Can I Hook Up My Super 8 Video Camera To My Computer

Download Article

If you have 8mm or Super 8 films lying around the house, it is never too early to have them transferred to a video. Each fourth dimension they are projected, they become more scratched and damaged. In digital video form, the content can be preserved in the current land.

Steps Download Article

1

Determine whether your films are 8mm or Super 8. 8mm sprocket holes are larger, maybe one third of the width of the moving picture, and they are on the border of the film between 2 frames. Super viii films have sprocket holes the size of the head of a pivot and the holes are located on the edge merely bisecting the eye of each frame.
2

Find a projector designed to project the type of motion picture y'all have. Y'all may detect that you have some reels of 8mm and some reels of Super 8. Some projectors (Dual 8) can handle both kinds. If you don't ain a projector, bank check out your local Goodwill, eBay or vintage camera store. You lot will probable experience flicker in your transfer unless yous tin can find a variable speed projector. Newer, more than expensive projectors might have a special manner for video transfer.^[ane]

Advertisement
3

If possible, gently clean your films using rewind spindles and pulling the film slowly through a soft, lint-free material dampened with a little film cleaner. ^[2]
iv

Use canned air and an alcohol swab to clean the tape path on the projector. Ideally, you lot will run the picture simply once and remove any dirt that might scratch the picture or blow away any grit bunny that might hop into the frame during transfer.
5

Find a piece of bright white paper with no discernible texture to apply equally a screen. Identify the projector on the edge of a tabular array projecting maybe 24 inches (61.0 cm) to your paper screen taped to the wall. Brand the projected rectangle as small and sharp as possible. Turn on the projector with no film in it to define that rectangle.^[iii]
half dozen

Use a camera or camcorder that records to a digital format similar DV or Digital 8. Newer cameras have better low light capturing backdrop. Best results will come from a camera that has transmission iris and white residuum settings.
7

Place the camcorder on a tripod next to and behind the projector and using zoom and focus, find a position where yous tin can frame up the white rectangle on the screen with as fiddling keystoning as possible. If you tin can hook up a video out of the photographic camera to a monitor, it will make your framing and exposure correction easier.^[four]
viii

Exercise a manual white balance on the photographic camera with that white low-cal on screen filling your frame and set your manual iris so it is bright without blooming. ^[5] A zebra characteristic on the camcorder fix to 100% will help yous practise this. If the camera does not have these features, the automatic settings may exercise an acceptable job.
9

If the projector has a variable speed adjustment, you should be able to tweak out the flicker on this white screen.
ten

Load the sturdiest looking film onto the projector. First your camera recording first and then start your projector. This start pass is your chance to brand whatever adjustments. If you are very lucky, yous could go it on your showtime try. More than probable, you will have to run this first film two or more passes to optimize the image with your manual controls.
eleven

With a digital video master, you tin at present edit or transfer to DVD or VHS.

Advertisement

Add New Question

Question

Exercise y'all have any tips for getting skilful focus with an auto focus camera?

Accept test pictures. Experiment with lighting, distances and center of focus on well-nigh and far objects. Make sure the little doors in forepart of lens are all the way open. Clean the lens and screen.

Ask a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to become a message when this question is answered.

Submit

Advertizement

You might be able to find a rear projection screen with a mirror for lens to lens transfer but beware of screen defects that will show up every bit a texture on all your lighter shots.
These instructions assume your films are silent films. 8mm silent films run at 16 frames per 2d. Super 8 silent films run at eighteen fps. Sound films run at 24 frames per 2nd.
Use a soft, lint-gratis cloth dampened with pic cleaner just upstream from the projector gate and just downstream from the front reel. Pinch very lightly during project to remove dust and dirt earlier it enters the projector.
Make multiple copies from your primary tape. If something happens to 1 , you'll have spares and you lot won't have to become back to the 8mm.
Consider taking your films to a professional person for duplication. They will have all the right equipment and it may be worth the extra cost to avoid damaging priceless family history. Check with your local specialty camera store or search the yellowish pages for a local place that does video duplication.

Thanks for submitting a tip for review!

As yous stand up behind the projector loading the film, the sprocket holes should exist on the correct. If they are on the left, the film might exist wound backwards.
Cleaning the film can besides remove emulsion (the particles that make up the image). Be very gentle and bourgeois with your cleaning.
If the film has been edited in the past, information technology may pause on the splices while projecting. Inspect any splices first and repair with splicing tape if necessary.
If you go to all the trouble of setting up a transfer station, don't waste your time going directly to VHS tape. An analog format like VHS volition lose quality rapidly with each copy.