[Frameworks] DIY Super 8 telecine

[Kevin Timmins]

Hi all
I purchased a eumig 610D duel film projector ages ago in the hope of making my own telecine machine. I have a Panasonic DVX100B camcorder for SD and a Canon 550D for HD I could could capture to. I've been meaning to start faffing about with this project for over a year now but haven't got around to it. Any ideas on the quality of images I could produce with the devices I have available? How could I get this to work... etc..?
Kind RegardsKevin


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[steve cossman]

MONO NO AWARE is an international exhibition for contemporary artists and filmmakers whose work incorporates Super 8mm, 16mm, 35mm or altered light projections as part of a live performance or installation. No digital projections are considered; film and projected light only. We believe there is magic in seeing a film print projected, a presence a poet has when reading their own work, a feeling that resonates in your chest when seeing music performed live. For these reasons we encourage live projections with live additional audio, visual and performative elements. Please read a full description on our website :
WWW.MONONOAWAREFILM.COM : MONO NO AWARE : CALL FOR ENTRIES 2011
Thank you,
MNA
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[Jason Halprin]

Kevin,

Without the use of a "telecine" machine, I've made a number of transfers with a DVX-100Bby simply projecting onto a wall. I've usually been pretty happy with the results, but then again, the slight flicker doesn't bother me. The bigger issue seems to be getting the color balance correct.

I assume if you were setting up a homemade telecine complete with lens bellows or a prism+ground glass setup, you could do a little better, but it might not be worth it. Personally, I've had super 8 transfers ranging from $5-$45 / roll, and the results were not that much better for my purposes...of course, I prefer to project the original, and use the transfers for editing and preview copies.


You can look at the results, albeit with multiple passes of compression to get them uploaded, here: http://vimeo.com/22617530

Email me off list if you'd like me to forward the step-by-step instructions for the process that I surely have somewhere in my sent box.

-Jason Halprin



________________________________
From: Kevin Timmins <on-one-2 at hotmail.com>
To: frameworks at jonasmekasfilms.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 8:39 AM
Subject: [Frameworks] DIY Super 8 telecine



Hi all

I purchased a eumig 610D duel film projector ages ago in the hope of making my own telecine machine. I have a Panasonic DVX100B camcorder for SD and a Canon 550D for HD I could could capture to. I've been meaning to start faffing about with this project for over a year now but haven't got around to it. Any ideas on the quality of images I could produce with the devices I have available? How could I get this to work... etc..? 

Kind Regards
Kevin


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https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
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[Paul Krimmer]

check out www.telecine.de

with a bauer t502 or later models you have a fast reacting
motor-control. there is a kit available for about 80euros working with a
magnet-emitter (or with the bauer p8 16mm its a photoelectric barrier) ,
replace the light-source with a white bright led and a matte-screen
behind the gate. the video-output of your dslr-cam you will use a
Y-splittercable so you can connect a preview monitor and connect the
seperate video-signal to the projector, its synchronizes directly with
the CamÂŽs signal you dont have any flicker anymore and a very good 1080p
qual. thats the way i do ... with normal8,super8 and 16mm ... another
way is to slow the projector hard down with a voltage-meter for example,
use a button you put inside the projector, which hits every single
frame, connect this with an old mouse as the left-button, connect the
camera with the computer and in video-modus you make a screenshot
everytime. sry for bad-english i hope everyone gets it. good luck, its
easy to do, if you read it all through clearly.

Post by Jason Halprin
Kevin,
Without the use of a "telecine" machine, I've made a number of
transfers with a DVX-100Bby simply projecting onto a wall. I've
usually been pretty happy with the results, but then again, the slight
flicker doesn't bother me. The bigger issue seems to be getting the
color balance correct.
I assume if you were setting up a homemade telecine complete with lens
bellows or a prism+ground glass setup, you could do a little better,
but it might not be worth it. Personally, I've had super 8 transfers
ranging from $5-$45 / roll, and the results were not that much better
for my purposes...of course, I prefer to project the original, and use
the transfers for editing and preview copies.
You can look at the results, albeit with multiple passes of
compression to get them uploaded, here: http://vimeo.com/22617530
Email me off list if you'd like me to forward the step-by-step
instructions for the process that I surely have somewhere in my sent box.
-Jason Halprin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Kevin Timmins <on-one-2 at hotmail.com>
*To:* frameworks at jonasmekasfilms.com
*Sent:* Tuesday, November 1, 2011 8:39 AM
*Subject:* [Frameworks] DIY Super 8 telecine
Hi all
I purchased a eumig 610D duel film projector ages ago in the hope of
making my own telecine machine. I have a Panasonic DVX100B camcorder
for SD and a Canon 550D for HD I could could capture to. I've been
meaning to start faffing about with this project for over a year now
but haven't got around to it. Any ideas on the quality of images I
could produce with the devices I have available? How could I get this
to work... etc..?
Kind Regards
Kevin
_______________________________________________
FrameWorks mailing list
FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com <mailto:FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com>
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
_______________________________________________
FrameWorks mailing list
FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

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[Florian Cramer]

If you have a daylight screen for the Eumig, it's easiest to project
on that, use the lower light bulb mode to avoid hotspot, and take the
video from there after careful white-balancing. But you will always
have some flicker because of asynchronous shutters.

