Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Scans and Photos of film frames

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 01-11-2003, 12:33 PM:

I noticed in the Tips section and in varous posts here that people are able to get very good quality scans of film frames or stretches of film when referencing print damage, etc.

How is this accomplished? Do you just lay the film on top of a light source and snap a picture? I have never managed to get the film itself in focus when taking a picture (35mm auto focus camera or cheap digital camera that doesn't let me see the picture) just the table, the light, or a nearby object.

Any tips on getting good frame scans or pictures?

=TMP=

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-11-2003, 12:49 PM:

There are actual 35mm scanners (I think they were intended for slides), but all I do is lay the film down on top of a Kelmar rewind bench (the kind with a light), then set a 75mm lens (w/out barrel) on top of two Bevan-Poos (the edges of the poos are up against the edge of the film and the edge of the lens is sitting on the edge of the poos), then I set my digital camera to macro focus and focus manually as I hold the camera above the 75mm lens. It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

The Bevan-Poos are crucial for this, as they are the exact height needed for a good focus with the digital camera. Yet another useful feature of the mighty Bevan-Poo! [Big Grin]

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-11-2003, 03:24 PM:

Brad, can you post a sample of something you have done this way. What camera do you use, does it auto focus in macro mode, or do you have to focus it? On the models I've seen, cheap ones, the viewing screens are poor, and it's very difficult to see if they are in focus.
( everything has to be cheap for me, I've never got any money, I spend it all on traveling the length of England, or popping over to the US for a few days to see rare film shows. [Smile]

Most film scanners can only take short lengths of film, usually six 8-perf still frames, though there are some that will take continuous lengths. These tend to need the film fed in from one end, not too convienient if you want to scan something in the middle of a 2000 foot roll! Also, they are designed to scan only the frame area, not much good if you want to show perforations, edge markings etc.

Many flatbed scanners can scan film without cutting it, some are equipped as standard, others need an attachment. At one time quality was poor, but more recent models can come close to typical film scanner quality. Resolution is usually lower, but quite good enough for on-screen use, probably not for large printing, from so small a film format. I've got good scanns fron 5x4 transparencies on my flatbed, but would always use my film scanner for 35mm still film.

Sample frame Shows a frame which I scanned from a film strip this way. There was quite a wide black border around the picture, so the original image was probably about 15x20 mm. I supplied high resoultion tiff files to the owner of the site, who downsampled them to the required size and saved jepgs for use on the pages. You don't need high resolution for this sort of use. The text was OCRd from the original lecture notes using the same scanner, a reasonably cheap Epson model. Scanning all 51 frames, plus a couple of extra images, and scanning and OCRing the text took about two hours.

I have also re-photographed onto film with a bellows and slide copier on an SLR camera. This is slow, but useful if ypu need to make slides or negatives for a non-electronic purpose.

I have never tried using a digital camera, because I don't have one, but many of them have quite good macro modes, and so may produce good results.

Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 01-11-2003, 03:28 PM:

Perhaps I am missing something... what is a Bevan-Poo?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-11-2003, 03:34 PM:

Stephen, look in the "reviews" section at the Technicolor dye transfer review. There is a shot I took in this manner and then "stretched" out to it's proper proportion.

Joe, look in the "reviews" section.

Posted by Jeff Skallan (Member # 891) on 01-11-2003, 04:47 PM:

I've taken various 35mm slides to a photo shop and had them create high-resolution TIFF files to disc using their professional slide scanner. The quality was acceptable for the most part, but the colors seemed to be slightly over-saturated. I was surprised just how long it took to scan each slide and if it wasn't for having my friend do them for free, the cost would have otherwise been outrageous at $4 per slide!

I've had pretty amazing results going in the other direction of creating film slides directly from my computer monitor. I setup my Minolta SLR film camera on a tripod pointed squarely at the monitor, turned off all the lights in the room and let the camera's internal light meter determine the correct exposure. A trip to the local one hour photo shop and $5 later, they were done. The results were spectacular! Most photo labs can process and mount E-6 slide film within an hour.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-11-2003, 04:58 PM:

Here is what Brad is talking about with the Bevan-Poo's:

And here is a good result I had doing it this way.:

Posted by Jeff Skallan (Member # 891) on 01-11-2003, 05:03 PM:

Wow! That photo is amazing coming from a digital camera! [thumbsup]

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 01-11-2003, 06:20 PM:

An ordinary magnifying glass element taped or otherwise somehow attached directly to the front of a camera lens can give macro capability to a camera without it or enable getting in even closer with one that does. The downside can be some chromatic abberation.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-11-2003, 09:15 PM:

Many flatbed scanners now come with film transparancy adapters for scanning 35mm negatives and even other different types of film formats. Below is an extracted bit of detail I got from scanning a film frame at 2400dpi with my Epson Expression 2450 Photo scanner. And that was just from laying the film directly on the glass without the film holder (since they would hide that waaay cool digital audio data).

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 01-11-2003, 09:31 PM:

Is that 2400 dpi optical or interpolated?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-11-2003, 09:40 PM:

The Epson Expression 2450 sports 2400 X 4800 optical resolution at 48-bit color depth (but that color depth is dropped to 24-bits after completing the RGB scan).

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-12-2003, 04:30 AM:

That scan sucks. A real scanner would have enough resolution to also pick up the DTS and analog tracks. [Smile]

Actually a scan like this (with the DTS and analog) would be great as a printout to show people the different sound formats on the film.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 01-12-2003, 12:54 PM:

These examples are good, but not exactly what I was asking (but I learned a new technique anyway! [Smile]

). Maybe I should have been a little more clear. I meant, how do you get a good picture of a strip of film, such as the example in the Technicolor Dye Transfer review comparing a regular print to a dye transfer print (4 frames of a scene for each).

Without a Kelmar bench, (we have Teco's. *sigh*) could you just lay the film on top of one of those flourescent lights that come in the standees and snap a picture? I can never get clear focus using this method. Either that, or the picture is completely washed out.

=TMP=

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-12-2003, 02:59 PM:

Thomas,

Many flat bed scanners would allow you to scan several frames, my one does up to 5x4, so you could do six frames, including the perfs and edges.

If you are going to do it with a camera, you should mask the area beyond the edges of the film, to reduce flare.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-12-2003, 03:45 PM:

Actually, the film data scan I did included the DTS timecode and SVA analog tracks. But the 550 pixel horizontal limit clipped what I could and could not show. It's kind of interesting to note the data spots for SDDS are not really all that much smaller than those of Dolby Digital.