Will Montgomery

Don't forget "Ultra 16" where the gate is widened equally on both sides and you shoot between the 16mm perfs. Not as much room as S16 but much easier to do to a regular 16mm camera.

I've got the T-Shirt!

As long as your lens has gearing, almost any follow focus will be compatible. If you're pulling your own focus I found a really simple and surprisingly well-built follow focus made by Edelkrone works great with me SR2 & Zeiss 12-120 lens. Very simple, but feels nice and solid.

Good news is that there are tons of SR accessories laying around in old, beaten up drawers in rental houses. The Arri-made screw-on shoulder pad is slightly helpful and looks more professional than a pillow. Still not good for any extended period of time so you'll need to bunch up a towel or some other padding if it's on your shoulder for any serious time. A cold shoe adapter for the handle screw mount is nice to have...allows mounting of LCD lights and monitors. People would often replace the entire handle with a well-built cold shoe, but I actually like having the handle. Follow focus and same for zoom if you need it extremely helpful. Look around at modern accessories built for Arri rosette mount, you'll find some nice goodies. Speed controller? Several models out there. Without it you're stuck at whatever it's set on. I may have an extra somewhere. More mags? If you see any SR3 mags out there I'd pick them up. A little quieter and probably less wear since they're newer.

Pre-1945 AND reflex is pretty limiting. If your thought is to go vintage, why not just go all the way and try a Kodak Model B? You'll need double perf but you'll be shooting on a 1920's camera with a true vintage lens. If you want a reflex camera with C-mount you're pretty much in Bolex world.

The lab was like, "huh?" I wasn't sure what happened until I realized it was all reversed. Had to work a little to get the image I got, it was definitely way underexposed. I've since heard a few DPs mention they've seen it done for special effect a long time ago. Throw a ton of light on it if you do it on purpose. I'll have to find out where the costume came from. I know it was shipped and we only had it for a few days.

Had a loaded 35mm 2c mag sitting in the garage for 5 or 6 years and stumbled upon it a few months ago. Didn't look at it very closely and shot it for fun on a night scene. Not exactly proud that I let it through but it wasn't a paying gig and I guess stranger things have happened with film. Here's the results shooting through the wrong side of the film and flipping it in post. Also a still from the BMPCC we also used. Always have a backup. BMPCC backup...

Clean, lube, adjust. Basic maintenance.

I was going to suggest a 310xl. Can be found for under $75, it's small and easy to use. I think it checks everything on your list. I have about 10 of the autofocus version that I picked up for anywhere from $5-$30. Autofocus is not good and lens is pretty bad, but it gives you a classic Super 8 look. Very light and fits into your pocket. Great to hand out to kids for fun shots.

That would be fun to have a few of those. I use the 400' mags with 100' loads from time to time.

Great news as long as they keep up the quality of work and support. Even with all their growing pains in cameras, it does seem that their heart is in the right place. They seem to love what they do and are listening to us.

Guess they figure not a lot of broadcasters will want to use it. Maybe at Cinegear? You know they're working hard on it. The big question mark will be price and if millennials are willing to pay it.

Anthony's right, starting with Tri-X B&W and purchasing a cheap Super 8 projector would be where to start. You'll get about 3.5 minutes on your first reel so either create a short or shoot random things and people just to see how it works. You're going to spend about $40 to buy the film and processing. A projector might cost another $50? But that way you can see what it does and start to get a feel for how light sticks to film. As far as doing a major complicated feature...baby steps. Keep in mind that you'd be in the over $6000 range to do a 90 minute feature in Super 8 with film, processing and transfer if you could possible keep it to a 3:1 ratio which would be nearly impossible, but hey, there's always a first time. So if costs are an issue, consider saving for a DSLR and go that route. Or even better, have fun with your camera and explore it's use, maybe make a short 10 minute film, show it to someone with money and have them fund your big project.

Yep.

Arri NYC was able to repair an SR1 motherboard for me about 3 years ago. There's at least one guy there keeping the 16mm dream alive there. Most major rental houses can handle repairs on any SR. Visual Products certainly can. Abel Cine. Bernie at Super16Inc.com. Tons of camera shops still out there. While new parts are not being made of course, there were so many of these cameras in the U.S. that parts can still be found for most things that wear out. Whatever camera you get, you'll want to make sure you send it in for inspection and a tune-up. With all the mags too. Plan on adding at least $600 to whatever price you get to do this. Very important. And send it in at least every other year depending on how much you're shooting. Pick up the SR Guide to learn you're routine maintenance. You can even check with Panavision and offer beer bribes if they could help. Technically they're not supposed to but they love the old cameras and might help as a public service. If you get an S16 SR2, you can always get another standard SR2 to keep for parts if you think that's needed. I'm fairly sure Abel Cine can handle Aaton repairs although not sure how deep their parts stock is. Most of the same guys that handle SR's can probably tune-up an Aaton, just not sure if they'd get parts if needed. Remember not to think of these cameras like any digital camera...they're closer to industrial sewing machines. You must take regular care of them to keep them going...but they ARE built extremely well and designed to shoot everyday for years.