Florian

Post by Kevin Timmins
Hi all
I purchased a eumig 610D duel film projector ages ago in the hope of making
my own telecine machine. I have a Panasonic DVX100B camcorder for SD and a
Canon 550D for HD I could could capture to. I've been meaning to start
faffing about with this project for over a year now but haven't got around
to it. Any ideas on the quality of images I could produce with the devices I
have available? How could I get this to work... etc..?
Kind Regards
Kevin
_______________________________________________
FrameWorks mailing list
FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

[Buck Bito]

Hi Kevin,
I work at a transfer service and we used the DVX100 in film chains for
years before upgrading to our MWA FlashscanHD. The image quality from the
DVX from 8mm/Super-8 can be quite good!
The difficult part will be how to get the image from the projector gate to
the camera sensor...
We used Buhl Multiplexers and Biplexers:
http://www.integratedphoto.com/info.php/buhl-multiplexer
(Not our website, just a good google result)
We also used projectors with higher quality glass than the Eumigs I have
worked with. For R8 we used Bolex M-8 with a pristine HiFi 25mm 1.3 and a
GS-1200 with a really nice 1.2 / 25-50mm.
We occasionally setup a Eumig dual-gauge for R8 CoMag Sound and went
through a number of Eumig lenses and were never happy with any of them
compared to the Bolex HiFi.
That said, with good glass and a good aerial imaging device (Buhl), the
image quality was very good in 85% of the frame with a little fall-off of
both illumination and focus at the edges.
The bigger problem for us with the film-chain approach was the loose
(non-existent) sync between the projector and the capture camera.
We did not have problems with sync-roll or flicker (using the DVX
synchro-scan to dial those out) but we did get blended frames where two
film frames hit the same video frame and that really pushed us to find a
scanning system with real sync between the film frame and capture sensor.
Moviestuff has a method to overcome the sync issue in a traditional
film-chain, but I think they exclusively work with GAF projectors:
http://www.moviestuff.tv/8mm_telecine.html

-Google around, there are lots of forum threads on DIY options and tricks
and good luck on your project!
---Buck Bito - vtc-sf.com

Post by Kevin Timmins
Hi all
I purchased a eumig 610D duel film projector ages ago in the hope of
making my own telecine machine. I have a Panasonic DVX100B camcorder for
SD and a Canon 550D for HD I could could capture to. I've been meaning to
start faffing about with this project for over a year now but haven't got
around to it. Any ideas on the quality of images I could produce with the
devices I have available? How could I get this to work... etc..?
Kind RegardsKevin
_______________________________________________
FrameWorks mailing list
FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

[David Tetzlaff]

There are several problems with DIY Super8 telecine. If you have a standard S8 projector, it runs at 18fps, which just doesn't divide into 24, 25, 30, 50 or 60 very well. So you get flicker as one video frame will have less illumination than the next due to the projector shutter being open and closed different amounts of time. If you want that 'home movie' feel, just project the image on a nice matte white surface in a dark room, shoot it with the DV camera and live with the flicker. Don't waste your money on any of the mirror and screen boxes that go between the projector and camera. They're an absolute pain to align properly, and the video image isn't going to be any better. (I had a well made, all metal and real glass one of these things, as good as you can get... got better results easier just projecting on matte board.

For shooting a projected image, you want to get the camera as close to the projector as possible to minimize parallax, and no farther back than the projector, so light leaks from the projector don't hit the video lens. You'll also want to mount the camera on a 3-way type photo head, not a video head, otherwise you'll never get the horizen line horizontal.

In theory you could eliminate flicker with a variable speed projector by tuning it to match the video camera. The problem is that the variable speed controls on affordable S8 projectors (I have a Chinon) A). aren't that precise so the sweet spot is hard to hit, B). worse aren't that stable some speed will drift, meaning the flicker will come and go, getting worse and better, which is more distracting than a steady flicker.

So if you want to telecine Super-8 WITHOUT flicker, you need fairly sophisticated technology -- a Moviestuff, Paul's modified Bauer rig, or have Phil at Pro8 scan it. None of these options are cheap. There is something unique and 'cool' about S8 footage blown up or scanned in HD, but it's a 'look' that requires a budget.

If you want to shoot film for a workflow that's going to end up on video, it's cheaper and easier to shoot 16mm. You can find used Kodak Pageants for cheap: they run at a steady speed, are gentle with film, and don't have funky rubber parts that turn into goo. (The sound amp may be dead, or the rewind gear busted, but as long as the projectsd properly at forward speed, you're good for your purpose.) As long as you have an HD camcorder that runs at the same rate as the projector (24 or 25 fps, depending on your side of the pond) you don't need a special telecine projector or modified shutter or anything. It'll sync up good enough. You can get flicker-free footage that looks quite nice w/o any special pricey gear.

A 'good' Super8 cmaera, like a Nizo, Beaulieu or Canon, will be as expensive, if not more so, than a functional basic 16mm rig. The S8 camera will probably have a few more bells and whistles, and the smaller size makes it better for the kind of projects where you always keep your camera on hand for an impromptu shoot. But getting the image digitized w/o flicker is a major obstacle. Unlike 16mm, there's no middle ground. It's basically: shoot it off the wall and take what you get, or find a good professional service (and there are folks out there who are not cheap, who are not good...)

Another tech/aesthetic issue is how you feel about dust. Super-8 = small frame = bigger dust spots. Again that could be part of that home-movie-ish look you desire. But if you want that Super-8 saturation and grain and resolution, but you want it to look clean, well that's a huge chunk of work in the video file as you basically have to edit the dust out of the images frame by frame... In 16mm, the junk is nowhere near as noticeable...

Post by Kevin Timmins
Hi all
I purchased a eumig 610D duel film projector ages ago in the hope of making my own telecine machine. I have a Panasonic DVX100B camcorder for SD and a Canon 550D for HD I could could capture to. I've been meaning to start faffing about with this project for over a year now but haven't got around to it. Any ideas on the quality of images I could produce with the devices I have available? How could I get this to work... etc..?
Kind Regards
Kevin
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FrameWorks mailing list
FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

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