8mm Forum: London in Super 8 !

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Posted by Pierre Beuzat (Member # 5139) on May 21, 2017, 05:29 PM:

Hey there !

Those who know me are already aware that I launched a YouTube project, called Super8ThisPlanet. The goal is quite simple : promoting our beloved format by capturing the essence of capital cities in Super 8, only one cartridge for each city !

Anyway, I just uploaded the 4th film of the project : LONDON filmed in Super 8. And I'm, as always, very interested by your professional feedbacks. Indeed, I'm just a student who began Super 8 two years ago, so still loads to learn !

Here's the film and the channel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLTeHZ4ERi0
Super8ThisPlanet - LONDON

So which advice could you give me ?

Thank you so much [Smile]

And long life to analog filming !

Pierre

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 21, 2017, 05:48 PM:

Hello, Pierre-Yves. I'm happy to see another city captured buy you in super 8. What a great project. As usual, you could take a lot of different short sequences that sumarize the spirit of the city (this time, London). On a technical point of view, if I may dare to advise something, I would suggest you to go, when it is possible, closer to your subject rather than using the zoom on the long focale as the stability of the picture suffers from doing that without a tripod (also the deepth field is reduced). For non motion subjects, it is also possible to shoot at 24 fps instead of 18 fps as this would soften any shaking. Try to focus always on the long focale position as it is more precise and of course if you use the zoom when filming from the short to the long focale you will take no risk of out of focus picture. But more than everything else : keep on filming on super 8 and keep on posting the result on this forum [Smile]

Posted by Martin Dew (Member # 5748) on May 21, 2017, 07:17 PM:

Great work, Pierre. Compulsive viewing, and energetic. Really enjoyed it.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on May 21, 2017, 08:45 PM:

Let's be brutally honest here. The image quality of this film is awful. Looks like the whole reel was grossly under or over exposed (don't know if its reversal stock or not, but probably scanned from negative) with a peculiar lack of color saturation.
I have double 8mm Kodachrome from the 1950's that puts the image quality of this film to shame. No way can this compete with a digital image. Super 8mm can be ten times better than this.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on May 21, 2017, 11:49 PM:

It appeared a somewhat hazy and murky day in parts also Paul to be fair,though I agree ultimately, I have seen Super 8mm portray far more exuberant levels of colour saturation previously. Nice sharp crisp images though!

I find the scene length also a little too short and choppy at times as viewer if I'm honest.
Also everything you see on screen gets given roughly the same time allowance, which of course, is not how our eyes perceive the world naturally.

I'd like to see long distance shots with lots of detail, captured for considerably longer.
Otherwise, I enjoyed seeing our capital captured here on eight in recent times, and you will have a superb historical chronicle of all of the many major cities in the world or maybe just Europe to look back on over time by the end of the project.
A very interesting project! [Smile]

Posted by Clinton Hunt (Member # 2072) on May 22, 2017, 12:24 AM:

Despite a few "problems" they are still very watchable and a credit to Pierre Beuzat for getting "new" Super 8mm films done [Smile]

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on May 22, 2017, 12:43 AM:

Well, it looks a lot better than the Super 8 footage I took last summer. [Smile]

I noticed that the camera at the end of movie was a Canon 518 SV. Is that that what you're using? I have the very same camera but haven't used it yet. The manual exposure on mine needs repair. There's a rubber roller that deteriorates over time. A common problem with some Canon models.

Anyway the colors in your movie do seem muted in places, though not bad really. I don't remember what your other movies turned out like. Are they similar? I think one of the advantages of the 518 SV is that it's supposed to expose modern film stock correctly (not all old cameras do). Since you were using a tungsten balanced film, that means the camera will use its built in daylight filter unless a movie light or the filter key is installed. The filter key would slide into the slot on the top of the camera.

