DIY, 8mm film scanner Kotokino Mark IV (2020)

[jshipc]

Various sources list the Canon 1000D shutter life expectancy at between 25,000 and 100,000 activations. If the 8mm film is 16 frames per second, then this setup should be able to capture between 26 to 104 minutes of film before consuming the expected lifespan of the camera shutter.

Edit: Changed math from 24 frames per second to 16 fps to reflect the 8mm film fps standard playback speed of 16 fps.

[actionfromafar]

The article does not mention this, but many Canon (and I assume other brands) have an option to use only the electronic shutter. For a non-moving subject such as this, it's the perfect option.

But it's a good caveat to consider when doing such a project.

[cladopa]

I have other canon cameras that could be used with the shutter opened and digital acquisition with Magic Lantern via USB(with hacks).

But today I believe it is much better to use Digital cameras like the Raspberry Pi HQ cameras with good lenses. You don't need hacks, and the sensors come from recent mobile phones modules that have much better quality and technology than old camera digital sensors.

[choilive]

The specific camera model doesn't seem very important its probably whatever they had on hand - presumably you could just replace it with a camera with an electronic shutter and as long as it has the same remote shutter port you could take many millions of exposures.

[throwaway22032]

I don't know about the Canon 1000D but almost all cameras I've used recently have electronic shutters.

There is a rolling shutter penalty so you wouldn't want to use it in the "real world" for moving subjects but if you synchronise it properly (e.g. move one physical frame, take photo, move one physical frame) and ensure that there is no movement during the exposure then this shouldn't make a difference.

Even the worst culprits like a 61MP mirrorless (huge overkill for this task) with ~100ms readout could trivially keep up with 22 shots per minute.

[Clamchop]

Good point. More recent mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras can disable the physical shutter and use only the electronic shutter, which would relieve this problem.

[_Microft]

From the article: "To minimize jitter of the system, and to enable 22 shots per minute, the mirror must be moved into the permanent up position."

This makes it sound like they are using an electronic shutter instead which circumvents the lifetime issues.

[flipthefrog]

The older Standard 8 format used 16 frames per second. Super 8 is 18 or 24 fps

[google234123]

A mirrorless camera can probably be found used for 200$ so that would be better

[washadjeffmad]

I built a Gugusse Roller a few years ago for scanning 8/super8/16 reels, and it's been an absolute workhorse. So Denis's site isn't hugged to death, here's a link to his YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRNF9QvmIiL1MzkNluiv1Q

It's a bit slower, but it's in active development.

[m463]

I wanted to scan some old family super-8 movies. You can buy film scanners that will do the job on amazon. The only problem seems to be that they will encode the video, but nobody seems to convert the magnetic audio track.

EDIT: example - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CN93JSX6

[patwolf]

I used a similar scanner from Amazon for some 8mm. It mostly worked, but I ultimately decided it was a better use of my time to have the film professionally digitized.

I would still love to figure out a good process to clean and upscale the video. I tried Topaz a while back, but it didn't seem suited for some of the artifacts in old, jittery film.

[prmoustache]

The quality is probably not as good but my father got fairly decent results filming directly with his digital camera the projection of the super8 film on a screen (obviously in the dark).

The added bonus is he would grab the sound of the projector which add a bit to the vintage touch.

[ddrdrck_]

This is the good answer. Also to get even better results you can project on a specific small screen using a mirror so you have an even better image. Due to 8mm low quality there is no gain from scanning.

[redundantly]

I was hoping for a sample of the footage being captured, but I don't see any on their blog.

[hkchad]

There's an embedded mkv file that I suspect most browsers won't play inline but you can download it and play w/ VLC.

http://www.sabulo.com/sb/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/0001-026...