K-40 grain, am I too picky??

[shralp]

Hi all,
Just got back some more test rolls of K-40 and Plus-x from telecine and I'm a little concerned with the grain AND the dust/dirt I see in the transfer. I've used a few telecine houses to see what differences may exist in quality of x-fer, dust factor, etc. Maybe its because I'm used to shooting Kodaks 7245 negative in 16mm but jeez the grain with the K-40 seems excessive after hearing everybody talk about how its such a clean, grain free stock. I know that the image size is smaller than 16mm and I know its never going to look like the 7245 I shoot but what is the deal?? I'm also finding it hard to deal with all the dirt and dust that is inherent in this format. Does anyone know of a lab that offers ultrasonic cleaning for super 8? My lab up in Seattle does it to all of my 16mm neg before we go to telecine but they can't do it for Super 8. I really don't want to try the "reel to reel with a cleaner and a lint free cloth" routine as this seems archaic and potentially bad for the image if I screw something up, (plus, unless its done in a completely sanitary environment its a bit of a wash anyway). Maybe I'm asking too much of this format because I'm used to 16mm but if we have to live with the grain, (which surprises me after everyone raving about K-40), can't we at least expect to have an image that is dust and dirt free?? I rarely if ever see these problems when I x-fer my negative. Maybe its due to the fact that super 8 gets blown up so much. Any comments or info for me out there? Thanks.

[Alex]

Generally, the first 2-3 feet of a developed roll of Super-8 film, and the last 2-3 feet may have some dirt or scratches on it. The rest should be in pretty good shape.

A little more info would help. How is the film prepped for telecine, who is developing it, and did it go straight from the lab to the transfer house, or was it viewed first?

As for the grain. Grain does differ depending on which video transfer facility you use. You said you have used different transfer facilities. Can you rate them in terms of grain?

[shralp]

"Generally, the first 2-3 feet of a developed roll of Super-8 film, and the last 2-3 feet may have some dirt or scratches on it. The rest should be in pretty good shape."
--yea, it did seem that way to me too with the first few feet showing more dirt, etc than the rest of the roll. I still am seeing lots of foreign matter throughout the roll however. The problem is compounded more by the fact that 90% of the footage for this film will be shot on the snow which means any crud on the image will be even easier to see.

" How is the film prepped for telecine and who is developing it,"
--The K-40 was done at Dwayne's and I checked the "prep for telecine" option when I sent it in. No idea WHAT this actually means, (anyone?). The Plus-x was done at Forde Film Labs in Seattle. I use them for my 16mm and they always do a good job. They cannot prep Super 8 for telecine there however.

"did it go straight from the lab to the transfer house, or was it viewed first"
--it was sent directly to the X-fer house for telecine. Given the fragile nature of the camera original, I'd rather get it to a digital format as soon as possible without any handling or projection.

"As for the grain. Grain does differ depending on which video transfer facility you use. You said you have used different transfer facilities. Can you rate them in terms of grain?"
--Let me answer this by first stating that I don't want to give the impression that either of these two places did a bad job, I'm not unhappy with either of them, I'm just trying to find the most cost effective way to get a clean image for my movie. The first two rolls were done by Roger at MovieStuff and the next two rolls were done by CinePost in Atlanta using their wetgate, which I had hoped would solve a lot of the dirt/debris issues. The grain from both X-fers really looks about the same. This is why I don't think its really that inherent in the telecine from one place to another.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 27, 2002 08:15 PM: Message edited by: shralp ]</font>

[Alex]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by shralp:
"Generally, the first 2-3 feet of a developed roll of Super-8 film, and the last 2-3 feet may have some dirt or scratches on it. The rest should be in pretty good shape."
--yea, it did seem that way to me too with the first few feet showing more dirt, etc than the rest of the roll. I still am seeing lots of foreign matter throughout the roll however. The problem is compounded more by the fact that 90% of the footage for this film will be shot on the snow which means any crud on the image will be even easier to see.

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep, white scenes do show off the dirt the worst. And dirt and grit on
super-8 film is indeed enlarged by a factor of four times (I think?) compared to 16mm.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by shralp:

" How is the film prepped for telecine and who is developing it,"
--The K-40 was done at Dwayne's and I checked the "prep for telecine" option when I sent it in. No idea WHAT this actually means, (anyone?). The Plus-x was done at Forde Film Labs in Seattle. I use them for my 16mm and they always do a good job. They cannot prep Super 8 for telecine there however.

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Prep for telecine means all the developed rolls of Super-8 film are spliced onto one bigger reel of Super-8 film. White film leader is added to both the front and back of the Super-8 film reel so that the film can be properly threaded for a Rank Cintel Transfer. A minimum of 6-8 feet of film leader to as much as 10-12 feet is added to both the front and back of the Super-8 reel that has been "Telecine Prepped".

I prefer the extra length so the Rank Operator can easily check tension and framing without worrying about having the leader slip off of the take up reel.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by shralp:

"did it go straight from the lab to the transfer house, or was it viewed first"
--it was sent directly to the X-fer house for telecine. Given the fragile nature of the camera original, I'd rather get it to a digital format as soon as possible without any handling or projection.

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's the right idea.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by shralp:

"As for the grain. Grain does differ depending on which video transfer facility you use. You said you have used different transfer facilities. Can you rate them in terms of grain?"
--Let me answer this by first stating that I don't want to give the impression that either of these two places did a bad job, I'm not unhappy with either of them, I'm just trying to find the most cost effective way to get a clean image for my movie. The first two rolls were done by Roger at MovieStuff and the next two rolls were done by CinePost in Atlanta using their wetgate, which I had hoped would solve a lot of the dirt/debris issues. The grain from both X-fers really looks about the same. This is why I don't think its really that inherent in the telecine from one place to another.

