Jim Carlile

I have for sale a Canon 67mm wide-angle converter (attachment) C-8 in mint condition. This is also excellent for the Nizo series of 67mm lenses, as in the 6080 or the earlier silver-bodied series. Hard to find, I'll let it go for $99, or best offer! Write me here, or at carlileb@aol.com.

Sure it does-- you can always flip 2R around. That's why 2R doesn't have a wind indication. You can use it either way. Of course, you could end up with major orientation problems upon projection-- like inside out and backwards-- but 2R is more adaptable for oddball situations. That's why I said he needs to play around with it. I've always found 2R to be more universal myself. I think the old J-K booklet has a good explanation of the wind problem and what to do about it, especially using camera reversal v. print negative.

Arri, no doubt about it. But it sounds like you need an S more than a BL. Go for the S. Smaller, lighter, easier to use, and cooler looking. Very adaptable.

2R print film would be used in older projectors that have two sets of perforations. It could also be used for bipack or old-fashioned in-camera printing where you need to flip the emulsion to get the right orientation. Contact prints, that kind of thing. You can also shoot with it in older 16 cameras, like pre-1950. Using a J-K for S8 to 16 neg-pos blowups is pretty straightforward, but keep in mind the emulsion/base wind orientation. Experimentation is key to saving your sanity. That's why you might want to buy 2R. It's more adaptable and there's no wind confusion. The J-K is not a contact printer, so the wind problem is harder to figure out. I remember it was especially insanity-inducing with 1R camera-reversal film. So I'd stick with 2R-- it's easier. You can always flip it. And since it'll probably be a one-off print it won't matter to the projector which side of the perfs it's using.

Remember that it's not just the coating, it's also the packaging. If 35mm slide-film sales have declined so much that it's no longer worth the effort, then this would explain the discontinuation. Compare this to MP. Sales have actually increased in this area. And also consider how much more MP color reversal film is sold than slide. There's still a sizeable market for it. Kodak is also quite sensitive about these products and their substitutions, and it goes into their decision. For instance, they know that Fuji still makes 35mm slide reversal but not MP (any more). So it's still available. But the same's not true of S8 and 16 color reversal. 100D is the only game in town. I'm not worried-- if you keep buying it they'll keep making it. But we'll know by early summer. If they're down to their last rolls in storage then they'll announce the end by about July or so. And then they'll estimate a six- to twelve-month timeline.

I'll bet Kodak sells 500 times as much motion picture Ektachrome as slide film. Probably more. Slide film sales had declined so much that it was no longer worth the effort to package it. That's not true of MP. If you buy it, they'll keep coating it. Has anyone asked Photo Engineer over at APUG what the status is in Rochester? He might know. He warned people years ago that they were down to coating Kodachrome like once a year. Kodak is very supportive of their motion picture division. It's what's keeping them alive.

Kodak announcement from today: "Yesterday, Kodak announced the discontinuance of its three Kodak Professional EKTACHROME and ELITE Chrome Films. This news does not affect our ability to supply 5285 and 7285 color reversal motion picture film products to our customers. We continue to provide these films in 35mm, 16mm and S8 stocks with the same great quality and product support you’ve come to expect from the Kodak brand." If you keep buying it they'll keep making it. They sell lots more movie reversal than slide film for sure. Eliminating color reversal from the Eastman catalog would also leave a big hole-- there's nothing to replace it with. All this doom and gloom about 64T forgets one thing: they immediately replaced it with 100D! I'm not sure either that 5285 is the same as 100VS. I'd always heard it was EPP 100D. Kodak can still justify coating one reversal stock for motion picture use, and which also can be ported over for 35mm slides without difficulty. But not three or four.

Before people start to panic about today's announcment on the Ektachrome discontinuations, please note that Kodak has not announced the end of 100D, or 5285. Just the 35mm slide films. There's a difference now. They'd already gotten rid of still 100D a few years ago. http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/products/reversal/5285faq.shtml Until further notice I'm not worried. At least yet.

