Simon Wyss

Jean-Louis, entièrement d’accord. The braking pads of the governor are leather. They are meant to run dry but dry leather becomes hard over the years. At 12 f. p. s. the momentum on the pads is more force at less diameter. That is the reason for the vibration. Yes, molycote lubricant is a good choice. I once lubed an H 16 with grease also on the governor. She came back to a reasonable life but like Jean-Louis Seguin says that may turn sticky as well. There is nothing else than regular maintenance. With the Bolex H I’d speak of five year intervals or after 20'000 feet of film when the camera is in serious use. Last time I was in Hastings seems to have been in 1977. Pier still standing?

It’s the governor. This most important piece of the mechanism requires one single drop of oil for its brass drum in which three braking pads revolve. So nobody of those who opened the camera did really take care. The governor bearings most certainly need lubricant, too. The Paillard-Bolex cameras are prone to runnig dry, all steel axles in bronze sleeves must be attended to. Two to three hours of concentrated work for a well trained technician, no major problems included.

Kamil, you have to be national to become international. Everything else is rubbish. Jiří Trnka, Zoltán Fábri, Mario Monicelli, Ula Stöckl, everyone is understood in their home culture. Only American movies, for the majority, start from international abstracts and very basic instincts. How did Mozart say in Amadeus: German, let it be German. The emperor: Plain German for plain people.

January 2006 I developed the content of this can after more than 37 years. It came to me out of the basement of an animation movie specialist’s apartment. You can’t read it perhaps, there is a stamp 17 SEP 1968. Turned out as good negative. To know that it wasn’t already processed I cut 100 feet off and run it through my Eyemo. There was double exposure of content I didn’t know and of mine. Colour film is a different thing.

Doug Gorius, student ?! I sometimes have the impression that posts or thread starts like this one could be home made, I mean written by insiders for keeping the forum alive. Who can be so non-read as a student to ask such questions? Resolution? Resolving power, film versus video, come on, Douglas living person, are you not aware of the basic difference, that one is something organic, the other anorganic? Because you LOVE film, why not tell us your love story? Where are you, who are you, which direction in cinematography are you taking?

David W. Samuelson, Motion Picture Camera Data, Focal Press: Mag. is upright when lettering on footage indicator reads correctly. Remove left lid of mag. by releasing three cornered safety catch and rotating mag. lid 90° anti-clockwise. (Note three-cornered safety catch on take-up side has a small felt insert for identification in the dark.) Place film in mag., thread end through light trap, re-set footage indicator lever against film and replace lid. If film is in take-up side of mag. remove and can-up in the dark. In the light pull out beginning of film, locate under sprung holder with perfs. located on ends. Tear off loose end of film whild holding down holder. Place an empty core on spindle on take-up side of mag. and check footage indicator lever is resting against it. Replace lid without threading film further. Connect camera to electronic control unit, check module is in place and knob is set to com-mag if single system sound recording required. With camera door closed attach mag. to rear by engaging at bottom, hinging upwards and locking it. Turn loading knob fully clockwise and hold until yellow light goes off and camera stops running. Return loading knob to original position. Camera is now fully threaded and ready for shooting. The loose end of film will attach itself to take-up core automatically during first take. Mag. cannot be removed from camera until film is completely run-out or until camera stops running. Mag. cannot be re-used until film in take-up side has been removed and an empty core fitted. Note daylight spool loading film may be used for take-up after removing spinning flange/core adaptors and locking footage indicator arms out of the way. When using spools for take-up, film end must be manually attached to spool after threading through camera. In replacing spinning flanges note one for take-up side has a white dot for identification purposes (similar to white dot on safety catch). Hope this helps.

That’d be new to me, too. There was the 10-element D-mount Switar 13-0.9 for 8 Millimeter cameras, five groups of two cemented elements each. Brass barrel.

You fortunate son! Rodinal (after the french artist Auguste Rodin, 1840–1917) is fine for your work. Kodak TXR has no anti-halation layer that would come off, it’s a grey-base stock. Jump into it, who knows if you won’t end up with a lab like me. Replace what’s missing! Welcome to the wonderful Grauzone between anorganic and organic chemistry.

To come around let me put it this way: I should never bother if a movie like The Apartment were shot in 3:4. Regular 16 is 3 to 4 aspect ratio. Wide screen is fine, but the regular format, if you want, also the contained triangle with sides 3-4-5, are very dynamic. Regular 16 helps convey depth for the action. Many motion pictures go so perfectly with that geometry like, let me see: The Women Mon Oncle I soliti ignoti The Third Man Ursula oder das unwerte Leben . . . Let’s not forget that 9.5 mm and 16 mm were created for the promotion of safety reduction prints, old Pathé productions in the first place.

