Which filmstock for Workprinter?

[Dave Anderson]

Which is a better film stock for transferring to video with the WorkPrinter?

EKTACHROME VNF 7240 or KODACHROME 40?

I know it's personal prefrence as I hear that the Kodachrome is almost too contrasty for transfer, but the Ektachrome is more grainy...

So if it's a matter of contrast .vs grain, which is closer to the mark? Or maybe the question is: Which is easier to compensate for in NLE transfer?

Thanks

Dave Anderson

[mattias]

Which is easier to compensate for in NLE transfer?

compensating for the contrast is easy. i've posted the howto here a couple of times, but i still sit here being bitter since nobody ever cared to try it out. :-) compensating for grain is virtually impossible, but i do have this fcp plugin i wrote that does a decent job although it's painfully slow, and the various noise reduction filters for virtual dub are also pretty good.

/matt

[Royalbox]

compensating for the contrast is easy. i've posted the howto here a couple of times

I read what you posted about this and it sounded interesting. However, wouldn't the frames from the 2 captures have to line-up exactly to work? I've found that if I rewind the film to re-capture a scene that the alignment is not quite the same sometimes. Also, on playback the frames wobble about slightly relative to each other indicating that the frame aligment is slightly random. I haven't got any expensive editing programs to try it -- only Studio 8. Have you tried it yourself and could you post some before and after stills to see?

[mattias]

wouldn't the frames from the 2 captures have to line-up exactly to work?

yes, but asuming the image is steady you can always shift one entire clip a few pixels to fit if needed.

/matt

[StopMoWorks]

Or another way ..... in my early days as amatuer in traditional non-computer special effects (I still am , I guess .... no real long term career in it) .... prepare the film "In Camera" by "Flashing" the film before you shoot ..... takes experimentation. Then another way is to have a beamsplitter setup (just a piece of clear glass) in front of your camera lens, then a white opaque sheet (acts as light diffuser) on other side of beamsplitter, then kind of indirectly reflect a light source behind opaque sheet and with tons of adjustment ..... you can barely see flashing in camera viewfinder (that is the way I did it). I would imagine ..... one can even increase the flashing on K40, so when you look in viewfinder it would have a slightly "washed out" look perhaps looking similar to the ECO stock that Roger mentioned ...... primarily for transferring (not projection). Possibly this would not work for live action filming because it's too much bother, but for special effects, it's accepted to take a lot of set-up time to get the shot off for your special effects elements. I used this in my very amatuer attempts to do 16mm rear/front projection re-photography, trying to emulate the stop motion/special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen's methods (Seventh Voyage of Sinbad!). I actually flashed 16mm Ektachrome and then but that in a single frame 16mm projector .... I rephotographed (using Super8 camera) the rear projection screen, the puppet and miniature set. When I got the processed film back and viewed it, the flashing method seemed to somewhat control the contrast. I don't see why it would not work for Kodachrome, but again, probably too much of a hassle for non-special effects Super 8 practioners. My little two cents.