henry jameson

i have a Rt1, and i have also an original Leitz close up lens, although i've never used it to film anything.. i don't know why... Anyway it's a series VII 55mm thread.

I've got one and have filmed 6 carts up to now. Don't have anything to show you 'cos i'm still messing around with my diy telecine project but haven't had much time lately. Pros: -good steady image and quite sharp (but it's my first and only s8 camera so i don't have anything else to compare it to) - bright viewfinder with split image focus that helps a lot - lots of functions, from single frame up to 54fps, lap dissolves,etc. With the ST1 controller you can add even more features for time lapse etc. - manual daylight filter, so you don't have to worry about cartridge notches. YOU decide if to use the filter or not. - quite robust: outer casing is all metal - quite cheap compared to bigger sister SPECIAL - 25fps useful if you live in PAL countries - NO cell battery for exposure, and auto exposure nearly always gets it right. Cons: - not very friendly from an ergonomic point of view. Handle retracts completly but is quite 'strange' to hold. You need to get used to it. - You don't have fully manual exposure: you can Lock it once the camera has decided the F stop, and you can compensate +-1 - battery holder is a joke. I guess the engineers where too tired when they arrived at designing the power source so they invented a crappy plastic holder that seems to break everytime you insert/remove batteries. - there's no numeric film counter. You get a different colour in viewfinder depeneding if you are at start of film (green), more or less middle (yellow) or near the end (red) - a variable shutter would have been a nice feature... With 64T and 85 filter inserted you can easily get yourself in Low light situations - no macro

Update. Thanks to a user in other forum who had already opened a Leicina Super i found out you need to remove the zoom rocker switch. Under that there are 2 screws. Between the Power zoom button and Iris stop buttons there is an adhesive plate that must be removed with a cutter/knife and there are other 2 screws. Now both sides are out. - On the right side you have access to Iris gears . I moved them by hand and was able to go from open to close without problems so there is nothing mechanical blocking it. - On the left side you can just about get at the shutter disk. I tried moving it by hand and manage to get a 150° movement, then it just jams in both directions... so i haven't resolved anything yet....

Hi all. I recently got a second Leicina Super for cheap from Ebay, and despite being described as fully functional, when i power it up i can hear a 'click' from inside and the LED that means open shutter keep staying on and nothing happens if I press trigger. Auto iris doesn't work either, only thing working is the zoom. So i dediced to try to open it to see if something is jammed... but i can't manage to get it opened... i now have it half opened and can't even get it back together. I removed the 3 hex screws on the bottom where tripod attachment is, i removed screw in battery compartment. The bottom is starting to open, but there is still something on top that's keeping the 2 parts together and i can't figure out what it is. The smaller side on the right (where filter and exposure compensation knobs are) is open on the bottom part but something on top is still holding it, and i can't put it back in cos the knobs won't insert... Tried to search on the net but there is only info on the Leicina Special that is quite different. Anyone ever managed to open a it ? thanks.

i'll first try to put in some kind of gate for the film. I can see the film moving around a bit when it advances so i need to keep it still and put some tension on it. If this fails, i'll have to change completely setup and go to intermittent mode... at this point i guess i'll be better off using a real projector ....

No, i don't have a film guide at the moment. I guess that's the main problem. The microswitch gives some resistance on the sprocket teeth and this does make the film move a little when it is released. I guess i need to put some tension on the film between the sprocket and the lens so it keeps more still. Yesterday i changed a bit the position of the microswitch and things are a bit better, but still each frame is captured in a different instant. Here is footage filmed on minidv as the film is moving. You can hear the clicks of the microswitch: Footage filmed from XL1 And here is the resulting clip captured to PC: Captured footage It's a bit orange cos i was using Wittner100D film and forgot to remove daylight filter.....

