howIseeit Loc: Kootenays, BC Canada

I have followed the Scanner topic with more than usual interest as its something I am involved right now. Here is the thing, I do have a quality HP scanner that did good job before I cant no longer use it on the Imac it doest accept the install. Well so be it, but now I am reading on here all the great things about the lens reverse/macro process and I am exited to say the least.
I recently sucumbed to the GAS syndrome and splurge for the little scanner from China/120.00 greenbacks. Just because it promised to what has been my life passion.
The contraption turned out to be huge wash and am going to sell it, after one hour of use. Seems ok for everything but the 8mm frames and that was my reason to buy it.

By the way its called QPIX, does 110, 135, 126 and of course the coveted super 8 format it says 14mp scan but its interpolated, whatever that is, cant be any good.

Let me explain, in the sixties I was nuts about cameras and a certified nut using them. I knew nothing about those rings on the lens and it was all crap shoot most of the time. If I acidently made a reasonable picture it was for all my friends to see, whether they want or not, I might ad.
Then the cinema bug bit me, hard! got to have that 8mm camera or I will die and be forgotten. Got me a fancy spring wound contraption and i was a movie maker on earth at least.
Nothing was safe from my prying fast triple lens, Bollens camera comes to mind.
Those spools pilled up and eventually I proudly glued them together as I was also a proud owner of a noisy projector and got tired of changing the short reels, of 25feet or so. My images were not impressive though, plenty of blurr. The old camera had light leak somewhere in the housing and some of my shoots had interesting sunset in the picture......Oh must no forget, it had auto run ( but not time release) I even instructed my subject to move around as this was just like *movie* and there is no point just sitting still. So invariable i had some people wave at the lens.........
I just could not get it right, or to slow down the panning.....Now here is the thing, most of the outings were on the movie film now and there are some jewels in there, please dont say not likely..... And it is precisely those, precious and irreplaceable images I want to drag into the photoshop and make gasp... real photos, imagine real blue skies, real puffy white clouds!

So my quest is to scan the *single* frame images from different sessions and make * photographs*
So in short I need your ideas as to home project 8mm scanning, how many of you have done it and to what d\egree of success

anthony

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Can you have the 8mm converted to an HD mp4 file by a lab or service? Bear in mind that stills from HD video clips don't have great resolution. Try pausing your HD TV and some shots are good if there is no motion, but blurred motion is often evident as the slow fps rate doesn't stop action. Resolution of dvd disks is actually less than HD. If you pause a dvd you can see the relatively poor resolution.

howIseeit Loc: Kootenays, BC Canada

Thank You Bob!

Yes I tried that route, had conversion done but I also noticed that the conversion to DVD was done in the batch like mode, like one setting for the lenght of the 200ft rooll. Of course thats is ok for someone with diffirent skill as I have, but my setting were all across the range, experimenting you know.... And its for that reason that I want to do only a load of the best frames (hi hope frames) and process those.
Of course I tried the frame grab while playing on my desktop, but those were kinda lousy. So I do think (which always turned out to be dangeureous) that I can do better single frame scanning.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

HowISeeIt:
I believe that you will have a lot better "outcome" with a decent scanner.
I don't know if a dedicated film scanner would be of help here.
My own scanner is an Epson V700, the smallest negatives and slides I've scanned were 110 format (13 x 17 mm). The results were pretty good as long as I used a high resolution on the scanner.
Fortunately, my son, whose films they were, had a very steady hand (still does) so the photos were sharp to begin with.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Right! That 8mm frame is tiny. You can make prints, but they're not going to look great. As you suggested, converting 8mm to digital would be the first step. I converted many hours of 8mm by using a camcorder as the projector operated.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You need a scanner that can resolve the tiniest of details... AT LEAST 6400 PPI optical resolution. The frame size of regular 8 mm is 4.8 mm × 3.5 mm. At that resolution, a scan will be about 1200 x 900 pixels... barely enough for a 5" x 3.75" photo print. Unfortunately, a higher resolution scanner isn't going to resolve much more detail from film that small.

The sad fact of life is that your best choice may be to have your films transferred to video on DVD (or posted to YouTube or Vimeo).