The XTR's are probably better designed cameras, especially for handheld work but honestly I'd stick with Arri in the U.S. simply for all the repair parts and people that know the SR's. Plenty of 12v Super 16 SR2's out there. The SR3 has some advantages in view optics, quietness and other features, but there are so many updated and modified SR2's that you may find it to your advantage to save some money with S16 SR2. I have SR3 mags for my SR2 and it's super quiet. Not quite to the point of a full SR3 but very usable when recording sound. Tyler has a good point on camera packages...you may want to jump on one soon. And don't be afraid to pay a little more for a kit with more accessories. Those accessories were crazy expensive back in the day.

The 3-day/week rental thing is a good point. Of course SR3's can be purchased for under $6k and then sold for the same price when the production is done, so theoretically you could have a free camera for the shoot (of course it would help to have a cousin that's an Arri tech too.) Too many variables on prices but the vague general point that film isn't so way out of the price range is well taken.

Decent case for the format. Just seeing some of those clips reminded me why I love 16mm. Good point about it being a nice blend of 8mm and 35mm. I would venture to say that if you are doing a feature, Kodak will probably get you a better deal than the list price on film and we know processing and transfer houses love those big projects and will probably come down a little for quantity. :)

Just pledged 90 Euros. Good project and you're the perfect person to make it happen. Are you thinking of making past SmallFormat issues available via PDF there?

If you have a Batteries Plus store near you, take the battery and the charger up there and they will be able to re-cell it for you. Should cost between $50-80. Try to track down a few extra battery "shells" that you can also re-cell. Once you have those you're golden. My re-celled batteries last for at least 4 or 5 reels (MS model). I'm not sure but I think the original grey model has an external battery connector but I don't believe it's an industry standard and is hard to find in general. If you can take a picture of the connection and post it here maybe someone can help track it down or identify it's name. You would probably want to create an adapter from that to a 4-pin XLR power connector so you can connect it to industry standard 12 volt batteries. Great camera, congratulations. I also went from a K3 to a Scoopic many years ago and my wrist is very glad I did. Only thing I miss on the K3 is some of the M42 lenses I had for that camera. Bernie at Super 16 Inc. can do a cleaning and tuning for you.

I've seen slight touches of noise reduction used from time to time...generally rare and for artistic reasons more often than technical/compression optimization reasons. But less now that film grain is a badge of honor and evidence of you spending more money on a project. :) My thought would be that if you NEED grain reduction, you probably exposed the film poorly or shouldn't have shot film on the project.

There may be a few things going on there. For one, if you are looking at footage in the past that was scanned in SD and possibly "up-rezed" to HD you won't have the same level of detail and therefore less grain. I will say that some of the 16mm re-mastered footage I'm seeing on Blu-Ray like "World At War" and even a Peter Gabriel concert re-mastered is showing more grain and slightly less vibrant color so my best guess is that you're seeing old telecine's of 16mm projects vs. recently re-scanned and colored versions of the same material. Maybe this is just a trend, but I'm seeing DP's less concerned with grain when they use Super 16 since that's one of the reasons they're shooting with it. Scanners today also may reveal more grain due to their amazing resolution. There is very good grain reduction software, but if you want no grain, why shoot film?

Very true. We've been so spoiled by digital in low-light situations. When in doubt, add more light. When not in doubt, add more light. That's what my colorist always tells me.

Yes. I was shooting some 16mm at a recording studio for another project when a different client saw it and asked if it was "still available" and I was like, "hell, yeah it's available." Music clients really like the idea of standing out from the crowd. I still wouldn't recommend film for most corporate clients, not because of the expense, but because in 16mm it has a different look than most of their other footage that I would have to work with and 35mm would involve me renting a quiet camera (I have a great Steve's Cine modded crystal 2C but it's ridiculously loud) If it's a project that can be from beginning to end in film, I definitely bring up film as an option.

I shot a music video last month, about 40 minutes worth of Super 16 for a 3.5 minute video. I calculated out that it added about $3000 to the cost compared to shooting video on equipment I already owned.