The built-in filter is what might be causing the muted colors. They were never high quality filters in the first place and they get worse as they age. Companies that refurbish old Super 8 cameras often remove or disable them. Something you could try if you want to continue using Tungsten balanced film outdoors is to use the filter key to swing the internal filter out of the way, and then get a standard 85B filter to screw on to the lens.

It can get a little complicated though. Using the filter key and an external filter might cause the movie to be underexposed since it's not expecting a filter to be in place. You might want to use manual exposure settings just be sure. 500T is supposed to be treated like 320 ASA when there's a daylight filter being used. The good thing about this type of film stock is that it's supposed to be pretty forgiving of inexact exposure settings so maybe it's not worth worrying about.

Anyway, keep at it. It's a great project !

Paul: I think if you're looking for something to compete with digital, Super 8 is just not the right choice. It should be enjoyed for what it was intended to be as far as filming goes: An easy to use format for the non-professional. The design of the cartridge itself leads to inconsistent image quality in all but the most high end Super 8 cameras.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 22, 2017, 03:00 AM:

Tom, you can see Pierre-Yves's other super 8 films here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBOvnBnCLqftgeFiro7Qvjw

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on May 22, 2017, 03:47 AM:

Yes the white dust marks and low contrast show it is scanned from a negative. Adjusting the contrast/gamma would put more colour into this.
I think it has a good range of shots and locations (full marks for showing one of my local buses) at all times of day. I'll be checking the others.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on May 22, 2017, 09:17 AM:

My problem here is that we seem to be going rapidly downhill in terms of super 8 camera film quality. You can see the same sort of drab unsaturated look on the latest Kodak camera test shots on YouTube - and these were done by Kodak themselves! If this is the new look for super 8 camera film, count me out. Not even close to what we were getting 50 years ago with clockwork standard 8mm camera's and Kodachrome 2.

Posted by Stuart Reid (Member # 1460) on May 22, 2017, 09:48 AM:

There's also an absolute ton of digital artefacting. Was this scanned on one of these new cheapo scanners that outputs heavily compressed MP4 files?

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 22, 2017, 11:18 AM:

Nice link ...

That's funny, I acquired many years ago, 3X400ft reels from a local thrift store here in Mountain Home, Idaho, of super 8 home movies taken by a local rancher and family, and two of the reels were of a trip abroad and one of thier stops was England. These films were shot in the late 60's and I so hoped that they would have shot the "Apple Building", (that colorful beatles building, for those that don't know), but it wasn't included.

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on May 22, 2017, 11:40 AM:

According to the comments Paul, he used Vision 3 500T. If you look at some of the other footage on youtube shot with that film, I think you'll agree that film quality has not gone down hill at all.

And again, I really don't think Pierre's is that bad. His footage from Amsterdam showed some bluer blues in the sky so maybe he used different film or it was processed differently this time around.

I looked at a lot of 40 and 50 year old film last Summer and while the colors were more saturated in some cases, it was all over the map in terms of quality. In general, it has a softer look that what we've grown accustomed to with digital or professionally produced films.

The other thing to remember is that part of his challenge is that he's shooting one cartridge per city. That means he's not swapping film when the light conditions change.

Posted by Pierre Beuzat (Member # 5139) on May 22, 2017, 12:12 PM:

First of all, an enormous thanks to all of you Dominique, Martin, Paul, Andrew, Clinton, Tom, Brian, Stuart and Osi for your detailed feedbacks. Once again, I’m happy to hear from your experienced opinions !

Dominique (merci à chaque fois pour ces précieux retours), I finally try to limit these long distance shots, but the situations being rarely predictable it’s always hard to apply this in practice. I really don’t understand though the reason why the color signals for the pedestrians is that blurred… Indeed, I thought the focus was well made when I shot it… Do you have an idea why ?

Paul, thanks for this sincere feedback. Isn’t it due to the 500T ? If that’s the case, I always shoot using this type because the weather is always unpredictable throughout each trip… Or do you think 200T would be enough ?

