Richard Tuohy

G'day Matthew, welcome to the forum. I will add my 2 cents to your frame rate question. There are two things aspects to the question: what does the difference mean photographically, and what does the difference mean on transfer to digital? Photographically, the different frame rates (and hear I am really talking about the rate you take to be 'normal' for your project - ie such that 1 second of camera time = 1 second of project(or) time) yield a faster or slower shutter speed for each frame of film. If you imagine your camera has a 150 degree shutter opening (and it will be something like that) if it is rotating at 18 fps then each frame gets a shutter open time of a 43rd of a second. At 24fps you get a shutter speed of more like a 57th of a second. Theoretically then, all things being equal, the image shot at the faster shutter speed will be just that bit sharper than that shot at the slower speed because there was less time for camera movement, and less time for the subjects movement to create blur. But the higher the shutter speed, the more light you need to expose any frame, so a faster shutter means a wider aperture on the lens, or more lights required, or less low light ability. Its a trade off there. Sometimes you might need to shoot at a slow fps simply because there isn't enough light for a faster one. Another factor is that the higher the number of frames per second, the smother motion will appear on screen. If you can imagine what 1 frame per second would look like you will realise that increasing the number of frames per second will increase the smothness of motion. Also, the more pictures per second, the less the pronounced the film grain on any one picture. Also the more frames per second, the less time any piece of dust will be visable etc.. That said, do I think the difference is palpable? Not very. It is real but isn't the difference between a good film and a bad one at all. As for telecine, it depends on the method. If you are having transfers made using a flying spot scanner at a fancy post production house, or if you are having the material transferred on a frame by frame scanner like a moviestuff unit or a Flashscan, then both frame rates will yield a second of video time for a second of camera time. They do this by duplicating frames (or fields). If you shot at 18 fps and are transferring to Pal (25fps video) then the transfer will add 7 duplicate frames (or 14 duplicate fields). If you shot at 24 fps then the transfer will add 1 frame or two fields. Can you see these added frames? Perhaps a bit, yes. But again, its not the difference between a good film and a bad film by any means. Other methods of transfer use a projector speed that works with the video system being transferred to. This means that with Pal for instance, something shot at 18fps will be transferred at 16and 2/3rds FPS, or shot at 24 will be transferred at 25 fps. This means a second of video time is no longer equal to a second of camera time. 24 was introduced as a standard speed for super 8 with the advent of sound film. the faster film speed resulted in clearer sound. This isn't important these days. If I am shooting super 8, I invariably use 18 fps myself. I feel it looks right for the format. But this is a personal choice. Do a comparison test yourself. As for neg and reversal, the fact that one is negative and one positive has to be corrected during the telecine. If you are having the transfer done professionally, you don't have to worry about this. If you are doing it yourself, then you will have a hell of a time transferring the negative. Can be done, but its very hard and unforgiving. As for the asa question, there is a notch on the cartridge that is there to tell the camera's light meter what asa of film is inside the cartridge. There is no confirmation of that visible for the camera user. You have to take it on faith that the camera is working correctly. You also need to know what any particular camera is capable of. Your nizo can read any super 8 speed notch. The whole notch question is a big one for super 8 users, and quite a lot to get your head around. the upshot is that you needn't worry too much about it at this stage as you have a fancy camera in which all stocks should work. good luck and enjoy, richard

