Rick Palidwor

I might have one. PM me. Rick

Load the TriX, look at something with a some light on it (window frame for e.g.) and note the f-stop that the needle points to. Now load the 64 and point at the same place (make sure light hasn't changed) and note the f-stop reading. You can be confident that the Tri-X reading was accurate. The 64 "should" be about a stop and a half up from that. If that was your reading then the camera understands 64. If not, then not. Rick

Four pins (from picture) is five possible readings - always a plus. Looking at the 518 AZ manual it reads 25-160 tungsten but they don't give the increments. I'd load the Trix-X (T160) and take a reading and then do the same with the 64. Compensate as necessary. Every camera made will read a 160 film, so it's worh keeping a dummy cartridge for the sole purpose of calibrating other stocks. Rick quick edit: since the camera is auto only, if the 64 reading is off stick with the Tri-X

The minimal click is probably all you should hear. To check that you have done it right, open the film compartment, and look through the gate as you run the camera. You should see the image go slightly orange when you remove the key and it should go clear when you insert the key. Filter will be disengaged with Tri-X regardless of what you do with key. You can put it in auto and shoot but the aperture may/will change mid-shot as light changes. Assuming you don't want that, see what it offers and set it manually. Use an 18% gray card for the most accurate readings. You have the set the diopter (eyepiece). Notice how it turns (and can be locked with a little lock ring). Adjust this to make the information in the vewfinder (circle in middle, aperture numbers) as sharp as you can. It is now calibrated for your eye. Everyone would set it diffferently. Good luck Rick

I'll stand corrected then. I guess I have only handled some of the older lower-end models. Rick

The grey card is always best as the 18% reference is that the light meter uses to make recommendations. If you follow the reading it will show you how to make grey grey. Black and white fall into place around this. Worth bracketing if you can afford it. I'd say a half-stop or less in either direction would do it. Rick

I would pass on this Good camera. Reads 11 different film speeds! I am not a fan of the Bauer's. Plastic body. Not a great camera. Platsic body Definitely worth it, especially a that price. (Unless you are worried about the weight. I like the weight.) Absolutely. Excellent camera. Good price. Pass. Rick

Can you put a 18% grey card in there and meter off that? Rick

You left out Minolta. They made a lot of fine S8 cameras. And I agree that Chinon's are worth looking at. Very underrated in my POV. As for the Canon 514XLS, on one hand I hate them, because of the auto only/ee-lock etc, don't read 64 etc. and I think they are much over-rated in certain circles (way over-priced on ebay for e.g.) but they deliver nice images and for $30 if that's what was in front of me I'd take it. It's not going to be my "last camera" (you really do want something better) but as a first camera for someone who might other wise pass, I'd say grab it. And then get a few more. It's $30! (How much did you pay for your DVX?) Load it up, lock it on and throw it off a bridge. Maybe the most expensive shot in the film but you got it. More seriously, while I hate the limitations of auto-only cameras and counsel people away from them, it's nice to have a few low-light cameras around (514 XLS would qualify) because in many circumstances you are wide open anyway and the manual aperture doesn't matter. Rick

You may have already answered this for yourself but when the dial is pushed in exposure is set automatically. When you pull it out and turn it you can adjust the aperture manually. The reason it's called EE Lock is that when you pop it out the aperture stays in it's last auto-setting. Rick

The camera will read tri-x properly. EVERY camera will read it. When you insert a black and white cartrdige it disables the filter, so you can't use it even if you want to. No point anyway, since it's colour correction. To ensure the filter engages, open the film compartment and point at a light and run the camera. You can see through the gate and lens. If you switch the filter in you should see the light go slightly orange. Rick

First set the diopter (the eye piece you look into. The whole eyepiece should turn or there should be a dial whereby you make the eyepiece itself in and out of focus. Look at the information in the viewfinder (circle in the middle, aperture numbers) and make that sharp. Now when you focus with the focus ring what you see is what you get (focus-wise). If you don't adjust the diopter for your eyes (everyone would set it differently, since we all have different eyes) you can't focus accurately. Rick

Mitch transferred some B&W footage for me the other day and when we starting to run the footage it looked okay - a little on the dark side but okay - and he suggested that we pump the light a little bit. At first I was resistant because I like my blacks to stay black and when you put a lot of light through there is the risk they will start to speckle a little. But then I said "try it" and with a little more light the images popped to life. The highlights were nicer, there was more depth to the image, and the blacks stayed black (we didn't pump the light too too much, just enough to make a difference). IOW, there is no substitute for sitting in. Or, if you know the footage, giving explicit instructions to the technician. Rick

It's worth at least $500. Rick

I think you should sel it to me for $5 <_< Seriously, why don't you keep it and use it? Rick

Found this blurb today in Chicago Marron (U of Chicago student newspaper), via my daily google news search of the term "super 8". "Aspiring undergrad auteurs, take heart: John Doe and the Anonymous Nothing, the B.A. project of CMS undergrad Jared Leibowich, will be screened at Doc tonight. The feature-length film, shot with an eBay-bought Super 8 camera, deals with the loneliness and freedom of growing up in the big city. Jared wrote the script at 17, shot the film at 19, and edited it at 20. There?s something intuitively attractive about a coming-of-age movie made while the director himself came of age. (Doc Films, 9 p.m., free)" Obviously too late for anyone reading this to catch it but worth noting. Rick

