Moviestuff "Mark II"

Information on the "Mark-I Universal" can be found HERE

What is the big difference between mark and other devices?

Probably the most important difference is the light source with permanent illumination instead of flash illumination and all the resulting disadvantages.

Moviestuff: permanent light

Other brand: triggerd flash light

Why do other manufacturers use the triggerd flash light?

1. It is approx. 4x brighter than a permanent LED with the same wattage
2. The lighting time is very short. This means that the exposure time is also much shorter - there is no blurring due to the permanent film transport.

Even with permanent lighting, the exposure time must be short enough to avoid motion blur caused by the film transport. However, if the amount of light does not permit such a short exposure time, the camera automatically increases the sensitivity of the sensor. This in turn leads to strong noise in the image (see test images). This is exactly what happens with the "Mark II". However, Moviestuff offers a "denoise" function in the software in order to obtain a (just barely) usable image quality. However, this only reduces the noise using a soft focus - which of course has a negative effect on the overall sharpness of the image. So, instead of installing a decent light source (would cost about 50 € more) to achieve a good image quality, Moviestuff tries to improve the poor image quality afterwards. That can't work.

Moviestuff Exposure time basic setting 210 ms	Moviestuff Exposure time optimized for the sensor 32000 ms

At 210 milliseconds, as the exposure time of the sensor is set for Mark II, the image drawn in the frame has no blurring due to the film transport - but it has a very strong sensor noise.	At 32000 milliseconds, the recorded image no longer has any sensor noise. Due to the long exposure time, however, the recorded image would be completely blurred.

Summary

With the existing hardware you cannot record a noise-free picture. In an image processing process, you can only ever achieve the quality of the worst component, which in the case of the "Mark II" is the light source. Unfortunately, replacing only the light source does not achieve the maximum achievable quality. There are other factors that are directly related to this:

The distance between the camera sensor and the light source is too long

Moviestuff supplies the Mark II with a 50 mm focal length lens. Due to this relatively long focal length, the distance from the light source to the camera with Super8 film is approx. 25 cm. It is not possible to replace the lens with another lens with a focal length of 30 mm, for example, as the Mark II mount does not allow the lens to be brought close enough to the film plane to focus the image. It is therefore necessary to replace the focusing slide of the camera with another one.
"The photometric distance law states that the illuminance decreases with the square of the distance between the light source and the illuminated surface." This means that if the distance between the light source and the illuminated surface is doubled, four times the illuminance is required for the same illuminance.

Other manufacturers use lenses with a shorter focal length from 30 mm to 40 mm and can thus reduce the distance between the light source and the camera.

Wrong camera lens

undersized (to) cheap lens

With the Mark II, Moviestuff supplies a Ricoh/Pentax lens with a focal length of 50 mm and an aperture of 2.8. This is not a good choice. Why?

1.)
According to the manufacturer Ricoh/Pentax, the lens is suitable for cameras up to a maximum of 2-3 megapixels. The Mark II with a resolution of 3.2 megapixels is higher. The maximum image quality of the camera can therefore not be achieved. This is particularly relevant if you buy the 4K upgrade; this upgrade does not include a lens with a resolution that can also reproduce 4K. You will only increase the amount of data with this upgrade, but not the quality of the data.

2.)
The lens is relatively "long" with a focal length of 50 mm. The distance from the camera to the light source is therefore very large and a lot of light is lost as a result.

3.)
Due to the initial aperture of 2.8, the lens is much more difficult to focus than lenses with an initial aperture of 1.4 or 1.8.

4.)
With a purchase price of approx. 120 €/USD, the lens is in the lowest range of branded products - which must has an effect on the image quality. High-quality lenses, that also match the quality of the camera, start at a purchase price of 300 €/USD.

Misconstruction of the camera mount

The camera mount has two serious design flaws that can only be rectified by replacing it:

1.)
Each sensor of a camera produces heat when it is used. If the sensor becomes too hot as a result, it produces color noise. Moviestuff installs the camera in a plastic holder that almost completely encloses the camera. The camera cannot release the heat produced and continues to heat up and produce color noise.

2.)
The camera holder is mounted with just one screw in a plastic thread. When focusing the lens, the camera rotates in the mount and the image section slips. If you tighten the screw so that it does not slip, the plastic thread is destroyed.

Incorrect positioning of the LightPin holder

The holder for the light pin, which recognizes the perofrration of the film, is placed incorrectly. The holder is so close to the center of the light source that no lens with a larger initial aperture (e.g. 1.6/1.6/1.8) can fit next to it. These lenses have a larger diameter than lenses with a speed of 2.8 and therefore bump against the holder of the LightPin. We recommend moving and replacing the holder of the LightPin.

This picture shows a lens with 50 mm and an aperture of 1.9. This lens just fits next to the LightPin in the original mount.