STANDARD
16 MILLIMETER
This popular format began life
as an obscure and otherwise
unsuccessful film before World
War II pressed it into wide
service as a lightweight combat
and gun camera format. Since
the war ended, surplus 16mm
equipment had been extensively
used for early news gathering,
documentaries and low budget
films. The image quality of
Eastman Kodak's modern 16mm
film stock is comparable to
standard 35mm film of the 1960's,
when transferred to tape. Eastman
16mm is sometimes used for top-rated
television series and documentary
films. Standard 16mm images
are restricted to the familiar
1.33:1 (a.k.a. 4/3 TV aspect
ratio) and is a very poor choice
for anything other than transfer
to video tape where 16mm is
a barely passable alternative
to 35mm. As the name implies,
it is 16 millimeters wide. Unfortunately,
because the image area is so
small, there are no means of
commercially projecting 16mm
in wide screen theaters unless
you make a 35mm blow-up (which
has severe limitations).
SUPER-16
Super-16
is 16 millimeters wide but the
image area has been enlarged
and widened into the edge area
reserved for an optical sound
track on standard 16mm. This
arrangement makes Super-16 a
purely silent format on its
own but can be transferred to
tape or 35mm with passable results.
In the early 1990's, this format
gained popularity as an inexpensive
HDTV (high-definition TV) compatible
film for later conversion because
its aspect ratio left very little
of the image area that must
be cropped or cut-off from the
top and bottom edges to form
the wide 16:9 aspect ratio of
HDTV. The aspect ratio of the
Super-16 film gate is 1.66:1
and the image area is somewhat
less than one-third of standard
35mm. No one sells Super-16
film (per se) - it's just standard
16mm film used in a 16mm camera
that is configured to the Super-16
format. But be aware: Just because
a lab processes 16mm film does
NOT mean they are capable of
processing Super-16 PROPERLY.
The film rollers for Super-16
processors do not contact the
image area on the un-perfed
edge of the film. If you try
running Super-16 film in a standard
16mm processor, projector or
camera, the edge of the image
area will become horribly scratched.
Usually, a processor can be
reconfigured with the appropriate
rollers to develop your film
but do yourself a favor by finding
a lab that regularly processes
Super-16 and only use equipment
specifically designed for Super-16.
