[stormtech]

At Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws today, they asked me if the following was possible, and I just don't know.

They want to take a single frame from an 8mm movie film and make a print from it. My first reaction is the huge amount of upsizing that would be required even for a 4x6 print, but the quality isn't that important. This is a baby pic for one of their close friends that lost all their baby pics, and would like to do this to surprise them for Christmas.

I did a quick Google search, and only found companies that offer transferring an 8mm film to DVD. While that isn't the end result they want, maybe this could be plan "B" if a single image could be harvested from a DVD.

So, I am at kind of a dead end here - looking for some help from anyone who can help with a way to do this.

Thanks!

[Miguel]

LittleFilm.org LAB SERVICES

I'd call one of these places and ask them.

Alternatively, you could project the film on a clean bright screen and photograph the image. I cannot remember if one can pause an 8mm movie for very long before it starts melting, so setup the still camera ahead of time and make sure the shutter exceeds the frame rate of the projector.

Or have Costco convert the 8mm to DVD and get a screen grab after the conversion.

Or, using a flat bed film scanner, scan the length of film that has the desired frame. You may just get enough bits to make a 4x5 or 3x5 print of recognizable quality.

M

[RKKS08]

Minox (the "spy" camera) used 8x11mm negatives and slides.

If you can find someone who still has enlarger equipment for COLOR minox films (and lots of experience), and can handle making prints from slides, this would be a possibility.

Or if you can find someone with a Minox slide projector (they existed!), you could shoot images from the projection.

Or shoot it with extreme macro equipment.

For each of these possibilities you would have to find a way to fixate the film without damaging it. With an enlarger for Minox film this should not be a problem.

[stormtech]

Thanks for the suggestions Miguel.

I like the idea of a DVD conversion. I am totally naive about movies - how difficult is it to get a screen grab? The only software I have that pertains to movies is Roxio 2012 but have never used it.

I would try the flat bed film scanner, but don't have one or have access to one.

[Ratmagiclady]

With a DVD conversion, you should be able to get stills out of it, in the right format: that's probably the simplest way. I think you could actually ask the service to do that. The scanner solution also should work.

If it were black and white, I could probably do it in my darkroom with a great deal of contrivance, but I think the digital route would be much more expedient for you.

[Colbyt]

I had no opinion since I had no experience ever with the subject. Then I said what the heck I have a few minutes so here is what I did.

I had a very low quality video on my hard drive. I think my grand-daughter was fighting for control of the camera at the time. It was in whatever format canon uses. I had a never used copy of windows movie maker on my hard drive. It took longer to figure out how to import the canon format than it did to do the capture. I watched the video and paused on this frame. Then I used print screen to Capture the screen, copied that to PhotoShop, did a sloppy crop and saved that as uncompressed jpeg. This is the result:





After this I think a digital conversion and following something along the above lines is your best bet. I cropped it so as to demostrate where it came from.

[stormtech]

Awesome idea Colbyt - thanks for taking the time to run through this for me!

I am going to go ahead and try this. I can have my in-laws get a DVD made at their Wal-Mart or pharmacy, and have them send me the DVD. Even if the screen capture isn't the best quality, once I have something in jpeg I can work on it from there and be able to print it.

I'm just hoping the format that the DVD is in is something I can work on in Windows Movie Maker or Roxio. Worse case scenario is that the DVD comes with it's own player where I can stop the video and grab a screen shot.

Awesome!

[Colbyt]

Movie maker has a list of importable file types about half the width of this post. I think you will be fine.

[wildweasel]

This might help. Scanning Film Negatives With A DSLR - A Maker's Guide | DIYPhotography.net

Convert Old 8mm Film to Video Using an HDSLR | DIYPhotography.net

[jogiba]

Why not get the 8mm converted to DVD then upload it to youtube and setting it to private or unlisted so friends or relatives could see it.

[stormtech]

Why not get the 8mm converted to DVD then upload it to youtube and setting it to private or unlisted so friends or relatives could see it.

That's also a great idea, but they want a print for some reason - I guess this is something in conjunction with something else as a Christmas gift.

[Colbyt]

A lot of us old folks like a hard copy.

[stormtech]

A lot of us old folks like a hard copy.

Ha - right you are!

Which brings up another point of not uploading to youtube - none of the people involved even own a computer or anything like it - also still use P&S film cameras.

[fotoreporter1975]

I second RKKS08 suggestion to use a dslr or a mirrorless with a macro lens. Maybe, even better given how small an 8mm frame is, a wide-angle mounted inverted (with an inversion ring: more or less 5 bucks if you don't have one).

If you want to follow this method you may take a look at this post of mine:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/film-processing-scanning-darkroom/206210-...technique.html

In case just ignore the multishot thing; I don't believe that an 8mm movie frame has this much information to require more than a single shot with a 6 megapixel or more camera.

Hope this helps.

[Miguel]

Fake scanning of transparencies and film by using a macro lens on a good DSLR is a nice concept that is very imperfect. I've been converting film to digital media for clients for a few years. I've set up a similar workbench using an inverted color enlarger head with color correction capability. I've used it to convert 135mm and medium format media. I've also tested the same against a dedicated film scanner and a good Epson flatbed scanner with film scanning capabilities.

Nothing beats a film scanner. The flatbed and the DSLR method were essentially tied-- not because they produced the same images, but because both produced equally good or mediocre images that looked different from each other , thus requiring more attention in post. The variables were the type of film (Kodak, Agfa, Ansco etc) and contrast quality of the original work.

It would be far easier for the OP to get the 8mm movie converted to DVD and do a screen capture for cleanup later in software.

M