Chris Leutger

The Lomo tanks do Super 8, or at least I know someone that says they use one. Also Jobo (Catlabs) announced at Photokina that they have designed a Super 8 tank for the Jobo system. It's still being developed but hopefully soon. I suppose to assist all those Logmar users. Funny, I keep seeing signs that we're a long way from film giving up the ghost....

Looks great, what'd you use for developer and for how long? I'm assuming you just did "spaghetti" style in a tank?

My two cents would be to get your undergraduate degree in something else. Something that might land you a career or might end up being a field of study that will inform your film work. As many have suggested, there is no impediment to getting out there and doing it on your own. The material you study in school and the experiences you have around that might be valuable content you wouldn't engage with if you studied and worked solely in one area. There's always the opportunity to go to graduate school and make contacts in film. But at the undergrad level if film turns out to not be the "thing", then you'll have that science or "whatever" degree. That is great. So true.....

Was just looking in the case at the other batteries and realized that there's a 3 pin to 4 pin adapter in there. D'oh! I'm hoping that means I can get a regular Bescor or something to fire this thing up!

I've always liked this piece by Tacita Dean, who's trying to maintain her 16mm film production in the UK: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/feb/22/tacita-dean-16mm-film Her films are one of the things that got me interested in getting into moving pictures in the first place. From her work I started to think that there's a space where my photographs could breathe with time. She had an exhibition several years ago and this is the intro piece: Tacita Dean - Analogue Life I realize that I do not know what analogue means. I flounder about trying to find a definition that will make sense in the context of this text, this book and this exhibition. Analogue, it seems, is a description-a description, in fact, of all things I hold dear. It is a word that means proportion and likeness and is, according to one explanation, a representation of an object that resembles the original, not a transcription or a translation but an equivalent in parallel form-continuously variable, measurable and material. Everything we can quantify physically is analogue: length, width, voltage, and pressure. Telephones are analogue; the hands of watches that turn with the rotation of the earth are analogue; writing is analogue, drawing is analogue. Even crossing out is analogue. Thinking, too, becomes analogue when it is materialized into a concrete form, when it is transmuted into lines on paper or marks on a board. It is as if my frame of mind is analogue when I draw: my unconscious reverie made manifest as an impression on a surface. Analogue implies a continuous signal—a continuum and a line—whereas digital constitutes what is broken up, or, rather, broken down, into millions of numbers. I should not eschew the digital world because it is, of course, the great enabler of immediacy, reproduction, and convenience, and has radicalized our times, indescribably. But for me, it just does not have the means to create poetry; it neither breathes nor wobbles, but tidies up our society, correcting it, and then leaves no trace. I wonder if this is because it is not born of the physical world, but is impenetrable and intangible. It is too far from drawing, where photography and film have their roots: the imprint of light on emulsion, the alchemy of circumstance and chemistry, marks upon their supports. We are being frog -marched towards a sparkling revolution without a backward turn, without a sigh or a nod to all that we are losing. And that is the point, what we are losing is a vast immensity of treasure and yet we are choosing not to replace it properly. We are giving up our ability to make near perfect simulacra of our visual world, which digital still fails to replicate, despite its increasing proliferation of pixels, and we are doing so willingly. Recently, I sat around a boardroom table with Annie Chaloyard from Kodak Industrie in Chalon-sur-Saone, and asked her why Kodak was capitulating so readily to the overreaching digital bully, and had stopped producing film there. She replied, sadly, that no one seems to notice the difference anymore; the generation who are of an age with digital will soon never have seen celluloid film or know the photographic negative. It always takes a generation to forget.….

Here's pics. Looking at it now, I'm thinking that this was a modification by George at Optical Electro House when he did the S16 conversion. Perhaps I'll just have the camera converted to 4 pin.

Figure I'll tag along here rather than start a new thread. I recently bought an ACL 1.5 but it's battery cable connector is three pin. Is there an adapter for this or am I going to have to have the camera modified? I have some Eclair batteries but was told that they weren't the most stable so recelling would not be the way to go......

I don't know. My camera was supposed to have been delivered before I left for Detroit but since UPS is a bunch of incompetent knuckleheads it just got to my house. Which is odd because it arrived in Redmond three days earlier which ain't that far from my house. So we're separated by many miles....for now I'm shooting Super 8 for my film good times....

Yep, the SV45U. I started with a Tachihara then needed more movements so I moved on up. Much like recently. Over the last few years I've shot some Super 8 but am starting a serious project and felt that it was time to move up so I got an Eclair ACL. I prefer not to spend money on gear unless the work demands it. Back on-topic, it looks like they haven't gotten rid of the Showchron yet so I told the person that if no one else takes it that I will....

