Frank Wylie

Something like this has sound: https://www.ebay.com/itm/WW-II-Holmes-NAVY-Portable-35mm-Sound-Projector-Fully-Restored-Museum-Quality/282578542468?hash=item41cafe5f84:g:q4oAAMXQR4FRjq5d Check around your area for old men who collect projectors. Trust me, they exist and they have machines that are marginal or incomplete and will try to get you interested in their hobby, so they will sell it to you cheap IF you gain their trust. If nothing else, they would probably project your footage for you for free. Millions of projectors were made and a lot of them survive, but only in collections and in back rooms of eccentric old men like myself...

It's a toy projector and way, way overpriced. The images would be very dim and you'd destroy your film in about 3 passes through the projector. Since you are in Italy, you should look for a vintage 35mm silent film projector (assuming you can live without sound upon projection). In the U.S., you can find something like a Powers or DeVry or Universal Projector for a few hundred dollars if you look around a bit.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44585 Scroll down to page 199 and let the adventure begin!

Luigi, Why stop there? How about build yourself a 35mm motion picture camera, printer and projector, as well as developing and drying rack? http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44585 Scroll down to page 199 and start constructing!

You're welcome, Beau. I have an Oxberry printer head with a 16mm gate (double perf with one pin removed) and a 35mm full aperture gate myself, but it looks like a match for the one you already have, so that wouldn't be of any use to you. I built a 3K scanner about a decade ago with the parts to restore a series of Alice Guy Blache films from the 1890's thru the 1910's. I haven't touched it in years and its sitting in my basement, wrapped in plastic. Maybe I'll resurrect it one day, but probably not. It's just so slow, 1.5 seconds a frame and quite the pain to set up and run. I know of a full-blown 16mm Oxberry Pro Animator Stand in Ohio that is disassembled and stored poorly in a shed. It is my ex-wife's stand (long story) and she would probably part with it if you are interested. It has (or did have) pretty much everything, including the rotoscope projector. Frank

Pretty sure the shuttles are both Oxberry. The optical printer shuttle is not compatible with the camera because the optical printer projector head had to take both 16mm and 35mm movements, so the cam displacement is different for 16mm and 35mm. You can remove a registration pin and a take down pin on the camera gate or have it done. As long as you are using fresh raw stock, I would think it should be fine, ASSUMING you will still be shooting Standard 16mm images and not Super 16mm footage. Your stand looks home-brewed; not unusual. Looks like a combination of Oxberry, maybe Norton and other manufacturers. Not a bad thing and not unusual, just custom made by someone to their working ideals. You might be able to get a response from Oxberry themselves at http://www.oxberry.com/. EDIT: Oh wow, I just looked harder at your camera body and it is a highly modifed B&H 2709! Your working movement might be a stock Oxberry with a modified fork for the drive cam.

Yes! However you should remove at least the take-up reel, as it will spin and abrade the film. The supply reel can remain on the machine and act as a guide, as it is not driven when projecting forward. Other tips: Here's the user manual if you don't have it: Eumig R2000 Clean the gate as per the manual instructions. If the film starts to get dirty, you can take a lint free cloth and some film cleaner and gently wipe the film as it runs in the projector at the point farthest away from the film gate as the projector runs; The film should be dry by the time it hits the gate. Under NO circumstances let film wet with cleaner enter the gate! You will be sorry! Be sure to build-in periodic rest periods for the projector as part of your presentation. It was NOT designed to run hours on-end and it will melt-down. I would suggest you run it no more than 15 to 20 minutes continuously, and then let it rest for at least 5 minutes. Ideally, you can stop the projector, turn off the lamp and leave the fan motor running to let it rapidly cool down, however I am unaware IF this model projector will run in standby with the cooling fan running or if it just shuts off everything when you turn off the lamp. When you stop to cool the projector, do so where the splice in the loop can be examined and replaced if needed. Check it every time you stop the projector to cool; better safe than sorry. Have a film splicer and tape on-hand for emergency repairs. Finally; have at least 1, better yet 2, spare lamps on-hand and know how to change it. Nothing like blowing a lamp and ending the show... Good luck.

Take a bit of leader or scrap film, take off the reels and feed the film into the projector and run it until you have film emerging from the take-up side of the projector. All you need to do it run out enough that will attach back to the film where it enters the projector in a tension free loop that doesn't scrape or bind against anything. This is the "working length or time"; the absolute minimum that must be in the projector to form the basis of your loop. Count the perforations, convert them to seconds in running time and you'll know how little you can run. As far as how LONG you can make your loop, only your imagination and ingenuity will determine that! The film needs to be supported so that it doesn't scrape or scratch against anything or be stepped upon or tangled in anything close by. Be sure there are no twists in the film and try to find a way to apply a bit of gentle tension in the loop. This can be accomplished with a roller on a hinged arm that gravity will naturally press down on the loop and give the tension without tearing the film. It doesn't have to be very heavy... Salvage film rollers from a broken projector or similar item (or make them) and put them on wooden slats or dowels to guide the loop over and around and attach them to whatever is handy. You can make a simple wooden stand to hold the rollers above the projector; just be sure the film stays relatively flat and enters and exits the projector in-lin with the film path; no right angles. This is called a "loop tree". Here's an ambitious 16mm version: https://firstkissfilms.wordpress.com/category/cinematic-inspiration/ I would suggest you use a very well-made tape splice on the film rather than a cement splice, as it stands a better chance of surviving repetitive views. Be sure it is cleanly cut, without adhesive to jam in the gate.

