Charles MacDonald

My guess is that to do a Proper Super 16 conversion, it is normal to recentre the lens. on the new larger frame, while ultra 16 the centre of the lens stays in the same spot. a LOT of custom work would be needed to move the lens over, and it would proably put the conversion cost well over the economic value of the finished camera.

Any lab can process the actual film, as long as it is fairly current stock*, but they may not have a setup to use the funny little cores that are in the magazines. The 50ft mags have 16mm DOUBLE PERF film wound EMULSION OUT. The Threading pattern in the mag is a bit complicated as at one point the film goes over the SAME sprocket twice. Ask Alan Gordon Nicely and they can probably provide a copy of their Re-loading instructions. Note that you would have to do some machining to get the mag to accept single perf film, so you may have to go through a dealer to get double perf stock, and not every stock can be ordered as double perf, and what can sometimes has a minimum order of several thousand feet. *Fairly current in this case is any B&W and Colour Negative, or Ektachrome/Fujichrome, but does not include Kodachrome- No one can process that any more.

I have seen some as Microfilm. It is kinda interesting as it looks like something old faded and bunded out to see, but gives a clear image. I would also like to ask brian if There was any use of Diazo in movies. Diazo is commonly used to make working copies of Microfilm, as it is more durable phyicaly than silver film and is also quite inexpensive. Diazo might fade badly as a projection print, but should work well in intermediate roles as a low loss, low cost direct duplicate.

One other gotcha to know, I had to move some stuff the other day and came across a box of several TV - c-mount lenses that I set aside, as they have a large back portion. It was a nice e-bay find of good looking little lenses that I had to put aside once I looked at them closely. TV cameras often just have the "sensor"or Pickup tube behind the mount with no shutter, so some TV lenses extend far back into the camera. The ones I had in this box all would strike the shutter in a movie camera.

Assuming similar lenses, in good condition, the camera body can't really have any effect on the colour. this is real photography, we use a brand new sensor for every image. Now a lens with some flair may result in images that look desaturated?

New data point today. I "doubled down and Bought another camera, which arrived today from the Ukraine. The lens from the new camera does not fit the body of the existing camera, but both lenses fit the new camera. SO the problem seems to be in the mount. The new camera still have the film loading guides, which actually do have an mechanism to move slightly out of the way and the mirror on the shutter has even more scratches than the first camera. this means the viewfinder is incredibly hazy. Time to bring in my Engine Tools (bore measuring feelers) from the Garage to see if I can find out if the mount is round all the way.

With a spirit of adventure inspired by recent discussions of the K-3 I decided to get one for myself to learn about these famous beasts first hand. a slightly beat up looking package arrived from the ukrane a few weeks later and contains both a camera and a lens. The lens almost but not quite fits the camera. Are there variations of the Russian Breach lock mount? is the lens for another type of camera? the round part of the mount looks like it would need about 1 millimeter more room to fit in the opening. I documented the situation in a flicker album at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjC7uQBy The camera seems to make the right sounds, and I can see somthing in the finder if I hold a projector lens the right distance from the lens mount. The lens itself looks fairly good, although the infinity stop does not line up. Any positive sugestions welcome.

Yes, I looked twice as the darker colour film in your test is that which did not get wet! If you had developer of any sort, the developed film would get much darker. As far as the emulsion getting soft when wet, It sure Does! When I was a kid the little home splicer I had came with a bottle of water to brush on the film to make it easier to remove the emulsion where you wanted to splice. This is why the processing machines have special rollers and often do most of the drive from the back of the film. Instead of Wipers they use "air Squeegees" to remove excess solutions. In home processing of any film you have to be very careful to avoid contact with the wet film and if needed only use a soft sponge.

Undeveloped will give you orage film because of the built in mask. Quick cheep test would be to stick some faged film into the developer in the light. For example use the Cut off leader from your experiment and stick it Half way into a batch of developer and observe - The emulsion side should become gradually darker where it is in the developer. Without the per-bath the film will likely be not as alkaline so the development time required may be longer, but I would expect "some" image from the per-exposed parts.

It can't hurt. By cross processing the colours will not be natural, and so the colourist/grader will have to know what you have in mind. The Grey card and colour chart will let him or her set things as close to normal for a starting pass. You may of course want to drift further away.

Very interesting journey. Following along from the description in the You Tube video, lead through several other pages to a page http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/214-ubuntu-stabilize-video-melt which has a command line based way to use a package called FFmpeg and the MLT framework to do what she wants.... (mind you the recommended version of FFmpeg seems to have upset something else- but that we will fix later...) Thanks everyone.

I have been asked by my wife to find some advice on Dejittering one of her videos. She was on a remote trip and shot one clip where she did not have a chance to use a tripod due to various constraints. The video has a lot of jumpiness from frame to frame. The Clip was shot on a 5D Mark II. She currently is using Kubuntu linux as her PC but is also willing to look at a mac. Does anyone have any ideas on what she can do to straighten out her shot. I am more a film guy so I am not familiar with any of this digital processing stuff. end use is probably as a clip to show while giving a talk on her experiences on this trip.

The phase out of Film prints makes for a lot less volume of Film produced. That volume (even though it is of the lowest cost stock) covers a lot of costs to keep Camera, Lab and even still Film viable. On the still side Fuji has cancelled a number of popular items like Neopan 400 in roll film. If this story is true, it may mean that fuji will stop making all film. I understand that the same infrastructure is used to make materials for TV sets, but Japanese televison set production is also under pressure.