Their official notice says nothing about 100D. Just the other "slide films," as they call them. Journalists then go on to speculate that this means all E-6. I would suspect that they're keeping 100D around for a while in the MP format. "The films are the Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100G, Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100VS Film and Kodak Professional Elite Chrome Extra Color 100." In fact, Kodak strikes a difference between 100D and the others. 100D is clearly MP only now: http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/products/reversal/5285faq.shtml So don't worry.

Some good questions about the 'heyday' of S8. Dennis Duggan died about 20 years ago. He had been teaching at San Francisco City College for years-- film of course. He'd also done some local porn in the distant past, too, at about the same time he was writing those S8 articles! BTW, one of the most interesting of the S8 films mentioned back then was this: http://www.retroroadtrips.com/ It's still around. You occasionally find others that pop up the same way. You just have to look around, although there are a number of curators and archivists who are starting to ask these same questions. Amateur filmmaking is the big new field of study-- and it's about time. I think people just lost interest over the years when it came to the technology, like Lipton. A few years back he was said to have donated all of his cameras to some place like SFCC. Most of the British guys are gone as well. Ivan Watson, Tony Rose, Francis Williams; all gone. The grand old Tories. I think Tony Shapps is still around but not active. Time for a renaissance? Seems like it.

You'll have to drive in for it-- but last I heard Fuji had moved to Burbank, over on Magnolia at about Buena Vista. And yes, they have a sales desk-- or did. I'm sure they still do. Easy drive, about 45 minutes: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/motion_picture/contact/ Kodak has one too, over on Santa Monica Blvd near Highland. But harder to get to. (Hey, if you go in there, ask them when they're going to ship in black and white Neopan !! )

Super 8 Arena is a great place; Michael's a good guy. Very much recommended and super fast shipping if you go for the express- we're talking like five days to California. But if you're in NYC definitely check out Duall Camera. They're pricey, but that's because they are a repair shop-- everything's overhauled and guaranteed. For $350 to $400 they might be able to fix you up with something nice and it will WORK ! An older Canon maybe. For a newcomer I'd avoid eBay like the plague-- way too much junk out there now, with no assurance that it will run. Much grief. Stick with Duall-- you're in luck to be there. You might want to visit some of the local film schools too and ask around.

What with Kodak's financial problems looming overhead, I'm wondering how much people would spend for a Super 8 cartridge. Right now Tri-X is about $11 from their distribution centers, which I think is really cheap. It's obvious that the company is basically subsidizing S8 as a gateway product these days, but if the chips were down, how high would you go? $20? This could be a real issue, and soon. Buyer acceptability of a higher price could be a big factor as to whether or not they keep it. BTW, this may sound perverse, but I think filmmaking is starting to get fun again. Let the hacks and the mediocrities play with their digital cameras.

Chulas Fronteras by Les Blank.

Get your film now, boys. This company's not long for the world: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-17/kodak-worth-five-times-more-in-breakup-with-3-billion-patents-real-m-a.html Wall Street's going to strip off all the goodies and close down the rest. Kodak was the #1 stock today in anticipation; it rose 25% in value.

Although I'm not sure about the 514XLS, every Canon I've seen adheres to the SMPTE Super 8 standard, which is that the absence of a filter-notch automatically retracts the internal 85 filter AND sets the camera's exposure meter to the lower ASA of whatever speed-indice the cartridge is cut. So, in the case of, say, Tri-X, the speed-notch sets the meter at ASA 250/160 and the 'notchless' cartridge sets the meter at ASA 160. The same with 100D-- it is cut for ASA 160/100, and the notchless cartridge sets the meter for the lower of the two, which is ASA 100. Here's where the confusion comes in. Because 'G' film was invented, many later cameras dispensed with the SMPTE protocol so that this higher speed 'non-filtered' daylight film could be read at its normal ASA 160 rating. The same thing applied to Tri-X, which essentially came onto the consumer market at about the same time. With these cameras, the meter was automatically set to ASA 160 no matter whether the cartridge had a filter notch or not. The 514XLS may be one of these, and I suspect that it is. In fact, I'm not familiar with too many cameras that will override the auto-setting simply by toggling the filter switch back and forth if there's a notchless cartridge. The silver body Nizos are one example, but there weren't too many others. There's an easy way to check, though: with the notchless cartridge in the camera, just toggle the filter switch back and forth and see if the exposure setting changes by 2/3 stop. If so then yes, these cameras have that ability. And if they do, make sure that-- for daylight film-- the f/stop reading that you use is the smaller one (the bigger number in the window). That 2/3 stop difference makes up for the 2/3 stop sensitivity difference between the two ASAs.

