David Goldfarb

Indeed, some of the best deals I've made have been on equipment that was in non-working or marginally working condition, but where I had a strong intuition that the repair would be easy or not too expensive, and I could send it to a repair shop that I know and trust. In general, I'd rather purchase something and have it serviced by a shop that I know, than to purchase even from a dealer with a guarantee, if I don't know who has serviced the equipment.

Pac-Lab does does S8 neg film and can do transfer, but I have only used them for reversal film (B&W and E-6), and it is a little basement outfit, so I'm not sure what range of transfer services they are offering now. Their website is not current, so it is definitely worth calling them or sending an e-mail.

Thanks for the report. I've had some of this film on pre-order, and I'm glad to hear that it's finally shipping. Velvia 50 is a film I've never liked for for still photography except in very flat lighting conditions--oversaturated for my taste. But I think it might be ideal for nature subjects in S8 (I photograph birds, among other things), because a small format benefits from a little more vibrant color, and the fine grain should be a real plus.

Sure, it's a low-resolution medium in general, and part of the attraction is that the camera is light and easy to take anywhere, but the built in zoom might not be long enough, wide enough, sharp enough, soft enough, contrasty enough, smooth enough, fast enough, etc. for a particular shot, and if one has usable lenses, why not use them?

I've also come recently to Super-8 from still photography, and I arrived at the same conclusion as Mark Dunn and got a Beaulieu 4008 ZM II, which came with a fairly new aftermarket battery. The Schneider 6-66/1.8 is an astonishingly good lens, and I'm not a fan of zoom lenses. It's handy that I can adapt my Canon FD and Tamron lenses easily for C-mount, and there are plenty of good C-mount primes out there for not too much money. Full manual control is also a big plus for me, and it's a well-built camera.

I've owned both a Pentacon 6 and a Krasnogorsk-3, which I purchased while studying in Poland in 1989. The Pentacon had decent optics and took good pictures when it worked--they're notorious for framing problems. I think I spent about $125 then for a system with four lenses. Here is one of my street photos from that period-- http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/immcross.htm The big clunky Pentacon was a much better street camera than my slick Canon "New" F-1, which marked me as a foreigner. With a Pentacon or Kiev, I could pass for local. The K-3 cost me $35 and worked perfectly, but as a student I couldn't sustain the cost of working in 16mm. Today it might be a different story, with the option of shooting negative film and editing digitally. I sold the K-3 when I got back to the US at quite a nice profit, even as the purchaser got a great deal, and traded the Pentacon system for lighting equipment for still photography, some of which I still use.