Simon Wyss

Macro work is generally done with focal lengths a little longer than normal. With wide-angle lenses you may find yourself in trouble lighting the object, you have so little room to bring in frontal and front-side light. If that is not a problem, fine. I think you will need an accurate focusing aid such as a microprism array or a split-image screen with the camera. That narrows the choice. There are some smallish Super-8 cameras with built-in macro facility, for example the Bolex 350 macro compact s that attaches well to supports. Closest distance I cannot tell at the moment. The 350 has just aerial view sadly.

Have found the register of this camera too long. Bell & Howell’s specification is 1.5 inches plus or minus 0.0005. That is 38,1 mm but my measurements revealed 38,4 mm. The camera was sold that way! So we machined 0,3 mm down to have 38,09 mm now, aperture plate screwed on. The head of the underlying release anchor trip nut screw I had to grind shorter as well. Remaining problem is only to find lenses that have an [A] or [B] mount. They weren’t marked as such, only from model 71-C on the mount barrels were engraved with a C. The difference lies solely in the rotational orientation of the cameras’ guide prong and thus the position of the index mark. Additionally, nothing younger than 1939 will fit a 71-A, -B or -C.

Of course is it nonsense. Video camera sensors are sensitive to very narrow colour bands, almost dead on one wavelength per primary colour. The advantage of it is a much preciser or more clearly defined colour image from whose data a result can be tweaked way more easily than with film. Film is sensitive to wide parts of the spectrum with overlapping sections between blue and green or green and red, respectively. That complicates matters. Most people in the trade are ignorants and worse still, they don’t even want to know shit. Filmic look is a acromoron expression of blunt foolishness, if it can be put so. The tip of the top of the vanity are perforation hole and scratch-‘n’-dust overlays to videos. You can’t polish a turd.

You can find those over French ebay and le bon coin, links given herewith. If you can’t find a technician willing to service it, send it to me.

One of the new springs.

To the repair people: The 1925 Eyemo 71 design has a clutch spring between main spring hub shaft and first gear, to be preciser a helicoidal spring made from round wire with an axially protruding leg that sits in a bore of that gear. The leg can break off. In such a case nothing holds the main drive spring so that it unleashes instantly. I am having a 71-A here with this damage. What happens next is that one of the stop mechanism gears, it sits on the main drive hub shaft, will pound onto the other with the full energy of the drive spring. So the stop mesh is no longer there. Also, the main spring may unhook from the hub shaft. It is difficult to buy replacement parts from the remainders of Bell & Howell stocks. Nobody at MPE knows the camera. Parts can be sold only by the civilian numbers. I have the military parts list, not useful. The civilian parts list is not given out. So the replacement of the stop gears can become cumbersome although you describe the parts exactly. Since I didn’t want to fool around with the MPE people I decided to have fresh clutch springs made. They arrived Friday, the Eyemo is back to life now. The stop mechanism is dysfunctional but else the camera can be used. I have a couple dozens of springs. Interested parties may buy from me, CHF 10 each, net. Mind you that younger models, I don’t know from which serial number on though, have two shorter mirror-inverted legged coil springs. Bell & Howell had to improve the construction. May many Eyemo users use their Eyemos. I love these noisy automatic cine cameras and I love to retrieve the savoir-faire from the twenties.

The C clip sits in there just like that, there is no groove. Try.

Push the whole group out with a drift pin.

Yeah, if I had to build that camera, I’d take an H-8 and replace the front by an H-16 one. The aperture plate would be a 16-mm. without the support ridge in the center. Then add a mask for this wide-frame format.

The combination is an H-8 with an H-16 front. The sprocket drums are identical.

Although you are a professional cameraman I must presume one last thing, light coming from the eyepiece. Hit?

That is possible. Questions that I’d want to answer with the camera before me: is the anti stray light baffle in place in front of the ground glass, are the aperture edges blackened, is the shutter rim blackened, is the lens’ mount rear matted?

I’d say that the two lenses got opened at some time and not adjusted properly. If you want to improve on it yourself: Loosen the three set screws in the focusing ring, just loosen each by about half a turn, then turn the focusing tube with your fingertips until image appears sharp in the finder (on whatever distance you like, infinity is best, the horizon for instance), and bring focusing ring with that distance on reference mark. Finish by tightening the screws back. Shorter distances are a bit tricky due to the personal hypofocal or hyperfocal view. You need to see the ground surface tack sharp.

Link to an article I published on the P. May want to plough yourself through with a translator. It exists also in French but not in English (yet). https://jimdo-storage.global.ssl.fastly.net/file/46ff7b95-ce2b-496e-bcb8-b5f51b085eb3/Das lauwarme Konzept der P-Kamera von ETM.pdf

Here’s a view of the mechanism of an ETM P 16. With the exception of two aluminum stanchions everything is steel and brass.