Digitizing Dad's Slides

Click on this to see the whole 4824x2714 image. Photos circa 1977 ©Michael Gavin

I've borrowed some of my dad's Ektachrome slides (circa 1977) and been re-photographing them with using a Canon DSLR camera. I'm using an A3 sized lightbox and a borrowed Kaiser rostrum stand to do this.

To get clear photos of each slide, I've been using an old 50mm f1.8 Pentacon M42 fit lens and one short macro extension tube. (I'm guessing this very same lens was used to take some of these pictures too.) With this arrangement, each 35mm slide image can mostly fill the frame of the Canon 600D (1.6x crop-sensor) DSLR. I've been copying each slide as a Raw file, allowing a little bit of colour and exposure tweaking; I've also been Photoshopping out a few dust spots and hairs from the slides along the way.

This seems like quite a quick solution for capturing the images from slides, but I'd still like to try some tests with my scanner's film adaptor for comparison.

Photo of me circa 1977 ©Michael Gavin

Kodak Super 8, The positive and the negative.

Anyone who uses super 8 film these days, might still be reeling from Kodak's double-edged announcement in December 2012. On the same day Kodak announced a NEW super 8 stock would become available (Vision 3 50T negative film); but also that their existing Ektachrome 100D would be withdrawn.

This is a really big deal for people using the format. 100D was the last colour reversal film from Kodak, so now only colour negative films are on offer. This is the end (at least from Kodak) of positive film that can be watched on a projector once processed. It probably doesn't bode well for Straight 8 and similar 'single cartridge' and 8mm festivals either. Undoubtedly colour reversal in super 8 format is the gateway stock (i.e. the cheapest and easiest to process and use) for anybody wanting to try and shoot some real film. It should also be mentioned that all existing cine cameras are rated to work with 100D speed film; very few are rated to work with the film speeds in the Kodak negative range.

Like it or not, anyone who wishes to buy Kodak film from now on will be buying negative film stock. For me, this is new territory, I'll need to find out how my camera might work with this stock. Also, processing and telecine options are greatly reduced too. In short, thanks to Kodak, super 8 just got a whole lot more difficult and inevitably more expensive to use.

There are apparently some advantages to negative film, we should expect better latitude, smaller grain and maybe even sharper pictures; the Vision 3 stock is the very same film used on professional motion picture production in the larger formats. For those willing to persevere (and spend more) there could be image quality benefits to be had.

I've just bought some Kodak 200T negative stock, and I'll try it out, maybe I'll try the new 50T too (when it becomes available here in the UK) but I can't help thinking that this change will on the whole reduce the user-base for super 8 film.

I'm thinking long and hard about the price implications of buying, processing and scanning film. I think this announcement will further hasten the demise of the format, so maybe it's time to enjoy using it while we still can.

What to do? I looked around online for some inspiration, then I found this...

I think this looks pretty sweet... Seems like we have fewer choices now, but just maybe there could be an upside to this negative...

Enfield, My Kinda Town

Over the last couple of years I've been shooting super 8 film around my home town; the North London suburb of Enfield. I was greatly inspired by the 1960s-1980s travelogue films of Harold Baim and it seemed fitting to use real cine film to get this sun-tinted, picture postcard look.

Tech Notes: This film was shot on Kodak 100D reversal super 8 film. I shot five rolls between 2011 and 2013. This was shot on my Nizo 156XL camera using a Panasonic LA7200 anamorphic lens adaptor to achieve the 16x9 footage. The film was sent to Andec Filmtechnik in Berlin for processing then to 18-frames.com for cine to data HD transfer.

RIP Kodak 100D Reversal Cine Film

Very strange behaviour from Kodak. They announce a NEW type of Super 8 film (50D negative) then the same day they announce the scrapping of 100D reversal (the most-used and affordable cine film; their only remaining colour reversal film) Nooooooooooooooooo!  :(

New Film Old Camera

Well, these little yellow boxes on my desk can only mean one thing...



Yep, that's right, I'm scratching my 8mm itch again. Some weekends recently I've been out and about in Enfield shooting some proper cine film. I bought 3 rolls of this Kodak Ektachrome 100T film, and have shot almost 2 of them already.

I've been getting some funny looks from the locals whilst shooting... we don't get many tourists in Enfield, and even if we did, not many of them would be filming with a camera like this...



Yep, it's my 'new' Nizo 156XL, and the monstrosity stuck on the front is the Panasonic LA7200 Anamorphic lens adaptor. WHAT? Yes, I'm making my little film in Super8 16x9 format... exciting stuff.

The first finished roll has already been processed at Andec FilmTechnik lab in Germany and returned. (A round-trip of three weeks!) I've now sent that film over to Uppsala Bildteknik in Sweden for a Flashscan HD transfer. (I'll possibly blog a bit more about the logistics of all of this at a  later date.)

Who knows how the film will come out... Will it be jittery, will it be sharp, and for that matter will it be any damn good at all ???