Oh, I'm committed to film, don't worry about that. It's just a matter if I can edit on film with my S16 ways. For the time being I'll just have my film scanned when I get it processed and ugh, work in Premiere. I have a fair amount of shooting and testing to do to learn proper metering and such with my brand new Eclair. I do a huge amount of shooting with my 4x5 and spend a lot of time in the darkroom. There's a local institution that has a Steenbeck but has been undergoing some....revamping of things. I'm hoping that they start allowing people to rent it again. To be honest, much like with the darkroom I do like getting out of the house to do work like that so this might work out well for me. At home I tend to....procrastinate...and then experience procrastinators remorse....

Too late. I gave it up. There had been others wanting it and I thought perhaps it should go to someone with more expertise. While I had the space, I didn't really have the space. My spare bedroom is a combination lighting studio, viewing wall for photography, painting space and not a large room. I think if the Showchron would have worked with S16 and I had a better idea of the workflow it would have made more sense but at this point I think it would have have been more in the way. Of course now I'm suffering from....well not buyers remorse.....but denial remorse?

I've gotten a couple and am ordering a couple more......and am working on meeting some people in the film community. I've taken some classes here and there and done some Super 8 messin' around like so many others but have decided to get serious hence the purchase of an Eclair......

Gregg - that's pretty cool! I think I've got a lot to learn.....as for the look, for what I'm working on now I'm not looking for a clean look. And at this point just wanting to figure out how this stuff works. Simon, thanks for the information.I'm at beginning of a long learning process and appreciate everyone's assistance!

Thank you! That sounds fascinating, I like the contact printing idea a lot. I like it as a way to generate work in general. Before I run off to google is there anywhere you could direct me for more information?

Thanks, looks like it's raining editors here in Seattle. If the Showchron could do Super 16 film I would get it.... but Mark had a good point, since these machines are made for 16mm that they'll scratch my print....

Thanks for the information. This is starting to sound like it would do the opposite of what I want, which is to save me money. I went with Super 16 because I tend to see that way. I shoot 4x5 color neg film and I'm always cropping my prints so they're wider. But now I can see that I've introduced complexity into the associated equipment. My guess is that if it's possible to modify the machine it would not be cheap. The work print part would be an expense that would offset my my digital savings so I'm not saving money there. I probably wouldn't want to get the workprint conformed, just scanned. Digital projection being all the rage these days. If I got to the point where I was famous with art world clout like Tacita Dean then I would want prints for gallery projection but at my level that would not be in the cards. The movies i had planned would be silent or would have field recordings edited in digitally. I had planned to do field recordings on a Tascam but had been thinking about getting a tape recorder such as an old Nagra. But syncing sound wasn't important to my process..... Sigh, it's a damn shame because the idea of working on a flatbed is way more appealing to me than working in Premiere..... Thanks everyone, good to get these insights since I was supposed to pick up that Showchron tonight...

I'm a photographer and recently bought a Super 16 camera to start making films. I have the opportunity to get a Showchron flatbed editor for free but am trying to figure out what this entails. My initial thinking was that I could do a rough cut of processed neg then get the final cut scanned to cut down scanning costs. But from research it sounds like that's a bad idea to edit the neg and apparently I would need to get a work print made? Most places I look at for processing seem to process and scan. So my question would be 1. What is the proper process on a flatbed? 2. Where can I get intermediate prints done today? 3. Would it be cheaper to just get everything scanned and edit digitally? I work in color and B&W darkrooms and vastly prefer hands-on processes to time spent in front of a computer so that part appeals to me, but if it's only going to cost me money perhaps I should pass. There was a place in town that had room for this for rent where I could have learned but they seem to have closed up shop so I don't have much in the way of resources to find out and the Showchron is available now. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the info. I was wondering if what you had was an Eclair mount. But from what you said I get it's third party adapter. I don't have the camera yet but when I read the part in the manual about the TS mount etc it's hard for me to know exactly how it works so yes, I do find it confusing. The other thing that makes it confusing is for a vendor to have their own mount that you need an adapter for. Most of the adapters I mention above are really expensive though that's a relative term. Coming from large format photography I thought I knew what expensive lenses were but my recent forays into this world have made it clear that I was clueless. Especially when you're talking S16. I'm about to go on vacation but as soon as I get back I'll be getting in touch with Seth at Americancinespec to get rods for my camera. Actually I have Contax Zeiss lens (50mm) that Duclos cine-modded (just like the ones in the picture that Brian posted above)...but ugh, yet another adapter....maybe I'll just sell it on ebay....

Gregg, I just bought an ACL 1.5 S16 and was wondering if the item you mention is what they call in the manual the "Intermediate mount for lenses in Arriflex mount"? My camera comes c mount only so I've been trying to figure out what I could use to adapt other lenses since there are so many lenses in PL mount. I've seen what Les, VP and MTF put out in terms of adapters for using PL lenses on c mount cameras but haven't seen what you mention. Thanks!