developing the film yourself, check out:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~ralph/process_site/allpages.html

Frank,
Have you ever tried sinking sound to Super 8? I'm pretty interested in this myself, and am curious as to how well it would work.

Another great forum with a lot of information is at http://www.filmshooting.com

I love Super 8. Nowadays I get it transferred to DV, so we aren't completely off topic.

Synching sound:
If you are finishing on video it is easy. There are some crystal-controlled cameras, but that isn't always necessary. I used to have a crystal Beaulieu 7008 - a very temperamental camera.

Most of the cameras I've tested come to within 0.1% to 0.5% of their nominal speed. To synch, you can use a head and tail slate (or other mark) and adjust the audio to fit in an NLE. If you are finishing on film, the usual way is to record camera pulse track on the audio recorder and resolve the two in post. You can also do this if you are finishing on video, but I never bother with a pulse track if I am finishing on video.

Best,
Helen

Marco: I believe Helen explained that a lot better than I could have. That was really informational to me, too.

Thanks!

I've just finished a feature on Super 8 called In My Image which has jsut come out on DVD (see www.mango-a-gogo.com ) I used a Beaulieu 4008ZMII which we had crystal synched at The Film Group in the USA.

I've never tried it but I can't see how the top and tail slating would work because it assumes that the variance in the camera's motor is constant and I don't think it would be - perhaps I'm wrong - anyone?

There's a good article about sound synching methods on my site at http://www.mango-a-gogo.com/inmyimage/imaglink.htm#martin

Scot

Helen, how do you get it transferred to DV? This is just what I was thinking of doing, or maybe transferring it to HD.

Scott, those stills look great. Can you tell me more about the equipment you used (camera, lenses, film stock)?

Scot wondered: I've never tried it but I can't see how the top and tail slating would work because it assumes that the variance in the camera's motor is constant and I don't think it would be - perhaps I'm wrong - anyone?

Scot,
It does work. Most decent Super 8 cameras have Darlington amplifiers to control the motor speed - they are not uncontrolled. I've also used the technique for 16 mm when shooting at speeds other than crystal speeds. I like to use 16.7 fps (it is 50/3) or thereabouts in very low light and my camera doesn't have that as a crystal speed. (Some Super 8 cameras, notably Nizo, have it as a controlled speed by the way.)

On one occasion the assistant editor transferred the required takes from the DigiBeta TK tapes without the slates. We were able to adjust the audio speed without having to go back and re-transfer.

My speed tests were carried out by hooking up a pulse-per-frame generator to the camera. The pulse was recorded using an ADC accurate to 5 ppm in time. I usually ran the camera for two minutes, then took samples from various times. The variation in speed was often undetectable.

Having made the tests I was happy to use the best cameras without using a pulse track. I didn't assume that the variation would be insignificant - I tested it first.

Marco,
Transferring to DV:
I used to do it myself with a simple 'film chain' - a projector and camera side-by-side with the projector's speed adjusted to remove all flicker and ambient light used to control contrast. I used a blue-green Lee filter when transferring neg film, but off-hand I can't remember which one. Nowadays it gets sent to Pro-8.

Best,
Helen

Who's making new Super8 cameras these days?

Uh, what's Pro-8?

check out film processing info from them at
www.pro8mm.com/

Another point...

Wallmart apparently sends out 50' S8 cartridges for processing at a cost of $4.88 a pop. One week turnaround.

Much cheaper than sending it to Dwaynes yourself.

How much does it cost for the DV transfer? Based on the fact that Pro8mm doen's list prices, I gather it must be a lot.

Brandt,
Where can I find out more about the Walmart
processing?
Didn't see anything at Walmart's site, but
perhaps I missed it.

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. :-)

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?

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.

Wal-Mart processing
 

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.

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

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

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?

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).

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.

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.

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).

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?

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.

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

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

There were a few Super 8 cameras with f/1.2 lenses and possibly f/1 - I remember a Fuji Single 8 camera with an f/1 lens. These are zooms, by the way.

The Leicina Special uses Leica M bayonet lenses, so you could use an f/1 Noctilux - but it is four times the focal length of a 'standard' Super 8 lens.

Cameras that could use C-mount lenses could use the Angenieux f/0.95 lens - so that has to be the fastest lens likely to be found on a Super 8 camera. On Standard 8 you could have the Kern f/0.9 Switar (I have that lens, and still use it occasionally). That's a D-mount lens, and I've never seen a Super 8 camera with a D-mount. It would be possible to convert a Standard 8 D-mount camera to Double Super 8 and someone may have done it. I've given it serious consideration.

Two other things that affect the low light performance are the shutter opening and the viewfinder loss.

Most Super 8 cameras, with the notable exception of the Beaulieu range, have beam splitters for the reflex viewfinder. The B-s have an oscillating mirror and hence no viewfinder loss. The beam splitter sends about a quarter of the light to the viewfinder and three-quarters to the film (there's a lot of variation in those values).

Some cameras had a shutter that was open more than half the time and some less. Some cameras managed to have a 220 deg shutter, some had 170 deg shutters.

Many of the better Super 8 cameras also had 16 2/3 and 25 fps speeds for transfer to PAL video (16 2/3 is 50/3 - three video fields per frame of film).

