Simon Wyss

It was La cabina which won me for the movies. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065513/

The Third Man by Sir Carol Reed, 1949; in the U. S. as The 3rd Man Pépé-le-Moko by Julien Duvivier, 1936 La nuit américaine by François Truffaut, 1973 Hannah and her Sisters by Woody Allen, 1986 Dshamilijah by Irina Poplawskaja, 1969 High Noon by Fred Zinnemann, 1952

Are you going for high contrast images ?

Fully agree with and support Ira. If you already have that feeling about people wanting to bend film over to video just shoot film and project it in the dark. It can be 8 mm or 16 mm. Start all over again and again with black and white. It can be 35 mm. Try Gigabitfilm in 135.

That is disintegration of the alloy, intercrystalline corrosion. You cannot do a thing about it. There are several factors that can trigger it, sea salt is one of them, then rust from steel screws in the body, and more.

To whom it may be of interest It is impossible to help in such circumstances where equipment, film types, and chemistry tumble all over each other. I can only advise that one begins to DIY process with test footage in order to gain some dexterity with the equipment at hand before one develops more precious stock. Eastman-Kodak sell chemicals, correct, but they don't bother much about DIY results. Their primary concern is machine processing of most cheaply produced stocks by any way. A hand-processed black-and-white film almost always looks more crisp, but also much more uniform if well done. It's not possible to imitate hand quality with machines in black and white. It's become hardly possible to imitate machine processing of color stock by hand. Would you, dear reader, please note that it makes a difference whether you process the five feet of a 135 film or 50 or 100 feet of ciné film. That difference lies just in the way the film is handled. I for myself have found the best mechanical arrangement after long years. It's not the rewind tank.

Sorry in case I missed it in the thread but did we mention the fact that our eyeballs tremble? Shaken by their movement muscles at about 50 cycles a second we kind of overthrow the retinal impression again and again. Else the eye nerve(s) wouldn't have a bit to transmit. Vision purple decays, impulse is made, and then? That goes in harmony with the Showscan experience. People have had their eye muscles paralysed for tests. They stated they wouldn't see anything more than what was moving, the rest an indefinable grey. The number of phases of analyzed motion becomes a fluid syntheses at a somewhat variable frequency of 15, 16, whatever, but that has only to do with the effective changes (the apparent motion) of the whole impression. We may loose control of our binocular vision, the parallel gaze, under the influence of alcohol. There, too, appears the fact that our sensors are vibrating.

I'm not a Guru, I am the Messiah-haha of hand processing. Seriously, there have been alternatives to Metol (Kodak Elon®) since decades. Phenidone® is one of them, leads to tighter grain structures. So I employed it instead of the former with many of the Eastman-Kodak formulae which are numbered D-1 through D-97 up to now. There isn't the slightest problem with changing chemicals except for one: Hydroquinone is still the most powerful blackening agent in fine grain layers, i. e. on micro-sized crystals, when adequately supported. Ascorbic acid also has come into use as a reducer. But, like my 25th wife used to say, cut out that talking and get to do some.

No, you don't.

Well, I have been processing every kind of black-and-white stock by hand for nine years now. You can of course develop Tri-X reversal film which is the one you mean, isn't it, in D-19. Give it five minutes at 20 ºC with not too little agitation.

Why D-19? Kodak once recommended that formula for a fast treatment to strong contrast of plates and news film, for radiography, metallography, spectography, and aerial photography. Do you want to hammer on PXN or PXR, TXN or TXR?

Ciné stock perforation became standardized first in 1907 at the Paris international motion-picture film technical congress. There the frame-line was established as to be between a hole pair. In 1909 the hole form, hole rows separation, and pitch was fixed to what Bell & Howell Co. of Chicago determined with their 1908 perforator. Don't ask me how this was accomplished. Square holes with rounded corners came in 1938 as Dubray-Howell perf. Eastman-Kodak introduced square holes with rounded corners in 1939 in order to give space to the sprocket teeth of printers. The fourth standardized 35-mm film perforation was the 1953 CinemaScope type with square holes and rounded corners, set somewhat more apart and smaller to give way to magnetic stripes on prints.

Hey, Jase Want to make a small historic journey with me? So, during World War I an aerial photography ciné film was manufactured by Perutz of München, Germany. They called it Fliegerfilm. It was nothing else than an orthochromatic low speed motion-picture stock. Oskar Barnack, an employee at the Leitz works, thought of using that film for stills photography in 1915 and started to build a little camera. Look, until the 1930s photographers worked with glass plates (some still do) and sheet film (some still do) in the formats of 4" X 5", 5" X 7", 8" X 10". Roll film and the 135 story became widespread only after World War II. Barnack's Leica (Leitz camera) was odd in a number of respects. He chose an aperture of 24 by 36 mm, aspect ratio of 2 to 3. Photographers were used to compose on the ratio of 3 to 4, 4 to 5 or square. Also, many people wouldn't understand why to use a strip of film with up to 36 exposures when they mostly needed one good picture. Life had not yet accelerated so much. Now you can compare 35-mm stills photography with 35-mm cinematography, i. e. 24 by 36 mm vs. 18 X 24 mm (it once was ¾ inches on 1 inch with Dickson at Edison labs). With the “Academy” standard of 1932 the camera aperture was defined as .631" X .868", a little later .630" X .867". The aspect ratio of the screen was to remain 3 to 4. The rest of the story is an industry that throws out throw-away products, also lenses. The 1920 photographer (and cinematographer) had very few lenses which he had a feeling for. He would not change often his equipment.

