Franco Bosco – Cinemateca Portuguesa 

The SEIKI is an optical printer equipped with a wet gate projector. Our version is capable of handling both 16mm and 35mm film, on both the camera and projector sides, at speeds of up to 40 fps. We primarily use it for blow-ups and reductions. It does not support high levels of film shrinkage unless significant modifications are made to the projector side.

This machine combines a BH additive lamp with precision mechanical movement for both the camera and projector. Its structure is sturdily built from heavy steel to minimize vibrations.

The idea, developed by Simon Lund from Cineric PT, was to preserve the characteristics of a vintage analog optical printer—such as precision mechanics, a wet gate system, solid construction, and high-quality Nikkor lenses—while adding the necessary upgrades to transform it into a 4K wet-gate 35/16mm film scanner. These upgrades include: RGB LED illumination, software-controlled stepper motor, 4K+ industrial monochrome sensor.

The scanner is capable of wet-gate scanning of black-and-white, negative film, 4K full aperture (4096×3112) at 4 fps, and color at 2 fps. It is equipped with a double-scan feature, which allows the scanning of high- contrast materials such as prints or elements without masking. The control software captures the images and generates a set of 4K DPX files, with bit depths of up to 16-bit.