"Retro Film" - Testing Topaz Starlight AI Enhancer with Super-8mm film

 

I have been testing AI Enhancers for a year now and until recently, March 2025, I have seen poor results with black and white, and with film grain. A common result was no change, with or without an error message. But now, surprise! a dramatic transformation from Topaz Starlight, a "research preview ... first-ever diffusion AI model for video enhancement".  At the time of writing, 13 Apr 2025, it is open for free testing with limited amounts of footage. That comes with a condition that they can use uploaded footage in their research. Therefore the performance is from ugly old me and a much better looking cat. IMO Topaz Starlight is a little "over the top" in its changes and if the release version has a control for something like degree of enhancement then I would be into "dialing it down a bit". 

I can see 2 uses:

Old films.
When we were filming with Super-8mm in the 1980s it was because it was accessible and affordable for telling our stories. IMO it is valid with some of these fictional drama films to go for enhancement. I am thinking minimal or no enhancement for our documentary material.

New Retro Filming.
We are having more of a debate with this! Is there a point to analog filming then having it change to look digital - or does it? Is there a case for saying that this hybrid of Super-8mm and Digital Enhancement gives a distinctive new look with its own new artistic validity? Is it good artistic revenge on filmmakers who fake the film look with digital tech, to fake the digital look with retro film? Our actors, documentary subjects and crew are enjoying working with vintage cameras, and they may enjoy it more with enhancement.

See the Youtube description and additional clips for more about camera, stock, chemistry and cat.

"Retro Film" - Processing colour film as black and white

In learning "retro film" we do tests with stills cameras. It is a quick way to test different films and processes. So these still photos really do relate to film-making.

I can sometimes buy 16mm colour shortends, the unexposed remaining parts of big rolls of film. The colour process is a big challenge and I am focussing on black and white. How does processing colour film as b/w work out?

I got my Kodak Retina 1B out of storage. This is a classic camera from about 1954. It had a partly exposed roll of Kodak Gold 200 in it. I shot some more then processed as black and white in Ilford LC29 diluted 1+19 for 13 min at 20 degC. A usual time for LC29 is 8 min. I read somewhere to give more time to colour film and that seems to have worked. 

Now on the TODO list, film something creative with those shortends! As in short comedy sketches which act as team-building test runs for our mad idea of competing in the 48 Hours film-making competition using retro film.

"Retro Film" - Double-8mm with "Double Bohemia"

 

Getting to know Double-8mm by testing with Double-8mm film made by Foma in Bohemia. So of course we went 10km to film in Puhoi, NZ settled by immigrants from Bohemia. Hence the title "Double Bohemia". AND we are testing a Meopta Admira 8E camera made about 1949 in Prerov which is near Bohemia. So does that qualify as Triple-Bohemia?!

I bought the Admira for its removable lens which I assumed was a “D-Mount”. And the threading was correct for D-Mount. It accepted a C-Mount to D-Mount adapter and I tested C-Mount lenses from 16mm cameras, and also a C-Mount CCTV lens. On developing the film – shock! Horror! There was only about 20 seconds of movie and some single frame stills – all taken with the original lens. All the interesting other lenses were extremely out of focus. After some detective work I found a strange sad answer. The D-Mount flange-to-film distance standard is 12.29 mm. On the Admira it is much further, 17.3 mm. Why?! I can only guess that the “communist bloc” worked to different standards but a different thread would have been nice. In the “wise after the event” department, the lens is unusual for having threaded structure going a long way, about 9mm, from the flange into the camera.

The film is Fomapan 100 R designed for reversal processing. I processed as negative because I needed a quick result for planning my next “retro project” move.

I used Ilford Ilfotec LC29 at 1 + 19 dilution for 5 minutes at 20 deg C.

Here in NZ the reversal chemicals are difficult to get, especially during the Christmas/New Year southern hemisphere long summer holiday period. And we have no reversal-capable cine film labs here – the nearest is in the US. Therefore this is not a fair test of Foma film. What info we do get is:

* Processing Foma R as negative is possible.

* The anti-halation layer acts like a 4.5 stop neutral density filter. My homemade digitiser was able to cope with that because it works by taking a photo of each frame with a digital camera. That camera normally runs with a shutter speed of 1/60 sec. In this case it was setting speeds like 1/2 sec. Question: can commercial digitisers handle that big a variation?

* The old Admira spring motor means that I do not know the shutter speed for the bracketing single frame shots. I did light metering assuming 1/20 sec and ASA 50 indicating f/2.8 as the best setting. The result is very different! My digitiser camera is automatically adjusting for negative density which is why the results for f/5.6 to f/16 look much the same. The fact that they look much the same indicates good exposure latitude.

About the Meopta Admira 8E

* In my opinion this has a non-standard design that works against the interesting option of using a variety of D-Mount lenses and other lenses with C-Mount to D-Mount adapters.

* In this test we have random scratches on about half of the film

* The gate and transport look like high quality engineering. However the gate wiggle effect is no better than seen in Super-8. Especially look at the opening shot with the Bohemian Museum road sign. I had the Admira on a tripod and operated with a cable release for max camera steadiness to test for gate wiggle. I am guessing that this particular Admira has had a hard life. A lot can happen in 75 years.

