Patrick Cooper

Tyler, you indeed make very good points. Yea I was a little sceptical about trusting the condition of random short ends. Plus the rarity of 500T in short ends would make it hard to shoot stuff like night city scenes (which I have done on super 8 500T.)

That's right. I'm a long, long way from doing any shoots. I'm still considering my options. Aapo, how extensive is the servicing of the Konvas cameras? Do they have to be taken apart? How straight forward would say adjusting the pressure of the pressure plate be? Not really sure if I'm up to the task myself or whether it would be better to have such a camera serviced by an expert who knows what they're doing. Also, in your opinion, how good are the Konvas lenses? I'm hoping that it's possible to obtain adapters to use lenses designed for 35mm stills photography. I have a number of such lenses myself which I'd be keen on using including a Canon FD 17mm lens. Out of curiosity, would there be any old and good 35mm movie cameras from say the 1960s etc (produced by Western countries) that would be bargains now? Reflex viewfinders would still be a priority.

Thanks for the replies. To be honest, I really wouldn't know where to look for short ends in Australia. Yea purchasing short ends from overseas could be an option but I wonder if there's a risk of x-ray damage when it passes through border control. Webster, Mono No aware looks like a good site though I notice with regards to shipping, they do so within the US. I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask them if they would post overseas. In a way, that's a good thing that 50D is the most available stock in short ends. That's what I would probably shoot on the most. Though 250D would be nice to try as well. Real shame about 500T being really hard to get hold of as It would be cool to do some night shooting in the city. I really like the night cinematography in movies like Taxi Driver and Midnight Cowboy. I really like to emulate that.

I'm considering the possibility of getting into 35mm but only if there is a decent supply of short ends that I could use as film stock. A number of years ago, I guess availability wasn't so much of an issue. However, these days, I'm noticing much less film is used in general for TV shows, commercials and movies. Considerably less compared to say the 2000s and the 90s and earlier. So much high end stuff is shot digitally now. So I'm guessing that means there's a lot less short ends around? One must also consider population and market size too. I'm guessing that there would be much less in the way of short ends here in Australia compared to the US. It would interesting to know how scarce or rare they are here. Granted, I wouldn't be shooting 35mm on a regular basis. Like any film format (being so expensive) I would only be shooting it every once in a while and reserving it for special projects.

Yea I imagine converting a viewfinder to S16 would be extremely involved. Gosh, maybe I should look at 35mm instead - as long as I can get hold of short ends as film stock. I wouldn't need sound either. I have heard of budget 35mm cameras like the Konvas and Eyemo but wasn't sure if reflex viewing was possible. Maybe I should investigate the 35mm forum.

I know this may seem like a crazy idea. Obviously, video is the main domain when recording footage from remote controlled quadcopters and octocopters etc. Though has anyone tried mounting a super 8 camera to one of these gadgets? There is a youtube video which shows a group of people attaching a 16mm camera to a large drone. Obviously, you'd need a pretty powerful and large drone to lift something heavy like a Canon 1014 Autozoom Electronic. Though a light camera like a Minolta XL-400 would be less demanding. It would be nice to have a small, light weight camera that can run at 24fps, has manual exposure control and a fairly wide minimum zoom setting - that would be ideal. The tricky thing would be running film when you want to while it's in the air. I guess you could wait till your towards the end of the film (after exposing the majority of it on the ground) and save the last several feet for aerial footage - putting the camera in running lock mode as it takes off.

Just wondering if it's possible to obtain a Super 16 camera for under $1000 on the used market in good, working condition? Hopefully, I'm not being unrealistic. Any recommendations for particular models? The Krasnogorsk 3 would probably be the cheapest camera to convert to Super 16 if need be. I used to have one myself. It was very reliable until one day, it stopped working. Though one thing I wouldn't be quite happy with a Super 16 K3 is that the viewfinder would still be 4:3. I would prefer to compose my shots accurately. Features I would like are reflex viewfinder, some kind of remote release (equivalent to a cable release) and availability of adaptors to mount lenses from 35mm SLR still cameras (like Nikon F, Canon FD etc.) I guess I maybe asking for too much for under $1000.

This might sound like an unusual query. Is there any free downloadable software that could tell me the bitrate of individual clips? The reason I'm asking is that I have a Panasonic G7 that shoots 4k video and when I right-click on Properties - Details within Windows for a clip made with this camera, I get virtually no information at all. It's mostly blank. Certainly no bitrate revealed or hardly anything else. With Shotcut software, I can find out properties of individual clips but there's nothing about bitrate.

