Andrew Means

I just bought a Nikon R10 on eBay and had a question about it. I am noticing that the focus seems to be off. I can zoom in and focus perfectly but once zoomed all the way out the focus goes soft. I isn't completely blurry but out of focus enough that it makes me a little concerned if there is something wrong with it. Any ideas?

First thing to check is the little focus adapter on the eyepeice- I can't remember what that's called...

Congrats, I really dig my R10 (I'll be posting footage I shot in Japan SOON), I hope you're happy with yours!

Awesome! Very educational.

To make it more cost-effective. Why don't you just transfer both your negative and your revesal? Then $115 becomes a good deal both cost-wise and in quality of telecine for what you'll have to work with in the computer.

I may do just that when I get back from my band's tour... I think that makes sense; I'll have a good idea of what to expect from the other footage and I'll know if its worth doing it right...

Odds are high that it doesn't have much of any 'low-light capabilities' - of course the light capabilities are influenced by the film speed, apeture, etc.- I don't know what angle the shutter is on your camera.

Have you shot film yet on this camera? I can't stress enough that the best way to learn how to use your camera is to actually start *using* it. You'll get the film back and it'll give you a good idea of what light amounts work, what's in focus and what's not, etc.

Super imaginative - I wish I had more stuff like this on film with my friends and I from a few years ago when we all had a little more time - unfortunately all that was done on mid-nineties poop-eo and the quality has degraded much since then.

 

Any word when we might see this elusive exclusive Japan footage?

 

(as a side note, I have a friend doing the JET program in Japan, and, though not film, he's been doing a fairly regular video journal of it - pretty neat: www.myspace.com/matthixson)

 

Erik

The Japan footage is being telecine'd right now - I haven't even seen it! When I get it back you folks will be the first ones to see it!

If you are using a projector or such you are asking for a nightmare. Vegas should have an invert filter/effect. The problem is in the orange mask. The film is very dense and will be very dark. Add to that the large amounts of color work you will have to do to get rid of the orange mask. You will need to be able to adjust the highlights, mids, and shadows all independently. It might be easier and not that much just to send to Spectra Film & Video and have a one-light done of all your film onto Mini-DV. At $225/hr you can go through a lot of film, 1/2 hour min.

 

I'm not trying to talk you out of doing it on your own, just somethings you should be aware of. Anyhow if you do do it on your own it's just going to be a lot of experimenting and trial to find what works. Keep in mind that the negative will pick up a lot of dust and scratches going through a projector. It's far more noticeable because the dust and scratches turn out white. Not to mention if you decide to have it professionally transferred, etc. it will be in that condition.

Yeah- I only got two rolls of negative, and for 115 it's a little much. Next time I have a big batch maybe I'll send the whole thing there though- that would actually be cheaper if I hadn't already dropped my reversal off for telecine...

I'll give it a shot in Vegas and see what I come up with. Should be interesting!

It's flipped in the telecine itself, that is if you are using a professional telecine. You shouldn't have to flip it in your editor.

I'm using this-could-easily-look-like-crap-so-I'm-doing-this-roll-on-the-cheap telecine, so it won't be flipped for me. No colorist on this job, it's just travel footage from Japan; if there's anything I really like on it I might get it telecine'd professionally.

Any suggestions, tips, tutorials for somebody who's never done it before?

I'll be using Sony Vegas 5

I just got some 200T and 500T developed at Alphacine in Seattle as part of my bulk batch from Japan, and they said they didn't make positive prints of negative super8 (and they didn't know of anybody who did).

I suppose I could telecine the negative I have, and then flip the image in post- is that what most of you do?

damn, that bealieu looks like a Volkswagen beetle with a howitzer on top...

Hey Tom-

Contact Tak at Retro Enterprises- he should be able to get you the name of the place in CA.

http://film.club.ne.jp/english/englishindex.html

Best of luck man!

Andrew

Haha, yeah that tracking shot (how'd you do that, by the way?) and the shot where the guy with the rice hat zips away look like some anime I've seen. Excellent work. Good sound too...

I have heard , a Nikon R-10 can hardly be repaired , if the lightmeter-needle is stuck .

