Projector that advances single frame?

[Jason Hinkle RIP]

Anybody know if there are any 16mm projectors that you can advance frame-by-frame with a button or something on the projector? preferably something older that could be had on ebay or somewhere. If you know of a particular brand or model to look for that would be great too. Thanks.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Jason Hinkle

[John Sprung]

Motion picture projectors generally don't single frame or run slowly. The heat from the lamp would fry the film if it sat there much longer than 1/24 of a second. Those that do run slow have lower lamp settings for that reason. Editing machines let you look at stuff frame by frame.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Jean-Louis Seguin]

Hi Jason,

 

Many companies made analytical projectors or rather modified existing projector designs to work frame-by-frame, forward and reverse. Lafayette was one of the better known ones. Sometimes they pop up on eBay.

 

If you're not picky about exact frame by frame, Bell & Howell had a projector that had a feature called Directamotion.

I had one of these and I believe the model number 1592. You could stop the film on a frame and then by jabbing at the directamotion lever you could advance the film by one or a few frames. It wasn't as precise as a real frame-by-frame projector but if you jabbed quickly enough, you could get close to advancing only one frame at a time. This worked in forward mode only.

 

Cheers,

Jean-Louis

[Charlie Peich]

Anybody know if there are any 16mm projectors that you can advance frame-by-frame

 

 

Jason,

 

There is a Bell & Howell 173 "Time and Motion Study Projector". They pop up on eBay occasionally.

 

Features: 400 ft roll, forward/reverse operation, still frame and hand crank for forward/reverse advance of film, frame counter, calibrated motor speed, 1000w lamp. It takes single or double perf film.

 

The knob to put the drive into the "still" mode is marked with the blue arrow. This clutch disengages the film drive from the motor, leaving the motor to run to cool the lamp. Then turn the crank, red arrow, to advance the film one frame at a time.

 

This model has a "heat absorbing" optical block to prevent the film from burning, yellow arrow, but it absorbs a small amount of light from the 1000w bulb. However, there is no light loss on the screen when you go from motion to still frame mode!

 

Nice, simple to operate projector for analyzing the action in technical films or those high school football game films. I have one of these projectors (not the one shown here) I use to show old family films on-- "home movies".

 

 

 

[Jason Hinkle RIP]

There is a Bell & Howell 173 "Time and Motion Study Projector". They pop up on eBay occasionally.

 

Ah perfect, thank you. I'm thinking about making my own telecine for little experimental projects that I want to shoot on film but don't need professional transfer quality. I'm thinking if I can get a projector that advances frame-by-frame, i can control it using a servo and capture frames on my SLR.