Super 8 resolution compared with today's HD

[winbert]

Hi all,

15 years ago when video home format was only VHS or LD, I was still proud having super8mm collection at home because many people still declared that the resolution of super8 was superior compared to any available formats.

What about today? can we still say that or HD quality is better than super 8?

cheers

winbert

[Charlie Blackfield]

What about today? can we still say that or HD quality is better than super 8?

Are apples better than oranges? I don't think so. They're just different, that's all. Which one you prefer depends on what you want to do with it. Do you want to make cider? Or Cointreau?

Charlie

[slashmaster]

Speaking of this, does anyone know of a chart that compares the granularity figures of all the different film stocks? I can go to super8data and see that kodachrome 40 has a granularity of 9 but I don't think it shows it for any other film stock. What is it for ektachrome 100 d? What is it for trix 7266?

[RogerG]

I've read online that E100D motion picture film is the same as Ektachrome E100VS 35mm and 120 film. However, I can't cite a source or put up an exact quote. The E100VS data sheet shows an RMS granularity of 11.

If the E100VS connection is true, I'd have preferred they used E100G instead. I shoot 35mm slides with this film all the time and quite frankly love it. It's granularity is 8, and is by no means lacking color saturation. Though I wouldn't describe E100D as grainy (in 16mm - haven't seen it in S8). I shoot primarily to project, so I'd prefer even less grain at the expense of loosing very little color saturation.

[Shanec8mm]

I am by no means a professional film shooter, but I can tell you that I've had great results with 100D. I started shooting 100D in Super 8 and have just recently moved over to regular 8. Been using a Bolex P4 and a Bolex K2. The results are fantastic. The key to getting good results with both Super 8 and Standard 8 is keeping the format within it's limits. Projecting my films I have not noticed much grain at all. The resolution is very good. People that have watched my home movies commented on how clear and sharp they look. Another contributor to this high resolution and sharpness, in my case, would be the Bolex cameras I use.

[Will2]

I can tell you that after projecting a 16mm print I made from some freshly shot Vision 3 negative stock I was amazed at how sharp and "Beyond HD" it looked... Also Kodachrome 16mm I shot a few years ago is truly amazing.

The issue with Super 8 is often simply poor focus so it is hard to say for sure.

[BAC]

Don't they convert old television shows shot on 16mm to HD?

[Patrick02]

Don't they convert old television shows shot on 16mm to HD?

When they have access to the original negative, they can. Interesting that the US used 35mm for decades for a lot of their TV shows whereas most of Europe and Australia etc used 16mm for film origination.

[briankkatz]

Super 8mm film was originally designed to be silent, later in 1973 the ability to record audio magnetically was born. Super 8 has its own importance and strengths but if compared with today's HD i will definitely prefer HD.

from 8mm to DVD..

[Andreas Wideroe]

This topic has been discussed many many times here in this forum, but I still say that Super8 in theory can hold up to 3K resolution.

That is, when everything is perfect.

Check Kodak stocks and line pairs.

/Andreas

[Will2]

Regardless of resolution, the most important think is that you focus your Super 8 camera well. If you do that with a decent camera/lens, Super 8 can hold up well in HD. But keep in mind that it still looks like Super 8, just sharper than if you scanned it in SD.

If your focus is bad like 90% of the Super 8 shot in the 70's, then it just looks blurry.

As evidenced here...you can probably tell which footage was shot on a Canon Autofocus 310xl and which footage was shot on a Beaulieu 4008 Jubilee edition (hint...look at the birds or anything slow-mo). All footage was transferred at Lightpress in Seattle, WA on their Shadow HD telecine.

http://vimeo.com/28847135

If you really like the idea of seeing your film in HD consider shooting Super 16 or 35mm.

[aj]

On film 200 line per mm is really a lot. This can only be achieved using Technical pan like films. Or Ektar 25.
So if you had 6 mm across (you don't) you could register 1200 lines.

