8mm Forum: Capture 8mm Film

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Posted by John Newland (Member # 5479) on July 13, 2016, 03:52 PM:

Have Honeywell Elmo FP8 C Projector.
Projecting 8mm film on white background.
Have Sony DCRTRV 103 Video Camera w/Hi 8 Tape.
Projection is beautiful.
My video camera setup is wrong.
Instead of the projected image I have a white image on the LCD screen.
What am I doing wrong?

Thank you,

John Newland

I also have a Goko TC 301 Telecine unit with all belts broken.
Where can I find new belts?

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on July 13, 2016, 04:58 PM:

Hi John,

I'm not sure why you would get a white image. Usually that sort of setup is pretty straight forward. The projector is projecting an image on the paper, but the camera sees nothing? Can it see the paper if you're not projecting anything?

The other thing I will humbly suggest is that ultimately you will end up re-doing this down the road. That Sony is an older camera and the quality of the recording will not match the quality of the 8mm film.

You may want to consider a service or a more modern HD camera at least. Whatever you do, hold on to the film as that may outlast whatever you transfer it to. If a newer camera is not in the budget, your current camera will do the job, but like I said, save the film, you might want to do a higher quality transfer later.

Its possible to find replacement belts on eBay for projectors and maybe your Goko too. If you can measure the existing belts you can sometimes find the right sized O-ring in a hardware store. Amazon actually has a pretty good selection of O-ring sizes. You might have to get a pack of 10 but generally they're not expensive.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on July 13, 2016, 06:09 PM:

Hi John...Your Sony TRV103 is a Digital 8 camcorder and if working properly for regular shooting...it should do well with capturing film also. I don't have this model camera...so this is just a guess, but the TRV103 defaults to auto exposure which probably is adjusting to a wide-open setting. You will have to use the manual exposure feature to stop down the exposure.

1 - Press EXPOSURE in the standby or recording mode. The exposure indicator appears.

2 - Turn the SEL/PUSH EXEC dial to lower the brightness.

I live very close to you in Sunnyvale and I've done a lot of film transferring. PM me if you need any further assistance.

Posted by William Olson (Member # 2083) on July 14, 2016, 08:45 AM:

I agree with Janice about auto vs manual exposure. When I first read your post, it was the first thing that came to mind.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on July 14, 2016, 10:50 AM:

John... If manually adjusting the exposure is not enough... here are a couple more exposure tips:

1. Try projecting to a grey card instead of white. Do not project to a regular beaded projection screen or to anything glossy.

2. If you can attach filters to your camera lens....then try using an ND filter to reduce exposure. A variable filter works well in this case.

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