Patrick Cooper

"I'd like a fairly sharp image with high contrast." Bear in mind that fast films are usually lower in contrast. However, pushing any film will increase the contrast and this can make the images appear slightly sharper than they really are. Though there is also an increase in grain.

"...would you need to cross process color reversal film to get it to be as punchy as kodachrome?" Kodachrome is a colour reversal film!

Reversal films should give you the look you're after. Kodachrome has very saturated reds. When Ive filmed sunsets on Kodachrome, the reds are so vibrant that they seem to leap off the screen! However, Kodachrome has now been discontinued but there are various rolls available on eBay and other sources, all of which can be processed at Dwaynes.

I guess a skateboard would work as an alternative, but only on flat, smooth ground. If you tighten the trucks, it should go fairly straight.

"......it was a "making of" show and it was of the making of the videos for Green Day's American Idiot album........he took a cigarete and on some of the film (after having filmed the video) he burnt parts of the film with the cigarette and I've always wanted to try that and see how it looks...." That's a really cool looking effect. "....filmed one of the videos (I think BLVD. of Broken Dreams...yea sorry...I'm kinda a huge Green Day fan here ^^') with a film camera and to give it a sort of eerie and old timey look..." Actually, despite the name 'video clip', the majority of music video clips are shot on film - and the shooting format is nearly always 16mm (usually S16.) Occasionally, there are music video clips shot on video or 35mm film but most are originated on 16mm. Oh another little bit of trivia - although the BBC nature series was heavily promoted as being shot on HD, there were quite a few segments that were shot on film (S16 and 35mm.)

"Lucas is completely unoriginal! except maybe for Indiana Jones and Howard the Duck! lol" Umm.....I would think that Howard the Duck was Lucas' most unoriginal work since the character was based on a Marvel Comic series after all!

"Oh, and Keith Richards makes a good pirate i rekon." Ha. I was wondering what his acting was like in this movie. And he has the right 'look' too.

If for some reason you must shoot within 2 feet (like in a confined space for example) and you want to use another lens, what you could do is mount your Meteor 17-69mm zoom lens on the K3, stand within 2 feet of your subject and vary the zoom setting until you get the framing that you desire. It doesnt matter that the lens will not focus this close. Just take note of the focal length setting that gives you the degree of magnification that you want and then search for a 35mm format still lens (Takumar etc) that is closest to that focal length. And check the minimum focusing distance of the lens too of course. Hopefully that should get you close to the sort of shot that you want. Good thing that Takumar lenses are dirt cheap.

I'm not quite clear about what you need exactly. You want a close up shot within a distance of two feet and it must not be magnified? Some magnification is necessary if you want a close up shot. Or is the magnification from the 50mm lens too much for the desired framing you want at 2 feet? Do you require less magnification? You could use that same 50mm lens and move back far enough to get just the right framing for your shot. There should be no distortion if you use a standard or telephoto lens from a 35mm still camera. And the standard Meteor zoom lens that comes with the K3 has a focal length of 69mm at the telephoto setting which would give more magnification than a 50mm lens.

Oh my gosh! Never in a million years would I have suspected that such dodgy things took place while watching this film. Incidentally, there's a documentary in the Special Features of the DVD called 'Of Penguin and Men' which shows what the film makers had to endure during the shooting. Not only a great documentary, just as good (if not better) than the main film itself, but I would think that this would be evidence of what this guy went through in that harsh environment.

To be on the safe side, you could screw an ND filter on to the lens of your borrowed Yashica Electro 8 (LD-6). I hope that particular camera can read Tri-X cartridges correctly. Not all super 8 cameras can.

?the scene in the Dawn of the Dead remake where two guys are shooting zombies of the roof for a shopping mall for fun is very tasteless in my eyes.? Cruelty to zombies? Hmmm?.perhaps in the credits they should have noted: ?No zombies were harmed during the making of this film???

"Registration with the K-3 is hit and miss. Some loads may be rock steady, others may jump all over the place. As the load gets to the end it will be even more unsteady as the feed is very light and has very little film left on it." Registration with my K3 has been quite good with all my films, right through to the end of the rolls.

When shooting 35mm for the big screen, there seems to me two main choices - Super 35 and Anamorphic, in addition to various cropped sub formats like 3 perf and 4 perf etc. However, I'm wondering what 'format' of 35mm was used in US TV shows back in the 60s and 70s like MASH, Bewitched etc. Would this be regular 35mm (4x3)? It's not surprising that such US TV shows looked more finer grained than the BBC shows of the same period which were usually shot on 16mm (for exterior shooting.) However, I also notice that to my eyes, 1970s shows like MASH and Happy Days, do not have the same kind of clarity and sharpness as seen in big screen Hollywood movies of the same decade. So I'm guessing they used a smaller sized frame on the same width of film?

Oh and another thing. If you want to have a decent amount of depth of field as you say, stick mainly to wide angle and 'standard' lenses.

Yes, pushing a film will lead to an increase in grain and contrast. However, how much contrastier and grainier it will become will depend on how many stops you push it, and the stock itself.

A few 16mm cameras, like the Bolex and K3, expose each frame at or close to 1/60th when running at 24fps. The majority of 16mm cameras utilize 1/48th when running at this speed. In the world of super 8, there are some cameras that have unusually large shutter angles and these will allow in more light than usual. There are some 16mm cameras that do have variable shutters but I am not sure which, if any, have the capability of increasing the shutter angle. In 16mm, most people seem to use a variable shutter to close down the shutter angle rather than open it up. Even if you can increase the shutter angle, you would have to be careful of any fast movements by your subjects as this will cause motion blur. Though motion blur seems less noticeable in long shots. Another option would be running the camera at a slower speed to achieve a slower shutter speed but of course this will be useless if there is any movement in the frame, unless you want speeded up movement. The only other thing I can think of is using fast lenses.

Since when do wide angles need support as telephoto lenses do? Unless this 5.7mm has a particularly large maximum aperture which would make the lens physically large.

"Its the contradiction of "Switar Presets are excellent" and "its that close its a lottery" that I dont understand ... Something is either excellent or not - a lottery = chance ... " Well just because the image circle of a particular lens doesnt fully cover the frame size of a format, doesn't nesessarily mean that that lens doesnt have 'excellent' optical quality! I think Peter Russ was discussing two different things relating to the 10mm Switar.

"any other uses for higher shutter speeds?" Producing sharper looking footage of fast moving subjects like motor sports. There would be less blur. However, as others have said, you do run the risk of ending up with footage that will not look entirely smooth with regular frame rate shooting - 25fps / 30fps etc.

"Both the XL2 and the DVX are amazing questions." That's an interesting perspective!

If the customs and postage charges turn out to be reasonable, I guess the only other deciding factor is whether these transfer houses in the US are able to do PAL transfers.

I guess as long as the tape is removed by the lab, it won't go through the various rollers of the processing machine. However, I wonder if there's a chance of the tape becoming unstuck and unnoticed by the lab and finding it's way into the processing machine. Even if it does, would it do any harm?

I'm assuming you mean tape the end of the film onto the film that is directly underneath it? Would there be much risk of damage to the film where the adhesive tape is peeled off?

I'm assuming you mean tape the end of the film onto the film that is directly underneath it? Would there be much risk of damage to the film where the adhesive tape is peeled of?