Roberto Pirodda

Well, i have not anymore this camera unfortunately. It was more frame steady than the Bolex DS8 ! It seems that you are playing around lenses instead of shooting :-) me too was such kind of experimenter tough. Anyway, there is a said in Italy , it tells : date a Cesare quel che è di Cesare. ( give to Cesar what it is of Cesar) bad translation but it sounds more or less so. I have tried many lenses on the Webo, also Schneider ones, and the best was quite the Angenieux that came with the camera. May be because the Angenieux was collimated to work with the thin reflex glass of the Webo. The only thing that is frustrating now is the lack of DS8 filmstock !

L'unica differenza tra le due è la possibilità di montare il magazzino da 120 metri. Ho usato questa macchina per un periodo e posso assicurarti che produce immagini perfette, nulla a che vedere con le classiche cineprese S8 a cartuccia. Purtroppo non posso aiutarti per i manuali e la batteria dell'esposimetro, ma è molto semplice da usare. per l'esposizione io uso sempre un esposimetro esterno.

Buon lavoro

the sprokets rollers had been lathed on the upper side ( photo reference) till 1 mm, so no scratches in the S16 area, in the sprokets side was not possible to do any lathe machining, anyway is was very clean and gentle with film

@ Tom , yes, pardon, English is not my first language, the gate is hand widened/filed, but the left edge, the film path , is machine milled ( it should be impossible to do it by hand).

@ Robert, my customization isn,t exactly an U16, it is a sort of full frame exposing

I hate autoexposure, if you are shooting film you MUST learn before how to expose properly it . Very likely an autometer will close iris if in your frame there is a street light, then open when the light goes away, and so on. Moreover the negative film will benefit from a little overexposure

As you can see it is a homemade work ​ :( , The film path has been chamfered for not to scratch the film. The red paint ( it is brown/black), is put to darken the milled steel edges. The right side is lower because there are the perforations, so no need to bore further

The canon 514 XL has 225° shutter so should be the best choice. About exposure if you shot with V3 5oo ASA you should be fine, keep the iris full open, do not worry about overexposure, you are shooting night exteriors assuming regular street lights

Thanks Doug !

Mark, this scan comes from Kodachrome film, and edge numbers were visible only on underexposed or dark shots. With negative films the codes were always visible, so no full frame availability

well Freya, i do not know the exact SMPTE specs ( if any) for U16 frame, what i have done is simply enlarged the gate to expose the frame from side to side , saving one mm per side to support the film, so i have the freedom to chose which to scan, S16 or U16

the gate is hard enough ( steel ) so no reinforce. My Bolex round base was originally non reflex, now it is reflex. I took spares from a dead camera. My U16 is 14 mm wide x 6mm high so 2,33 aspect ratio

Well Doug, if your Bolex is still in guarantee better not alter it :-) anyway my bolex round base works great, it is not as steady as EBM but it has been so even before modification. It has the older pull down claw mechanism with steel gate .

yes, those hateful edge codes... anyway, i have already converted a non reflex Bolex. I left 1 mm per side to support the film, so the real width is 14mm. The film can be flat and steady with proper spring tension of pressure plate. I would like to enclose an image but here it is impossible

Hello Tom, i have both lathe and mill, it is a UNITOR unit made in Italy. I use it for my business about photographic equipment repair ( i am not only a cinematographer). About scanning, i usually scan in S16 because it is a more usable format. Unfortunately for U16 in the edge of the film there is the film code so i cannot use total widht of the film , otherwise i could achieve a wider aspect ratio vs S16

i have enlarged the gate of my 16mm Bolexes to full widht of the film , then i can chose to telecine Ultra16 or Super16 area. I have my own 3 CCD datacine frame by frame scanner up to 2,5K

when i put the 18 fps footage in the 25fps timeline of FCP , it automatically place a 2:3:2:3 pulldown, and it is the best smooth looking to me. But if you want to improve the smootness you can do this :

place your footage in the timeline base layer, then place the same footage in the upper layer but shifted of one frame and with the opacity set to 50%. In short you will get the same footage mixed with itself, a sort of frame blending. You will notice moreover that the grain has less appearence, and there is less flicker ( if any).

hi Jai, it may be only a weird idea,
you could do this experiment: remove the shutter from your projector , then put a switch that on ( or off) every frame like those on home made telecine, after all. Now you have to synch this pulse from the projector to your cine camera ( and this could be the main issue if your cinecamera can't be sinced externally). In short your projector will drive your camera, so no flicker or out of synch at all IN YOUR 16mm FOOTAGE, but ofcourse your eyes will see blurred projected images.

It is a very pity that nowadays Kodak consider S8 so bad. I have a Kodachrome 25 shot on Bolex Double s8 that went out ROCK STEADY like 16 mm. That K25 roll was in the fridge and shot just before the last lab closed Kodachrome processing. I have shot Velvia Ds8 too with the same Bolex, but the perforations were weird: they overrun the image area, to avoid this i had to zoom in the frame !

you could try this

http://www.squared5.com/

it is free, but to me not as good as quicktime-photoshop-quicktime procedure

i adopt this technique : in quicktime - export in a folder - image sequence, then open these images in photoshop and upscale each image in batch processing, then back to quicktime to create a file.mov from these image sequences at frame rate of your choice.

Hope it helps

If the goal is to get a wide aspect ratio from a S8 film format, why do not develope this half frame project ?

http://www.google.com/patents/US3858969

Doubling the framerate should deliver the same time and resolution of classic S8 frame

A little exposure is the way to go if you want to project reversal film, little over exposure will help if you want to transfer to digital video. Anyway, the best exposure is via manual ( external camera) metering, like real cine makers do.

If you want really learn Cinematography buy an inexpensive second hand super 8 movie camera and shoot...

to get clean picture w/o noise in Super 8 is a challenge :-( anyway, in daylight scene you could use Vision 3 50D nowadays the sharpest filmstock. Use tele/middletele lenses. f5.6 iris gives the best out from every lens, from the most economic to most expensive ones. In night scenes Vision 500 is the way to go, but expect coarse grain. Overexposing negative filmstock ( about 1/3 to 1/2 f stop) gives less noticeable noise. Use good S8 camera with C-mount lens like Beaulieu ZM if possible, and fit a 35mm still lens at full aperture ( with proper c-mount adapter) for night shots.

Good luck

I gave up on the idea long ago that you can do a good short and submit it to a real established film festival and have a prayer that it would get reviewed and given solid consideration without knowing someone there personally. There are simply too many submissions for festival screening personnel to watch them all. Check out Official Rejection for a great documentary on this subject.

 

The reason it's tougher now for an educated filmmakers festival submission to be given a chance is demonstrated quite painfully in the clip above. It's the giving of horrible advice to wannabe filmmakers. Which causes an avalance of submissions to all the big festivals of utter garbage which in turn buries an educated and experienced filmmakers genuine effort under a lot of clutter making it that much harder to get viewed.

 

Empowering amateurs is really counter productive to professionals who are trying to make a living doing this. who've spent tens of thousands on an education and real equipment. It's absurd why anyone would want to make filmmaking seem easy or cheap. Benefits nobody in the end.

100% agree