Charles MacDonald

If you go back a few weeks in the forum, their was a big thread on this. An outfit named RGB labs in hollywood used to repool 15mm MP film, and print it as slides. They are no longer arround. Dale Labs in Florida says they will do this and I am waiting for some test rolls to come back. Photoworks also claims to do this but they ruined about 50% of the test rolls I sent them . The REM-JET backing was not fully removed, and I suspect that they acidently ran the film through the still camera process. You can easaly use a "bulk film loader" to spool your own test rolls from short ends. I am told that the short end folks find that less than 100 ft is not worth their time, but you could ask. Most bulk loaders will only take 100 ft max.

I think you have become another e-bay victim.. Sounds like you have paid to receive at least 50 pounds of film that is Possibly only good to use as leader. Lets go back to the begining of 16mm. Originaly a Home Movie format, it was silent and had two rows of perforations, a lot of cameras, like the devry, Many Keystones and early Filmos, took advantage of that and used both row of perforations. RCA and others decided that you could also do them new-fangled talking pictures on 16mm, so they dropped one row of pwerferations and put an optical sound track there. The format was hevely used to educate folks, and was a standard method of training in WWII. TV news started to use 16mm, and the Auricon came out with a means of recording optical sound, right at the time of shooting, but it really needed about a 3-4 person crew, and TV staions only had 2 person crews (camera and reporter) SO someone got the idea to make MAgnetic stripe film. Their was a stripe applied to the back of the film, and a location was selected so that the magnetic head could co-exist with the optical sound head. Traditionaly when making "release prints" in 16mm, Your lab will make up a master OPTICAL soundtrack, and they gets printed on the edge of the film. as a separte pass in the printer, but matched so the soundtrack starts in the right place, you may have to provide a "beep" a 24th of a second long, at a specified point in your tarck so that the lab tech can match it with a mark on the leader. With the competion for Digital for Tv these days, some folks find that conventional 35MM production is costly, so they have stated to do "Super 16" which uses the area that used to hold the soundtrack as Picture area. Theyhave to change some roller at the lab to accomidate this is often the old machines used the gap between the picture and sound as a "safety zone" to have rollers touch the film, this does not work for Super 16. Note also that their is NO sound on super 16. Screening room projectors have an attchment that can play magnetic film, in sync with a print, they often are modified to play a super 16 print, with the sound on separte media. I guess they can handle a computer sound file also.. SO much for background. You have mag stripe film, it is OLD, but it may be useable (or not) It has a stripe where a super 16 picture goes so you are limited to the normal 16mm area (3X4) You have some reversal print stock which is doubble perf. I understand that that was quite common in editing. Your lab may not be keen on using your print stock to print your project,as they probaly have their own procedures and don't want ot test a bunch of stock. I also undersatnd that the reveral print method is now a thing of the past, as so the labs will most likly want to make a copy negative, and a soundtrack negative, and print them both on ECP or the Fuji equivelent. Sorry to go on with the "history as I understand it" but hopefully this will get you more of less in Sync, if you willpardon teh pun.

You do reqalize that VNF was discontinued last year and some labs have already stopped processing it? Originaly the TV folks would run this in a CP-16 with magnetic heads, and play it back on a telecine with magnetic heads. Since the track is not at the same spot as the image, you have to be careful to keep the track in sync. Often as has been said, they would just use a tape head degauser to erase the clicks and blank the track where they had made a cut. The click is partly from the magnetic field on the blade that cuts the film. Typicaly the crew would also shoot Silent footage of the event they were covering, and also splice that in. If you are doing "typical on film production" - you often will have your master track on a separate roll of Magnetic "fullcoat" stock. In 16mm the phyical cuts are often to an a and B roll basis, so that you can hide the splices, as in 16mm unlike 35mm there is visible overlap. Many folks would record on a magnetic stripe in the camera, and transfer that to fullcoat to edit, ignoring the stripe after that. You may have to look hard to find a 16mm Mag projector. If you are maiking prints the norm is to use an Optical track. If you are using video editing, you would edit the sound in the video stage. If you conform your camera footage , again you would want ot use fullcoat, and /or make an optical track. I think that you might be able to get away with a spliced track for recording if you use cement splices, using presstapes will give you two frame dropouts. There used to be special tape splicers that would leave the mag track alone. Good luck finding one for a reasonable price.