Too much money for a camera, which does not work. I would try to get the money back from the seller !

Henry

While in Tokyo I met with a guy named Tak who runs a super8 store- he said he actually knew of a place in CA that can fix the light meters on R10's- Tom if yours is tits-up let me know and I'll try to get the name of the place.

Hello,

 

The Nikon R10 SUPER I bought last week just arrived. (Some of you may recall I've been shopping around for something to replace the Nizo I've been using.) I just opened the box, and I was hoping somebody could answer a few questions...

 

First off, where can I get a manual for this thing?

 

In the meantime, how do the overlap/dissolve/fade-in/fade-out switches work?

 

I can't seem to get the meter needle to move no matter what I do. Is there are trick, or is the meter toast? (Yes, it has batteries installed.) Even with the EE-lock knob pulled out (I'm assuming this makes it manual), the needle does not move. Any advice?

 

I've read posts here that discuss the R10's need for some sort of filter key. My camera apparently did not come with one of these. I assume it goes in the slot on top, currently covered by a little rubber plug? Any idea where I can get one of these filter keys? What does it look like?

 

The seller neglected to mention a spot of fungus inside the front element. Any chance of getting this cleaned off?

 

Thanks for your input.

 

-Tom

Hey Tom-

Congratulations on your purchase, I really like my R10...

I have a manual somewhere, I'll see if I can upload it for you. It'll lay out how to work the overlap and disolve switches- it's pretty simple.

As for the light meter- when there's no film in the camera the light meter ususally doesn't work very well for me- although sometimes it does. When there is film in the camera the light meter *should* work if you depress the trigger a bit. If you pull the EE-lock knob out then you should be able to change the apeture manually by turning it. If not then you may have a real problem.

The filter key is a little metal thing that drops down into that slot with the plug- when in it disengages the 85b filter. I bought one for 1,000 yen while in Tokyo, but I'm sure they're for sale elsewhere, or you can make one with an old credit card. I'd almost recomend that more, as you can cut the card so it is held in place by the plug- then that way you don't have to worry about losing the plug while you have the filter in place.

I can't help ya with the fungus...

Hope you get some great footage out of this thing! Do you mind if I ask how much you paid for it?

Andrew

great! Now start filming.

I don't have a host to post online...

Youtube?

Hello All!

 

Backround:

 

My teacher asigned us to do a short 3-4 min chase video that all the editing has to be done in the camera. After class I asked if I can do it on super8 since I had one roll of color reversal 100D and the requirements seemed to fit in with what one roll can do. He agreed. He did say I could add sounds, music, and titles in the begining and end if we wished just as long as it wasn't superimposed over the footage we shoot. This is my second roll of super8 I have ever shoot. My camera was limited on what it can do. It was a Bell & Howell 2123 XL

 

I transfered it myself using a projector and my DVX100B. I know that's a terrible way to do a tranfer but this project to me was more for fun then anything else.

 

Hope you like it. :)

 

Old Nightmares

Looks great- super fuzzy, but I bet it looked way cooler than everybody else's digital projects. The one slow shot of the sky (kind of drops the energy in the middle of the chase, but eh) looked really cool. Keep shooting!

Do you think it would be possible to drill into the Viewfinder Tunnel and place a Prism inside, and above that place a Lipstick Camera ?

I probably wouldn't want to do that, if only because I want to be able to mount different cameras on there. Which means I'll need some kind of adjustable holder for the lipstick camera...

I've been considering building or buying some kind of steadicam rig myself, but then I think about how cumbersome something like that would be for the on-the-fly kind of shooting Super8 is made for. If you come up with a good compromise let me know.

TD

Thanks for all the info Tom

I totally understand what you mean about the on-the-fly aspect of super8- I think what I'm going to shoot for is a glidecam type thing with the battery providing the bulk of the ballast at the bottom. I think if I can get the whole shooting rig onto something that I can walk around with over the course of a day then I'm probably okay. I lugged a 10lb tripod around Tokyo for a few days and while it wasn't the best thing for shopping, but it didn't kill me either, and It was ultimately worth it. Having something that was roughly the same weight but would let me do more fluid, moving shots would totally be worth it.