Tom, it is filmed with the 518SV indeed ! And for the aspect, I find the first 3 films of the project quite similar to be honest. But maybe I don’t have an expert eye enough yet [Smile]

Stuart, I couldn’t give you any more details : I usually send the film to a lab. Do you think I should find another ?

Pierre

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 22, 2017, 02:25 PM:

I don't know why the red light was out of focus. If it was a problem with the eyfinder setting (I mean not adapted to your own vision) you would have the same problem each time in the same condition. All I can do is to remind how it works : the longer focale you use, the less depth field (at 10, almost everything will be sharp, at 40 you will have to measure more accurately), the more light, the more depth field (if the aperture is 16 or 22, you will have much less trouble with focus than with a 1.8 aperture) and the lower meter setting, the less depth field (if you put 1.2m, you will almost have to use a tape measure while if it is set on 10, 20 or infinite, you will almost not have no worry about the focus but of course you have to set that according with the actual distance of teh subject). Sorry if that sounds too basic but that all I can do [Smile]

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on May 22, 2017, 02:35 PM:

Yes normally I focused with the lens at full telephoto then zoomed back before starting the shot to ensure it would be in focus even if I zoomed in again during the shot.

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on May 22, 2017, 02:57 PM:

Hi Pierre, I think it is a really vibrant film, especially with your choice of soundtrack.

Your frame and image choices are well considered and make for a really quite cool "super 8" visit to London.

Personally, I like the hand-held approach together with your lively soundtrack. I think it's a really nice example of retro mixed with contemporary.

I think your choice of 500 ASA is a wise one given your variable circumstances, although as Paul points out, perhaps the grading (on the digital scan, I presume?) is not the best.

Although, as you have filmed with a negative stock you can go back and re-grade this pretty much however you like.

Certainly, you could produce a much more contrasty and colour rich image from your camera negative, but that is the beauty of shooting with negative film...you have the original, so can alter it now as much as you want.

Given a high quality scan of your camera negative, you can manipulate it pretty much how you like, even with half decent software.

I see this version as what we used to call a "one light pass" ie; not graded at all, just let's see what we have to work with.

Given the latitude of "modern" film (and I mean anything post about 1994!) you can get amazing results from pretty much any negative stock albeit very over or under exposed.

Regarding the focus, I reckon it isn't too bad for a standard super 8 camera lens of the time.

Pierre, was that traffic light shot exposed when it was reasonably dusk? Even with 500 ASA old super 8 camera lenses weren't the best when pushed to the zoom limits, so I wouldn't worry too much. Even so called XL cameras (designed for low light) were dreadfully soft when the zoom was at it's max, due to poor glass.

Just try to use the lens on it's wider zoom settings for better focus perhaps.

Still, really enjoyed it, thanks!

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on May 22, 2017, 03:08 PM:

I enjoyed your film also, it was a nice montage of images and like the quick cut of the man in the window long shot/close shot. That is a nice alternative to zooming. I came away with a feel for the city.

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on May 22, 2017, 03:33 PM:

Have to say, I've watched this a few times more now and, technical issues with film aside, there is no doubt that Pierre's framing and sense of timing with the subject and music is just great.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on May 22, 2017, 04:08 PM:

I really liked it.

Lovely filmie feel to it.

Thank you.

Best Mark

Posted by Stuart Reid (Member # 1460) on May 22, 2017, 04:19 PM:

Pierre, I would like to see a small section of the digital media before it is uploaded to YouTube, it seems very heavily compressed. Would that be possible? I work as a video editor and have a suspicion you're not optimising the file for YouTube.

Posted by Pierre Beuzat (Member # 5139) on May 23, 2017, 05:39 PM:

Thanks a lot everyone, I really appreciate [Smile]

For the color signal : yes, it was correctly focused. Which is why I'm a bit confused...

Stuart,of course I can send it to you by message !

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