HELP! Copy 8mm cine to video

[MikeOxon]

I recall reading somewhere of a technique where 8mm cine film could be copied by pointing a video camera directly towards the projector.

A sheet of paper was placed in the beam and the projected image focussed on that. The video cameras was then focussed on the back of the paper, after which the paper was removed, with the camera focus remaining locked on the same plane. The 'aerial' image could then be recorded directly by the video camera. This removed any artefacts caused by copying from an image projected onto a screen. The result was mirror-reversed but that could easily be corrected in software.

Does anyone have any more information on how this set-up works and any guidelines for camera settings?

Mike

[Graham_of_Rainham]

I can’t see that working as the light from the projector has not formed a coherent image.

[BDennis]

I’ve never heard of this method. Like Graham said I don’t see how that would work. With the piece of paper there, you are capturing the projected image on the paper. If the paper is removed, the light rays coming out of the projection lens just keep diverging with nothing there to stop them so not a lot of it will enter the video camera doing the capture.

I’d have thought for best results you’d either have to scan every individual frame direct off the film or project it onto a matt plain white surface in a dark room with the capturing video camera either directly above or below the projection lens to avoid parallax problems.

[Bruce Clarke]

That sounds vaguely familiar, but hard to see how it could work. There are companies that specialise in this sort of transfer. Won't be cheap, but may be worth it depending on quantity.

[BenC]

The down and dirty way to do this is to simply project the image onto a screen and shoot the screen. As mentioned above. Place the video camera as close to the projector lens as you can. Since this is 8mm film, project the image as small as you can to frame and focus the video camera onto. Ideally use a proper projection screen. If you projection is too large, then the image will be dull, lack colour and contrast. Some of that you could fix in edit (Premiere, FCPX or Da Vinci), but better to get it in camera at the best quality you can.Too small and the chances are the projector is so close to the screen that the video camera cannot shoot the projected image without parallax issues. You would have to experiment to find the best compromise. The other problem you will need to solve is matching your video frame rate to the frame rate the film was shot at. This may be difficult to do with most consumer video cameras. Since 8mm cameras were hardly the hight of precision, even if you think the film was shot at 24, 25 or 30 frames per second, it probably wasn't exactly that. If your video camera has a clear scan feature or you can dial in record frame rates incrementally rather than the standard formats of 24, 25 and 30, you may encounter some flicker. Flicker though, kind of works with the "vintage" movie theme perhaps. Just lay a projector soundtrack underneath ;-) Sometimes though, 8mm film was shot at 16fps or even 8fps that gave the user more shoot time for a given footage of film. The result would be jumpy subject motion. Unfortunately no consumer video camera can cover those frame rates. If that is the case, well I think you could play with adjusting teh clip speed in a video editor but that would be hit or miss and the results would not be smooth motion.

[Mark_R2]

This is a technique known as relay imaging. It is done all the time in laser beam transport. Just because the image is in free space does not make it any less real. So for sure you can image it with another lens. The snag is the camera lens has to capture all the light that is diverging from the free-space image or you get very strong vignetting (and a dim image). Because the light from the free-space image is diverging, this means the camera lens may need to have a very large front element to capture it all. With a normal camera lens, you would need to create a small image from the projector and have the camera lens pretty close. So, i think this is not very practical without adding additional optics to collect the light from the projector image.

[MikeOxon]

Thank you Mark. I think you have confirmed what I was thinking. I might have to try some experiments to find what is feasible. Now I know the correct term, I shall try to find out more.

[Scottwin]

When my-in laws dug out their cine films we simply recorded the projector screen with a video camera, the nice thing about that was the recording of their natural discussion about the people and situations in the films - it brought the films to life for those who were too young to appear in them. My brother-in-law compiled the videos onto DVDs (not sure what mastering software he used) which were distributed around the family. With my father-in-law having passed 2 years ago its lovely to hear his voice again when we periodically watch the DVD.

[MikeOxon]

I agree, simply copying from the screen is the most straightforward was and I like your idea of capturing family reactions on the sound track. I was trying to remember where I had read about the direct beam, which Mark-R2 tells me is called 'relay imaging'. It may not be practical but i felt it should be considered as a possibility. i wish I could remember where I first read something about it.

[Wreckdiver]

The immediate thing that occurred to me was synchronisation. Obviously, the video camera's frame rate would have to be the same as the cine film's, then the two would have to be sync'd otherwise you would get rolling black bands.

Just a thought,

Steve