Focusing on a screen

[nyvideo]

I'm trying to do some quick and dirty capturing of some old 8mm film by using an old projector display it on a screen and use my HMC40 on a tripod. (I know the results will be mediocre at best, but it is what it is.)

The images on the films (old home movies from the 1950s) change so rapidly that it's hard to focus.

Is there a way to simply measure the distance from the lens to the screen and manually set that as the focus? Alternately, is there a way to use one of the focus assist features to set the distance from the HMC40 to the screen without projecting the movies?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[BobDiaz]

Here's an idea, take a post-it note and put it in the center of where the image will be projected. Zoom in as tight as possible to focus. You'll want to use the magnify feature on the camera to see the sharpest focus. Once focused, zoom out to get the film frame.

I've done that type of transfer with other cameras and it's only fair at best. Oddly enough, having a small nightlight in the room helps to lower the contrast and makes for a better looking transfer. The biggest problem is that the grain/texture of the wall or paper shows up in the video. I keep thinking that if I can get a motor to spin the paper, this will blur the grain/texture of the paper and give a better transfer.

Bob Diaz

 

[Admir]

Here's an idea, take a post-it note and put it in the center of where the image will be projected. Zoom in as tight as possible to focus. You'll want to use the magnify feature on the camera to see the sharpest focus. Once focused, zoom out to get the film frame.

I've done that type of transfer with other cameras and it's only fair at best. Oddly enough, having a small nightlight in the room helps to lower the contrast and makes for a better looking transfer. The biggest problem is that the grain/texture of the wall or paper shows up in the video. I keep thinking that if I can get a motor to spin the paper, this will blur the grain/texture of the paper and give a better transfer.

Bob Diaz

Aw man here we go, thanks to your idea we're going to see companies creating spinning and vibrating paper in order to take away any dust / grain rogar-BigGrin(DBG).

 

[nyvideo]

Bob, thank you for the great idea. (That must be why they pay you the big bucks! rogar-BigGrin(DBG)) I have an actual portable screen so the post-it didn't stick too well, but I improvised. The focusing worked great. Now if only the original footage had been in focus more often, the results would have been even better.

Thanks again.