Hi Matt, judging by the viewfinder in your picture, your camera looks like a Rex1 with its 6x magnification viewfinder. Here is a page on the Rex1: http://www.bolexcollector.com/cameras/h16reflex.html According to this page, even the Rex1 has a diopter adjustment. I haven't used a Rex1 for a long time, but I believe this to indeed be the case. Is it simply a matter of rotating the plastic eye piece in or out? I have a feeling that is so. Take the rubber eye cup off the plastic eye piece and see if you can gently rotate the plastic eye piece. If so, it would be better to set it with the rubber eye cup in place if that is what you are using. But see if you can loosen it first. As for lenses, its all quite simple. If you have a reflex bolex (and you do) then the c-mount lenses you use need to have 'RX' written on them. In point of fact this is only important with the wider angle lenses (say below 25 ... but I am sure there is an official figure on that) and even then, only important if you are more open than say f5.6. Assuming there is no problem with your lens mount (like the turret is very loose) then this won't be your problem. As for not trusting your eye, well if the diopter isn't set right, then the ground glass won't be in focus. But its not nearly as catastrophic as diopter setting on a super 8 camera, precisely because there is a ground glass. With a camera with a ground glass, even if the diopter is off, it is possible to pull the focus with your eye so that the ground glass is clear. The ground glass is exactly the same distance from the lens as the film plane, so if an image is in focus on the ground glass, its in focus on the film (ok unless your lenses need colimiting, but lets assume they haven't been played with). So yes, with a camera with a ground glass, even when the diopter is not set exactly to your eye, you can still trust your eye as your eye is a powerful organ and will aim for the ground glass regardless - it will just be more work for your eye. So as long as you can see the grain in the ground glass, you can trust your eye. As for distance markings, these are always correct provided no one has taken the front element off the lens. If so, then the lens needs to be colimited before it can be trusted again. But it seems you were told that you measure from the rear of the lens. That is not so. You measure from the film plane (ie where the film is inside the camera - the point where the lens is focusing). I think you will find etched on the side of the bolex there is a little circle with a line through it. This is the film plane mark and it is to here that you need to measure. Now if you are talking about subjects several meters away, it won't make much difference if you measure from here exactly or not ... but the closer your subject is, the more important it is to measure from the film plane mark. Personally I think this is where you went wrong. I hope that helps, richard

I might add that these are new cartridges I am talking about. Cost will be US$1.93 plus postage costs per cartridge. These can be loaded and taped up and used many times. The only other alternative for people who want to load film themselves is the rather had to find Russian Kacemma... but these cartridges I will have will be brand new stock from kodak. I can also supply any quantity of used cartridge take up cores such that you could load your own film, then in the dark remove the exposed film from the cartridge and send the fill on the take up core off for processing (in a tin or black bag) while keeping the cartridge for re-use with another core. This is a great way to reduce the cost of shooting super 8.

The minimum order quantity for empty super 8 cartridges from kodak is 168. I don't want to begin with quite so many. Anyone interested in 10 or more of these? Ideal for loading the long length stocks sold by wittner etc. Plase let me know

Hi Josh, you mention Blue's stock as being limited. Note that the 5 super 8 stocks that they sell are in fact the only super 8 stocks that kodak produce. Beyond those stocks in super 8 there are only the two other colour reversal stocks (100d ektachrome cut from DS8 7285 packaged by Wittner, Spectra and Pro8mm, and the Velvia 50d perforated in Germany and packaged by Spectra and Wittner) and then the Pro8mm colour neg packaged stock (available from Pro8 and Wittner). There is also Kahl film in Germany if you are game. As for the Bauer, they are nice little camears, but I think you will find that it in point of fact can only read 40T and 160T. It might mention 25d and 100d in the manual or somewhere (possibly) but I believe Bauer cameras don't have a filter notch reader. As such, they don't read daylight speeds at all. Yes, they can expose 160t with filter as 100, but that is not the same as reading 100d. This isn't that big an issue however. There is an easy trick with bauers. For 64t: 1. Flip the bulb/sun switch to bulb and take a reading then flip the switch back to sun. 2. Roll the aperture dial to the setting you got in step 1. That will give you correct exposure for 64t with filter. You can also use Tri-X black and white straight with no change (there is no asa notch for 200 asa anyway) You can also use the colour neg 200t no problem. You can't use Plus-x or 100d on auto though. cheers, richard

Sure you can buy them. $26 a roll. I currently have 5 x 7217 and 1 x 7218. Just email me through my lab email. cheers, richard

