Difference between 35mm still and 35mm motion filmstock?

[ericMartinJarvies]

hello,

it dawned on me this evening that i have been dealing with a measurement issue regarding film incorrectly because i forgot something fairly basic. here it goes:

ok, i have been attempting to configure a digital film scanner using the following ingredients:

1: x,y,z axis table(from sherline)
2. 16mm transport(from gsmo film mag)
3. 16mm gate(from gsmo camera)
4. servo controller and servo motor(gecko, and jap. made motor)
5. old laptop(this one i am using which is misisng half it keys now, and has been bathed in water while plugged in and power up, but for some reason it stil works)
6. LED lamp (diffused by design, cold, 10,000 hours, 5600k)
7. lens(still working on this ... have found 50-75mm macro, copy, pespective control type lenses to be the best choices, but still have not performed any real world testing because i do not have then yet).
8. machined bellows(threaded for adapter/step up/down rings on both sides)
9. ecco film cleaning system(still have not purchased/received it).
10. mini-compressor(used for airbrushing, with duel tips on hose, mounted directly before gate to blow any dust off of film(on both sides) that may have been missed by flannal cleaning cloths, and serves to dry film completely so surface is constant)
11. lint collector(mounted directly around little hole that air blows into .. before the tips, not after, thus collecting any dust prior to being blown onto film).
12. microcontroller (with LCD display and breadboard circuitry and built in power supply(ac/dc) ... unit will eventually be controlled with this, and the lcd is a touchscreen so all menu commands are controlled directly from the screen)

now then, the objective is to take either 8mm or 16mm or 35mm and digitize it onto the cameras ccd and store it directly to the computer's hard drive. however, what i failed to realize is that 35mm still film and 35mm motion picture film is not exposed on the same aspect ratio compared to the film's position. in other words, motion picture film exposes images in the verticle position(portriate), whereas 35mm still cameras espose it horizontally(landscape). so all this time i have been trying to figure out the proper lens to use whic would take a 16mm frame of movie film and blow it up to a 35mm frame of film ... but this is not correct, right? 35mm movie film is not really 35mm, not even close ... or am i way off base here?

a 35mm still camera runs film on its side, wherein the frames are consecutively connected from right to left, etc., whereas motion picture 35mm cameras runs film from top to bottom, thus exposing it between edges, making the top and bottom of the pictures joined, not the sides like in 35mm still cameras.

so could someone give me the skinny on the mathmatical differances between the two? the reason being, the digital camera i am using has a 35mm ccd, but it is landscape, not portrait.

thanks,

eric

[S8 Booster]

Roughly: (for a few of your questions)

35mm standard still photo image size 36mm x 24mm Horisontal film advance.
An aspect ratio of 3:2

35mm standard motion image size: 24.89mm x 18.67mm
An aspect ratio of 4:3

The total standard image area of a 35mm still image is usually twice that of the image area available for a standard 35mm motion picture image. Vertical film advance.

For more details check out:
palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform

and:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35mm_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_formats

and:
www.screensound.gov.au/glossary

[christoph]

6. LED lamp (diffused by design, cold, 10,000 hours, 5600k)

this sounds a bit problematic to me... it's very expensive to manufacture a non-heating light source (such as LCD or fluorescent) with a precise color temperature... the reason for this is that the kelvin ratin stands for a body edmitting light when it's heated up to a certain point, which gives an uniform spectrum. if edmitted by cold electronic discharges it's not uniform.

so technically speaking HMIs or Kino-Flos are not really 5600K either, but they are close enough not to bother (that's why they are so expensive).

++ christoph ++

[ericMartinJarvies]

Roughly: (for a few of your questions)

35mm standard still photo image size 36mm x 24mm Horisontal film advance.
An aspect ratio of 3:2

35mm standard motion image size: 24.89mm x 18.67mm
An aspect ratio of 4:3

The total standard image area of a 35mm still image is usually twice that of the image area available for a standard 35mm motion picture image. Vertical film advance.
http://www.screensound.gov.au/glossary[/url]

24.89. hmm. well, in my ignorance i was certainly visualizing things incorrectly. i wonder why 35mm motion picture film cameras never evolved the same way as still 35mm, wherein the film is fed sideways instead of from the top down. same with the other formats(8mm, 16mm). heck, imagine what a nice large image you could obtain from 16mm film if it was fed from the side? you could conceivably get something like 23x13, which would literally be equivilant to using the same area as 3 normal frames of film in the one direction(or a little less the 2 times the width), whereas the height would have an additional 5.5mm. has anyone or any company made a camera that that transports the film on it's side through the gate instead of from top to bottom as is the normal case? if there is a 16mm camera that is configured like this, one could essentially acheive(using single perf and exposing to the film's edge on that one side like s16 does) an image that would be just a tad bit smaller then a 35mm frame size ... regular 35mm is 24.89mm x 18.67mm whereas a 16mm camera modified to run film on its side would produce 23x13. so 1.8mm shorter and 5.67 narrower. however, provding the shutter was wide enough, you could basically expose as wide an image as you so desired, in which case you could literally acheive the same width from a 16mm piece of film as one does on a 35mm piece of film. and naturally, the same would apply to 35mm, wherein you could obtain the same image size as one does with a still camera. why did this not take off or grab hold? is it a projection related issue wherein the human eye is able to notice the movement horizonally(side to side, left to right, etc.), and not vertically(up and down, top to bottom, etc.)? or were there other factors involved that steer'd people and camera manufactures away from a sideways exposing film camera and a sideways projecting projector? inquiring minds want to know!!

