Why Is Old Movie Film No Longer Sharp?

[m._howard_edwards]

<p>What happens to movie (positive) images over time? Does the grain "bloom" or enlarge, or shrink, or something else? I understand the fading of colors, but that seems to have nothing to do with the crispness of the images. Old B&W movies also seems to be no longer sharp. Does this also effect still film? I have not printed from old negatives, but B&W images from old negatives I have seen do not appear to have lost their sharpness.</p>

<p>Howard</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Please explain format and how many times the examples you are referring to has been copied and if it was ever even Digital? I watched an old copy of Fighting Seabees recently on a large screen and it was wonderful.</p>

 

[JDMvW]

<p>I had noticed the same thing myself. Then I had my cataracts (<a href="http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/cataract/cataract_facts.asp">link</a>) fixed.</p>

[Alan Marcus]

<p>Back a long time ago when I studied Kodachrome processing at Kodak Park, I learned that the dye clouds that make up the finished color image depend on the rigidity of the gelatin to keep them in place. If the dye in the film was not immobilized, the dye might flow and intermingle. Most color films therefore underwent a final step called a stabilizer. This bath contained formaldehyde and a wetting agent. The three-fold purpose was to promote even drying, safeguard the organic gelatin and dye from attack from microorganisms, and make a peptide bond to imprison the dye. Seems gelatin under the microscope resembles transparent spaghetti noodles. Formaldehyde tacks these noodles together wherever they touch one another. This peptide bond prevents dye pooling.</p>

<p>Latter formaldehyde was identified as a carcinogen and it was removed. Less harmful hardeners and biocides were introduces.. However, I have never seen a case where films lost their acuity due to dye pooling. </p>

[larrydressler]

<p>And why I still have gallons of it I get from the funeral home.</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>Because the non-union projectionists at most theaters don't care to actually focus the projector, especially since they are running 8 screens at once.</p>

[peter_e]

<p>8 mm home movies were never particularly sharp, even when taken with a top of the line Beaulieu 4008 camera with Schneider objective. But it sure was an elegant camera. I sold it for a Mamiya 645.</p>

[bob_himmelright]

<p>try focusing your projector....or seeing if the lens is dirty/has fungus.</p>

[dave_redmann]

<p>Do you mean you closely examine a single frame under a loup, and it appears unsharp? Or that a projected motion picture, as a whole, appears unsharp?</p>

<p>If the latter, I wonder whether the problem may be physical wear and tear on the sprocket holes of old prints, which could aggravate jitter, which, after focus errors, I suspect is one of the more important causes of film unsharpness. Some film fans who complain about low-grade digital projection are fond of talking about the superior resolution of film (even distribution prints), but that theoretical advantage is usually swallowed by each frame not being precisely aligned to the previous one in the projector.</p>

 

[emraphoto]

<p>smell it. a vinegar type odor? get rid of it and make sure it doesn't come in contact with any of your enlargers, projectors, other film stock etc.</p>

[leicaglow]

Motion picture imagex are not that sharp. It appears sharp when projected at speed. Motion picture projection is a bit of

a mind trick.

[leicaglow]

Motion picture imagex are not that sharp. It appears sharp when projected at speed. Motion picture projection is a bit of

a mind trick.

[dhbebb]

<p>Don't know what movies you mean. 8mm home movies were never that sharp - people expect more now than when these movies were commonplace. As regards professional movies, I have many DVDs of movies from the 1940s which have been digitally remastered (I presume from the master negative) and look fantastic. I have others with poor sharpness and mushy gray tones which I assume have been prepared from copies (16mm reductions or video tape) and look horrible. Old newsreels almost always look nasty - I suppose they always used the fastest film, which before WWII was about ISO125 and very grainy, even in 35mm movie size. </p>

[larrydressler]

<p>I tried to get the OP giving some details.. Never happened and some of you ran worse than a Flickr thread. I hope the OP comes back.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>... some of you ran worse than a Flickr thread.</em><br>

12 postings including from 3 you? Is that really so terrible?</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>yes.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>My grandfather ran movie theaters all his life and I've played with movie equipment since I was a kid, so I have a basement full of everything from 8mm home movies to 35mm theatrical prints and the projectors to run them on. Nothing I have looks any less sharp than when it was new, and some of it is 50 years old or more. <br />I suspect that what the original poster might be referring to is seeing film on television. I have noticed that some older movies and TV shows when seen on HD TV don't look nearly as sharp as they should. But this isn't because the 35mm film they were shot on has lost its sharpness. In many cases I think it is because the channels (mostly cable networks, especially the ones showing older "classic" shows and movies) are going to air from a video copy that was transferred from film to video years ago at standard definition. Standard definition TV had about half as many scan lines as HD, so when it gets resampled to show on an HD channel it comes out on the soft side. The effect is magnified when you consider that we're all watching on anything from 27-inch to 80-inch screens today and these transfers were made at a time when the largest TV screen was about 25 inches.<br />The networks ideally should be doing new transfers from the original film to HD video, in which case the sharpness of 35mm film certainly equals and can exceed the sharpness of video. But that costs money and many of these networks are showing old shows precisely because they are cheap content that allows maximum profit. So new scans are highly unlikely to happen.<br />I have, in fact, seen recent DVD sets of old shows that have gotten new transfers and they look great. I have a boxed set of Hogan's Heros and I was amazed at how incredibly sharp the footage is. Details are visible that I don't recall every seeing over the air in standard definition.</p>

[m._howard_edwards]

<p>Larry, I'm back!<br>

David and Craig, you came closest to what I was asking about. I was referring to TV shows of newsreels, "government archive" historical clips, and some early TV films (not kine-scope; I doubt that any of those were/are good). I am not sure what "restored" movies have undergone, but they all seem to look remarkably good. Early theater release films, restored or not, look pretty good, and I am not running a HD television set, but a pretty large plasma one.<br>

Howard</p>

 

[dhbebb]

<p><em>I am not sure what "restored" movies have undergone ...</em><br>

I am no expert either, but in general I believe digital filtering can be applied which recognizes and eliminates random anomalies such as dust and mold spots and can also deal with longitudinal scratches (“tramlines”) running the length of the film. </p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>"Restored" can mean many things but at minimum it should mean going back to the best available film copy of a movie and doing a fresh transfer to the latest digital/HD video format. Once you're in the digital realm, virtually any imperfection can be fixed given enough time and money -- it's just a question of how much money they want to spend.<br />As for government archives footage, the majority of that (especially for the thousands of WWII documentaries out there) comes from the National Archives in Washington. I've done work there for a former video business I ran. They have the originals of government footage, but researchers usually work from a reference copy that can be film or video, and most of the video is 3/4-inch videocassette from the 1970s. For big-budget shows, you can arrange to have new transfers made off the original film or at least off an intermediate film copy. But for low-budget shows, you bring in your own video equipment and copy from those standard definition 3/4-inch cassettes. So even if you're copying to an HD digital format, your source in that case is still 3/4. Pefectly adequate in 1976 but definitely low-res by today's standards. </p>