Industrial electronics suppliers like Digi-Key and Mouser sometimes have various batteries with factory welded solder tabs. an example is http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/NH15/N703T-ND/1040726 Iam not sure if the sample I am showing is the right one for your application, but going through the search tool may give you some ideas.

it can also cause problems on Projection as the image is Silver not dyes, and so it can adsorb more heat from the light. that can make the print wave or become distorted. 50 years ago, the systems were set up to deal with B&W stock, not so these days.

Proably for the same group of designers who came up with the 50ft 16mm magazines, which also have the film passing the sprocket twice.

I have heard folks who have reason to know, questioning freezing film that has been opened. The trick is that if the humidity has caused the film to absorb moisture, it might be dammaged by the formation of Ice Crystals. If it is still factory sealed, and if the data sheet for that particular stock specifies that freezing is permited then you would be OK. Refrigerator temperatures are typicality around 4C which is the point where Water has the greatest density.

fridge is better... Film gets more fag, and lower sensitivity with age. My stash of 35mm cassettes of Double X still produce images but almost look Black when they come out of the process (This was a new roll bought back in 1986, which was not in the freezer all the time) Colour stocks will of course have colour drift. such film may give you a foggy - dreamy - far away look. It is of course not predictable.

The difference is VERY small, and to extend the shutter open time by that much, the designer would have to make the Pull down time (the film has to move with the shutter closed) even shorter. Posible but more costly to pull off. 25 FPS was mainly used for European TV shots. The K3 and the BOLEX are mechanically governed Wind up cameras, so the exact frame rate is "close" to 24. A camera tech can probably adjust them to 25. My own camera is a filmo, and the speed dial is continuously adjustable so You could probably mark the spot that you get 25. I am not sure of there is a detent on the other two.

Double X is a bit more grainy than a modern stock. (and extra grain is one of the possible symptoms of X-ray exposure, so that is possible also) The Keycode burn in scans are used by folks using computer editing and planing to do a better scan later on the footage that they are keeping, sort of an "Online workprint" {-workflow- edit the project on the computer and then use the keycode to find the original shots, splice them together and have the film cleaned and scanned at high resolution} the "workprint" image is of lower resolution to allow room in the frame for the details. The lab should be able to give you a plain scan if you are planning to edit digitally, but they may have a different rate for that. it almost looks like they gave you a colour scan. Biggest problem is what looks like a frame by frame scratch in the upper right centre of the image with a few others that are not as consistent. Does your K3 camera still have the loop formers installed? They are frequently cited as causing scratched film. Can you look at the negative on rewinds with a good magnifier and a light across the film to see if the back of the film has a row of scratches? if so you can wind the film back emulsion in and try rethreading it in the camera to see where the scratches are likely coming from. (I am assuming that this test is not ending up in your finished project.)

The K-3 sets I have seen on E-bay seem to come with filters for both colour and B&W shooting. I am not sure if the soviets had there own set of codes for the colours. Typically they seem to come with the RED and YELLOW B&W filters (darken the sky to make clouds stand out) and what looks like an 85 (salmon coloured) used to shoot tungsten film in daylight. But I am not sure as I have not seen any up close.

TV lenses cover TV pickup tubes (and CCD sensors) which were at one time 1 inch, but are often 1/2 inch. A lens for a 1 inch tube will likely cover regular 16, but one intended fora 2/3 or 1/2 inch tube might be a bit tight. Other issue is some TV lenses don't bother with Diaphragms and or Focusing mounts. TV cameras can adjust the pick up sensitivity on the fly, and many have a mechanism to move the whole camera tube back and forth for focus. (removes the need for a lot of precision parts) Other reason these lenses are fairly cheep is that the cameras they were made for are obsolete, and so were junked, but the lens was saved. (That is actually a plus for us) but you have to select the good ones from the chaff and make sure that the backfocus is set correctly.

I have a few of them, and most are double perf. I think the only single perf one I have is an A7 which needs cleaning and Lubrication. (All the Keystones I have collected need cleaning and Lubrication) It should be possible for a good tech to make such a conversion. the lens mount is held on by 4 screws and so a new mount could be made to be centred. the gate is fairly thin so would be simple to cut out wider. The question is why would you want to bother with a fairly inexpensive home movie camera?

And if they process it as a batch of regualr 8, they might slit in down the moiddle before they notice that it is Not really regular 8. Perhaps a better way to Honor your Relative gift would be to get some fresh Regular 8 and shoot it in the brownie. I am sure that John Schwind does not really need the plug - but he has regular 8 Supplies as long as Kodak will make the film for him at http://www.zerelda.com/internationalfilm/internationalfilm.html All the stocks that John sells are current and can be processed at almost any film lab. MOST labs have a film slitter to set the film up as Regular 8.

The M42 lens mount was used for the Pentax and Practica 35mm SLR cameras. as such, the available lenes are always a bit "long" compared to the selection for a camera made for 15mm Movie lenses. That said, the use of the various focal lengths are exactly the same. A 50mm is a Modest Telephoto on a 16mm camera, and longer lenses are even more telephoto like. You will want a good tripod if you try a 400mm. The Soviets did make an 8mm lens which acts as a fish eye on a 35mm Camera but is supposed to be a fairly good wide angle on the Soviet 16mm cameras. the widest common lenes for the pentax were generally a 28mm or so, which is about the length that a Filmo might come with as its basic lens. (25mm is the norm for a filmo)