Heikki Repo

I have been thinking of buying this, but noticed then that there was this single star review: "Ordered this twice, both times item was missing key part: "BREAKAWAY CABLE: 45cm lenght regulated DC 12V/5A/50W cable, with Flaying End"" Whoops... If someone has a good V-mount adapter with 12V regulated output to recommend, please chime in!

I had this Summer the joy of shooting a short ecclesial "commercial". I didn't have much crew in addition to me, children and young adults who are in the film were my team, assisting with tape measure and the follow focus. Our church Summer guide pushed a wheelchair for the dolly shots. Shot on Vision3 500T, S16 converted Eclair ACL, Optar Illumina lenses. For lighting I used a Jinbei 200W LED and three small portable LED panels, mainly for highlights. Two shooting days in the church and some b-shots from the table. Film was processed through scanned by Mutascan in 2K and later super scaled to 4K for better grain online. We moved pretty fast since on both shooting days in the church we had only about 5-6 hours including lunch break. Would love to hear your comments and feedback for improvement in the future - bear in mind the crew size and the shoelace sized budget though ?

I have had my lenses collimated by Elokuvakonepaja in Finland. However, for more indepth servicing/repair I think someone like https://rodensjo.se/MOHR-Lenstech/ can most likely help you. Unfortunately I don't have experience of them myself.

It was shot on different film formats - not only super-8.

Yes, I agree. Shooting on 16mm is financially a much better deal especially if one can use 400ft loads. Super-8 makes most sense if 1) no such camera is available for a low price and 2) the film is shot with a skeleton crew. With super-8 less resources needs to be spent on pulling focus or loading film, allowing for a tighter shooting schedule. If it's all natural light and 50D in broad daylight in a sunny state and the script revolves around a small cast, I can well see how the strengths of the format can be utilized quite efficiently. However, with the current reliability issues of S-8 cartridges it's not a good idea. When they are solved it might make sense again.

Apparently Logmar company is going to rent their brand new super-8 camera, see https://www.logmar.dk/

No, they say it was shot on Canon 514XLS.

One super-8 feature is in post production currently and is going to be released later this year, "Dead community guild":

Hi Cailin, There's this for sale in Germany, would probably check quite many boxes: https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/eclair-acl-ii-mit-videotap-und-lcd-motor-display-18-90-t2-lens/2482475825-245-19159?fbclid=IwAR016JkiS9dExkHlIwE-sFnHKFdhZg7oxxtjG2V0fbAF7SAnCRCT611rIGs As you can see, it features a video tap made by AZ Spectrum. One ACL owner I know is currently getting an HD tap there as well.

Actually, yes - I bought a SDI HD board camera, a suitable lens and an enclosure. This is intended to be used in place of the viewfinder. It's still work in progress. However, I'm still planning to buy a tap that goes between the VF and the camera and allows using the optical viewfinder as well.

?

2014-2016 were wild.

Back in the early-mid 2000s 16mm cameras were definitely quite expensive. Just go to the marketplace of this forum and hop to the last page, to 2004. Going from there a couple of pages, there's one Eclair ACL 1.5 and it says that "bidding starts at $3500". Aaton XTR $19,000. Arri 2C AUD15K. Arri SR2 with Super speeds $35k. Aaton XTR prod with lenses 20,000 €. 16BL with lens $3000. Eclair ACL 2 Super16 GBP £3590. Arriflex HSR1 GBP £6990. Etc. Granted, those cameras were also closer to two decades younger back then, but there's also the inflation of two decades to be taken into account.

This is a difficult question. The thing is, I have shot lots of S16 footage with my unmodified magazines. The only scratches I have seen were in the very beginning of some 75 fps footage. With 25 fps, I haven't seen anything, in either 1080P or 4K scans. The funny thing is, just to be sure I sent my mags to be serviced and checked by Bernie a year before his passing. He informed me that my mags scratch film and offered to do modification. I took his offer. However, I'm not sure if he did actually anything at all to modify them. I have two Visual Products S16 modified mags now too, and while those are definitely modified, Bernie modified ones do not differ at all from the non-modified ones I have. Rollers haven't been modified. Furthermore, the 75 fps scratches I mentioned were after Bernie modified those magazines. This has lead me to question if there was any scratching at all to begin with. If there was, I couldn't see it. Now I mainly use the VP modified magazines, mainly because those also have the newer pressure plate.

One caveat though: those ACLs you find currently on Ebay and within the price range and with a viewfinder come with the early, single speed motor. There's a real risk it won't be strong enough to pull 400' safely.

Not that many plastic bits in the ACL magazines to fall apart IMO. Sure, metal pieces have seen lots action on these cameras, since they were used by TV companies in the 1970s and 1980s. Many, many feet of 16mm gone through them. However, if you are moving up from a Bolex (!) and your budget is limited, well, I like the ACL ergonomics quite much. And it is quiet, when it is in good condition. Not XTR quiet, but much quieter than a Bolex.

There is also Adox that is committed to the R&D goal of bringing to the market a new color (stills) film: http://m.adoxphoto.com/color-mission/

For those who are wondering where this film originates from, Henning Serger gives a thorough look at the complex network of different small entities working now together to make color film under the roof of Seal 1818: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/orwo-colour-film-teaser.192156/page-8#post-2626317

German test C41 processed results by Sebastian Bock here: https://www.filmvorfuehrer.de/topic/37472-orwo-nc500-erster-eindruck/

Great to have you here @Boris Belay!

Here's the ORWO's official stock comparison video that was linked here (from Instagram) a couple of weeks ago. Please note that the very first and last comparison stocks are Kodak color 250D in 35mm and 16mm:

Have you asked on Photrio forums? https://www.photrio.com/forum/

When I ordered UN54 last May, there was a longer wait and I sent email, I too got a reply of out of office. I googled the name and apparently, the sales were back then run by a single person, a young guy living in the UK. Eventually he returned from his vacation, I got a reply from him and the film was delivered after a while. So, while I do think it's not very professional to have just one guy take care of the website and sales, at least at that time 5 months ago I did receive the goods I had ordered and the price was really good.

Someone probably got too excited about the market response.

Well, apparently Adox was in the process of doing a color film with someone that suddenly after the first batch became unavailable (which is why they are now doing it in house). Some have been guessing it was Inoviscoat. Inoviscoat on the other hand is now part of ORWO. Thus I wouldn't say it is impossible that this film is actually made in Europe like ORWO is saying. Not to mention that a mystery Chinese film maker making new color film would be much more unlikely explanation than Inoviscoat doing it. Making color film is really difficult and restarting production is not easy either. Inoviscoat has been doing that stuff all along.