This is topic South Africa 1971 - 1975 - Zulu - Family in SA - Middleburg Tvl - Wolverine PRO scan in forum 8mm Forum at 8mm Forum.


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Posted by Jake Mayes (Member # 3292) on January 27, 2019, 08:23 AM:
 
For years I have carefully stored my grandad's cine film of our family, some of the footage is historical such as them meeting the Queen and her visit to Qatar. Not scanned those yet. I have screened these many times over the years. They had a few lines when they first fell into my possession and despite many viewings over the years still look good, kept the projectors clean <3

I have never been able to afford a pro scan, and he has many reels to do, but I have made use of the wolverine PRO to do a reasonably good scan of them for backup purposes.

The video here is my family in South Africa / Middleburd Tvl in the 1970s and the Zulu tribe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vMWVPdwkxg&feature=youtu.be

It has been nice to scan them. I am waiting to scan the others until I can get some filmguard.

The wolverine is no professional equipment, but it is what I can afford and it is actually reasonably good for what it is. Any tips to further increase the quality of that one would be great! To anyone using it, make sure you clean the gate and film path with every film you run through, and always test with a junker first.

Of all of this reels, All the kodachrome has held its colour, the ektachrome has held nearly all of its colour, the agfachrome has faded to blue and is starting to go transparent (there is only a small amount of that), so will be converted to B&W.
 

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Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on January 27, 2019, 08:40 AM:
 
I used to shoot a lot of Agfachrome 40 and 160, is this the same stock you have?. The last time I watched them I thought they looked a bit pale in comparison to Kodachrome, though I don't think the colours were strong to start with.
 

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Posted by Jake Mayes (Member # 3292) on January 27, 2019, 08:56 AM:
 
I think it was agfachrome 40.

All the K40 and E160 look very good, with the K40 showing no signs of fading and minor signs on the ektachrome, but none of the Agfa stuff held up. In fact, you can see even the blue in the base becoming transparent slowly, still a deep blue but no black. I can convert these to B/W, though.

To be fair, these films were over the course of their lives moved to ten different countries. Stored in humidity extremes, left on a runway in 45C heat in the middle east for nearly a day and all their records warped that day, left in a damp house until I took them and stored them in freezer bags with silica gel in my house which is constantly kept at 22C. My grandparents are still alive and felt they were best left with me.

So i think storage conditions did play a role in them fading. Only a few of his films were agfachrome, though. I did however see agfachrome slides from the 1970s? that looked almost new.
 

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Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on January 27, 2019, 09:30 AM:
 
I was never keen on Ektachrome 160 as the colour looked weak and it was grainy. The Agfachrome 160 and 40 could be mixed without any difference.

The scans looked very good to me Jake. How would they compare if shown on the same size screen as a film projector, or will you watch them on TV.
 

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Posted by Jake Mayes (Member # 3292) on January 27, 2019, 10:45 AM:
 
Well, compared to the originals on a projector (w. or without filmguard as i sampled filmguard only once on one of them a while back with a friends bottle of the stuff, but he no longer has it), there is no contest that the originals look better on a good projector, but i will say that that scan is very good, and at TV viewing distance more than adequate and plenty of detail is rendered, and it does not detract from the soul of the video, despite the compression artefacts. If i could afford a pro 2K scan, I would have done that in a heartbeat, though. Until then, I will keep the originals safely stored.

We are going to have a family do sometime in may and im going to bring the original reels + projector to go through them all and give copies of the footage away. I want to wait before giving the scans away as I don't want to detract from the day gathered round the projector, the social aspect, though this one shared as a sample bought my uncles and aunt to tears xD my mother is no longer with us and one of my uncles has amnesia from his childhood due to a motorcycle accident, so they are very valuable.

The wolverine PRO is very good for the money in fact. It doesn't like splices but seems to be very gentle on the film for the most part and after some experimentation it lies perfectly flat in the gate. They could improve it by giving you to the option to turn off all compression and improving the sensor a bit, but other than that they seem to have ironed out many of the problems the early units had.
 

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Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on January 27, 2019, 06:37 PM:
 
It is always fascinating me to see old town and compared with today's. We are lucky now that Google has a street view feature so easily for us to compare.

Your video from minute 14:15 to 15:23 shows how is Middleburg town in 1970s. Several old buildings must still exist to date, and I picked two places and make a comparison.

(ps: The key to find the place is using a possible common name seen in the film and since I could not read some of them I have only been able with these two points. However if Jack Mayes is from the area, he might do more)

The Old Mutual (Die Ou Mutual)



The building retains the structure and design, only now is three-storeys instead of two. But the building on the right side is the same in colour and design.

You can further google street view it via the following link:

Street View for Old Mutual

And the other one is

BP Oil station



Notice the round roof on the old photo (shows sign M or a sort of), it is still shown in the new building but covered by the green BP strips.

Street view for BP Oil

If you are turning right after the station you will see the round roof building I mentioned.

Now it is handed over to you Jack for tracing more historical pictures in your films. Good luck!
 

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Posted by Jake Mayes (Member # 3292) on January 27, 2019, 06:56 PM:
 
Awesome work It is always amazing to see how things have and have not changed. Street view is great. I shared this on the SA reddit group.

Glad you enjoyed watching the film! They also lived in the UAE in the late 70s after SA and then in Qatar, have footage of them meeting Queen Elizabeth II. That one has an emulsion side scratch down the frame, but does have sound. Not yet scanned that one. So there is quite a bit of historical stuff on there.

Jacob
 

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Posted by Jake Mayes (Member # 3292) on January 28, 2019, 10:35 AM:
 
I will give an update, i have halted scanning. I observe the film as I scan it to ensure there is no damage. But it seems with the latest, the scanner has started to inject base side scratches and has also started doing a horrible jitter that is unwatchable. It has done it to an entire reel, one of my positive polyester prints of a family do from 2014. Luckily this is one of the few prints that I have a negative for a new print, I am glad it never wrecked any of my grandad's film. As the scanner is only 2 days old I plan to return it.

Be careful with these wolverine machines if you wish to watch your film on a projector again. Looks like I will be getting Andec to make me a new positive from that messed up print and I am thankful it is one of very few in my collection that I have a negative to go back to...
 

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Posted by Bill Sherren (Member # 6743) on January 28, 2019, 10:41 AM:
 
Did you get it from B&H imported? Mine is going back as it too damages film and has totally unstable scans.
 

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Posted by Jake Mayes (Member # 3292) on January 28, 2019, 10:51 AM:
 
I got it new on eBay from a seller who sells a few of them. I am returning it for a refund, i already had left + feedback...

Good thing it wasn't the footage you see above that was nuked, however I just put it on my projector to double check (i have screened it a few times), though I have noticed a couple of VERY faint base lines lines on the projector in some places that were NOT there before (filmguard will cover those when i get some for the next screening).

My polyester print though is ruined, lines down the left and right and even in the center of the frame on the base side.

I will get andec to make me a new print, an expensive mistake.
 

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Posted by Werner Ruotsalainen (Member # 6217) on January 28, 2019, 11:40 AM:
 

quote:

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So i think storage conditions did play a role in them (Agfachrome) fading.

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quote:

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Yet I have seen agfachrome slides that are perfect from the 1980s.

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