I'll be shooting and editing a music video clip in the very near future for a band. Some of the footage has been shot already by myself and will be included in the production. Though I have a query concerning legalities over some of the subject matter. There will be footage of recognisable buildings, cars (possibly including license plate numbers), brand names, store fronts and pedestrians walking down the street. The clip will be viewable on the band's website. I have no idea if it will ever air on TV one day. Is any of this content going to be problematic for a music video clip from a legal perspective? I know from shooting stock photography that a lot of this kind of subject matter cannot be used for commercial images unless you have model releases / property releases etc. Not so much of an issue for editorial images for stock. However, I'm not sure how much of this applies to music video clips. I have seen music videos where brand names have been blurred out from t-shirts so that would likely be an indication that filmmakers could potentially get into legal trouble if brand names were visible without the company's formal permission. I don't have any model releases or property releases for this clip.

Okay Ive worked it out. I see now that I have to make a specific photo / video post in order to upload a bunch of photos.

I'm not totally familiar with Facebook and currently, I'm trying to add some photos to a post. Attaching an individual image is straight forward but I cannot work out how to add multiple photos. As soon as I add one photo to my post, the camera icon is no longer visible so I cannot add anymore. So after that, I removed the single image and tried to add a whole bunch of photos at once. I selected one photo from the folder, held down the Shift key and clicked another photo further down the line. What that should have done is select all the images in that group but strangely, that didn't happen. I can only select one at a time. By the way, I know it's possible to do this because Ive seen multiple photos embedded in single posts on Facebook by other people.

I can see the dilemma. Would using an 82A filter help a little bit in this instance? I have heard of a number of people buying and using various dedicated film scanners and being disappointed with the results. They then ended up using a digital camera in conjunction with a backlit source source and got better results that way. I'm sure there are high end scanners like drum scanners etc that will produce very impressive results but I can't really afford that. I have seen a youtube video where someone got surprisingly good looking results using the digital camera method with colour neg film (at least to my eyes.) So far, Ive only digitised b&w negatives this way. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try the same method with colour neg film and see what the results are like. That was actually the original plan - to shoot digital. The subject matter being bands playing at various venues - mostly small venues with local bands. Then the plan changed to shooting a mix of film and digital. And it will mostly be digital anyway with film being used for the occasional image. I want some wide angle images among the shots and there's a recent thread where I mentioned that my Samyang 12mm f2 (which I use on my M4/3 cameras) is extremely prone to flaring. It has a major flare problem. Ive had some images ruined by this issue and I'm worried about lights in the venue shining into the lens wreaking havoc with it. To solve that issue, I could use my Canon FD 24mm f2.8 instead on one of my Canon 35mm SLRs. That was the initial reason for considering film - to prevent the ugly flare issue with the Samyang. Though since then, Ive looked online and seen some beautiful looking images of stage performances shot on colour negative film in recent years. Some in particular looked very moody, very atmospheric. And that has increased my motivation even more for using film in such environments. Though interestingly, there was one set of photos of a band that were shot on Portra 800 daylight balanced film and the colours don't appear particularly warm, at least to my eyes. I actually like the colour rendition. I don't know if the photographer used any filtration but that seems doubtful considering the light levels looked pretty low. These are the images here mixed in with other random subjects: And oh yea b&w is a viable option. That can look really nice and moody too. Though at the moment, Ive developed a hunger for colour neg film.

Excellent suggestion. I'm checking out prices right now from various stores.

"Unaware" is not the same as "forgotten." It's not that I am unaware. It's because Ive forgotten - it has been a long time (a number of years) since Ive dealt with colour correction filters and their specific coding. However, I have remembered their respective colours (orange and blue in this context) so I have retained knowledge of the basic principles with regards to their usage in specific lighting environments. I was only familiar with tungsten balanced slide films though I never tried any out. Assuming I'm using a daylight balanced film. Even so, it's not really practical when doing hand held stills photography in a dimly interior. Without a filter, I may be using 1/125th with the aperture wide open. With an 80A filter in place, my shutter speed would effectively be 1/30th - too slow to hand hold for most people, resulting in blurred images. Ah this was an idea I got from another forum. Yes a test wouldn't hurt.

Yes I was considering Portra 800. I admit Ive never shot this particular film stock before but based on reviews, it seems to be just what Ive been looking for. And yea Ive heard about Cinestill 800 and that it's been modified from 500T. I admit it seems odd that it's being marketed as an 800asa film, encouraging people to underexpose it whereas of course most people overexpose it in movie cameras. I am tempted to go with Portra because of it's truer higher speed which should come in handy for low light situations. Though of course 'pushing' is an option.