also, why is 35mm film even referred to as 35mm film? was it first created for a still camera, and then adopted by motion picture cameras? if if so, why did motion picture cameras adopt the 35mm name/reference, when in reality the exposed frame is a great deal less then 35mm? also, what is up with all the odd sizes like 24.89mm x 18.67mm in the case of 35mm film? would it really have been so difficult to create an overall edge to edge measurement with an even number as well as the overall measurement of the actual frame with even numbers as well? or is the film story similar to many other stories of time and adaptation, like the width of railroad tracks for example, the width used today is not because it is the best width, it is because it evolved from the width of carraiges prior to trains.

perhaps not 5-10 years ago, but certainly today, there is enough technology available that would allow the use of film on its side as mentioned above, simply because of our ability to use scanners or sensors to capture the film, no matter their size as a result of computers being able to edit and modify them, and digital playback and projection systems being able to display them ... or even traditional projectors for that matter as long as you take your original scan and resize it and output it to normal film format.

heck, imagine having a film camera that uses the '16mm' sized film, wherein you were able to run the film on it's side, thus the height of the film would be the only 'fixed' measure, and the width of the film would be adjustable by the user to expand as wide as the shutter would allow, but simply adjusting the apature plate, which in turn would adjust the gears and timing. so if you wanted to shoot an image that was 13mm high(this would be the fixed value and maximum usable area one could use on a 16mm filmstock), and 13mm wide, you could. and just as easily, if you wanted to shoot a 13mm high by 26mm wide, you could, by simply opening the apature plate, which in turn changes the gears and effects the transport so that the applicable sized width is properly timed as it advances and 'sits still' for it's fraction of time in the gate, while the shutter either spins faster or slower, and is either more open or more closed based on the width the user selected.

imagine being able to expose s8mm like this?

eric

[teadub]

has anyone or any company made a camera that that transports the film on it's side through the gate instead of from top to bottom as is the normal case?

This is the process Imax uses.

[ericMartinJarvies]

ah. anyone done so with smaller guage film?

[john jay]

for fun
%^)

maybe modify a motor drive for a Nikon 35mm to run at 24 fps with a bulk back (200ft) fitted

then use a motorised nikon (4k dpi) coolscan for telecine : slow but do-able

then Lustre for colour timing, then print to film

main attraction, low cost
also think of those great Nikon lenses going cheap on ebay!

[MovieStuff]

ah. anyone done so with smaller guage film?

Yep. It's called VistaVision in 35mm.

Roger

[Herb Montes]

ah. anyone done so with smaller guage film?

There was a French-made system called "Super Huit" which used a 16mm camera on its side with half the width of the film exposed and then the film turned over at the end of the roll like double regular 8mm to expose the other side for a wide screen image. The film is slit after processing and run in a special projector. I have seen a picture of the camera and it looks like a B&H Model 70 on its side with a special viewfinder.

Pathe did something similar called Pathe-Duplex using 9.5mm film run sideways which had two sets of perfs so when it was slit it gave you film just over 4.5mm wide with perfs between the frames. Again a special projector was used. The cameras and projectors for these systems are rare today.

[ericMartinJarvies]

now that i have also entered the world of machining(proud new owner of a 7x14 lathe and large sized mini-mill), i may very well be able to create my own motion picture camera. after taking so many of them apart and spendign as much time with them as i have, the whole design concept is rather simple ... nothing too complicated about it. i have also stocked myself with metal fabrication machines(like benders, fasteners, stretchers, sapers, etc.), liquid rubber and plastics, and casting clays and alloys, and chrome plating and anidizing processes, and more. so once i start mastering each of these differant techniques and processes, and improve my skills on the various modifications and repairs i make on existing items, as well as with building my film scanner, i would very much like to design and build a motion picture film camera, and i beleive it should be of the design where the 16mm single perf film is exposed sideways as those cameras mentioned above. perhaps with a 3:1 aspect ratio, and 35mm still lens mount(for coverage), and instead of a disc shutter, use a rolling rectangle that is hollow in the middle for exposing, and the other two sides having mirrors for the viewfinder. this way, a low light and normal adjustment can be implimented, wherein on low light each side/opening permits light through, and on the normal setting one of the openings is closed off with mirror, this using one full rotation for each exposure, instead of 1/2 rotation for each exposure. this would require the camera be a tad bit larger in that area so the rectangle could be skewed enough to permit the 45 degree reflection of the light to the groundglass and beamsplitter, but who cares. built in c-mount video tap, programable microcontroller which would be mounted on a circuitboard with a breadboard area, so people could add their own custom features to the camera should they so desire. a removable pressure plate so you can use the optional led luminator, and a removable lens mount so you cna use the optional digitizer bellows connector to capture for film digitizing, and on and on ... imagine how nice it would be to have a camera like this!! and while i'm at it, will build an optional clip on tank system in place of the take side mag cover, that takes and processes your film as you actually shoot it. so when you are finished shooting a roll of film, you puch a button and the processed film feeds itself into the gate, you replace the pressure plate with the led, attach your digital camera to the mount, connect the firewire cable to the computer, and voila! naturally, the filming/processing mode would not be condusive to sync sound situations ... but what do you expect ... a miracle?

only if.