There is currently a Canon XL H1 for sale on ebay australia. It has the usual lens as well as a canon 6X 3.4 - 20 mm wide angle HD zoom. I can't afford the entire outfit, but I don't need this lens. The seller won't split them up, but I would if I had it. Anyone have an idea what such a lens might be worth (he says it is new and never used). Better still, anyone want to buy this lens while I buy the camera? many thanks, richard

Hi Eugene, it is possible for us to do the transfer as you suggest. We can make it positive and get rid of the orange mask ... but that is only the very start of colour correcting neg. You really need some way of ajusting the gamma of the low, medium and high ranges of r, g and b. I think some advanced editing programs can do that ... This would be fine for a test roll and you could see what you can make of it and whether it is worth pursuing down that path. Yes the Velvia 50 is indeed the same velvia. It is a slide film cut down to super 8. Fuji supply unperforated 35mm which is perforated and cut to super 8 width in germany then loaded in cartridges in California by Spectra. It is a very fine stock, except that it does have a propensity to jitter. Usually not a problem with hand held work, but visible with tripod work. Can be 'de-shook' in post. The ABC show 'the hollowmen' used velvia super 8 for the title sequence. But it is DANG expensive I am afraid, again due to the dollar. Do give some thought to buying a Kransagorsk3 russian 16mm camera. Would probably cost about $250 or $300. Well worth it. Sound and vision sell re-cans and short ends for about 20 to 30 cents a foot I think. Short ends are a lot cheaper than velvia super 8. But you have to have the camera and all the aspects of the workflow to make any particular option work.

I'll buy it Glen, Can you figure out how much it would cost to post to Australia? cheers, richard

G;day Eugene, yes, I would agree that your motivation for using neg is correct enough. Yes, you would have greater flexibility in post, provided you were able to pay for the suite time. As for grain, I think you will find that in super 8 the colour neg stocks are themselves quite grainy. I think it is quite fair to compare the 200t with 64t reversal on that front. You are right that it isn't possible to get super 8 negative processed in Australia. But you can get it telecinied at The Lab and Video 8 Broadcast, both in Sydney. Standard definition only. You would have to pay about $300 per suite hour. They may do a half hour for you. The trouble is if you want to do a small volume or just a test roll you will find it expensive. I do keep a small amount of 7217 in stock for people like you. I don't think you would have any problems with posting the stock overseas. We post lots of stock and processed film o.s. and don't seem to have any issues with it. Just make sure the addressing is correct and the package well sealed. It will be fine. Go for it. But you might consider using 16mm neg. If you buy re-cans from sound and vision stock shop in Sydney, it will cost about the same as shooting super 8 neg as the processing can be done in aus and the telecine cost is identical. If you factor in the poor exchange rate to US$ at the moment you will probably find 16mm processing here is cheaper than posting super 8 os and back for processing. My advice would be unless you want a super 8 look or the features of using a super 8 camera, shoot 16mm if you want neg and are in australia. If I were posting super 8 o.s. for processing I would use Spectra for the quality of service you get. Just one more thing, you should be able to work out how to shoot 64t nicely in your camera. Shoot a careful test. Call me if you want to discuss that. good luck richard

see below

In fact I don't think Fuji sell ANY colour reversal film in 16mm or 35mm, just long length 35mm still film. However it is available in 16mm from various sources like: http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/katalog/...mm/16_filmm.php They get unperforated 35mm stock slit and perforated into 16mm by a company in Germany.

Unfortunately you can't cut 35mm in half to get 16mm. You can only cut one 16mm roll out of a perforated 35mm roll. Velvia is available in 16mm however. As karl pointed out, you will need to have a system for drying worked out. When you say 'in the field' you don't mean in a tent of course, so wherever you might be you will have to set up a nice environment for drying the film. I would suggest you make a drying tent to put around your drying rack to cut down air movement around the film. This helps reduce dust. rt

So it really comes down to the kind of result you want. If you want professional results with professional reliability, then you are extremely unlikely to succeed with diy in the field unless you have had a lot of experience with such work. If you are making something experimental, where the experimental processing is part of the deal, then fine - go for it. But in 35mm? Its a very expensive experiment ... and you will hardly be able to watch or transfer your material in the field anyway. The velvia stock is so expensive that I doubt you intend things to be experimental ... but maybe you do.