Flatbed scanners are generally okay for scanning full frame 35mm film and larger. Dedicated film scanners can scan at higher resolution, but are very expensive.

You may be able to get a macrophotography rig set up to copy individual film frames. You will need a bellows unit mounted on a dSLR or mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. On the other end of the bellows, you need a flat-field apochromatic enlarging lens, or a true macro lens. The bellows needs to be long enough to magnify up to 8X life size, on full frame, or 6X on APS-C, or 4X on Micro 4/3. The film you are copying needs to be mounted in some sort of flat metal or plastic or cardboard mask, and placed over a highly diffused, color-correct light source, such as a 5000°K, 91 CRI slide viewer.

Such a setup isn't cheap, either, but can provide copies of 8mm film frames that can be enlarged far more, and more sharply, than a scanner can provide.

Of course, at 8X magnification, your images must be scrupulously clean. Any speck of dust or scratch will be a large imperfection in the final image. Maybe you can remove it in Photoshop, or maybe not.

The biggest problem with enlarging still frames from such small film is that the grain structure of the film becomes very visible. Remember the DISC film format from the early 1980s? The film images on that disc were 10x8mm, about four times larger in area than an 8mm film frame (and 2X larger on the diagonal). Remember how awful the images were? Well, images from 8mm will be twice as awful, because of the 2X greater magnification.

All that caution stated, you still may want to proceed, because the memories on that film are so precious to you.

BebuLamar

If you want only a few frames to make still photograph then I think it's best to copy it using a digital camera.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Anthony, you might contact Tempe Imaging Center and quiz them about your requirements. They have done some very impressive work with converting 8mm to DVD with image improvement along the way. It's been a awhile since I read their process, but I think it is done frame by frame, though automatically with the machine monitoring the process.
http://tempecamera.biz
--Bob

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

I remember ordering 5x7 reversal prints from Kodachrome 8mm movie film years ago. Nothing to brag about. Between the moving film, flickering shutter and camera movement there wasn't much chance for quality enlargement!

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

Anthony -

Not to answer your question but concerning your opening paragraph. I recently went from a PC to an iMac and when I installed my Epsom scanner (that worked fine on the PC) into my iMac, it couldn't open the program. After checking several blogs, I found several people had the same problems and all I needed to do, was go to the Epsom web site, and install the latest drivers for my Epsom V 600. Works fine on my iMac, now.

wcmoorejr Loc: Birmingham Alabama

I have one of these and it works pretty good!

Regards,
Willie

adamsg Loc: Chubbuck, ID

I have an Epson Perfection V600 Photo. It has a variable DPI resolution of up to 12,600. That will produce very sharp scans unless the original negatives are blurred. I have scanned my prints and now am going after all the good negatives from my film days. The scanner is a pleasure to use and does a great job.

DBQ49er Loc: Dubuque, IA

You might want to check into Vuescan. They have drivers for all levers/makes of scanners and for both PC and Mac. Several levels standard and pro. A trial offer is available but it water marks the scan. When you purchase, the water mark goes away. I to also have an older HP but they have drivers for it.

howIseeit Loc: Kootenays, BC Canada

Jerry, thank You on commenting!



Unfortunately I have purchased the very scanner (OPIX) and can attest to it being flimsy and a total waste as far the 8mm prints are concern. I suppose this is a chance to offer a review of that scanner. Save your money is the hint here. the unit is tiny the controls are all on the top and equally tiny, multi operation all done with same little buttons. I have had the feeling that it would not last long before some will quit.
I did some scans and had major problems operating the control panel due to again its ridiculosly small size. Actually I managed to acidentaly format the SD while I was going to scan to due to tiny buttons
I comes loaded with accessories and slide trays, cant fault that part.
The contraption states that it has 14 mp resolution. NO it is 7mp interpolated to 14mp. One needs a good lupe to put on top of the screen just to see the picture in details.
The thing is probably a good idea being executed in el cheeapo way. And no, I dont think I got my moneys worth, but can perhaps help make the decision for someone else. The total cost was 148.50 CND
Anybody wants it for 50.00 US and shipping it is available.

anthony