Will Montgomery

Well kept 1-year old film is absolutely fine. The question is only if it was actually well kept and are you dealing with short-ends or recans. If so were they handled properly. Chances get better with slower film as faster stocks are generally more sensitive to storage conditions. 1 year is practicaly no time in film life though. Try & test small amounts first until you feel you can trust the supplier. It's always a gamble but their are plenty of reputable people out there that sell recans and short ends. If you're doing a project that involves getting paid to deliver a product, it's hard to beat the feeling of buying fresh stock from Kodak or Fuji.

This could open a whole new discussion about how much is too much for 16mm transfers. (Don't mean to highjack the thread though.) Anyone have a Technicolor LA rate card? When I start paying over $400/hr I start to wonder if I should have been shooting 35mm anyway. The important thing is to find a colorist that you like and knows what you like and follow him/her around wheverever they go like a good barber. (that's not to say trying someone new hurts) When I used to produce records I worked with a few engineers in Miami that could make practically any studio sound amazing. They would always tell me it wasn't really about equipment (although of course that's a component) it was the skill of the operator. I'd bet Technicolor can attract some amazing talent.

EEEEEEKKKKK!!! Be EXTREMELY CAREFUL. People have been doing these "2nd Chance" offers to scam you big time. I've had this happen THREE TIMES and they were all NOT LEGIT. I don't know why movie camera equipment seems to be a big target of scam artists but it is.

I laughed for about 5 minutes when I read this. :D I do agree though. As an intellectual challenge, do it by all means, but there are other cameras out there what will acomplish what you want for the same amount of money once you consider all the time you'd put into it.

True that.

Extremely grainy stock in comparison to even 500T. Colors kind of bland. That may have something to do with use in low light which is how I used it since if I had decent lighting I would have used 500T or 200T. The colorist I worked with said 800T was an "ugly" stock and was glad it was discontinued. Plus if you find it now it will be old and proper storage is more important with higher speed stocks.

I was watching that show last night in HD and was impressed with the photography. Very rich tones. Looks like those are some sort of flare maybe to simulate real torches.

Ah, tax. I think my last order cost $12 for 2-day shipping about (8) 100' rolls (plus some super 8)... so I guess if you want just one roll it doesn't make sense but then doesn't everyone charge shipping?

Does it look like this? :) At least you'll have the advantage of modern film stock over Stanley's famous scene from Barry Lyndon. Sounds like a fun shoot. There are many more experienced DP's here that can give you specifics, but I think more information would be needed. Like how wide or close you'll be going, what the set is like and if you'll want the background lit as well.

You can always find film a dollar or two cheaper than Kodak, but why bother? You know stock directly from the source will be stored properly. If you're comfortable with short-ends and recans go for it. They can be fine. Maybe even 9.5 times out of 10. But if this is a paying gig I'd suck it up and just get stock direct. 1-800-621-FILM(3456) Kodak 16mm Film Prices (100' reels) Vision2 50D 7201 $36.48 Vision2 250D 7205 $36.48 Vision2 100T 7212 $36.48 Vision2 200T 7217 $36.48 Vision2 500T 7218 $36.48 Vision2 500T Expression 7229 $36.48 Double-X B&W Neg 7222 $18.56 Plus-X Negative 7231 $18.56 Plus-X Reversal 7265 $20.59 Tri-X Reversal 7266 $20.59 Ectachrome 100D 7285 $36.93

Ummm, no. Fomapan works in the older Kodak process appearently but not the newer one. I've had labs do the newer one with Fomapan and you get an interesting bizzare "flame" effect on the highlights that looks like a really old 80's video or something.

I wonder if that 1979 model was even released in the U.S.? Since I've never seen or heard of it other than that Canon history site, I'd bet very few were made.

Have you considered 2-perf 35mm? Probably not very practical due to lack of telecine options & hard to find the cameras, but film costs would be only a little more than Super 16 and a much larger negative. There's a company in Austrailia that's promoting the idea, maybe you could pick up a camera from them... http://www.multivision235.com.au/ And another in Sweden... www.solidentertainment.se

I've achieved that look many times... when I forget to move the aperture back to the correct setting after opening it wide for critical focusing. In other words, massively overexpose your film. Now, the real question is less about film stock but more about your colorist in post I would think. You probably don't even want to overexpose in the camera too much (well, maybe 2 stops) but rely on your colorist to get what you want. If you blow out the exposure too much there might not be enough info to work with, but I've been amazed at what a good telecine machine can get out of poorly exposed film.