Guy Maddin seems to crank out a couple features a year and his main format appears to be super 8. He obviously doesn't get mainstream distribution but that's more related to his style than his format choice, and the films do get distribution and major festival play. Brand Upon the Brain had a gala screening at last years Toronto International Film Festival and the most recent edition of the festival screened his new piece "My Winnipeg" (I might have the title wrong). Maddin's stuff should be available in any good rental outlet. Two super 8 features from contributors to this board are: In My Image, by Scott McPhie http://www.mango-a-gogo.com/inmyimage/image.htm and Sleep Always by myself and Mitch Perkins www.friendlyfirefilms.ca There are numerous listed on the IMDB (a quick link is at onsuper.org but many of them are mis-classified since they are shorts, not features, or only use super 8 along with other formats (e.g. JFK), but if you poke around you'll find some obscure feature length all super 8 items. Rick

[The cost of processing that old E160 film is probably not worth it. It will cost less to buy a fresh roll that is more readily processed. Rick

No disrespect taken. First of all, Mitch Perkins was the technical "genius/idiot" behind the SD8 in Sleep Always, so I'll let him voice his opinion. But speaking for the both of us (I think) our idea was to get the best image we could, for the least amount of money, so we did (Mitch did) the telecine because it cost us nothing, and that was part of the fun, having total control without any third party involvement. Having used an "old-fashioned" film chain telecine to miniDV I think it looks pretty good, especially for 7240 reversal stock. It could obviously be better with some high-end telecine/transfer/scan, whatever, but that was never our concern. In general, that 13% additional frame area in SD 8 CAN make a big difference, but like Matthew says, only in conjunction with other variables. Poor lighting is poor lighting, on any format. At the end of the day I am not that concerned with how good an image can theoretically get and more interested in what was actually achieved, and more importantly, good direction, editing, sound and story. If those elements are not there nothing else matters. What I found humourous about Santo was his obsession with minor technical improvements when there was no indication he knew what to do with it. Rick

Since the focal length changes the light transmission (not a lot, but there is an effect) I recommend you don't zoom for the sake of a spot reading. As I said in my previous post, set the focal length where it will be for the shot and move close to the subject to take the reading. But as you say, it will only result in a slight over-exposure, so as long as that is taken into account... Rick

I agree, it's tools not rules. I thought your post suggested the external meter was superior, so I was reacting to that. Both methods can work equally well if you know what you are doing. Rick

While I guess it could happen, but I haven't experienced this problem yet. Couldn't an external meter also die in the middle of a shoot? Who says BTL meter gives me "normal" exposure only. I don't leave it in auto. I take a reading (getting an actual T-stop, preferable to an F-stop - take that external meter!) and then I set it over or under depending on the situation, achieving the blacks and whites I want. So I too am controlling my blacks and whites, only I am doing entirely wtih the internal meter. In general, like Michael who started this welcome thread, I am astonished how many super 8 shooters don't know how to use the internal meter to get the same results as an external meter. As others have pointed out, one nice thing about an external meter is walking around the set taking readings of various parts of the frame easily. Of course, you could do this with the super 8 camera meter as well but if the camera is set on a tripod and you don't want to mess with your shot, I'd consider using an externa meter to read parts of the frame to tweak my lights, but I would calibrate this meter to the camera meter - it would be supplementing my decisions based on the internal meter. Rick

Exactly. Those of us who use internal meters rarely if ever leave it in auto. But rather than zoom in and take a reading and lock it off, as you say, I prefer to set my focal length, walk in, take a reading, and lock it off (or adjust accordingly) since light loss changes a little with focal length setting. Rick

I should have elaborated more. An external meter is obviously a good thing but as Zach is new to this I didn't want him to think that he needed another piece of gear just to shoot. And since you often don't know the shutter angle or the light loss factor, the external meter can be an added complication for a newbie which could cause more trouble than it solves. Having said that, I never use an external meter and I stand by my conviction that any stock can be shot with any camera, provided it has manual exposure control. The key is to know what the camera "thinks" is going on compared to what you "know" is going on. What I mean is a typical 40/160 camera, without a cartridge in it, will think you are shooting a 160 speed film. Take a light reading with the internal meter. Now, compensate, according to the stock you plan to shoot. If you are shooting ISO 250, underexpose a half-stop from the reading. If you are shooting ISO 500 underexpose by about a stop and a half. This assumes you have manual exposure to allow that much compensation. Zach's Yashica could handle the 250 but not the 500. But even then, the problem with auto-only even with compensation, is that the exposure is not locked, so may fluctuate during the shot. In other words, even if one had a +/- 5 stop compensation dial, it doesn't compare to manual control as the key to manual is you can lock it off so the aperture stays in one place. If I was Zach I'd stick with Tri-X (which the camera will understand) and after a few rolls he will discover why he needs manual - to lock it off. He can also shoot 64T and turn the compensation dial to 1/2 or 2/3 under-exposure, but then the same problem will come up - you want to lock it off. Even if using an external meter, if you can't lock off, you can't lock off. Zach, since you can't lock the aperture, avoid shots where the light changes significantly during the shot. (A lot of super 8 shooters don't fully appreciate that the internal meter is giving you T-stops, whereas an external meter can only give you F-stops. This is one reason I prefer the itnernal meter.) Rick

First of all, you don't need an external meter, you can use the internal one (more likely to account for light-loss in the lens and viewfinder.) To use an external meter accurately you need to know the shutter angle, which you often don't know with super 8. But this camera's +/- compensation is just one-stop either way (if my memory is correct) and therefore quite limited. You may find a lot of situations where you cannot easily get the exposure you want. While this camera is quite sturdy, the auto-only exposure with limited compensation make it undersireble (in my view). You shouldn't have a problem getting something more versatile for little money. But answer all the questions Michael posed above to help you determine what you really need. Rick