The Retro-16 Pro scanner can handle most any 16mm film of most any vintage, regardless of manufacturer (Kodak, Agfa, Fuji, etc). Ideally, all films should be in good condition, clean with neat splices and good sprocket holes. Due to the continuous, sprocketless feed drive of the Retro-16 Pro, film with less than ideal splices and bad sprocket holes will usually navigate the film path, however, some data may be lost in each instance. For example, splices that cover the sprocket holes will result in some frames being left out of the scan. Likewise, long stretches of missing sprocket holes will also mean lost frames. So while bad sprocket holes and bad splices may not jam and stop the transfer, you can expect some missing information on those or surrounding frames.

It should be noted that the take up motor is very powerful. This allows the unit to pull through most any kind of splice but that same power is also enough to snap the film in the unlikely event of an aggressive jam. While the Retro-16 Pro scanner has a built-in auto shutdown feature to help prevent film damage, only proper end-to-end splices should be used. Overlapping the film on splices or extra thick splices may jam and cause the unit to stop and/or damage the film. Also, please avoid splices that widen the film excessively, such as tape wrapped around the film multiple times, as theses splices may hang up on the gate and also cause a shut down and/or damage to the film. In short, the better the condition of the film, the less trouble you will have in your transfer session. Typically, if you prep the film properly, you can start a transfer and walk away, knowing that your entire reel will run smoothly.




The Retro-16 Pro has both manual and auto exposure.  With manual exposure, the wider latitude offered by the 24 bit scanning process of the Retro-16 Pro means you can set a median exposure that should capture about 90% of all the information within a typical reel. The auto exposure function lets you set the threshold for when auto exposure will take affect. This provides the best of both worlds. For all exposures at or above the threshold, the auto exposure function will sit idle. For darker scenes that fall below the user defined threshold, the sensitivity of the camera will be raised slightly to compensate. When the darker scenes pass, the auto exposure returns to an idle state. Transferring uncompressed will also increase the range of your exposure by avoiding the blocking that typically occurs in dark areas of under exposed imagery.