Actually I don't see anything difficult in diy e6 processing, especially if you can get the Tetenal 3 bath (which is still available in Europe and Australia at least in 1 litre and 5 litre size). Doing it 'in the field' is something you would have to be very dedicated to do however. I have done it, but its much easier at home in my lab. Actually getting good results in e6 is just that bit easier than bw reversal in my opinion. Go for it, but you will have a hard time finding a 100' Lomo. I have several, but they are all VERY PRECIOUS. It takes ages to find even 1. good luck richard

Hi Marc, this is a fairly difficult topic as it has to do with the pesky super 8 asa notch system ... so read carefully. There are 3 places for notches on the super 8 cartridge. The middle one is just a centering notch and is of no importance to this discussion. The higher of the three notches is the speed (asa) notch. The size of this notch is the principal - but not the only - determiner for the camera as to what speed the camera will think the film is. For any specific speed notch size there is a pair of asa values implied - one daylight and one tungsten. The daylight value is 2/3rds of a stop lower than the tungsten value. The other notch (be it present or absent) is the filter notch. If there is a filter notch, then the camera will believe the film is tungsten balanced. If there is no filter notch the camera will believe the film is daylight balanced. Now, remembering that for each particular length of cartridge speed notch there is both a daylight and a tungsten asa rating, it is thus the case that the presence or absense of the filter notch determines just which of these two asa ratings the camera will believe the film to be. O.k. so as to the kodak vision 2 500t. The speed notch on these cartridges is the 250d/400t notch. But kodak was thinking that most cinematographers who were shooting this stock in an old super 8 camera would rather use an external filter for colour correction rather than the super 8 camera's own internal 85 colour correction filter ... so Kodak didn't put a filter notch on the cartridge. This means that the camera will automatically de-activate its internal colour correction filter. But, as I pointed out above, it also will mean that the camera will think the film is the daylight speed rather than the tungsten speed. In this instance, the camera will think 250 asa daylight. This is an over exposure of 1 stop from the nominal rating of 500t as 500asa. However this amount of 'over' exposure is considered beneficial by many, or at least entirely acceptable, with colour negative film. Now, to the Nikon R10. This camera was designed to read all possible super 8 asa ratings. The fastest rating of super 8 cartridges is the 400d/634t speed which, if there was a cartridge notched as such, it would read. However, as I have mentioned, given the way kodak notch their 500t, the nikon will rate it as 250d (actually that could be better said - 250 asa and with no internal colour correction filter active). That would be fine. However, you may like to exploit the potential of this stock to be rated at the full 500asa. You can do this with the R10 very easily by simply rotating the exposure compensation control on the camera to the -1 position. This will 'under' expose the scene by 1 stop from what the light meter thinks. Now given the light meter thinks 250 asa, under exposing 1 stop means it will give an exposure suitable for a film stock twice as fast - ie 500asa. You can do this and you will get good results. The most important thing I have to say however is DO NOT USE AN EXTERNAL LIGHT METER UNLESS YOU HAVE PREVIOUSLY SHOT A CAREFUL TEST ROLL. A callibration test roll is necessary to callibrate the meter to the camera in order to compensate for the amount of light lost by the camera's reflex system as well as its particular shutter angle (remembering that a hand held meter with cine settings assumes a 180 degree shutter, while your camera has a 150 degree shutter I belive). It would be best to shoot this callibration test on reversal film rather than negative. You would then interpolate the results for the different asa ratings. So shoot away with the r10 using 500t. Make the exposure compensation of 1 stop if you want (setting the dial to -1). good luck richard

