Scan your 8mm Film
I found 4000 feet of old 8mm family movies. Watch and learn how I scanned them.
If you can’t see or play the video above, use this link instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MorrtUVj3c
I’ve been hanging onto this reel of 8mm motion picture film for 46 years!
But a couple weeks ago I also got a box full of even older Regular 8mm and Super 8mm reels from my parents. A lot of it was shot by my father and my grandmother in the 1960s.
Here’s some of the old 8mm film I will be scanning with this machine.
I decided it was time to do something with all of it.
There are a few reasons that the time was right. A big family reunion is coming up in a couple of months and I want to share some of this old footage with my cousins and aunts and uncles. Plus I’m curious to see some of the films my dad shot from before I was born, and me as a little kid of course. [show Marlene’s 3rd birthday]
But mostly it’s because I wanted to see what is on this particular reel again. What do you think is on it? You have one guess.
If you said skateboarding, you’re right!
Here’s a little skateboarding history for you from 1978.
My little film was shot with a wind up 8mm motion picture camera. I remember if it got to the end of the spring the film would slow down a bit. But when you played it back it was fast motion. Quite funny actually.
We had many family movie nights when I was a kid, and of course when I visited my grandparents, these 8mm films were often part of the nightly entertainment. The old movie projector is broken now. So having these memories digitized has become a huge goal.
I did a bit of research on film scanning service companies. But I have about 4000 feet of film and realized it would be costly.
I also didn’t want to let this film out of my sight. I couldn’t risk it becoming damaged or lost. Plus, I’m a hands on DIY type.
Enter the Kodak Reels 8mm and Super 8 Movie Film Scanner.
This is a consumer grade film scanner. It’s basically fully automatic. But super easy to operate. I just followed the instructions in the owner’s manual.
Now there are issues with white balance and I noticed that the colour jumped around a bit from frame to frame in the same scene. But honestly - how many times do we add filters to our clips to fake this look?
How long does it take to scan the film?
It took about 30 minutes for a 3 minute 50 foot little film reel. I did a 7” reel and it took just under 5 hours.
After 3 hours of scanning a large reel, the frame area didn’t drift. But, it occasionally got stuck on a splice. I don’t recommend leaving it completely unattended, but you can definitely grab a coffee. If the scanner does get jammed, it won’t tear the sprockets, it will just sit there until you pull the film a bit to get it through the gate.
Standard 8mm film closeup
Keep in mind the area of each movie frame is smaller than most digital camera sensors. So when you scan it and enlarge it to 1080p, it’s going to be soft. But that just adds to the charm. Probably didn’t help that my film camera was fixed focus and fixed f-stop.
Dimensions of the Super 8mm and Standard 8mm film
I bought this Film Digitizer directly from the Kodak website. It was actually cheaper for me in Canada, to buy from there instead of Amazon. And, even though it came from New Jersey, the shipping only cost $6 and there was no Customs or GST to pay when the courier showed up at the door, because that has happened to me previously when I’ve purchased gear in the USA.
This is the Kodak Reels 8mm and Super 8mm Film Scanner
Now I’m sure there are better options out there for 8mm film scanning, but this is good enough for my current purposes. I’ll let the next generation figure something else out.
Links:
Kodak Reels 8mm Film Digitizer https://www.kodak.com/en/consumer/product/printing-scanning/film-scanners/reels-film-digitizer/
Kodak Reels 8mm Film Scanner on Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3TlhU24