I really have to second this. I've been using a Beaulieu 7008 Super-8
rig instead of Mini-DV in my production classes and there's just no
comparison. Someone pointed out that NTSC isn't as impressive as PAL
and that's a good point, but there are students using PAL C*non XL-1S
rigs because of the added resolution and because in "Frame Movie Mode"
(sort of a half-baked progressive scan mode) they're essentially
shooting in 25P, so it makes film transfer easier and the framerate
looks more like film. Even with the extra 100 lines and 25P, I'll take
my Kodachrome Super-8 footage over their Mini-DV any day of the week.
Now, I can't project for my presentations, so it all has to end up
telecined to Mini-DV at the end of the day, but my film still looks
better than their camcorder footage. The colors are much more vibrant
and the latitude I have when I shoot negative film is just amazing.
Shooting Kodak 200T or one of the Pro-8mm stocks gives me about six or
seven stops of usable latitude. I overexpose by about a stop because
telecine on underexposed film gets all digital-artifact-y, but I've
accidentally shot four or five stops overexposed and in telecine color
corrected and matched it to shots that were shot properly with no real
noticable difference in the end result.
This is one of those areas where film and digital compliment each
other, I think. Editing Super-8 used to be painful. A friend of mine
and I used to make Super-8 space operas with models and railroad tracks
and black thread back in the 70's and it was nightmarish. The stock is
so small and there are no reference numbers on the film to edit by and
if you were shooting sound back then you had to always work around the
synch offset. Now I can shoot Super-8, telecine to video, edit in Final
Cut Pro or Premiere, do post with After Effects including blue screen
stuff and digital compositing, burn the whole thing to DVD and show it
to anyone with a DVD player. I really feel like the two worlds
compliment each other. Same with 35mm, really. I bring home my goofy
snaps on PhotoCD, touch them up in Photoshop and print them on an
inkjet. At 8x10 I'm usually perfectly happy with the results unless the
scans were terrible (which seems to be the case at most local photo
shops that scan and make CDs).
-Rob
On Sunday, December 22, 2002, at 08:07 PM, Dean C. Hansen wrote:
I have put together a 45 minute Super 8 movie on butterflies using
a
Canon 1014XL-S that I show occasionally to garden clubs, nature groups,
etc. Particularly with macro shots of butterflies, Super 8 is really
pretty good. I can project this on a screen 12' or more wide, and I
have heard gasps of astonishment from viewers in the audience when they
see a butterfly's tongue going into a flower to sip nectar. Kodachrome
film in a good Super 8 camera can do a very credible job of capturing
both detail and colors. I once followed a person at a native plant
society meeting who showed a projected video of spring wildflowers.
Sorry, Joe, but my 30-year-old Super 8 technology blow this guy's
spankin' new video away. The edges of the clouds in the sky in his
video were jagged, and the colors of the pasque flowers were barely
recognizable. His presentation, technically, wasn't even in the same
league with the Super 8. With Kodachrome, blues are blue, reds are red
(and don't bleed), and greens are green. People routinely ask me after
a showing, "Gee, you mean you can still get film for that old camera?"
Yes, you can, and the results are pretty darn nice.
What killed Super 8 are cost and, more importantly, the editing
that
is needed to put something together. Cutting, splicing, and working at
a hand cranked editor with a 4" screen is a thankless task. However, I
am very thankful that I shot movies of my kids, starting 32 years ago,
on Super 8 Kodachrome--they still look like they were shot yesterday.
Let me know if anyone can say the same about their videos.
One final note: I recently had a 5 x 7 print made from a
Kodachrome
slide taken at my 6th birthday party in 1948. Fifty four years ago,
and
the print looks like it was shot yesterday. Kodachrome is pretty
amazing stuff!
Best wishes for the holidays, guys,
Dean
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