Frame rate capture transfer question

[Patrick]

There's some super 8 footage that I need to get transferred for a family event that's coming up very soon. There's not enough time to send the film off so I'm thinking of doing the transfer myself. Ive thought of a rather crude and basic way of doing the transfer. It will be completely manual - no automation at all. So I'll be advancing the film frame by frame by hand though luckily I only need to have one shot transferred which is probably less than 200 frames. I don't think I would have the patience to transfer a whole reel this way!

Basically, I'm going to have two projectors on top of each other (second projector will likely be on a shelf.) The film will be fed vertically from one reel on the top projector to another reel on the bottom projector. And my tripod-mounted Panasonic G6 Micro 4/3 camera will photograph each individual frame with a 50mm macro lens and extension tube with a backlight behind the film. I was thinking of using rubber hands on the spools to keep the film taught and flat for each exposure.

Though I do have a question on how many times should I photograph each frame. The film was shot at 24fps and I would like a 25fps transfer. Should I photograph each frame twice, or alternate between two and three exposures per frame - 2,3,2,3 etc?

[Patrick]

Actually, there is another thing I'm wondering about - image stabilisation. Since I'll be advancing the film manually, each frame will probably be in a slightly different position. I'm going to try my best to line up the frame lines with lines in the camera's viewfinder but it's unlikely to be a perfect match every time. It's inevitable that in the transferred footage, the frame line will be jumping a bit. Not only that but the film footage is hand held so there is a little bit of camera movement but it's fairly acceptable / non-objectionable.

I'm going to use some kind of image stabilisation like VirtualDub's deshaker plugin after assembling the stills into a video file. However, what I want is the software to stabilise only the frame lines and ignore my hand held camera movement within the frames. I think that's going to be tricky unless I can find some software that can distinguish between the two types of movement.

[Krasnogorskistan]

Hi Patrick,

The frame rate issue is probably number 72 on a list of 100 with this setup. 24fps may have been written on the side of the original camera itself, but its very unlikely to have actually run at that, exactly. Scratch that problem.

You are already considering setting up some kind of backlight, and you have two projectors. Photographing directly off of the film in the gate of a projector using your homemade backlight (+ something to diffuse the light) will solve lots more of your problems, if you are able to operate the advance on the projector by hand, turning it one frame at a time. Clamp the projector down, and preferably the camera too. Like really solid. And get a remote shutter release for your stills camera too.

Lots of what I suggest can be adapted to your own ideas if you choose to go with them, but stability and consistent focus are an absolute must.

Good luck

[Will2]

If you have access to a flatbed scanner with a transparency adapter like an Epson V850 you could scan maybe to frames at a time then manually align them all in Photoshop. I've done this with 35mm lomokino films; although that was only 64 frames or so. Not quite as time-consuming as it may sound if you only have 200 frames to do.

[Danmouer]

Good grief! I think you would be better off with any ine of a number of commercial transfers. Even at 1080p, there are many effective and resonably priced services.


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[Krasnogorskistan]

Hi Dan,

To be fair to Patrick, he made clear he was only considering this setup due to a lack of time...