Using a stepper motor would complicate things a lot. You have to consider that using the take up reel as the main transport, the speed changes from the beginning of the reel compared to the end of reel (film is moving slower at the start 'cos radius is lower and it's moving faster towards end of reel), so for example 10 impulses to the motor could correspond to an exact frame in the first feet of film, but would not be correct for the last feet of film, so i would need a 'sensor' anyway to know when the frame is correctly positioned. If i can't get the microswitch to work properly i was thinking of using a fotosensor that commands a relay to give the mouse click. With a bit of tuning the fotosensor should recognize film perforations; this way i can get rid of the sprocket all together leaving only 2 rollers to physically touch the film. Now i'm leaving the office and it's back to home to fiddle with the switch a bit..

i have chosen to go a different way. As i had an editor that was pretty useless cos it gave a very dark and rubbish image, i decided to recycle it's transport mechanism to do a slow frame by frame capture. I had a broken DVD player that was dismantled and is now acting as my chassis. I'm using it's power supply as it had +2, +3 ,+5 and +12 v outputs. 2v go to the motor via a switch. 5v go (via a 1.2 ohm resistor) to a 3w Lumiled that is used to light the film ( i used an old camera translucent lens cap as a diffuser and it works quite well) For 9 euros i bought a used low gear dc motor and it is attached to the take up reel. The sprocket is still used but no power is applied, i only use it as a trigger via a microswitch that is connected to a left button in an old mouse. At the moment i'm using a 55mm pentax slr lens inverted as a close up lens. I put my Canon xl1 in front of this lens and i have a nice magnified view of the film. Only trouble is to align perfectly the cam with the lens to avoid vignetting. As soon as i have more cash i'm going to get a Canon compact digicam (no mechanical shutter) that can be remotely operated via software and save automatically images on hard drive. It should manage to keep up with speed as at the moment it's about 1fps.I'll probably get a proper close up lens as well like the Raynox 250 or similar. For the moment i'm experimenting with the XL1.. i still have to get synch right with the microswitch , for some reason it doesn't click always at the right moment so i have a lot of jitter because every frame is captured at slightly different moments... but i think that moving around the switch a bit should solve the problem .. i just need more time. Here are some pics: keep in mind that this is still very experimental and most important very cheap: i tried to recycle as much as possible and at the moment it has cost me around 15 euros (motor and LED)... Front view of the assembly (if you dare call that an assembly) Front view of assembly DC Motor with switch connected to take up reel: DC motor Lighting and lens. The wooden block supporting the lens is now much shorter so i can put the Canon XL1 right up against the lens: Lighting and close up lens I don't have any clips or frames at the moment to show cos i forgot them in my pc at home, and the clips were too jittery anyway. I'll post updates a.s.a.p

thanks for the info. I shot another roll of the ol vision 250d this time with the Admira Electric, just to test the camera. I'll only have it developed but no telecine . I just wanted to see that it loaded correctly and did not jam and indeed everything seemed to go well. I'll have it developed just to see that there are no scratches and other camera related things. This time i overexposed by at least 2 stops as everything was quite dark with the other roll. Ole, does that german company have a web site or a name i can google ? thanks

I was thinking of spending less as this is really only a test and at this time of year money is needed for other things as well.... I'm currently looking out for Canon S2/S3 series. They have less MPixels, but much more zoom , which comes in handy when you have to capture such a small area. I really don't need macro with the camera because using an inverted lens in front of the camera lens gives all the magnification you need. This pic is not a crop, it's the actual pic taken with a crappy Mv850 in photo mode with a 80mm c mount lens inverted and 'taped' in front of the camera lens. Light came from a mini maglite, so it was done in very poor conditions...basically just a proof of concept. I guess with proper lighting/diffusion and a proper photo cam i can get up to 50% more quality ... and i still have a bunch of SLR primes to try out as an inverter lens.. but first i have to get the correct lighting and keep the s8 film perfectly aligned and still, because you have very very shallow depth of field . I'll keep you informed as the project advances.

