In the last couple of weeks I decided to try my hand at transferring some old 8mm film to digital. I was just curious to see how it worked. Well, I discovered in theory it's not that hard to do...but in practice (meaning if you want it to look good)...it takes time, patience, and the right equipment (some of which I don't have )

None the less I'm having fun and here's a little video I put together for my brother. Some footage of him playing on our 1964 high school junior varsity football team. The day was a typical San Francisco wet and foggy day...but it didn't dampen the team's spirit. Go Eagles!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWSGpPfpB2E

Janice,
My brother transfered some 1940's 8 mm film to vhs tape about 20 yrs ago using a device where he projected the film onto this device and recorded. I'm not sure how it worked, but I am pretty sure even when I transfered the vhs to a dvd about a year ago that the video seemed pretty good.

If you want me to, I could send you a picture of the device he used. You may already be using it.

John

John...I actually used one of those converter devices for the transfer example in this thread. It's works ok...but you can get just as good results with projecting onto a white piece of paper. When I'm talking about "good quality"....I'm talking about frame-by-frame telecine projectors. Now...that's the way to go! To get that quality...absolutely no flicker...you either have to spend a minimum of about $1200 for a "Workprinter" or take it to someone who has the equipment.

Since I'm recently retired and have a lot more time on my hands....the geek in me wanted to give transferring a try. I'm going to keep tweaking with the equipment I have to see if I can improve the quality. It's my patience that I'm afraid will run out first

Thanks for watching and commenting.

Janice

we personally have a workprinter

http://moviestuff.tv/wp_xp.html

i think curt has a sniper.

http://moviestuff.tv/dv8_sniper_pro.html


and of course they have tons of newer better ones now. just cause you're so cool i'd happily do these for you.

Hey John Boy...you are very fortunate to have one of those frame by frame scanners. Thank you for offering your services. That's a wonderful gester and I may take you up on it. Right now I'm still not done "playing around" with this just yet. I've really learned so much...not just about the transfer process...but my cameras. I've never been good at reading manuals and this project has got me into white balance, shutter speed, iris, zoom setting...etc.

It's taken some time, but I'm having some acceptable luck with my Super 8mm footage.

Here's my latest transfer. I do find I have to do post enhancement to all the footage with After Effects. The YouTube conversion doesn't do it justice...but I think you'll see an improvement over the football footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dioLRJtgqAQ

cheeeese...i...i...i beepeen my horn. thats awesome with the sound. and yes much better than the football one..still has flicker but totally acceptable to me.

I'm hoping to reduce the flicker on my regular 8mm footage. I agree the amount of flicker on this last Super 8mm clip is acceptable to me too. I'm waiting until it get's dark and give it another go

Cheeeese

this project has got me into white balance, shutter speed, iris, zoom setting...etc.


I've been trying to copy slides from a carousel by projecting the slide onto white posterboard and using a 10mp digital camera to take pictures of the projected picture.
John Boy had actually suggested this. After messing around with the white balance, AF, ISO and other stuff I didn't know was in the camera, I got a reasonable result.

However, the bulb from the projector seems to put a lot of light right in the center of the picture which messes up the exposure of the periphery of the picture ie the pictures are darker there.
I was wondering if you had a similar problem with your projector and if so are you able to even out the exposure of the screen somehow?
John Rich

I haven't had a problem with uneven distribution of light from the projectors. My issue is more that the camcorder over exposes the white levels no matter what the iris setting is. I read a suggestion that using a light grey paper or poster board instead of white helps this. However....I went out today to a couple of art stores to look for something grey....but no dice...maybe Office Depot tomorrow. I'm not sure this would help your problem.

thats funny that you said that cause i've noticed even with the workprinter the whites are super white and the darks are really dark. but i've also noticed it seems to mostly happen with really old films like from the 50's but the 70's ones seem to be ok.

as far as the slides go john: you coulda had them done by now by just scanning them ;-).

John,
You're probably right, but I can't get myself to buckle down to scanning what seems like a million slides. I'll keep working on this carousel technique and send you a picture of my system when I finally get it to work.
Janice, please let me know if you find the grey cardboard and if it helps.

John

I allways wondered if you put some kind of adjusable voltage regulator on a projector mybe you might have more controle over the frame rate when capturing. Then readjust in premiere. Unfortunatly I do not have a projector to try out my theory. Will have to go to car boot sales and look for a cheap one.

JohnR...I found some grey 110# index stock (had to buy a whole reem ), but I haven't tried it yet. I found something else that has solved the "hot spot" issue. It's called Fun Foam. I found it at Michael's (art store). I bought a white 9x12 sheet for .99 cents

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

I also moved the projector back about a foot. The surface of the Fun Foam is a very smooth matte finish ... less reflective than paper. It has an adhesive back. I trimmed the sheet to 7x9 and mounted it on a second 9x12 black sheet of Fun Foam.

The grey paper may work just as well...but since the Fun Foam sheet seems to work I'm going to stick with this solution for now.