[Frameworks] Which Super8 Stock Should I Use?

[jeff at kinetta.com]

On Jun 20, 2013, at 8:14 AM, Roger Wilson wrote:

> Super 8mm Colour Negative film can look beautiful if it is exposed properly. A big problem filmmakers have is not knowing their super 8mm camera well enough.

Exactly.

I should have been clearer in my earlier response.  Insa had specifically mentioned night scenes, which are often underexposed.

You need a Super-8 camera that gives you either the ability for complete manual exposure control, or the ability to set the ISO speed of the film you are shooting in a way that ignores the notches on the cartridge.

An underexposed color negative is a piece of clear orangish film.  Underexposed reversal is very dense.  It is possible to -- with the right scanner -- get enough light through a dense original to recover a good deal of the image.  (I have done this with Kodachrome originals and Ektachrome originals that looked to the naked eye like black leader.  Quite amazing.)

But if there is no image on that nearly clear color negative, there's nothing to print up.  You need to print it down, essentially, so you have a decent black, which often takes any image you might have with it.

Color negative (with a couple of exceptions that aren't manufactured anymore) always benefits from overexposure, and a denser negative.  (There are artistic exceptions -- see Gordon Willis and The Godfather -- of course.)

If you can, overexpose by a stop or more.  Overexposure actually reduces the appearance of grain in color negative.  Reversal stocks do not take well to overexposure at all, and since most S8 cameras light meters (if still working) are designed for reversal stocks, they are not going to overexpose!  So you need manual control, which varies from camera to camera.

The cost of S8 color negative and a good scan is not all that much less than 16mm these days, and 16mm cameras have gotten relatively cheap -- I see Aatons for $2000 on eBay.  

But if you want to shoot S8, and there are aesthetic reasons to do so, do it -- but if you shoot color negative, overexpose it.

Note:  I have scanned a lot of Super-8 film for theatrical documentaries shown on very large screens, usually at 3.3K resolution (about 5x HD for pillar-boxed, uncropped HD) and resolution makes a big difference.  HD is not enough.

For tests, go to http://kinetta.com and go to the downloads page, and download the PDF about small format scanning resolution for actual tests of the same film scanned at different resolutions on the same scanner.  Also look at the Range page for examples of the extreme dynamic range that can be captured.

Forgive the Kinetta stuff, just trying to make a point.

My other point, of course, is that the loss of color reversal stock (especially my beloved 7250) is a crime, and the idiots now in charge of Kodak will end up in a special ring of hell designed just for them.

Jeff

Jeff Kreines
Kinetta
kinetta.com
jeff at kinetta.com


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