Talk:Beaulieu 4008 ZM 2
Super 8 and 16mm[edit]
"In any event, who cares really? Obsessing about optimal sharpness and resolution on a Super 8 is a silly. Seems to me that spending thousands of dollars on interchangeable lens Super 8 cameras and expensive European prime lenses in order to extract near 16mm quality from the Super 8 format is asinine and defeats the purpose of the format. You want 16mm quality? Shoot with a 16mm camera."
The above is complete nonsense. If one can extract a near 16mm quality image from Super 8 (as the above argues), then why shoot on 16mm? Super 8 is cheaper. And if you want 16mm quality from a cheaper medium, such as Super 8, then you would buy a good lens, not more expensive film stock. Otherwise it would be that (using 16mm) that would defeat the purpose of using Super 8.
Contemporary Super 8 usage is for mastering a digital release. In addition to finer grain stock being available for Super 8, there are also sophisticated digital techniques for improving the Super 8 signal. But only if a good signal is recorded in the first place. A bad lens produces a bad signal and is very diffciult to improve. With a good lens the only limiting factor is the grain of the filmstock. But unlike a bad lensed signal, a grain limited signal can be improved considerably. Motion-compensated (temporal integration) of a well lensed Super 8 image signal can be improved beyond that of a raw 16mm signal. Indeed it is theoretically possible to achieve better definition than a raw 35mm signal.
Of course you could use the same improvements on 16mm or 35mm.
Carl Looper