Why not? It has coaxial feed and supply reels; what could be more simple?

If you'd like more Konvas specific information, head over to Konvas.org, peruse the archives, read the FAQs and join the mailing list. I started the original Konvas Users Discussion Group back in 2000, and it's had a very up-and-down life, but retains a lot of information on all types of Soviet-era motion picture cameras. You can read the history of the group here: http://konvas.org/faq/faqs/faq/whats-the-history-behind-the-konvas-discussion-list

You might try the "plastidip spray" trick that many use on pick-and-pluck foam liners... http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?79233-My-Pick-n-pluck-fun

You can use a film print emulation LUT (look up table). https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/workflow-for-post-production-film-editors/download-free-davinci-resolve-film-print-emulation-luts/

I've had to clean several of my EOS Canon Film cameras for this problem.

Very nice! I just HATE the ergonomics of shooting moving images with SRL bodies.

You want to go down the rabbit hole of sync super 8mm? http://dtvgroup.com/Super8Sound/ Good luck! I had a modified Uher 4000 that fed a tone into the PC socket of the Super 8mm camera, which was interrupted each time a frame was exposed and that sound was recorded onto a 2nd audio channel as I shot on S8 with the Uher recording 8mm sprocketed magnetic fullcoat. An internal resolver "resolved" the speed back to 24 fps upon playback. I even had a Super 8mm flatbed once... I wish I had back those endless hours of trying to make it all work ... If you're serious about Super 8mm, look for a crystal sync Super 8mm camera. Even then, it will drift in slight increments in relation to digital audio recordings, but it can be managed in editing.

If you have a smart phone, there are plenty of good apps that do very well as light meters.

In the silent era, they used tons of magnesium flares placed in front of mirrors, stuck in sand buckets. Good luck finding either the flares or the permit to use them...

Simon, I knew and corresponded with Wes Lambert for a period of about 5 years just prior to his passing and he was a very knowledgeable guy when it came to motion picture cameras. As I stated, and I do acknowledge that my memory might be faulty, but I thought I had read that the camera in question was not a B&H, but that Martin Johnson had complained to A.S. Howell that they had lost cameras due to termites. Again, as I remember, that was the impetus for B&H to build the 2709 (supposedly the 27th design of a camera in 1909) out of metal, not wood. If this camera was indeed the 27th design of 1909, it would go a long way to proving that the camera was on the drawing boards well before first production of the the first actual camera... Now, 30 years and 20 moves later (with subsequent loss and purges of books), I'll have to go back to my library and see IF I can confirm or recant on my vague recollection of this tidbit. I hope I can actually locate something one way or the other, as I hate being unsure. I will a happily recant if I am wrong, but I still strongly disagree with the notion that LePrince had anything to do with the design of the 2709.

I am thinking it was an Auricon Pro 600; the mag is too small for a Pro 1200. Also, I've never seen a gray Pro 1200, only Pro 600 and before had gray paint. All the Pro 1200's I have owned or seen are bronze/tan color wrinkle finish paint. (edit: of course, it could have been a 600 mag on a 1200 body! Also, it slightly resembles a Maurer 16mm Camera. Hmmm....) Could that long box in front of the camera on sticks be one of those old, horrible dry cell battery banks with a resonator circuit (reed) to convert DC to AC? I lugged a few of those hernia-makers around in my teens and I hated them with a passion... This leads me to wonder if the whole shebang was recorded mag-stripe on the cameras, in addition to whatever double system recorder they used? I know that both the Auricon and the BL could be fitted with mag sound heads for single system recording...

I understand you are looking for the physical issues to collect, but if you want/need the content for now, the Media History Project has ASC Magazines online from 1921 to 1942 at http://mediahistoryproject.org/technical/index.html. Good luck!

Tape the seams and put your loop protectors on the mags (or bag them with stock bags) and you should be fine...

If you have a light leak in the mag and don't tape it immediately after loading, it could have fogged a wedge of the film over time. Being that the fogging pulsates more rapidly as you approach the center of the load, it suggests that the film was fogged "in situ", not as it was running through the camera...

I was taught to always tape mags along the sealing seams with black, paper "camera tape", but to also take a short section of the can tape and affix it to the mag for ID purposes. When unloading the mag at the end of the day, confirm the film went back into the same can it came from, seal around the edges with camera tape and then wrap the remainder of the original sealing tape across the diameter of the lid to denote exposed stock. Of course, be sure not to ship the film mag core adapter back with the rawstock! You then cleaned the mags inside and out to remove any dirt or tape residue and then reloaded them for the next day's shoot. Just the way I was taught...

Depends. You will probably have back-focus issues trying to use that lens IF it was originally manufactured and intended for a Reflex Bolex. The flange-depth of non-reflex C mount lenses is different from reflex C mount lenses. Reflex lenses have a longer flange-focal distance than non reflex to accommodate the reflex prism. https://erkanumut.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/bolex-h16-lenses/ You could remove the pressure pad on the Bolex, place a bit of frosted film in the gate, mount the lens and check for sharp focus. This is, of course, very difficult to see, even with a magnifier, as the gate is at an angle. An uncommon accessory, the gate prism, would certainly help here... https://www.ebay.com/itm/rare-vintage-BOLEX-Paillard-Switzerland-VIEWFINDER-camera-movie-prism-8mm-16mm/222871324427?hash=item33e42a870b:g:r2wAAOSwz~paJ6eN To be extremely picky, the lens is centered incorrectly for the standard film aperture, but that shouldn't pose too much of an issue in all practicality...

No worries!