8mm at the gate; need help!

[Janice Glesser]

You can not use a standard 8mm lens The lens is not big enough to get the entire frame. The barrel is too narrow also and it will just look like like a tunnel. That's why you need a 16mm lens. Please try setting it up with the 16mm lens...remove the closeup adapters...set the digital zoom to max. You may have to pull the lens further away from the gate and/or also move the camera back. Please try this and take a photo of what the viewfinder looks like after doing this.This is so Nantawat and can see what it looks like and give you feedback. We both have been using a similar setup for a long time. Also try using the 16x9 format and take a pic of how that looks.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

Good morning all. Some positive progress!

1, switched back to 16mm projection lens, now all four corners of gate are again, visible. NO adapters of any kind other than a filter ring adapter to allow a B82 blue filter in front of lens because of color shift issues with the film.

2, I am able for the first time to fill 80 to 85% of the screen with film image! It seems that near perfect alignment on every axis (up, down, side to side, plus both lenses on the exact same center line ) is, at least in my case, super sensitive.

3, Establishing correct distance between projection lens and camera plus zoom ratio Vs projection lens position in the projector with relation to film gate.

, A surprise to me, it seems that my camera is "slow" to learn! I mean by that that I must adjust zoom in "Baby steps", if I zoom to fast it will focus on the grain of the defuser, not the image.

There are 2 more issues at this time, both are mechanical in nature, hot spots caused by LED (paper in front of defuser helps but shows the paper strands on image, will try it on the back side of defuser, or maybe stack a second defuser? And the last is "strobing" as I dim the LED below a certain point ( driver and/or dimmer issue? ).

[Stan Jelavic]

You can try a cap (like 47uF) across the LEDs Jacques to eliminate the strobing effect. The dimmer should still operate OK. One more side note, the vignette could be caused by the lens tube but in this case I believe it is caused by the image beam being projected too wide (short focal length of the lens) and the camera lens opening can grab only the center area of the beam. Can actually be tested by placing a peace of paper where the camera lens is and comparing the image size to the camera opening.
One more note. Are you really using digital zoom or am I misinterpreting your posts??? Should get good quality optics to cover the camera sensor not digital zoom.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

I think we are getting there! Not to shabby for a 50 year old piece of film and an "old school" MiniDV cancorder!

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

On this forum I have heard Scenalyzer and Firewire mentioned in the same breath. Please tell me how to take advantage of the Firewire inputs and use them with Scenalyzer? I thought it was only for Analog editing? If so, does anyone know what software will allow me to use my Pinacle Callisto 7.0 capture card?

Regards as always and thank you all for your help!

Jay F.
Wisconsin

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Just have my scan setup ready for a new job last night. Please ignore the mess in the background.



As you can see it's principally identical to anyone else's setup. I can easily fill the enitre screen within camcorder's zoom range (this particular customer explicitly requested for UNDERSCAN picture, so they have it). I think it's around 7x-8x zoom range.

Another way to check your setup is to move away your camcorder first and have a look directly into the film gate. Can you see an inverted but sharp & well enlarged picture of the film gate? If yes, so does your camcorder.

One more thing about your firewire issue. Maybe a stupid question but feels obligated to ask - does your computer have firewire port?

PS it's negative film, hence the wired color here.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

I have a Pinnacle "Callisto 7.0" video capture card that uses a "break out" box that has "S" video and composite in and out puts and the card has dual Firewire ( in/out I believe? ) ports with external access to the ports.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

Stan, tried 47mf 16V cap across output terminals of dimmer, I must be doing something wrong because it actually made strobing worse! Please advise. Disstance between dimmer and LED is less than 18". OBTW, maybe the LED is not correct? SATCO LED 6.5W 5000K "dimmable" #59499?

[Stan Jelavic]

Sorry it did not work out for you Jacques. That LED pulls around 0.5 amps possibly more which would discharge the cap very quickly during the off pulses. A larger cap could help but that could cause excessive pulse current for the dimmer before the cap is charged up so there is some risk that you may burn up the dimmer. Possibly try a few larger caps. Essentially increase the cap value in steps until the problem is resolved. Failing that use a linear regulator.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

UPDATE! Finally got full frame avi. Most of my filtering is complete but I want to apply 1 more just to see if it helps but can't seem to get it to install in VirtualDUB2. MSU-SmartBrightness_vdf. I must be doing something wrong? Please advise, also if posted in the wrong forum please let me know. Regards, Jacques

[Janice Glesser]

Jacques P. Fontaine Use this link http://compression.ru/video/smart_co...brightness.zip to download the filter zip file. Unzip to the VirtualDub2 (installation directory) > Plugins32 (folder)

It should now show up in the VirtualDub2 app filter list.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

Hi Janice, well, still can't get MSU Brightness to install? It is in plugins and vdf is installed in 32 bit file folder but when I try to access it in the filters menu of VirtualDUB 1.10.4 it tells me that it is not a valid win32 application"?

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Might be unrelated but...

- My 32 bit VirtualDub seems to run OK in 64 bit environment, including all plug-ins. Considering I used the brute-force installation - copying EVERYTHING in Vdub folder from my old 32 bit computer to the new 64 bit ones. Don't know if it's a fluke or something, but it works right out of the box.
- For serious "color grading" it would be the job of dedicated program. Vectorscope&Waveform Monitor would be a must.
- Congrats that you finally sorted out the optical issue!




Here's the screenshor of the finished work I previously mentioned. Vertically flipped/color inverted/adjusted and exported at 720p. Although extremely grainy (this film seems waaay underexposed hence the grain) the customer seems happy with the result. This actually might be the "look" he's expecting.

[Janice Glesser]

Jacques P. Fontaine

...in the filters menu of VirtualDUB 1.10.4 it tells me that it is not a valid win32 application...

You originally stated above that you were using VirtualDub2....

Install VirtuaDub2 latest version using this link:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/vdfiltermod/

In the VirtualDub2 installation plugins32 folder (not plugins64) copy the MSU_SmartBrightness.vdf filter.

[Jacques P. Fontaine]

I have a question: Once completed, what medium do you use to store final edits? My present project is approx. 10.6 GB in size (un-compressed AVI). Not sure I like DVD and some compressors I have tried are crap! What do you use? do you ever just leave un-compressed and store/deliver on a flash drive? This is going to be viewed on a 65" 4K TV at a Wedding Anniversary so for now, I'm thinking flash drive. I'm only asking because it has been a while since I have done one of these and previously DVD ( for me) was best way to go.