The only lab that prints super 8 negative onto super 8 positive film is Andec in Germany. Other places that offer the service send it to them. It would be a contact print, not an optical print. cheers, richard

Hi Jean-Louis, thanks for your help on that. Much appreciated. rt

Hello all, I have acquired a bolex esm motor and sync pulse generator. I am a bit unsure of the sockets on the motor and sync unit. On the motor there are 2 x 7 pin sockets and 1 x 3 pin male jack. The Sync unit has 1 x 7 pin socket and 1 x 5 pin socket. With my motor a previous owner has attached a sticker with the word 'batt' near the lower 7 pin socket (near the fuse). I would have thought the 3 pin male jack was for power ... Any info or advice would be much appreciated. cheers, richard

Of course it is possible to cross process colour negative film in reversal chemistry (as per Art Leal's experience above using Pac Lab). I have done it a few times myself. Not commercially though. I found it necessary to down rate the film by 2 stops and then push process by two stops. This yielded a positive image with golden tones, fairly low in contrast, and quite nice ... but certainly not a normal reversal image.

Hi Ryan, yes, use Blue. But I don't think anyone actually PROCESSES super 8 film in the UK commercially anymore ... it all goes to the continent or the USA. the last super 8 processing was done by todd ao who processed colour neg super 8. But no more. But yes, Blue, or the widescreen centre will handle it for you. Shoot some film! rt

I take it that there is no 16mm 'gigabit' film? richard

Hi simon, I didn't think gigabit film was available in 16mm... Also, you list the 7234 as 32 asa. I have often wondered about using this stock as a camera stock. How confident are you that it is as fast as that? Have you ever shot it as a camera stock? I got a price from kodak aus for this stock and it was quite expensive and I needed to buy 2 x 2000' (it was Aus$660 per 2000'). If you have shot it or heard of it being shot, I would be keen to know as I am nervous of investing over $1200 in it, but would if it were worth it. cheers, richard

Hi Tim, no. If anything, the converse. The markings on the lens are very accurate (if the lens is correctly collimited) but ONLY when used on an RX camera. The thing is the RX lenses were designed for the RX cameras reflex system (the prism mentioned above). You could use them on other c-mount cameras, but it would be advisable not to use them fully open at all with such cameras. Stopped down, you will get away with it without too much trouble. Save them for the rx as they are ideal. rt

Hi Michael, I am envious of you living in Prague for a few months! Super 8 processing services are hard to find i am afraid. Use Andec in Germany, but keep sniffing out a bw reversal facility in Prague ... it is possible. Regarding the R10, you are quite right that when the big dial is pushed in, the camera is on auto, and provided the needle in the viewfinder is not indicating in a red zone (not enough or too much light) you a good to film. The auto exposure compensation dial should be at '0'. This dial biases the internal light meter up or down (depending on what you might want). This would be used if say you wanted to have a roll push processed for example. You might set the dial to 'under expose' by 1 f-stop, then film away on auto, then have the roll push processed 1 stop. Or there are other reasons for using it. Say you want to use a faster shutter speed (the R10 has a variable shutter). If you closed the shutter by 1 stop, you might want to open the iris 1 stop to compensate. If you set the exposure compensation dial to 'over expose' by 1 f-stop you would be able to shoot on auto with the faster shutter speed and get correct exposure. So basically, that dial 'biases' the auto exposure system. Unless you have a reason for wanting to do so (and it is one of the great features of the R10) just leave it at '0'. (if however you find that the light meter has drifted over the years you can correct for that drift by biasing the meter using this dial). Shooting on auto is one of the features of shooting super 8. Not appropriate at all times and in all places and for all people, but a great feature of the gauge. If you do get an external light meter, you will have to callibrate it to the camera by shooting a careful test roll. You can't just set the meter to the speed film you have and the frames per second rate as this doesn't take into account the actual shutter opening of the camera, or the light loss of the viewfinder system. Get a meter by all means, but know that you can't just use it without a very careful test roll. enjoy richard