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Hi all - Newbie here. I see many posts are older, so I'm asking for an update on this. What is the best solution for home digitizing of 8mm and Super 8? And how do you handle sound with Super 8?
Thanks!
Thanks!
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Well that depends.
Like any other hobbies (and even some professionalism) this boils down to 2 questions. Where you are at the moment? And where will your "goal" be?
For most amateurs with not-so-high expection those Wolverine scanners - including those rebranded ones seems to be the best option (actually THE ONLY OPTION). It ticks every box except the resultant quality, which leaves a lot to be desired.
The other solution would be probably DIY route. But will be sure wildly variable. Could be anything from total failure to near-professional result and anything between.
As soon as those 2 questions answered, things will be a bit easier then.
PS I chose DIY route. Went through hell
for years to finally get some acceptable results.
(Negative film & home brew processing, hence the massive grain.)
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I got a Wolverine Pro from B&H Photo. I've got tons of old films my parents took since I was born 72 years ago and film from 50 years of my marriage to my wonderful wife.
I hooked up the Wolverine. Pretty straight forward if one is used to handling 8mm and Super 8mm film. Did a couple of 200' reels. OK. Then on the second day I had it, it started skipping a beat on the film travel. Usually it does two frames per second, but on perfectly intact film (no torn sprocket holes, no splices) working on perfectly good, smooth, intact Kodak Super-8 film it would hic-cup. It was like the claw, or in this case, the wheel that transports the film frame by frame would slip. There wasn't excessive tension on the film.
I know the Wolverine is warrantied for a year or up to 200 on their counter. My counter was already up to around 20 on day two. For $400 I wasn't going to take the risk of having a $400 piece of equipment that no longer worked in thirty days. I had far to much film to copy. I returned the Wolverine Pro to B&H and today I got word that they have received it back. B&H thus far has been very good to deal with.
I hoped for better, but Wolverine needs a much, much more stable, reliable film transport system.Comment
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Yes agree. That is one of the weak points for the system. All of the owners of Wolverine experienced some issues with the film transport including myself. In my case I did notice different performance with different types of film. In some cases the claw is too close to the edge of holes (lengthwise) and sometimes it will just slide by. The S8/R8 switch moves the gate in/out and you have to make sure it is all the way to either end.
One person reported that actually fiddling with the switch you can make it work. Not a bulletproof solution by any means but it is what it is.
Another issue is that with some film the tension is higher and the claw engages and at the end of the travel it sticks to the film. Since the claw is spring loaded it will disengage the film a bit later and then slam into the cam below. You hear a clicking sound. Still works but annoying.
Yet another issue is jitter i.e. video shake. There is a whole discussion on that in the forum. Some people do not use the takeup and let the film drop into the box. Changing the tension could help with this as well. Also if the film is wound up too tight can make the problem worse. Rewind the film before scanning. Also can be fixed during postprocessing,
Anyways hope the new unit works better.Comment
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