Running 135 film with KS perfs on the Arri 2c

Felipe Locca · February 18

Hello everyone, I just had the oportunity to buy an Arri 2c for a very good price. It appears to be in working order but naturally I need to run some film through it. I have a friend who has few 100' cans of 135 b&w film stored in the fridge, Foma, Ilford and a very cheap Lucky SHD400 chinese film, he offered to share some of it for testing.

I'd love to know if anyone here has any experience with running 135 film with KS perfs on the 2c. Considering that the pitch is the same between KS and BH film(at least according to wikipedia), and the Arri 2c does not have a registration pin, It should be fine right? I'm afraid of throwing film "officially" not supported by it's mechanism and messing it up. I could just buy some Double-X later, but this would save me some bucks.

Tyler Purcell · February 18

Oh the pulldown claw is made for BH only, so it'll just become a big hole punch.

Dom Jaeger · February 18

A 2C claw doesn’t closely fit the perf like a rego pin, so it will probably work, given how close the perf pitch is. Try it and see! You can manually inch the movement over if you’re worried about damaging the mechanism, but 2Cs are pretty tough.

Robert Houllahan · February 19

I bet it will run fine the 2C is pretty good at putting just about any film through it.

Christian Flemm · February 19

I've run acetate-based Foma R100 reversal film and Agfachrome 200D (polyester) - both with KS perfs - through my 2C without any mechanical problems whatsoever. On the image side, I've noticed that shooting KS-perfed film on my 2C results in an ever so slight loss in image steadiness.

As Dom says, it's important to inch the mechanism forward to make sure that you're totally lined up. Otherwise, if you ask me, you shouldn't experience any problems.

As for the Lucky material, we just ran some 16mm Lucky stock through the lab, and it was on a polyester base so thin that you could tear it. Not sure about the material in your posession, but maybe start with that stock if you're worried about damaging the pulldown claw.

Marcel Zyskind · February 20

Recently I ran a bulk load of 100ft Rollei Infrared through my 3 perf 2C. It was not super stable although the 5222 I ran through on another mag wasn't either, albeit a little more stable than the Rollei.

Robert Houllahan · February 20

19 hours ago, Christian Flemm said:

As for the Lucky material, we just ran some 16mm Lucky stock through the lab, and it was on a polyester base so thin that you could tear it. Not sure about the material in your posession, but maybe start with that stock if you're worried about damaging the pulldown claw.

Ohh did Wittenr or someone cut and perf some Lucky or was that from them?

Christian Flemm · February 20

5 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Ohh did Wittenr or someone cut and perf some Lucky or was that from them?

I'm not at liberty to go in to much detail, but it was a 200 ASA B/W film that was made in-house by Lucky (Average gradient 1.8; Fog gamma .07). No other companies involved. It may be the thinnest modern emulsion I've ever handled.

Rob - I'm not sure what machines you have at Cinelab, but we determined that it needs roughly 30 seconds longer in the developer than 5222 to hit our target density.

Edited February 20 by Christian Flemm

Robert Houllahan · February 21

17 hours ago, Christian Flemm said:

I'm not at liberty to go in to much detail, but it was a 200 ASA B/W film that was made in-house by Lucky (Average gradient 1.8; Fog gamma .07). No other companies involved. It may be the thinnest modern emulsion I've ever handled.

Rob - I'm not sure what machines you have at Cinelab, but we determined that it needs roughly 30 seconds longer in the developer than 5222 to hit our target density.

I found out what it be what it is who it for, interesting.

Felipe Locca · February 22

Thanks everyone for the replies, I inched some unimportant developed 135 film I had here whitout issues, and after some research there is a couple scans on youtube from 135 film shot through the Arri 2c, mostly fomapan. So it seems it'll work fine!

On 2/19/2025 at 6:15 AM, Christian Flemm said:

As for the Lucky material, we just ran some 16mm Lucky stock through the lab, and it was on a polyester base so thin that you could tear it. Not sure about the material in your posession, but maybe start with that stock if you're worried about damaging the pulldown claw.

This friend of mine who has Lucky film lives in a nearby city, and he’ll be coming over soon so we can test his stock. However, I did some research, and it turns out that Lucky has recently resumed manufacturing film, but only 35mm. Was that 16mm stock new? I couldn’t find any reference to new 16mm Lucky stock—only something from 20 years ago. Anyway, If the stock does feel thinner, I’ll start with it, since it’s better to risk damaging the film than the camera, although, the mechanism on the Arri 2c seems pretty tough.