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

In theory, the wetgate transfer should do the best job of either removing or minimizing the appearance of dirt, dust, and scratches from your transfer. The fact that it didn't look any better to you is interesting.

I'm beginning to wonder if the lack of lubrication at the time of developing has something to do with this. The reason I wonder about the lubrication is I just finished editing some Super-8 homemovies from the 70's. Back in the 70's, and at least through the mid 80's, Super-8 films were lubricated at the time of developing. Apparently, they are no longer lubricated at the time of developing. [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img]

These Super-8 home movies had been transferred to BetaCam SP at Film & Video Transfers in Northridge California. I edited from BetaCam SP directly to BetaCam SP, in the component mode. I was surprised at how clean, and "rich" looking many of the Super-8 Shots were. (definitely Kodachrome 40)

I also noticed that whenever shots had white walls, or there were white dresses, and that were also at the end of a roll or beginning of a roll, the shots had sporadic bits of gunk on them.

Also, you could be dealing with an f-stop issue. I have never been able to verify this next point, but I wonder if when shooting at a higher f-stop, such as f-11 or f-16, if the grain looks different than if you shot the same footage with Neutral Density at an F-stop of 5.6 or 4.0.

It might be worth a shot, try bringing your f-stop down when shooting brightly lit shots that have white in them. And definitely consider using a polarizer also.

As for Sonic Cleaning. I used to get my Super-8 films Sonically cleaned at a place called AFD Photogard In Hollywood. I don't think they are around anymore. Apparently, some of the sonic machines out there can do both 16mm and Super-8mm.

The Sonic Cleaners do put a lot of tension on the film, so there is a reluctance to "trust" that all the super-8 splices will hold, especially if the splices were made many years ago.

You might want to dig a little deeper and see if your Super-8 films can be sonically cleaned, the people who say they cannot be ultrasonically cleaned may just not want to deal with readjusting the tension of the ultrasonic cleaner compared to when they clean 16mm.

[cameraguy]

Shralp,

I have just opened my own 8mm (both super and regular 8) transfer business on the side. I have been doing test transfers and I am getting basically grainfree K40 transfers (very little dust too since I clean the film first). If you project the film with a projector and the grain is there then its going to show on a transfer HOWEVER K40 should be nearly grain free. Check to see if your film has visible grain upon projection. If it does then something other than the transfer method is at fault. Could be bad processing, or you waited to long to process after exposing the film, or the film was old to beging with. Otherwise I bet the transfer method is a cheap one

Many transfer houses are still using "c-r-a-p-p-y" transfer methods which result in horrible grain due to the screen they are shooting off of. And there are many Elmo units out there (built in the 80's) which have a built in 230 line CCD which to say the least is pretty low res compared to Super 8's potential.

[shralp]

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

"Also, you could be dealing with an f-stop issue. I have never been able to verify this next point, but I wonder if when shooting at a higher f-stop, such as f-11 or f-16, if the grain looks different than if you shot the same footage with Neutral Density at an F-stop of 5.6 or 4.0."

--Yeah, I do wonder if there is a sweet spot on my Nizo Professional where the image would be a bit cleaner, probably F 5.6 or 8 I suspect. Not sure if this would really be related to increased/decreased grain though

"You might want to dig a little deeper and see if your Super-8 films can be sonically cleaned, the people who say they cannot be ultrasonically cleaned may just not want to deal with readjusting the tension of the ultrasonic cleaner compared to when they clean 16mm."

--I'll look into that to see what I can do. Anyone out there have any ideas on this? Please let me know if you hear of a lab that can do this!

from Cameraguy "I have just opened my own 8mm (both super and regular 8) transfer business on the side."

--What are you using for a x-fer unit?

"Many transfer houses are still using "c-r-a-p-p-y" transfer methods which result in horrible grain due to the screen they are shooting off of. And there are many Elmo units out there (built in the 80's) which have a built in 230 line CCD which to say the least is pretty low res compared to Super 8's potential."

--Yup, I'm sure that there are some dubious systems out there. Its just that I know that Rogers system is certainly touted by many on this forum to be one of the best options for telecine and I don't doubt that. My second x-fer at CinePost in Atlanta was done on their high end Rank Cintel with full Da Vinci color correction software, etc. so I'm pretty sure I'm working with some of the best folks out there. Again, if anyone has a x-fer house they are having good results from, please let me know. I haven't had a chance to talk with the colorist at CinePost but I will be calling him on Monday to see what sort of things he did in the x-fer. I d know that they have both sharpening and grain reduction software, (basically softening) as part of their Da Vinci system so I'll be asking what, if any, correction was applied in the x-fer.

So I hope I'm getting closer to some viable solutions. Its just so strange to have to dig relentlessly for all of this! All of these problems just don't happen with 16mm because the market is so much bigger for services. Too bad its so expensive. Anyway, I'm grateful to have this forum to find the answers I'm looking for!

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 28, 2002 01:15 PM: Message edited by: shralp ]</font>

[Alex]

I'm going to guess that because you weren't there for the transfer, the transfer house doesn't like to do "too much" because sometimes they end up doing the opposite of what you wanted.

I hope you are satisfied in the future.

[Mike Buckles]

As I've posted before, I've gotten back rolls from Dwayne's with gunk and dirt on them...more at beginning and end, but some in the middle too...I just got a pk59 mailer from B and H photo, and i'm going to shoot a roll of K40 tomorrow, and mail it to Kodak...Up to now, I've projected all of my super8 and I know projecting the films does add dirt and such OVER TIME, but there's no excuse for what you're seeing...and no excuse for these labs not to clean and lubricate the film after developing. I know Roger from Movie Stuff cleans/lubricates films before he transfers them.