Hi, i'm trying a similar setup for super8 and if it works i'll try it on 16mm too. But instead of DSLR i want to use a compact digital. I know Canon and Olympus cameras have software that can command the camera from pc so you can automate everything and have the pics saved directly on hard drive. I want to use a compact because from what i know, they don't have mechanical shutters / mirrors so they should last longer compared to a SLR, even if quality isn't as good. At the moment i'm hijacking a 8mm moviola for transport and illumination, and i am trying the 'inverted lens' method as a macro lens. The follwing pic was taken with a Canon mv850 camcorder in photo mode with a 20mm lens 'taped' inverted in front of the camera lens and the pc monitor as a light source.... Click to see pic

i live in italy, getting short ends here is very difficult, and a new roll of 100 ' kodak neg is about 60 euros... that's why i tried to get them cheap off ebay as this was only a test, it's not a payed job yet. I did contact the ebay seller and described the images to see if he remembered filming them; still waiting for answer. I have the negative and the first frames of the negative show the house that was filmed in time lapse that i see on minidv and that is not mine, so yes the negative and the minidv are matched. John: playground and clouds scene were shot on the same day at different times... it was one of the best sunsets i've seen this autumn. Was at home watching tv and i happened to look out of the window and saw those pink clouds so i rushed out on the balcony. I didn't have my tripod with me cos it was in the office... In the clouds scene i can see a fair amount of frame jitter on the minidv (don't know if with the web clip it is noticeable). At first i thought it was a registration problem with the scoopic, but then looking at the footage that's not mine and presumably shot with a bolex rex5, i can see the same jitter, so i guess it's something to do with telecine ( the cheapest one light i could find , they say they use a Rank Cintel Digiscan III with Da Vinci + DVNR ... whatever that means...)

glad to know i'm not the only one making mistakes.... I can understand the exposure mistake i made with the old vision stock , but i can't figure out why i have 2 minutes of perfect footage that is not mine.... Even if the seller of the film was dumb enough to sell me exposed film, i was more dumb than him to load it with the emulsion the wrong way and so i didn't expose the film but i just made it run through the camera.... could this be possible ? i haven't checked the negative yet, but is there a sort of serial number/stock number on the negative that matches the numbers on the film cartridges? this would be the proof that i made a big mistake or the lab gave me someone else's film....

hi, i just got back from the lab and telec. my first 2 rolls shot with my scoopic. Unfortunately results are not all that good, but i suppose it's my fault. - first roll: old kodak Vision 250d 7246 bought from ebay. Very underexposed and grainy... i guess i should have read with more attention posts from other users and compensated exposure for old film... i guess i could have given at least 2 stops more (shooted outdoors in sunny conditions with f11 - 16) . But at least these are images that i did actually shoot myself. - second roll: kodak Vision2 250d 7205 also bought from ebay. The strange thing i noticed right away with this roll was that it was inverted: perforations were on the wrong side. I decided to give it a try anyway and put the roll upside down in order to have the perforations correct and shot it. In the minidv transfer, i have 2 minutes of footage that is not mine. There is a time lapse scene and a mother with baby... So i think there could be 2 causes: - lab made an error in telecine - as the film on the spool was inverted, maybe it had been already exposed but not developed and so i shot over it... but in this case you should see double exposure, and this is not the case... images are perfect, they simply are not mine... So the lesson for today is: don't try and save money buying stock from ebay... get new stuff and for testing purposes get b/w reversal so you save on telecine... Here's a 10Mb clip of the nearly decent stuff that came out. http://www.g-d.it/prova/scoopictest.wmv What can cause all those white flashes ? is it only because it's old film ?

thanks for the info, and yes please the manual can come handy. I have the 2 adapters for viewfinder: the 20 and the 80 ( in the front pic you can see the 80mm in place) but they really are only a 'mask' to give you a basic idea of framing , thay don't really zoom in the viewfinder, that gives a very small view.