AS a former Scuba diver, we would have the reverse problem, cold water on the OUTSide of the mask, which caused condensation on the inside. To clear you would have to flood your mask, which is no fun in Northern (2 degree c) waters.. If you were to put a filter on the lens, and seal it tight, (ie tape) the Condesation would be oon the outside of the filter. You Could put some prodcut on the (disposible if needed) filter. Dacor sold some stuff that was basically a soap. You would wet the surface, and the condensation would just join the liquid there, the other one I found worthwhile was a waxy stuff. If you cange film in the cold, of course you will have mosit air INSIDE the camera, which may fog the BACK of the lens.

I kept some DXN for ten years in the frezer, and it has a bit of fog. has the film been frozen? I have found over the years that the higher the speed, the more likely that storage will degrade film. When I did Microfilming, we would have so many variables that the norm was to do a step test. Shoot a test with target having white grey and black patches. The film was read with a densitometer, and the exposure was chosen to get the best results. I suspect that with the variables you are dealing with (1) changed process, and (2) degradation of the film that using such a method would be a wise thing. You can probaly spool off a sample on a 100ft spool, and do a short burst at each speed. With a note in the frame so you can identify them later. MY cynical side sugests starting at ASA10, and working up... (Growing up I was always looking for bargins in outdated and or surplus film)

YEP! Super 16 uses the sound track area to give the theatrical aspect ratio. The sound stripe was painted on the soundtrack area. I too am wondering how old the film is as Kodak stoped offering striped film several years ago, as the application of the stripe was an enviromental issue. Probaly applied with a solvent that ended up getting venter to the air.

"In My Opinion" also seen as IMHO - "In My Humble Opintion" and of course B) IMNSHO - "In My Not So Humble Opinion"

Can I make a silly sugestion? It is nice that there are labels to print, but could you sugest to the web folks to create a PDF that is inteded to print on a standrd AVERY style sheet? The US Cat 5164, (4 by 3.3 inch) for example. That way everyone could print up a batch without having to get out the snips. A version made to print in B&W would also be nice...

Ilford ID-11 is very simalar to Kodak D-76 ..

I prevoiusly said: I was rather underwhelmed by Photworks on a recent test I sent them. I just received the link to the scaned version of my second try with Photoworks. There is GOOP all over the images, and even I who am colour blind can see that the colour is Very off. It looks like the black backing was not removed fully from the film. They already had this problem with two of the 4 rolls I sent them last time, they gave me a credit, so I gave them the benifit of the doubt. When I get the physical film back I will let you know if my guess is correct. This was a fairly fresh end of ECN (One of my prevoius rolls of this was processed sucessfully at phtoworks on my first try so I think the film is not too far out of spec.) Next test roll will go to Dale.

That of course show be INSTANTLY and Collectable..

I bought one Victor and inidiatly classed it as a colectable, becasue of the way the Film counter works. Mine has a spring that rides against the supply spool, and of course it is rough after all these years. I cannot imagine it working without scratching the film. The Keystones (A3 A7 A9) at least have an arm that only rides the perf area. The Keystones can be a nice low cost camera , but by the time I got a working one, I would have been better off to get a Filmo in the first place. I have yet to figure out if there is a patern as to which of the Keystone camera have the doubble sprokets.

Many proecessing machines need to be threaded with leader, so It is a hastle for the lab to run a short roll. I was rather underwhelmed by Photworks on a recent test I sent them. I am told that Dale labs will still run ECN film. I have not played with the newer films, but I will agree that the older ones DID NOT make great Ppaer prints. The fact that you are probly not going to get 5000 ft of stock at a time means that you are likely not gettingthe freshest stock. (Exception, those that work on a set and can get permission to take home short-short ends - IE those ends under 75 feet that are useless for movies) As slides - printed on MP film, these stocks can make VERY good Photos. I have not gotten into scanning, but with the right traslation tables one could proably do very well. The low contrast nature of some of the MP films might let you record images over a slightly higher dynamic range than still film would allow. The extra cost of processing makes it unecconomical to just use ends as a way of saving on bulk film for most folks, The backing on the Kodak films made any attempt at home processing rather messy. (DON'T ask me how I know this)