It does seem strange to me that as far as I know, there are no negative tungsten film stocks designed specifically for stills photography. When it comes to high speed neg films like 800asa, 1000asa and 1600asa, surely, the majority of people would use these indoors under artificial lighting or perhaps night city scenes. Sure, there might be some people who use such films outdoors during daylight hours for whatever reason. It just seems more logical to me to have tungsten versions of high speed films (thinking about most intended uses of such films.) If that was the case, people using these high speed films outdoors during the day could use the appropriate orange filter which would not only colour correct the images but would also act like an ND filter, reducing the chance of overexposure on a sunny day. And of course people using such films indoors under tungsten lighting could do so hand held without any filtration and get good colour in camera. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

That looks like a nice result with an iphone and lightbox. And extra nice seeing a crop of 35mm cine film. I'm not familiar with the manual colour tool in Photoshop - unless that's the option where you change the colour balance with sliders? I do know of the white balance tool in Lightroom though I heard someone using that for scanned slide film and apparently got poor results. I guess a blue filter might be quicker perhaps than doing the work with software? I guess at some point, I'd have to remove the orange mask from the neg film. With whatever software trick is used to remove that orange mask, I guess it's quite selective and hopefully wouldn't remove or reduce my blue filtration.

At some point in the near future, I may be photographing a performance on 800asa film indoors (stills photography.) The film will be daylight balanced and there's the likeyhood that the artificial lighting will predominantly be tungsten lighting. Obviously, this is going to produce a rather warm yellow / orange cast with the film. For digitising the negatives, I'll be using a Panasonic M4/3 camera with macro lens and a tablet for the light source. Ive used this same method in the past with digitising black and white negatives and was pleased with the results. With regards to colour correction, would it help immensely if I used a blue filter on the macro lens during the digitising process? Or would that be unnecessary and Lightroom or Photoshop would be more than sufficient in removing the warm colour cast? There does seem to be the belief that negative film is easier to colour correct than slide film. I know that some may suggest using a blue filter on the lens of the film camera during shooting but I'll be using it hand held and will need as much light as possible to enter my lens. Out of curiosity, back in the old days with optical printing, would they have used a blue filter on the enlarger when printing from daylight neg film that had been exposed to tungsten lighting? And there's another thing I'm curious about. If negative film has as much latitude with colour correction as some people suggest, why is there a need for both daylight balanced and tungsten balanced negative film stocks for cinematography? Say for example, if you had a daylight neg film and a tungsten neg film and exposed them both to tungsten lighting with no filters, would it be possible to remove the warm colour cast from the daylight film completely with software so that it matches the tungsten film in overall colour balance? I'm guessing probably not.

Not quite. Ive only photographed musicians in small venues so far. Though I'm happy with how they've turned out. Among those artists was an Australian singer / songwriter Monique Brumby who has enjoyed some commercial success (shot on Fuji 1600asa colour negative film.) At the moment, I'm putting together a portfolio. In the meantime, I'll keep photographing small artists and buskers. Yep, no connections here. I'll contact some music publications and offer my services to them. I have contacted some in the past but didn't have any luck then. There's a fair chance that images would be ruined by flare if I used my Samyang 12mm. I once shot an interior with it with a window in view and the whole image was plagued with multiple flares all across the frame. It was unusable.

