Super 8 film transfer using Ambico converter

[Bruce Bange]

I have quite a bit of super 8 (reel to reel) film which I'd like to transfer to digital. Ambico Tele-cine converter V-0612 which I purchased some years ago knowing I would have to do this in the future. I cannot get the picture in focus on the little screen of the tele converter. It's fine when I project it on the wall 3 foot away but no matter how I try to use the focus adjuster on the reel to reel player or what distance I am from it, it doesn't focus. Any suggestions?

[Gary Sayers]

I had one of these tele cine converters. I was never sure which gave the best result - projecting through the rectangular ground glass screen and filming with the camcorder pointing through the round lens or the opposite way round, with the camcorder filming off the ground glass screen and projecting through the round lens.

Either way, there was always a 'hotspot' that ruined any transfer for me.

I don't know why you can't get the picture in focus other than to move the projector and/or the camcorder further back. Also make sure the zoom lens on either machines are correctly adjusted.

Personally, in the end, I decided to do 'off the wall' transfers, which gave much better results.

If you opt to do it this way, and your films we're shot at 18 fps, project at 16 and 2/3rds fps and have the video camera set at 1/50 shutter speed. When you play it back, you really won't notice that it's slightly slower.

If the films are 24 fps, shoot the same as the 18 fps films but speed up in editing. If you don't want to do this in editing, project at 24 fps and have the video camera shutter at 1/80.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Can you project the picture to the white screen down to that size? If yes then the issue is at the camera side, not the projector side.

One reminder: these things were made back in 80's when vidicon camera still ruled the earth. The consumer camcorder at that time would have around 250 TVL resolution - at most. Pointing a today's 4K camera to it you would not only see the image, but the surface texture of the screen itself.

[Phillip Daniel]

Bruce, I don't know how many reels of 8mm you have, but I convert taped movies/videos, 8mm and super8mm, 35mm slides, negatives and photos to digital and burn to DVD, CD or flashdrive. I use a Wolverine 8/super8 digitizer for both 8mm films. I will attach a pic of what it looks like. You can find a used one for a reasonable price, but if you aren't going to use it any further than converting your films it may not be cost effective. If you are willing to pay the shipping round trip, I can convert them for you. The digitizer takes a pic of each frame on the film, converts it to digital and puts it onto a SD card in the digitizer as a movie. It is in MP4 format. If interested get back to me and we can discuss it further.

[Janice Glesser]

Hi Bruce and welcome to the Forum! In my early experiences with film to digital I found the Ambico Transfer System V-0655 was the only box producing acceptable transfers. I don't remember having a problem with hotspots either, but it's been a while since I used one of these. Here is a video I produced using that system at that time.

[Alan Paterson]

The way to get rid of hot spots is to make a device that goes over the projector lens from the cardboard centre tube of a toilet roll. Make a crosshair out of black thread cellotaped over the end of the tube, then glue a round piece of paper (about 6mm diameter or 1/4 inch to USA folks) in the centre of the crosshairs. Use a paper punch to easily make this piece. Fit the tube over the lens and project some film. Slide the tube backwards and forwards till the hotspot disappears. A lo-tech solution but it works.

[Brian Fretwell]

I would suggest that hot spots would be more of a problem if you use the wide angle setting of the projector lens. Use the longest focal length projector lens as more of the light will be on axis with the screen system.