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DIY, 8mm film scanner Kotokino Mark IV (2020)
- redundantly 2y agoI was hoping for a sample of the footage being captured, but I don't see any on their blog.
- hkchad 2y agoThere's an embedded mkv file that I suspect most browsers won't play inline but you can download it and play w/ VLC. http://www.sabulo.com/sb/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/0001-0264.mkv http://www.sabulo.com/sb/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/0001-026...
- jshipc 2y agoVarious sources list the Canon 1000D shutter life expectancy at between 25,000 and 100,000 activations. If the 8mm film is 16 frames per second, then this setup should be able to capture between 26 to 104 minutes of film before consuming the expected lifespan of the camera shutter. Edit: Changed math from 24 frames per second to 16 fps to reflect the 8mm film fps standard playback speed of 16 fps.
- actionfromafar 2y agoThe article does not mention this, but many Canon (and I assume other brands) have an option to use only the electronic shutter. For a non-moving subject such as this, it's the perfect option. But it's a good caveat to consider when doing such a project.
- snypher 2y agoThey talk about shutter lockup which would imply electronic shutter, I think.
- actionfromafar 2y agoThe shutter is separate on DSLR. (And SLR.)
- Clamchop 2y agoGood point. More recent mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras can disable the physical shutter and use only the electronic shutter, which would relieve this problem.
- choilive 2y agoThe specific camera model doesn't seem very important its probably whatever they had on hand - presumably you could just replace it with a camera with an electronic shutter and as long as it has the same remote shutter port you could take many millions of exposures.
- _Microft 2y agoFrom the article: "To minimize jitter of the system, and to enable 22 shots per minute, the mirror must be moved into the permanent up position." This makes it sound like they are using an electronic shutter instead which circumvents the lifetime issues.
- throwaway22032 2y agoThe mirror being up likely refers to the viewfinder mirror. I haven't used a DSLR, only mirrorless, but I wonder if that could be independent of the shutter.
- _Microft 2y agoThat's exactly the mirror that gives (D)SLR's the R ("reflex") in their name. It's in the path between sensor and lens and redirects the image towards the view finder. When taking a picture this mirror moves out of the way and the image is projected on the film/sensor instead. The advantage of that system is/was that the photographer can preview the image as it will get captured.
- throwaway22032 2y agoAh, so there's no shutter at all then? As in, the mirror itself forms the shutter? For some reason I figured there were both. Makes sense I guess.
- ginko 2y agoThere is a separate shutter.
- RobotToaster 2y agoNo, in most* cameras there's still a shutter behind the mirror, the mirror can't move that fast so would limit the top shutter speed too much. *The Ihagee Exa is the only one I know of that used a mirror guillotine shutter.
- cladopa 2y agoI have other canon cameras that could be used with the shutter opened and digital acquisition with Magic Lantern via USB(with hacks). But today I believe it is much better to use Digital cameras like the Raspberry Pi HQ cameras with good lenses. You don't need hacks, and the sensors come from recent mobile phones modules that have much better quality and technology than old camera digital sensors.
- buck746 2y agoThe lenses you can get for an SLR tho are much better than what rPi cameras usually come with. If you use film era fully manual lenses you can get amazing quality for next to nothing. If your shooting objects that are still, taking longer exposures or exposure brackets is trivial. I wish there was an GUI program for tethered cameras that still had an option to capture multiple frames each time you trigger it and average them for an output frame. It's strange that feature was removed, in the SD video era there were lots of options for that.
- throwaway22032 2y agoI don't know about the Canon 1000D but almost all cameras I've used recently have electronic shutters. There is a rolling shutter penalty so you wouldn't want to use it in the "real world" for moving subjects but if you synchronise it properly (e.g. move one physical frame, take photo, move one physical frame) and ensure that there is no movement during the exposure then this shouldn't make a difference. Even the worst culprits like a 61MP mirrorless (huge overkill for this task) with ~100ms readout could trivially keep up with 22 shots per minute.
- _Microft 2y agoThey are advancing the film one frame at a time and are taking static images. There's a switch getting actuated that triggers image capture once the film has advanced. The first video in the article has close-ups of the process.
- google234123 2y agoA mirrorless camera can probably be found used for 200$ so that would be better
- flipthefrog 2y agoThe older Standard 8 format used 16 frames per second. Super 8 is 18 or 24 fps
- m463 2y agoI wanted to scan some old family super-8 movies. You can buy film scanners that will do the job on amazon. The only problem seems to be that they will encode the video, but nobody seems to convert the magnetic audio track. EDIT: example - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CN93JSX6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CN93JSX6
- patwolf 2y agoI used a similar scanner from Amazon for some 8mm. It mostly worked, but I ultimately decided it was a better use of my time to have the film professionally digitized. I would still love to figure out a good process to clean and upscale the video. I tried Topaz a while back, but it didn't seem suited for some of the artifacts in old, jittery film.
- Ductapemaster 2y agoDo you have a service or an individual you’d recommend? My fiancé’s mom has some old film from their childhood that is meaningful to them, and we’re considering gifting them some digitization services if we can find someone to help.
- patwolf 2y agoI used legacybox. I was wary of shipping off something so irreplaceable, but it came back safe and sound.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoI've used Kodakdigitizing.com It was costly (but the price per roll went down if you have a number of rolls) but the mailer they sent was high quality. I never had any worries about my film being damaged in transit.
- washadjeffmad 2y agoI built a Gugusse Roller a few years ago for scanning 8/super8/16 reels, and it's been an absolute workhorse. So Denis's site isn't hugged to death, here's a link to his YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRNF9QvmIiL1MzkNluiv1Q https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRNF9QvmIiL1MzkNluiv1Q It's a bit slower, but it's in active development.
- prmoustache 2y agoThe quality is probably not as good but my father got fairly decent results filming directly with his digital camera the projection of the super8 film on a screen (obviously in the dark). The added bonus is he would grab the sound of the projector which add a bit to the vintage touch.
- ddrdrck_ 2y agoThis is the good answer. Also to get even better results you can project on a specific small screen using a mirror so you have an even better image. Due to 8mm low quality there is no gain from scanning.
- qingcharles 2y agoI wonder what the outermost res of 8mm is? It must be pretty low. I was involved with scanning some 35mm & 70mm Hollywood movie pieces for Universal and pulling 4K from some 35mm wasn't possible. They were saying 4K, but honestly, it was really about 3.5K of real res. I pulled 8K from 70mm, though.