Best,
Helen

Hi Helen,

What were some of the brands that used the
C-mount lenses?

I notice some of the cams offered 9 fps or 12 fps.
What situations would these frame rates be used
in? I imagine these lower rates were accompanied
by slower shutter speeds.

Anyone know anything about the Bauer brand?
They seem to have made some of the
newer models (~mid-1980s).

And anyone know what is meant by an "XL shutter"
on these cams? Seems to affect low light performance from what I can gather.

Dave,
As far as I remember Beaulieus and Double Super 8 Bolex H-8/converted H-16 cameras used C-mount lenses. I can't think of any others off the top of my head. Maybe there was an Elmo...?

The Bauers were remarkable cameras. One of the Bauer features was the ability to shoot time exposures at an automatically-determined frame rate: ie the frame rate was controlled by the exposure requirement. They had strong family ties to Braun Nizo, I think. They were very well made and robust.

The XL shutter refers to the angle - I mentioned it in my previous post, albeit not directly. These were usually the cameras with wider shutter openings than 180 deg - probably at least 220 degree shutters. It's not a huge improvement, but it does offset the viewfinder loss. Canon made a nice range. Nizo also made cameras with wide shutter angles, but didn't show it in the camera designation. I used to have a Canon 1014XL-S but it was stolen in a burglary along with my Beaulieu 7008P. I really miss that Canon, I don't miss the Beaulieu.

12 fps is about the lowest you can go and still achieve smooth-ish motion (when stretch printed or stretched digitally). A lot of animation is effectively shot at 12 fps - only they shoot two frames at once so it is like stretch printed 12 fps live motion. 9 fps? Effects only?

Thinking about it: if you watch a movie shot at 12 fps and stretch printed to 24 fps, you might be seeing every single frame of the original four or six times.

The shutter speed on a movie camera is usually a fixed proportion of the frame rate - around 2:1 (a 180 degree shutter)- so the slower frame rates give correspondingly slower shutter speeds.

I think that Super 8 is right on topic here: it is a viable way of originating DV material.

Best,
Helen

Wal Mart question
 

Sad to say, I am also infected with the film bug (I also listen to shortwave radio and used to keep fish tanks. I am a geek.)

Frank,

I'm in Florida and the Wal-Marts here do it. I hope the same is true in Mississippi. I've had no trouble with quality or lost shippments.

As far as Pro-8 goes. Yes, they are spendy. Some swear dy them, others at them. Many do telecine conversions. I have never used a service. You can get acceptable results at home.

Teleconversions are expensive, but there is a lot to it. The film is cleaned, scanned or projected, and the color corrected. The equipment is also very expensive.

In order to get an hour and a half DV movie converted to 35mm is about $35,000-$45,000. Ouch.

Try not to buy stuff off ebay. I have bought a ton of film stuff off of ebay. Only two items have worked properly. Olden camera in New York has film stuff, expensive yes, but if can get a gaurentee you are much better off. I think Action Camera in San Francisco might have things as well.

Film is great, but the costs add up fast, buy quality.

I've been shooting super 8 for about five years. Dwaynes is the only place in the US that processes Kodachrome. I use YALE for Ekctachrome, and a lab in Pittsburge for Ektachrome and the b&w film stocks.

Transfer to video can be done "Do it yourself" or send it off. There's a place in Houston that transfers, and sells film to video transfer units. It pulls the frame up, scans it to a file and puts it on your computer. So you wind up with all the frames scanned independently.

Shooting super 8 is a great way to get the "film" look. Especially on a short project.

Richard is right about Dwaynes. At least that is my understanding as well. But, and I could be wrong so please correct me, that it costs more to send it directly to Dwaynes. I thought it was something like $15 a roll. If you drop it off at Wal-Mart it's about $5. By default, Wally World must be shipping it to Dwaynes for processing anyway.

I wonder why the price difference? Maybe Wal-Mart gets a volume discount? Or am I just wrong about the price at Dwaynes?

By the way, Richard. What lab do you use for B+W? I have a few rolls I need to get developed?

Kodak's site list 3 organizations still processing K-14 in the US, Qualex (Kodak) lab in Fair Lawn, NJ; Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, KS; and A & I Color Lab in LA, CA. I believe A & I does not do 8mm. But you can purchase prepaid mailers (PK-59) that takes the film to Fair Lawn, NJ.

I was under the impression that all the Qualex K-14 was done in Minneapolis, but it was switched to Fair Lawn about a year ago. You could call the Kodak 800 number to confirm this.

Yeah!!!
Won a S8 on scambay. Seller got it at an auction
but doesn't know anything about it; they're
self-admittedly "dumb when it comes to these things".
About all they knew is "it comes with a handle to
carry it around".
If my luck goes the same as previous scambay
purchases, the thing won't even work.

Joe,
Yale in Burbank will process Black and white, so will Cinelab in Boston. Cinelab is a bit cheaper I think. I am looking for my pittsubrgh connection... I'll find it later.

I won another one! An f/1.0!
This seller knew even less than the previous one.
In his listing, the seller stated this auction "is for a
movie camera I think".
I figure I'll have to buy a number of them to get one
that works.