Alan Duckworth

I have a Eumig C16R (same as yours, but with tele and wide converters on swing-arms), and it's a great camera for handheld and "B" camera work. I particularly like the ability to preset the runtime. The only issue that I have with it is the door seems "loose" - although I've not had a fogging problem, I always put black gaffer tape around it when I shoot outside. To answer your questions: the knob on the righthandside of the viewfinder eyepiece is the parallax corrector, if you turn it you will see the mask inside the finder move to correct the framing. Focus is by tape or guestimate - and don't forget, if you are working at very close distances you measure from the film plane [marked with a circle with a line through it just in front of the door latch]. The instruction manual is available online at www.marriottworld.com (I think there are 2 "t"'s in it). Enjoy.

Advice - find TWO other exposure meters that the people you borrow them from believe to be accurate, then set up all three to the same ASA, and under the exact same conditions at the same time, compare the readings. If they all agree within a third of a stop, everything is cool. If your meter differs from the other two - but they both agree with one another - then yours has problems and needs fixing. Try and do this at low, middle and high light levels - meters can be dead accurate at certain levels and way off at others. And, compare the readings you get from the meters with the ones you estimate by using the "Sunny 16" rule - there are explanations of this elsewhere in the Forums, if you don't know what it is. Care of exposure meters - real simple, don't drop it! Seriously, treat it like you would an expensive still camera. Use of exposure meters - first, read the instruction manual. If no instruction manual, find one on the 'net. Other than that, if it reads incident light (the meter will have a white dome), place at the subject position with the dome pointing towards camera position, and angled slightly upwards. If it reads only reflected light (no dome), I would suggest buying a meter that reads incident. [reflected light exposure meters are primarily for still photography, and mostly black & white even then]. I'm pretty sure all the Spectras read incident light. This is going to sound dumb, but always doublecheck that you have set the ASA and the framing rate correctly on the meter. Good Luck.

I would advise against a dual-guage projector (that is, with both Regular and Super), because if you forget to change over - or someone else uses the machine - you will trash your film. Buy a dedicated projector for the format you are using.....and it can get complex: Most Regular 8 cameras were made to frame at 16 fps, some framed at 18 fps, and Regular 8 sound (very rare) frames at either 18 or 24 fps! Also, high-end Regular 8 cams had variable framing rates (my R8 Bolexes all go from 8 to 64 fps). And different projectors were made for all these - including variable speed models. Super 8 is easier - silent frames at 18 fps, and sound frames at either 18 or 24. (Note: when Super 8 is used professionally, the framing rate is usually 24, to maximise image quality, reduce flicker, and make transfer to 35mm easier). Suggestion - if you can find a working Super 8 sound projector, you will find that it can project at either 18 or 24 fps - plus, it will probably also have a pitch control. The purpose of this was to allow you to correct for cheap cameras that ran slightly slow (sound film stock took a lot of dragging through the cameras), and it was intended to correct the audio. But it can also be used to correct - or creatively change - the effective framing rate.

I've tried everything over the years, and I now use a device called an "Oxide Scubber". You get them from electronics supply houses, and they look like a retractable pencil - even have a pocket clip - and cost about 10 dollars for the tool and two replacement scrubbers. The scrubber part is only about a quarter inch diameter, so it reaches anywhere, and they work like a damn. Just make sure the dust that is generated doesn't go anyplace important. To finish the job, the electronics store can also sell you a liquid contact cleaner that incorporates a protectorant so that the corrosion does not come back. It must be good stuff - the container is labelled "EXTREME DANGER" !!!

Thanks for the list - you saved me some serious Googling. See you in the cheap seats!

These days I live in something of a cinematic wasteland (for example. "Good Night and Good Luck" only played after the Oscars - and only then on the smallest screen in town), but will visiting in L.A. early next year. Is there a website(s) that lists upcoming screenings of the sort we are disussing here? Thanks in anticipation,

This is bringing back so many memories. I'm old enough that I saw almost all these movies in original release - and of course, the original format. My Dad was a movie buff, so he made sure we saw all the blockbusters. When we went to "How the West was won", they handed out maps of the old West to the kids showing the locations of the various events depicted. I still have it! I also remember going to something called "Circlorama" [i think that's correct], an "in-the-round" movie theatre. The screen was 360 degrees, and the projectors (I think there were 12) were mounted in the middle of the ceiling. The audience stood up, and you could even move around. This was NOT a multi-screen A/V presentation, it was like Cinerama, you could see the "joins" if you looked for them, and it was definately motion picture. I recall the content being travelogish and special effects. This was in London, England, and it would have been the late 1950's or very early 60's.

