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Subject: Medium Format Film Recording Question
Date: 2007-06-22 20:32:22
From: Edwin Baskin
Can anyone point me in the right direction for looking into recording
digital photos to medium format film?

I'm curious about it and I have no idea what's out there, what's good,
what sucks, etc.

I have my own E-6 film developer. Is that a usable piece of the puzzle.

Thanks in advance,
Ted
Subject: Re: Medium Format Film Recording Question
Date: 2007-06-23 07:45:27
From: John Hart
--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "Edwin Baskin" wrote:
>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction for looking into recording
> digital photos to medium format film?
>
> I'm curious about it and I have no idea what's out there, what's
good,
> what sucks, etc.
>
> I have my own E-6 film developer. Is that a usable piece of the
puzzle.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Ted
>

The machines to do this a big and expensive, and rare. I presume you
want more than just hanging a MF camera on a 35mm film recorder like
the Polaroid ProPalettes (which doesn't gain any image quality apart
from smaller granulation relative to image width). The best results
seem to come from the machines that are used to make IMAX masters from
digital sources onto 70mm film. Not your DIY sort of thing, I'm sorry
to say.

Two companies that do it are:

www.slides.com
www.gammatech.com

For the first, it's not on their website, but it's $5 per pop, and you
should call David at the 800 number about formats and resolutions, etc.

The output is not as good as an original transparency out of a hassy,
but for some subjects it looks really good. I do this to make pairs
from digital files when I want to show a small amount of material to a
few folks using a hand-viewer. Considerably more impressive than 35mm
slides :-)

John
Subject: Re: Medium Format Film Recording Question
Date: 2007-06-23 11:35:40
From: Michael Kersenbrock
John Hart wrote:
> The machines to do this a big and expensive, and rare. I presume you
> want more than just hanging a MF camera on a 35mm film recorder like
> the Polaroid ProPalettes (which doesn't gain any image quality apart
> from smaller granulation relative to image width). The best results
> seem to come from the machines that are used to make IMAX masters from
> digital sources onto 70mm film. Not your DIY sort of thing, I'm sorry
> to say.
>
Although the Polaroid 7000 film recorder doesn't function with cameras
larger
than 35mm, (I've two of those) the identical looking model 8000 has
adapters
up to sizes even larger than 6x6 format. Now, whether he'd like the
result is
something else, but I'm just saying that the 8K isn't made for just 35mm
as my
7K's are. XYZYX has or had a film recorder that did large sheets and ran
much like a drum scanner , but in reverse. Don't know if "drum recorder" is
the proper term. It was REALLY spendy though. The stats for it is
in the article I wrote a long time ago for the CSC newsletter, if one wanted
to find that article it'd be in the back issues somewhere
at http://www.cascade3d.org/Newsletters.html (there's a search function
that theoretically should find it).

Mike K.
Subject: Re: Medium Format Film Recording Question
Date: 2007-06-23 12:35:43
From: John Hart
--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, Michael Kersenbrock
wrote:>XYZYX has or had a film recorder that did
large sheets and ran much like a drum scanner , but in reverse.
Don't know if "drum recorder" is the proper term.

You may be referring to the Lightjet 2000 from Cymbolic Sciences
(?). This indeed made large transparencies (I once did a few
8x10"'s) by setting the film on a cylindrical drum, and then scanning
onto it with a rotating and translating and modulated RGB laser
flying spot laser beam. High quality photo-prints are made the same
way (with a different device). I don't know the state or
availability of such devices anymore. These were not designed for
fine details on small hunks of film, though. Maybe 1000 dpi (which
on 8x10 is significant).

W.r.t. the ProPal 8000, I think the limit is the CRT tube, not the
media (i.e. camera) that you attach to it (up to 4x5). The 70mm film
recorders have significantly larger and higher quality tubes (and
originally cost >~$200K, probably 10X or more the PP's' cost).

John
Subject: Re: Medium Format Film Recording Question
Date: 2007-06-23 18:04:21
From: depthcam
--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "John Hart" wrote:
>
> --- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, Michael Kersenbrock
> wrote:>XYZYX has or had a film recorder that did
> large sheets and ran much like a drum scanner , but in reverse.
> Don't know if "drum recorder" is the proper term.
>
> You may be referring to the Lightjet 2000 from Cymbolic Sciences
> (?). This indeed made large transparencies (I once did a few
> 8x10"'s) by setting the film on a cylindrical drum, and then
scanning
> onto it with a rotating and translating and modulated RGB laser
> flying spot laser beam. High quality photo-prints are made the
same
> way (with a different device). I don't know the state or
> availability of such devices anymore. These were not designed for
> fine details on small hunks of film, though. Maybe 1000 dpi
(which
> on 8x10 is significant).



>
> W.r.t. the ProPal 8000, I think the limit is the CRT tube, not the
> media (i.e. camera) that you attach to it (up to 4x5). The 70mm
film
> recorders have significantly larger and higher quality tubes (and
> originally cost >~$200K, probably 10X or more the PP's' cost).
>
> John
>


I have an Opal with an MF head. Haven't tried the MF head yet so
can't say what the results look like. XYZYX have a Rhino+ LVT
recorder with which they can record 4x5 film at very high
resolution - needed because the final image pair is so small (V-M
format).

I suspect that most of these film recorders are no longer made.

Francois