I’m using the 2K camera that Roger sells with the RetroScan. (Is that the Chameleon?) I think it does a good job. I would love for it to be 2048x1556, but hey, I always want more.
The next thing I want Roger to do is to offer a 4K camera with 10-bit color depth.
I recently sent a 1969 TV commercial to a professional facility that does professional film restoration. I scanned it with the RetroScan. They said that they couldn’t do much color restoration, because there wasn’t much color left, and the scan was 8-bit. I instantly understood this to be a huge problem, because with 8-bit color depth, you can’t do very much color correction. You don’t have a lot of latitude when you’re adjusting colors or lift/gamma/gain.
However, the facility said that vintage black and white films would probably be fine with the RetroScan. So my plan moving forward is to scan vintage black and white content with some flat scan settings that I’ve developed through trial and lots of error. (Color Channels: no adjustment. Gain=0. Shadow Details=+40.) These settings give me enough dynamic range to make my shots look good.
Roger feels that my side-to-side shifting might be caused by using small supply reels. This might be true. When I’m transferring vintage TV commercials, I have kept them on their original plastic 100’ reels. These reels might be too small and might be causing the films to wobble violently when the end of the film is reached during scanning. I’ll try switching to metal 600’ or 800’ reels. The wider circumference of these reels might solve that problem.
Forgot to mention one thing: my case use for the RetroScan is different from Roger’s target market. I use it to scan film clips that I will upload to Getty Images and sell as stock footage. I do not currently transfer people’s old home movies.
High resolution and stability are even more important to me, and I’m willing to pay for them. Even if Roger added every feature that I wanted, his RetroScan would still be cheaper than the next most expensive scanner, which is the BlackMagic Cintel film scanner at $30,000.
I hope he can increase the resolution and the color bit depth. That’s high on my wish list.
-----Todd Ruel