I think I'm going to buy a glidecam 2000- although would it be too lightweight for my camera? I've got an R10 and I'm planning on buying a 814 XL-S...

Anybody selling a used glidecam/steadycam jr.?

It seems that what people are doing is getting a lipstick cam and mounting to the eyepeice of the camera. Lipsticks often output via RCA which is o.k., not great but o.k. The thing is you need a camera and a monitor that are of good enough quality that you can make good focusing decisions with what you see. I would go for a 7 or 9 inch monitor and have a pro camera teck select and mount the lipstick for you.

Yeah- I'm kind of figuring that if I'm going to be doing steadycam stuff, I'll probably be filming with the widest possible angle, so focus should be less of an issue- but you're right, it would be good to be able to see if the focus is on or not. If I was going to use this contraption (as a steadycam at least) I would probably be mostly unable to focus it while I was using it, so I would probably make sure I had it in focus before embarking on a shot.

Tom, your story is inspiring! Do you have any footage online? I really want to push this whole thing to get some sweet shots- I was in Japan and there was so many times when I really wanted to capture motion and stuff, but knew I would just have a jittery mess if I shot it handheld...

How about battery power? Are there rechargable 12v batteries around? How do you power yours, tom?

I'm thinking of (doing the stupid and not-really-necessary project of) making a steadycam-ish rig for my Super-8 camera, and I'd like to pick everybody's brain on a few things.

http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews...o_Module_1.html

I found this 5" monitor which seems like it could work- it runs off 12V, which seems like I could probably figure out how to rig a battery for, and it gets images via a S-video cable, so I'd probably be able to find a camera that ouputted s-video, though I know about zero in regards to this stuff, so I'm not sure.

If my memory serves me correctly the Sleep Always guys made a little video monitor for filming sleep always, is that right?

Anybody have any suggestions for a camera to use? If I remember correctly the Sleep Always crew just mounted the camera on top of the lens, so it was an approximation of what the film camera was seeing- but I think this could be useful for tripod shooting, too, so I think I'd like to at least try to go through the viewfinder.

Any suggestions on all this?

Hi Oli,

 

Yes they do.

 

Stephen

Yeah, it would seem like they'd have to, as it tracks with the objects in the frame by moving the frame around... If it kept it at the same resolution you'd have these black bits constantly showing up on the edges.

Yes, I have used a few carts from them. But it's a real debocle to order it from them and get it here in the US. And once I shot it, the results were sligtly fogged... maybe from being x-rayed too much in it's travel? I dunno. I've also used pro8 100D and had bad results. But this batch of double super 8 was from John Schwind here in the US, and was fresh. Finally got the density and saturation that I was used to in 16mm. And finally proved to myself what this stock could look like in S8, if only I could get some fresh stuff. It's truley amazing.

Dang, pro8mm's 100D was bad? Anybody else have issue with it? I was inches away from buying some...

I pick up the footage today!

...So I purchased an R10 this weekend. Not a Leicina or Beaulieu, but certainly a step up from the little Nizo 206. I've heard good things about this camera's optical quality, but I'll reserve judgement until I do some tests.

 

As far as it's "non-auto" handling goes, it's larger knobs and controls are certainly better than those of the Nizo. Still, I'll never understand why super-8 camera designers insisted upon using such awkward and convoluted metering/aperture control systems. Hate to say it, but my favorite in-camera meter is the one found on the Krasnogorsk K-3. Simple, effective, reliable. Paid $49 for my K-3. The optics suck and it shakes like an old woman, but I can look through the viewfinder and see in half-a-second where the exposure is without having to decode some crazy, wobbling scale.

 

Okay, I was ranting. Sorry. I'll post the results of my R10 tests, perhaps even a side-by-side comparision to the Nizo. In the meantime, my search for the perfect Super-8 camera continues.

 

TD

Hi Tom-

I think you'll probably like the R10- I shot a ton of film with mine while I was in Japan and was definitely satisfied with the experience. I get the film back today or tomorrow!