Stereo - the secondmost misunderstood and mis-used word in our language (the first begins with the letter "D"). True stereo is recorded (usually in a single take) using a stereo microphone (note, singular) - a one piece unit with two capsules. The capsules are placed at 90 degrees to one another and are almost touching, and must be absolutely indentical in specification. Since this configuration is expensive to make because it requires the capsules to be individually tested and then matched together, a more common way is to use two "identical" (that is two of the same model) microphones in a spaced configuration. As John Pytlak pointed out, stereo is all about phase, and as the microphones get spaced further apart the phase relationships start to deteriorate. One more point - true stereo is recorded directly to a two track machine, and if edited at all, is edited as two tracks. Rather obvious to point out, but true stereo is also played back as two tracks through two amplifiers (each with their own independent power supply!) and two speakers. This defines "audiophile", but rules out true stereo as a practial entertainment medium for the masses because there is only one place to sit to hear the true stereo image - anyplace else and the phasing goes out. 5.1 etc are not "stereo", they are "multi-channel" sound systems that simulate a stereo effect in a large space filled with people in random seating locations. Even stereo music CD's mostly aren't - the performances are captured as multi-channel, often edited as individual tracks, and then mixed down to two tracks [note, I didn't say "stereo"] for playback. That's why those jazz albums sounded so good - they were never mixed down. For somewhere under a 1,000 dollars you can buy a true stereo mic suitable for movie and video work. It is the Rode NT4, and comes with two dedicated cables - one that splits out to two XLRs for Left and Right for professional use, and the other cable simply plugs into the stereo mic mini-jack input of consumer video cams. The microphone has its own power source, so if your camera can't supply phantom power there are no problems. Note to Tom Banks - binaural is a form of true stereo but can only be listened to on headphones, the imaging goes to you know where through a spaced pair of speakers. Sounds really weird.

If you really want to record a live gunshot, I would suggest using an AKG D112 mic. These are designed for high SPL's (the instruction manual states that the "Maximum Sound Pressure Level is unmeasurable"). Music studios use them for recording kick drums, and they can even be placed inside the drum! The sound quality is very decent though, because it is a 1" capsule (like studio condenser mics). They are available for about 200 dollars or less, but a local music studio might loan you one - they are quite popular in studios that record a lot of rock music. Your biggest problem will be setting your levels - the output from this mic at high SPL's is very high indeed, and it will probably need to be padded down, especially if you are going into a digital recording device of any kind. It will overload most inputs that are made of integrated circuits ("chips") - this is one of the reasons professional music studios still use pre-amps made of discrete components, and even tubes. Having said that, I agree with others here that you are probably better doing this in post with pre-recorded gunshot SFX, or make your own. Try slapping two pieces of wood together close to the mic. Do this a number of times then run the raw recordings back through an effects processor and re-pitch to find the sound you like (I use a Lexicon MPX100 [less than 300 dollars] for this stuff; the reverbs in it are a bit "digital" sounding, but the FX algorhythms are cool, and the delays and pitch controls are very good).

It's not the movies, but check out almost any of Ansel Adams' black & white landscape photographs - they are the definition of "deep focus". Mr Adams used mostly 4x5 and 8x10 cameras, with apertures set down as far as f64. He also was using view cameras, which allow for camera adjustments to realign the subject, lens and film plane to maximize the depth of field - a neat trick not available on movie cameras (or is it? - anybody know?). A classic example of deep focus in the movies is to be found in Antonioni's "Blow-Up" (MGM 1966). About 10 minutes in there is a shot of a model laying on the floor filling the full width of the foreground, and the "hero" (a photographer played by David Hemmings) is relaxing on a couch in the far background - all in clear focus. And it is an interior shot at a real location.

May I add a couple more? One old, one new(ish). "The Book of Movie Photography" by David Cheshire, published by Knopf, N.Y., 1987 - covers all film fomats, Regular 8, Super 8, 16 and 35. Targeting beginning filmmakers in the immediate pre-video era, very nice. Look for it used. For pure inspiration you should read "Rebel without a Crew" by Robert Rodriguez (published by Penguin in 1996, but still to be found sitting on the shelf at your favorite coffeshop/bookstore!), which is an autobiographical account of the making of "El Mariachi". Gut-wrenching indie blood, sweat and tears filmmaking at its finest. Good Luck.