Old 1966 regular-8 4:3 to 16:9 and some other tricks

[Andreas Wideroe]

Hi Fred,

Why did you choose liquid paraffin and do you know if the refractive index of the liquid is similar to film? I'm curious to hear about the long term effect paraffin has on films.

Great films btw!

Andreas

[VideoFred]

Hi Andreas,

I have used several fluids for wetgate scanning.

- Isopropyl alcohol is good, but it evaporates very fast and it has a strong smell. It also absorbs water from the air so after a while there's to much water in it, and then it is damaging the film emulsion.

- Filmguard.. It works good but it stays on the film and who knows what's in it?

- Castrol Techniclean: works very good, no damage on the film, it evaporates very slowly (weeks).

And then Edouard was telling me he is using liquid paraffin. So I gave it a try. The first thing I noticed was the improved brightness of the film: it looks crystal clear, like brand new. It hides the scrathes, so it must have the same refractive index of film. It is greasing the filmpath very well too. To know what happens with the film on the long run, I will tell you next year Serious, it looks pretty harmless to me.

Fred.

[MovieStuff]

And then Edouard was telling me he is using liquid paraffin. So I gave it a try. The first thing I noticed was the improved brightness of the film....

Excellent, as usual. Very, very sharp. VERY steady. However, I would say that the paraffin is probably just adding neutral density, which requires that you increase the exposure to get the same shadow detail. So, rather than it actually making the film brighter, it's really making the film darker. This accounts for the loss of detail in the highlite areas when you look at them side by side. Not complaining at all because your results look just great. But I think you could get the same brightness by just increasing your exposure and, without the paraffin dragging down the shadow areas, you might actually have more highlite detail left over. But there is no arguing that the paraffin does a great job as a wetgate solution.

How do you get the paraffin off once it has been applied?

Roger

[VideoFred]

How do you get the paraffin off once it has been applied?

Roger

Hi Roger,

Well, like I mentioned, it's a test. I will leave it on the film for now and see what happens.
It might be a good preserving agent for film, we will see.

Fred.

[dcarek]

Just curious Fred if you've noticed any long term issues using the liquid paraffin or have any more recent wetting agent recommendations. I saw your 2016 YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsk4Eb1Lzq4 that said you use Naphtha and 40% liquid paraffin.

I've just recently tried doing a wet scan on my Retro 8 Pro - and I was amazed at the improvement (coupled with John Meyer's adaption of your AVISynth script). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JcUfGlXsB0 This was on some pretty nasty source Polavision film - but the wet scan saved it. This was with just a very crude wetting system - a piece of cotton cloth wrapped around the input spool in a cup of isopropyl alcohol. This was just a quick test and I don't recommend using alcohol over the electronics. So I'll probably build something off to the side for wetting the film.

IMG_6207sm.jpg

[VideoFred]

Just curious Fred if you've noticed any long term issues using the liquid paraffin or have any more recent wetting agent recommendations. I saw your 2016 YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsk4Eb1Lzq4 that said you use Naphtha and 40% liquid paraffin.

Yes, well... the 40% liquid paraffin is a little overkill but it wont harm the film
10% liquid paraffin is enough.
This thread is from 2012 and the films are still there, no damage at all.

Ps: my latest full HD tests, please set the youtube player to 1080p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn7R1hoCiLk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZKNxZ0diYU&t=35s



Fred.