If we could only load in that kind of light! Guess I never thought about actually removing the pressure plate... seems like that method might be a little hard in a changing bag but then any method of loading a K3 is pretty hard until you do it for a while.

It's only really comparable to 16 when they do the transfer... they are the only company I know with a Shadow Super 8 telecine. That with their noise reduction produces an amazing image on Super 8. Pro8mm, Spectra and other houses that promote Super 8 Rank transfers do a good job, but FSFT is about the best I've ever seen on Super 8.

Sorry if I used the wrong terminology, I meant paning up and down (vertically) to frame for 16:9 after the fact, not a good way to shoot obviously, but the low budget no setup shots I'm talking about benefit from fix in post (I know, the wrong why to think about it, but sometimes necessary.)

While Spectra will treat you right and you should see a noticible improvement, the best Super 8 transfers I've ever seen came from Flying Spot Film Transfer in Seattle. They use a new Thompson Shadow telecine unit and have noise reduction and colorists that are amazing. Its the only time I've transfered Super 8 and thought it looked almost as good as 16mm. Yes, it costs money but save up and do it once for 200' or so of film just so you know the difference. http://www.fsft.com/ Spectra has good folks who care and will give great advice, I just think they're a little limited by their machines.

You want to look for M42 mount lenses that have an "Auto" & "Manual" aperture switch like the Pentax Super Takumar lenses. That will allow you to set it to manual and move the aperture ring as needed. The other way around it is to take a paperclip and jam in the little pin that allows control of the iris by a camera. Once you do this however, the auto function won't work on a 35mm camera if you care. I did this on my 8mm Peleng I think.

If you are refering to the feature on Final Cut Studio's Soundtrack that will sample a sound and notch it out of an audio track, it can work amazingly well but keep in mind that it does remove those frequencies from the audio and might make the remaining audio a little thin. Also, you should record a clear few seconds of the sound alone IN THE ENVIRONMENT you are filming with the same mic placement for it to work properly.

Thank you both for your help, I think I'll combine advice and do the horizontal anamorphic, see if I need to do any or much pan & scan, then sit in on a 2nd transfer and have the colorist match any panning/framing I need to do.

Thanks for these results! I have a few of the lenses you tested and my eyeballs pretty much agree with your test. It would be interesting to test some of the really wide lenses, my Peleng 8mm seems very un-sharp, love to see where it falls. By the way, for anyone else needing a chart I found this... there's a link to a PDF on there. http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/res-chart.html

I have no practical experience with these cameras, but the A-Minima does require special 200' loads that are easy to get from Kodak USA, but not sure about in London or India. Just something to keep in mind. I believe the Xtera can handle larger loads which could be helpful in some situations.

If I plan to take a standard 16mm frame and transfer it to HD, should I consider a horizontal anamorphic so I can get the most pixels out of the transfer and have the option of doing the "pan & scan" myself in my NLE? In otherwords, zoom in to fill the frame left & right then squish the vertical down so I get the entire film frame in, then expand it in Final Cut and move the frame up & down as needed? Does this make sense if I can't be present at the transfer to guide the framing or don't want to take the time during the session? Seems like this would give me more pixel info to work with rather than transfering will pillar boxes and zooming in with my NLE.

As Walter points out more students will be going into digital "film" making and we will probably see a slow decline in traditional film usage. However, another interesting trend is the explosion of consumers editing their miniDV footage on their computer and some considering film for that use. I know about 4 or 5 people that went out and bought Super 8 cameras then some bought 16mm after editing miniDV for a while. One person told me after transfering their parent's Super 8 footage from childhood it made them yearn for that look which led them back to film. As more people get into video editing, even at the most basic level, a small percentage (very small) might consider film again. I think a few strategic ads by Kodak in consider video magazines could propel this. But as has been discussed already, Kodak doesn't want to be seen as pushing yesterday's technology.