For so many years, I have dreamed of having the privilege of obtaining media passes for rock concerts of big name bands and solo artists like The Rolling Stones, U2, Sting etc. It still hasn't happened but I'm going to keep trying. With regards to equipment, I would be shooting with Panasonic mirrorless Micro 4/3 cameras. I don't have the luxury of owning a fast constant aperture zoom but Ive got some fast primes I could use. If I am successful at obtaining a media pass to a gig one day, I think I might take along three camera bodies - one fitted with a wide angle, one fitted with a standard lens and the third fitted with a short telephoto. One of the kinds of images that I'm really looking forward to producing is a wide angle shot of a singer or guitarist up close from a low angle. Just looks so dramatic with loads of impact. My wide angle for M4/3 is a Samyang 12mm f2. That seems like a logical choice for concert photography but it has one major drawback – it flares really easily and horribly. Major flare problem. Once I even had pretty bad flares from it on an overcast day with a lens hood in place. Of course with a concert venue (up close to the stage) there are going to be heaps of lights shining into my lens and for the Samyang, that could end in disaster. Now, I have seen some concert photos that feature flare and it can look kind of cool and atmospheric. But my Samyang produces ugly flares – the kind I don't want. And I simply cannot afford another fast wide angle lens – they are crazy expensive. So I'm considering something quite drastic. Instead of bringing along the Samyang on an M4/3 body, I'm actually thinking of bringing my Canon FD 24mm f2.8 mounted to a 35mm SLR. So two M4/3 bodies and one film SLR. And by coincidence, the 24mm on film will have roughly the same field of view as the Samyang 12mm on M4/3. I would be shooting on colour negative film and I admit one big benefit of that is that I can be pretty loose with exposures as compared to having to be precisely spot on as with slide film or digital. Though obviously, I will try my best to avoid underexposure as that is the worst thing you can do to neg film – those weak blacks look really yuck. I'll try and overexpose by about a stop or two. I actually used to shoot in similar conditions back in the 90s on film. Not concerts as such but circuses. Though I did photograph a musician (Monique Brumby) in a small venue as well. And also a play once. During that period, I would shoot on 1000asa and 1600asa film for these kinds of events. Though I have a feeling that big rock concerts may be a little bit better illuminated than those other places I shot but I can't be sure. Though here is the dilemma. If I'm shooting for a publication, they may want the images uploaded to social media. If that's the case, I'm not sure of when the deadline would be - whether that would be the same night as the concert or the day after. That would be fine for my digital images but obviously, it's going to take time to get the film developed and scanned. I don't suppose a rock music publication or media agency etc would be accommodating in having the digital images uploaded soonish but the film images uploaded at a later time? This is a potential issue that I'm struggling with.

Yea it's definitely a weird issue. I guess on a positive side, at least I could use the Shotcut software on the laptop to convert the files to a different format which can be recognised by Sony Movie Studio and WMM. And there's a fair chance I'll probably be doing the same thing on the new pc running Windows 10.

I have video files which I believe are Quicktime MOV files and I have no issue playing them on Windows Media Player and importing them into Sony Movie Studio on an old Windows 7 pc with 32 bit system. However, I cannot do the same with a laptop running Windows 7 and 64 bit system. On the laptop, WMM won't recognise the files. I haven't tried VLC as yet as I don't have that on the laptop yet. When I try and import these video files into Sony Movie Studio on the laptop, I get two kinds of error messages. The first message says: "An error occurred while opening one or more files. The file format plugin for the specified format was not properly initialised." The second message says: "The Sony QuickTime plug-in was not able to initialise the QuickTime components on your system. It appears that Quicktime for Windows is not properly installed. Quicktime files cannot be read or written without a full installation of the Quicktime version 7.1.6 or greater components, including the authoring components. If you are connected to the internet, Quicktime can be installed from the following location Download QuickTime 7.7.9 for Windows" Ive downloaded the file from that link in the past but it didn't make any difference. I thought I may as well try again anyway. I came across an option to download Quicktime 7.7.9 from the Quicktime website. I began the download and noted that the publisher was Apple Inc and it was a Quicktime Installer exe file. I was then given options to Modify, Repair or Remove Quicktime (presumably because Ive downloaded the same file in the past.) I selected Repair and went ahead with the installation process. Afterwards, I tried importing the same MOV files into Sony Movie Studio again and got exactly the same error messages. Any idea what's going on? It's a problem that's been going on for a very long time and Ive never been able to solve it. Fairly soon, I'm having a new computer built to replace the old pc and I guess it's likely that I'll have the same issues with the new machine. By the way, I discovered that I can import these MOV files into Shotcut on the laptop. So that's something at least.

It's been ages since Ive shot on super 8. And I can't remember if an ND filter is necessary when shooting 50D outdoors on a sunny day. Obviously, it would be necessary for faster film stocks. I vaguely recall when I shot on Kodachrome 40 years ago, I was around mid aperture on a sunny day with the daylight filter in place (effective asa speed 25.) And I remember once having to shoot wide open at f1.4 in the morning on an overcast day with K40. So considering that, an ND filter may not be necessary for 50D? Plus I would generally be deliberately overexposing it anyway (opening up the aperture wider than the indicated reading) since it's negative film.

There's an interesting thing I notice by looking at the photos of some of these cameras on eBay. It looks like a number of these cameras can be loaded with 100ft daylight spools. And unless I'm mistaken, with some, I don't see the option of adding a 400ft mag. This is really surprising because one of these cameras can film at 4000 - 5000fps. Surely, at those kinds of running speeds, 100 feet of film would just last a few seconds?