When using better then that you will be registering the structure of the film. I.e. grain contours. Good for the ambience but it is of philosophical value.

[carllooper]

Have been trying to avoid responding to this thread but can't help myself. What follows I've mentioned a numerous of times before and it's not without controversy.

As many forum members might recollect, I've been working on digital algorithms, called "super-resolution" (SR), for analysing digitally scanned film, and extracting more information out of the scanned film, than would otherwise reach the eye. SR algorithms have been used in recent history to push past assumed limits in both light sensing (eg. film emulsions) and lenses. Indeed some of the limits usually associated with quantum mechanics have proved not as robust as was once thought.

I had to put my own work in this area, on the back burner for about eight months, due to funding issues, but restarted the work about two months ago. The properties of film have typically been analysed (and still are) in terms of single frames in the spatial domain. SR exploits the idea of information not just being distributed in space (in a single frame) but distributed in time as well (across a number of frames).

In terms of SR algorithms, the way in which information is encoded in film proves more useful than the way it is encoded in digital. With digital the information is sampled on a regular grid which limits the scope of that information. In film the spatial domain is sampled on an infinitely random "grid". The random aspect ensures there are no frequency aliasing issues, while the infinite aspect lends itself to improving the resolution (and dynamic range) on a quasi-indefinite basis. Of course there are all sorts of limits to obtaining a good signal. For example, try as one might, analysing film of a closed box doesn't get you any closer to exposing what is inside the box.

In Camera Lucidia, Roland Barthes talks of the "punctum" (appropriated from the Latin for punctuation) which Barthes refers to as details in a photograph that might catch one's eye, but are otherwise unimportant in terms of what a photograph (photographer) is otherwise signifying, and equally what an observer is being asked to understand (the signified). The punctum is something that gets unintentionally caught up in the process. In semiotic theory images are like texts, composed of signs, which can be decomposed into a signifier on the one hand, and a signified on the other. They interlock with each other to produce meaning. The signifier is the mark made, and the signified is the idea selected by that mark. The reciprical also occurs: ideas can select the marks to be made - it is two way process - the signified selects the signifier as much as the signifier selects the signified. Indeed the sign is regarded as more fundamental than it's component parts. The signifier/signified classification remains at the level of a theoretical demarcation (for the purposes of theorisation). But the punctum violates this idea of the sign as a unity. It insists on the separation of the sign as if they were parts of an interlocking process - but one in which the interlock fails. The punctum acts like a signifier without a corresponding signified. A ruptured sign. Normally this might be called noise. But unlike noise, the punctum fails to dissipitate, fails to become gaseous. It insists on "being there", as if part of the message. It violates the message. It is this violation, Barthes punctum, that I'm interested in amplifying and bringing into focus.

But something like Super8 is typically used for the inverse operation. The potential punctums in the image are pushed back into the domain of the unimportant - into the gaseous, the effect of which is a more dreamlike (or psychological) image which reinforces the message (those aspects which successfully interlock). Memory, nostalgia is one such mode where Super8 is often employed. The details that might otherwise distract from cognition of the message are dissipitated. The sign takes hold and dominates the image. But the same process that dissolves the punctum also threatens to dissolve the sign - and this is a powerful effect. There is a simultaneous sense of presence and loss. Holding onto something despite it's evaporation. That one more glimpse of something before it's gone.

Carl

[Will2]

That's exactly what I was going to say Carl, wow.

The other thing I will say is that I recently was looking at a video I edited in 2003 that was shot half on Super 8 and half on SD video. At that resolution, the Super 8 just looks better than the SD video. In fact the video looks like crap compared to the Super 8. I'm so very glad that I was shooting film then.

Modern HD video looks great, but in 5 years when TVs are 4k, I bet our film will still hold up while all the HD video shot now will look bad. Even simply up-resing film looks much better than doing it to video and with the ability to re-scan film at higher resolution (not to open the theoretical limitations of scanning beyond HD or 2k) I feel that its as future-proof as you can be right now.