Try using 100D reversal with a bit of overexposure and a light fog filter if you wish. You'll like the look. Modern negative stocks just don't have the same ooomph that the older ones did, IMO. They look too video-y to me, too clear. Contrast and saturation is key. Use lots of soft indirect or bounce lighting for that European look. Quartz definitely, not tungsten bulbs or spots. Oh, and avoid extreme wide-angle settings for sure. Don't go any wider than about 12mm/super 8. And shoot closeups with a bit of telephoto. If you really want to get 1970 funky just overuse the zoom. That'll do it. And location sound, not too slicked up.

You can get the film here: http://www.javaphoto.com/filmpage.html Bottom of page, 16mm magazine reloads. Double perf B/W, 50 ft. It will be on cores though, so you need to respool it.

How can you possibly say that? All week I've been watching on TV everything from the Lindsay Anderson/Ondricek collaborations to all of the 60's B/w geniuses, like Lassally, Morris et. al. Let alone the older generations. Sometimes limits are good. It's the American work that's lackluster these days. All wide angle lenses and hosepiping, and excessive art direction. Look just like televison shows.

Trumbull reportedly wanted to use the excised footage from 2001 in his documentary, and was rebuffed by the family. Apparently it's been destoyed at their request. At one time-- mid 90s-- Kubrick seriously considered putting the 19-minutes of footage back into the film. He even asked Robert Harris to find the cuts at MGM-- which he did, at Turner, but wasn't sure about the sound track. He found that the cuts had been preerved in the original separation masters. But, apparently, Kubrick's ego must have gotten in the way, because he didn't do so in the end. That's no surprise really, because to have actually "restored" the old version would have been an admission on his part that he was wrong to cut it under studio pressure right after it came out. There's a good reason why Trumbull wanted that footage-- it was incredible. I remember it well, and both tossing it out and then inserting those stupid explanatory "intertitles" was a big mistake. Kubrick panicked at the initial poor reception of 2001 that first week, and he didn't want to admit it later on.

They also used the telephoto range of the zoom much more than today, and whenever possible avoided cranking it out to widest setting. The one big difference between that period and now is the current over-reliance on extreme wide angles. It makes every shot look the same, and seriously distorts backgrounds (some great examples of this problem are the Huell Howser travelogues on public television).

Guy, wouldn't it be a lot easier going back to Super 8? I'm getting dizzy! This modern world is way too complicated!!

The director's being disingenuous about the number of shots and their nature. Portman did the cutting-all-over-the-place inserts, which means nothing. I also laughed out loud at his remark about the complicated ones using CGI. Of course they did- because Portman can't dance! I assure you that the director would have been even more dumbfounded if this news about the double had broken publically (and all over) before the vote. Just to be clear, nobody's upset that they used a double in a movie. Nobody's calling it dishonest. The problem is that if a performance enters into the realm of being Oscar-worthy, then it should be theirperformance and not someone else's. Here's the best analogy of all-- imagine if Olivier's voice had been dubbed by another actor during the most prominent theatrical scenes in his Shakespeare movies, because his own didn't sound right? He wouldn't have gotten an Oscar for the one, that's for sure. And for good reason.

No, but the problem is that the dancing was an integral part of the performance, and it wasn't hers. And yet she got an Oscar for it. If this news had come out before the vote, there's no way she would have won.

Back then, if it was Ektachrome, it was most likely ECO-- Ektachrome Commercial 7255 or 7252, not sure which was when. One replaced the other. ECO was a low-contrast color reversal original, intended for making release prints. Much used, mostly 16mm. Wasn't that Fassbinder film a mish-mash of all sorts of footage?