Andy Got the impression of somebody experienced badly with small gauge film projection. I am a professional projectionist since twenty years. Fumeo is by far not the best 16-mm film projector. If you want to know about some makes: Bell & Howell Filmosound line (yes, Fifties), Siemens & Halske 2000, Bolex-Paillard 311/321 with a few restrictions, Diksi TFP and Dixi-720 line. We have polyester film. I spoke about reduction prints (from 35). CinemaScope out of 16 does not deal with a smaller image area; it's standard 3 to 4 and anamorphics. You are perfectly right about two-format machinery. One of the worst apparatus we have in Europe is that Ernemann combination crap. Unbelievably, the 16 section is connected to the 35 one by gears. Horrible and noisy Arnold & Richter are selling the 416 like fresh rolls. 16 is still to stay for years. Besides, it needn't always be EKC and Fuji to deliver raw stock. In black and white EKC has lost some ground to other manufacturers. Wait and see whether not one day some chinese 16 color stock will appear on the market.

A 35-mm theatrical release print of 100 minutes is about 21 kg of material. The equivalent in 16 mm weighs the tenth of it and consists of two rolls. For the average screen height of three meters (10 ft.) 16 mm is perfect. Reduction prints and outprints from data look fine. 16 mm has always been a distribution format of the industry, it was George Eastman's choice of a 1919-20 Bell & Howell proposal (⅝"). He was in contact with Charles Pathé who went for Ferdinand Zecca's proposal of the third part of the Kok system (1⅛"). Both envisaged to conquer a giant dormant market: everybody at home. So 16-mm film is one of a few alternatives if we need to break out from the costly burden of 35.

Well, generally there's the tendency towards the magenta layer to exaggerate with either pushing (prolonged developing time) or raising the temperature. This has been the top concern of Eastman-Kodak chemists with the older (and discontinued) color print films, I think it was 5384/7384. But that is an inherent issue as old as multi-layer colour film exists. Modern color film chemistry had to become balanced over so many factors. There is the p-H value, you know, proton concentration or acidity/alkalinity — very important, also agitation, and almost unknown: surface activity or better ion activity at the interface gelatine-liquid. It can make some difference whether the film enters the developing bath directly or whether it comes from an alkaline prebath such as it is still employed for the removal of backings. They are right now trying to do without a rem-jet soot gelatine backing layer. Still I'm certain that you will master this all. Note everything like a donkey and learn from experience in your actual situation: water, machine, and so on. Thank you for your faith.

Roligt

Steven, this is one of the most complicated subjects. Why ? Because one — you have three separate color layers if not the double number with certain stock which are chemically affected one after the other through time (logically), two— the layers will never react precisely in parallel manner, so we have to deal with color shifts, three — speed, actually density developed out after a certain formula, depends primarily on the chemistry (the most complex variable of all), four — exposure, in itself the product of light intensity and time, so a certain light amount, makes non-linear differences (Schwarzschild effect), and five — temperature variations again do not always give linear changes. Point four can be deleted in printing since exposure time remains mostly constant. Point one is connected with point five. Point two may be corrected for by densitometric evaluation and subsequent programing. I think that the manufacturers tend to recommend everything standard, you know, along their guidelines and chemicals. Cinema projection calls for a standard print density. Lab managers speak Laboratory Aim Density, a Kodak invention. Directors and DP almost invariably want to move between the extremes, often without any knowledge of film projection physics. Worse even the electronically risen people. Start studying this field of interest with a crisp black-and-white print in a theater. Check out what happens with you in high-key scenes and in low-key scenes. Then compare color imagery to it.

Guillaume, what are your points now ?

Daniele, there is ORWO UN 54 and ORWO N 74. There's no un74. Panchromatic Universal Negative 54 film is rated ISO 100. Panchromatic Negative 74 film is rated ISO 400. They are modern stocks with nice tones. I think in black and white you shouldn't worry about the stock but about the lighting.

Canada is very special.

Friend, how can COMMAG or COMOPT sound become off-synch ?

Furniture polish ain't worst thing after a thorough cleaning, believe me. Oh, that reminds me of Steve Martin in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid: C-l-e-a-n-i-n-g---W-o-m-a-n . . .

Charles, will you now go down there and fetch that bottle ! This is the sort of mistakes which ruins civilization. Do you want me to not sleep anymore ?

Funny, in Europe it's Rodinal. When it was put on the market by Agfa Mr. Auguste Rodin was en vogue.