christos polychronopoulos

In the end i never recovered my reels ... Unfortunately. 

well as Andries says its been a loooong time since my Paypal payment so opening a dispute is not an option.

Then as Graham and JD mention it is very unprofessional to not reply and simply disappear . Im afraid but even in the worst of cases the right thing to do would be to have some friend or family arrange these kind of situations.

If i had a person with the possibility of going around his place i would do that without a thought. Nobody s talking of going around scaring people of course, just ringing a doorbell and asking politely for a solution, even helping out by recovering the reels yourself. I really don't see something bad with that. (ill take the chance and mention that if anybody from the group lives close by and can do that for me , they can bet the next couple of rounds in the pub are on me! :) )

Many thanks to everybody , your advice has been very helpful.

I thought maybe its a good idea to comment here on the current status of my situation with Bart.

A few days after my post here , he replied my emai saying that he had been really unwell and , if I'm not mistaken, hospitalised .

He said he remembered my reels and that i haven't lost them and he that i should have them in 2-3 weeks.

That was on October 7th 2015.

Needless to say i haven't received my reels yet.

Also his mail has gotten back to its previous status.. mails bounce back etc.

2 of the reels were surfing action inserts that i had to use for a small commercial..

I had to apologise to my client, go out and plan another shooting day , costs on me of course, and most likely i won't be getting any more gigs from this client.

The third reel was footage of my newborn daughter . I guess there is no need to explain the sentimental value of that reel.

I know its not a good thing to kick a man when he s down and i can understand that falling ill can cause delays etc . At the end of the day i knew i wasn't contacting a massive business that is not depending on one person to come through but , well , to put it as nice as humanly possible it is the most unprofessional behaviour i have ever encountered in the film emulsion world .

If anybody has figured out a way to contact him or his family to try and recover my reels i would be more than thankful!

Thanks guys!

He doesn't have a shop. I had to send a friend round to enquire about my films and it looks like he's just a middle man working from home. His emails bounce, the mobile number doesn't get answered and the land line goes to some random persons house.

 

You pay via Paypal on his website. I'd open a dispute through them and hope that he gets in touch. Don't close the dispute until you either get your film or money back.

 

I used ANDEC for my last batch and they were fast, efficient, and had great communication.

 

Good luck, when this happened to me it was really stressful.

yeah of course I've tried calling and Graham is right, none of the numbers works …

I guess you re right, i have to go through paypal and hope for the best

thanks guys!

I Eventually got through to them once i messaged them on ebay and then I got a reply back through normal email and that was in September. They said they were having some equipment issues and that was why it was taking so long. So I think they're still going they just take ages to reply. In the end I did get the film back so all was fine it just took ages, hope this helps.

Hi George, when you say ¨normal email¨ maybe I'm lucky & you mean some email address other than their @bluecinetech.co.uk ? If so, could you possibly send me that email address? it could be a lifesaver! Thanks

Hi to all!

I have a massive problem with BlueCineTech these days! Any help/advise would be very welcome..

I ve been buying stock from him for years now.. some delays here and there and some flaws in the communication but overall ok since it was always super8 things and not always really urgent/important.

I sent him 3 rolls (2 Vision3, 1 TriX) to process around May-June …. He delayed a lot so i sent him an email letting him know that I'm about to move to another country so in the case he hasn't shipped yet he should ship to my new address… He received that email all right, but no reply..

long story short we´re in October and my 3 rolls of super8 have just disappeared. I still have some people checking out my old address so there s no way film s been delivered there.

All emails to him bounce back, phone doesn't work etc….

Anyone in the group has an idea of alternative ways of contacting him or who i should speak to in London to take legal action?

Thank you very much

Hi Mike,

 

There being no notch on the cartridge actually kicks the filter OUT, and locks it and the switch out.

 

Where the 814 really starts to have issues with this is when that system is not working right (usually due to age) so the pin pushes on the cartridge (pushing it out of alignment with the gate) and/or doesn't push the filter out of the way quite all the way.

 

The really odd thing with the 814 AZ is that the daylight cartridge (no notch) pushes on the pin. The pin forces the switch to Daylight (which moves the filter into position), but then pushes the filter back out of position. It's a very weird way of dealing with the daylight cartridge. It seems to have been designed this way to remind the user to only use the camera outdoors, but still push the filter out of position. Very weird and problematic.

 

When you notch the cartridge, that now allows you to manually set the indoor/outdoor switch. However, you actually need to set the switch to indoor/tungsten. The reason for this that the filter is removed when set to indoor/tungsten because the camera expects tungsten film when the button is not pushed. But, you have daylight (requiring no filter) so you have to make sure it's set to indoor/tungsten which for us really means NO FILTER.

 

I like the way Pro8mm deals with this in their rebuilt Pro814. They actually take the whole pin/filter/switch assembly out all together. This prevents issues with the pin pushing on the cart, with confusion over the switch, and with crappy old plastic 85 filters. With this modification, you now manually add or remove the 85 filter on the front of the camera. Professionally, a much better system.

Hi David,

thanks for all the info, i have an 814 AZ electronic back home in Greece that i haven´t used since 2002 (with kodachrome 40) and was trying really hard to remember how the filter annulation thing worked. You see i want to shoot some ektachome 100D there this summer and was trying to figure out if i need to travel with a canon 518 that i have here in Spain or not (of course id prefer not to and work my 814) .

i got a little lost when you mentioned that the ektachrome would push the filter in and then back out..

So, what is the situation? on a proper functioning 814 , inserting the 100D cartridge is the filter disengaged ? if not, can i still disengage it manually using the switch?

It would be really helpful if you could help me out with this since i dont have the camera in my hands and when i will , well, it will be too late! :)

Many thanks

Christos

hi Dallas

maybe you find the user manual for the 518 useful

i found it here: http://www.mondofoto.com/manuals/canon-autozoom-518/canon-autozoom-518.html

best

christos