The Admira lens does not have a focussing ring. It relies on Double-8mm having a long depth of field. I am sceptical of this and I am going to suggest that a focussing ring is a must-have. The distant shot of the roundabout appears to have better sharpness than the test chart which was at a distance of 6 feet (1.8 m). I have also been testing wide angle C-Mount lenses on a mirrorless camera and it is showing precise focus changes with only small movements of the focussing ring.

"Retro Film" - lens adaptor arrives

 Mini project "retro fashion analogue film". The "C-Mount to D-Mount" lens adapter I bought on eBay has arrived. 

Round up time for classic C-Mount lenses. Focal lengths range from 16mm to 75mm. The standard focal length for Standard-8mm is 12mm. We therefore expect these to work as telephoto lenses.

Som Berthiot Paris f=25mm from a Pathe 16mm Camera.

Yvar f=75mm from a Bolex 16mm Camera.

And for comparison, the Meopta original D-Mount "standard" lens with f=12.5mm.

I was especially interested in this Dallmeyer lens with f=16mm as an alternative standard lens. The max aperture of f/1.5 is an improvement over the Meopta original of f/2.8. But it was not to be because the lens structure extends back into the camera behind the C-Mount, and the D-Mount hole is not wide enough to take it.

This raises a question. The C-Mount adapter opens the way to using modern security camera lenses. But do they have this structure? Yes they do for very wide angle lenses which is what we expect. Such is the physics of wide angle lens design that they need to have this.
However the f=8mm that I am most interested in looks promising going by the catalogue diagrams.

Source is the ZLKC Official Store on AliExpress.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007224185734.html

f=4mm - has an 18mm diameter section extending behind the C-Mount. 

In the photo of the lens, it appears as the black section at the bottom.

f=8mm. This looks promising as an everyday wide angle for Standard-8 cameras, and possibly as a very wide angle for 16mm cameras. 

TODO test! In the meantime here is some similar experimentation by "Shaun" at Fotodiox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7WSOPUOLKI

"Retro Film" - Meopta Admira 8E camera

A little project on the go here at IAFilm "retro fashion analogue film". I've bought this Meopta Admira 8E 8mm movie camera made in about 1949. It was seized up with frozen controls and the motor not running. Just on the "off chance" I sprayed the control openings with "WD40" lubricant. I did not expect this to work and I really thought I would need to try to dismantle Admira. But super pleasant surprise! Admira came to life and was all go in only a minute. 

The big attraction of the Admira is its interchangeable D-Mount lens. I have ordered a conversion adapter to the more common C-Mount which opens the way to using a big range of classic lenses as well as modern security camera lenses. 

Removable lens also makes the spray lubricant fix possible. Many 8mm and nearly all Super-8mm cameras have built in lenses with elements deep inside the body so spray lubricant is not a good idea. With the Admira I can get the lens away before the spray.

Katherine Mansfield quotes for the US Election

Move over, Nostradamus. Classic writer Katherine Mansfield predicts the US Election from 100+ years ago.

The gathering storm .. we creep away into our caves of contemplation.

They are terrified of the future but it is never out of their sight. Dark, lean, impoverished it follows on their heels; it has a trick of leaping and suddenly rushing forward.

Strange ideas and theories escaping from their cages and running loose in society.

This is the moment of attention. There never has been such a curious hour.

We are the children of an ungracious and a greedy age. Repetition .. wakes in us a demon of restlessness.

I must say I never in my life felt so entangled in politics. But it's horrible. It's like jumping into a treacle pot.

 Our movie "Brave Love" is based on the writing of Katherine Mansfield.

Press Release (Media Release) - Special Screening of Brave Love the movie

 This initially goes to New Zealand media for a New Zealand event. It is also of interest to literati and aspiring film-makers.

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Kia Ora, [NZ media]

I lead a group that has made a 96 minute movie over the last 11 years. Wildly ambitious for a no-budget indie and amazing that we have completed it. We have hired a cinema to do a screening

https://www.academycinemas.co.nz/movie/brave-love

It appears out of nowhere because we have been buried in animated backgrounds and kiwi ingenuity VFX for years. Now shock! it is complete. Tell the media? Get  it reviewed? I'm giving it a go here! There are 4 big ideas of interest.

(1) Climate Change narrative drama movie. The mainstream is not meeting this challenge so we have stepped up.

(2) Katherine Mansfield sources. This is the one and only single narrative movie based on the writing of classic NZ author Katherine Mansfield.
More ...
https://iafilm.co.nz/shell.aspx?tint=2&areaDir=Public&subdir=1.%20Movies&file=2.Brave%20Love%20Adaptation.html

(3) The imaginary city of Lagado from Gulliver's Travels as the location. 300 years after Gulliver visited, Lagado has struck oil and the ruling class of eccentric professors has the money to realise their mad schemes.

(4) Kiwi ingenuity makes a mock epic with improvised green screen studios. Imaginary world building with computer art was taking too long, so we did some of it with miniature sets made of meccano.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3DtMnMPCKc

Surprise discovery! “Brave Love” relates to "Megalopolis" which does Ancient Rome retold in the present-ish day. We do Ancient Lagado retold in the present-ish day. We both include classic literature and quotes from Shakespeare. Francis Ford Coppola sold his vineyard to finance "Megalopolis". John Calder sold his daughter's bicycle to finance "Brave Love".

Ngā mihi
John Calder