Celluloid Centurion
New member
In September of 2025, I took my Beaulieu 4008 with a recently collimated Schneider 6-66mm to Athens Flying Week, with the sole intention of filming "MJ755", a Spitfire Mk. IX that our air force had restored and returned to flying condition a few years ago. The unique character and attributes of Super 8, were just what my vision for this project required, since I was after something that felt like an homage to both a legendary aircraft and to films or even news reels of its era.
I only had two 50D rolls with me and what you're about to see is pretty much the entirety of the useable material I captured, but I'm admittedly thrilled with the result. The takeoff shot I consider one of the best I've captured since I started shooting this analog format a few years ago. This little personal project was a challenge for me and I feel it pushed Super 8 to its visual and practical limits as well.
Tracking the Spitfire as it flew through the Beaulieu's flickering viewfinder was surprisingly difficult and vastly different from past airshow experiences where I had a digital camera with a 7" display. The bright sky "flashing" between each closure and opening of the Beaulieu's shutter, made it feel as if I was filming a strobe light, to the point where I couldn't really see the plane, I could merely discern a dark object against a bright background, so in actuality I was basically doing my best to track movement with the hope that something useable would end up on the negative. This is also the reason that despite the 6-66mm having more reach, for most of the shots I was wider than I wanted to be, to ensure I could keep the whole Spitfire in the viewfinder under the aforementioned conditions. All I can say is the eye strain was real.
On the topic of what ended up in the negative: The scans from the first 50D cartridge, which I used for the static display shots, had two thin, continuous scratches close to the left edge, running through the entirety of the roll. Loading the Beaulieu in a dusty, windy place must have caused some particle to get lodged somewhere above or below the gate, pushing against the film surface as it ran. Thankfully, within After Effects, the panning shots provided me with a reference area I then used to erase the scratched region and for the static shots, I employed the clone stamp tool, successfully cleaning up all the material completely - but calling the process tedious would be an understatement. The scans from the second 50D cartridge, which I used for the flying display, were thankfully free of any such scratches and I was especially thrilled with the shots, particularly the takeoff. The fluid head tripod I had the camera on at all times did most of the work, but I also did substantial stabilization within After Effects utilizing the motion tracking tools. The 4K scans I received from the lab, Kornmanufaktur, weren't remotely as stable as what you see in the finished short, but as film shooters know, jitter is an inherent limitation of Super 8 cameras (unless one somehow has either of the Logmar cameras) .
Part of me wishes I could have shot on 16mm with a video assist, which aside from easier filming during the event, would have also spared me from all the post work this short film required. Good thing it was a personal one too and not client work.
But, in the end, as with previous projects I've done with this camera, I feel that the stabilized shots, combined with the exceptional clarity of the Schneider Optivaron 6-66mm and the little bit of extra sharpness I added in Resolve to bring the grain out (by lowering the radius in the Blur tab from 0.5 to 0.46) are a testament to what the tiny Super 8 can do with good optics, a tripod and a meticulous workflow. YouTube's compression algorithm doesn't like grain, particularly over large uniform areas like the sky, but watching in 4K eliminates most of the artifacts:
I only had two 50D rolls with me and what you're about to see is pretty much the entirety of the useable material I captured, but I'm admittedly thrilled with the result. The takeoff shot I consider one of the best I've captured since I started shooting this analog format a few years ago. This little personal project was a challenge for me and I feel it pushed Super 8 to its visual and practical limits as well.
Tracking the Spitfire as it flew through the Beaulieu's flickering viewfinder was surprisingly difficult and vastly different from past airshow experiences where I had a digital camera with a 7" display. The bright sky "flashing" between each closure and opening of the Beaulieu's shutter, made it feel as if I was filming a strobe light, to the point where I couldn't really see the plane, I could merely discern a dark object against a bright background, so in actuality I was basically doing my best to track movement with the hope that something useable would end up on the negative. This is also the reason that despite the 6-66mm having more reach, for most of the shots I was wider than I wanted to be, to ensure I could keep the whole Spitfire in the viewfinder under the aforementioned conditions. All I can say is the eye strain was real.
On the topic of what ended up in the negative: The scans from the first 50D cartridge, which I used for the static display shots, had two thin, continuous scratches close to the left edge, running through the entirety of the roll. Loading the Beaulieu in a dusty, windy place must have caused some particle to get lodged somewhere above or below the gate, pushing against the film surface as it ran. Thankfully, within After Effects, the panning shots provided me with a reference area I then used to erase the scratched region and for the static shots, I employed the clone stamp tool, successfully cleaning up all the material completely - but calling the process tedious would be an understatement. The scans from the second 50D cartridge, which I used for the flying display, were thankfully free of any such scratches and I was especially thrilled with the shots, particularly the takeoff. The fluid head tripod I had the camera on at all times did most of the work, but I also did substantial stabilization within After Effects utilizing the motion tracking tools. The 4K scans I received from the lab, Kornmanufaktur, weren't remotely as stable as what you see in the finished short, but as film shooters know, jitter is an inherent limitation of Super 8 cameras (unless one somehow has either of the Logmar cameras) .
Part of me wishes I could have shot on 16mm with a video assist, which aside from easier filming during the event, would have also spared me from all the post work this short film required. Good thing it was a personal one too and not client work.
But, in the end, as with previous projects I've done with this camera, I feel that the stabilized shots, combined with the exceptional clarity of the Schneider Optivaron 6-66mm and the little bit of extra sharpness I added in Resolve to bring the grain out (by lowering the radius in the Blur tab from 0.5 to 0.46) are a testament to what the tiny Super 8 can do with good optics, a tripod and a meticulous workflow. YouTube's compression algorithm doesn't like grain, particularly over large uniform areas like the sky, but watching in 4K eliminates most of the artifacts: