Real film look in 2K

Mario Loose is happy. The new film scanner he purchased for his Berlin-based company screenshot exceeds all expectations. More sharpness, improved color reproduction, good image stability – the MWA Flashscan Nova is a powerful device. And customers of Berlin-based click & surr can also rejoice. With the Development & Scan vouchers available there, all their Super 8 films will be scanned on this scanner from now on. The best thing about it: the price for the voucher remains unchanged.

“Now we can get the film look even better,” says a delighted Mario Loose from screenshot. He sits between his previous best piece, the MWA Flashtransfer Choice, and the newly installed Flashscan Nova. “With this we have found a good solution for Super 8, 8mm, 9.5mm and 16mm. The scanner works up to 2K in real time, and the image stabilization at the top of the perforation gives a perfect result,” says Loose, proudly pointing to the MWA accessory case. It contains all the precisely machined interchangeable parts for the film formats: film gates, rollers and sound heads.

Thanks to a modified light source, further developed software and a new industrial camera from Baumer, the image quality of the MWA scanner has been significantly improved compared to previous models. The device offers scans up to 4K and outputs a maximum of ProRes 4444. “For click & surr’s low-cost vouchers, we deliver 2K. There you can see everything that is qualitatively contained in the Super 8 image. Ideal for the workflow of most customers working with this film format,” Loose reports.

The Nova can also be used to sample optical or magnetic sound. This takes into account the offset between the film gate and the sound head, which is common with projectors. Since 4K can only be sampled at 15 frames per second, the existing audio is later automatically adjusted and synchronized by the software. In addition, a wetgate allows scratches from film prints to be largely eliminated in the scan. “This saves a lot of time in post production,” knows Loose, who uses this argument to make the additional costs incurred in scanning palatable to his customers.

Mario Loose is particularly pleased with the perfect film look that the Nova delivers: “There are no more illegal colors. The grain of the film looks more natural. Shadowy and black areas in scenes used to have mostly bluish grain that looked like electronic noise. That’s gone now!”

The click & surr vouchers for developing & scanning in 2K continue to cost 59.95 euros for color negative films such as the Kodak Vision3 50D, 200T and 500T. For Kodak Tri-X black & white film and Kodak Ektachrome 100D color reversal film, the price is 63.95 euros due to higher costs for development.

Processing & Scan 2K Super 8 Color Negative Film Kodak Vision3 (Germany & EU)