There is that scene in The Apartment about a healthy soup . . .

Well, actually I wanted to write only the first line at first: has digital video not always been dead? Then I got carried away somehow.

Elektra, has digital numeric video not always been dead? Are you alive, does blood flow in veins of you? Do you bear the eternal spark in you? Gea, hold me firmly in your arms, and let me not flee in flight! Urania, you count the days. Do we have a day for everything? No, we don’t. Chemistry is Gea’s home. But there hasn’t been an earth day in the week for thousands of years, and no uranic day, either. No wonder film and video have become rivals. Five out of twelve missing. Scar Wars.

What about a semi-automatic developing gear like what I’m preparing? Cargo will consist of spiral reels that one uses by hand, and drying drum on stand, driven by an electric motor, activated by pedal. With two drums one will be able to work continuously. The reels will be adjustable to different film widths and available in 100, 200, 500, and 1000 ft. sizes. The biggest one will necessitate two workers. Spooling from reel to drum is a safe and neat action. Best materials, the system evolved out of the experience of years in commercial film lab darkrooms. Rough calculated price for the basic kit around US$10'000. It will last a lifetime.

Yes. I wish people would know about the positive side of pedantry. In Latin it means to go by foot. It has everything of natural rhythm, to walk lets us breathe, not breathless. I feel we all are in a deep need for our own pace. The speed-up is over, that was around 1989. And the drive is upwards again, gone is that decadent 20th century. I have an H 8 Reflex, it must be just one of the first with the new housing: big base, 1-1 shaft, T-I knob switch instead of lever. The instruction booklet is accompanied by a leaflet on which the changes are illustrated, dated 1963. It is not so important.

1963 Every Paillard-Bolex H 16 can be fitted with sprocket drums toothed both sides or one side, they are just screwed to the shafts. Bolex, Yverdon, has both articles on stock, and so have many repair people. Important that loop sizes are correctly set

Standard procedure would be wedding first, children afterwards.

Please, Millennium, with two n, the latin words mille and annum hide in there. C'est tout.

Of course does it mean something. You probably don’t understand what I want to express: there’s this swiss german saying that it’s dark like inside a cow’s stomach or inside a cow. Sometimes we say Two Black Men Fighting with each other in a Tunnel at Night. High key would be called An Eskimo (I know, not PC) Fighting with an Ice Bear During a Snow Storm. I downloaded the picture data and made it appear full size on my monitor. It looked better than I first thought but still . . .

Let me now suggest you read the following tutorial paper. Pin Registration by A. C. Robertson in JSMPTE, vol. 72, Feb. 1963, pp. 75 through 81

The pins are tapered and a snug fit is adjusted in a camera’s assembly. Theory is nice but practice is heiss.

Mr. Borowski is so right. Film is judged in direct projection. Why do you young folks not have contacts made? You want film, so work with film, especially with Double-X negative in a cow’s stomach.

Tell us about the processing of your footage. Which temperature was the film bathed at?

Wouldn’t say optical printer because they almost invariably employ fixed pin movements. The solid cast pieces seem to be likely of, like you presume, eastern provenance. Feed and take up rollers integrated into the movement could be the key component to find the counterpart. Maybe a czech construction ?

If I may adjust a little: The focal length of a lens is by definition the distance between it and the image plane when said lens is set to form the sharpest possible image for an object at infinity. The very base of all lens geometry considerations is the idea of an infinitely small hole or aperture in the CAMERA OBSCURA. Light from all objects would fall through the aperture onto the camera’s image surface, infinitely sharp but infinitely weak. From idea to life we make the hole of finite size. That is the pinhole camera. Adding optical elements of higher refractive power than air is the beginning of solid optics. Things become already complicated with a single lens. In the case of a symmetric lens the so-called optical plane lies in its centre. As soon as we depart from symmetric forms the optical plane will move. The focal length will no more be identical to the actual distance lens-image. As a matter of fact, the shift is very small. It is simpler to produce small lenses and precision more easily attained for such but resolving power bigger with larger aperture lenses. Each and every optical lens is the product of compromises. Focal length is perhaps the cheapest ingredient: longer focal length generally helps in the design of an optical system. On the other hand, the wider we make the aperture the more difficulty shall we have with the light coming to the lens toward its rim. At f/0.5 these light beams just graze the glass surface under a horrible angle. This in turn decreases the size of the usable image surface. The focal length should be short for this reason.

Film – buy Video – rent my opinion, if not onion