Will Montgomery

Du-All worked on it about a year and a half ago. What he told me was he just widened the mask to reveal the S-16 area. It IS wider, but perhaps it doesn't fully cover the S-16 area... can't say for sure. It was only $75 so a can't imagine anything major was done. It does look "off center" if that helps... in other words it does wide into the right (as you look at the viewfinder) and I see it slightly curved on the far right edge. I don't consider this a pro camera, just something for weekend fun. All said I probably have about $700 invested in it so I probably should have just gotten a better camera from the begining but I like the ease of use and smallness of it for handheld work.

Pro8mm has a spotty rep. While I haven't had problems with their processing, their telecine in both 16mm and Super 8 was flat, had hairs and dust bunnies (I verified not on the film, in the transfer) and ghosting images. They may have a good colorist and machine somewhere over there, but he hasn't worked on my film. Bonolabs - Their philosophy is to give a completely neutral transfer and let you adjust the color which is smart if you have experience doing that. I personally like working with a good colorist who can match the mood of the story and add a little something to the film. They do alot of government work transfering archival footage. I'd recommend talking to Flying Spot Film Transfer in Seattle. A smaller shop, but they have excellent newer equipment and talented colorists and decent standby rates. http://www.fsft.com/ A company I work with here in Dallas, TX is called Video Post and Transfer. They do excellent work and have three suites, the low-end equipment being Pro8mm's highest end. http://www.videopost.com/

The Super Takumar's are a good inexpensive option for K3 owners, they are not Zeiss Primes by any means. That said, my colorist noticed a major difference between my Meteor lens and my 35mm Super Takumar. But with these cheap cameras there are so many other factors and they aren't always easy to focus precisely anyway... my eyepiece shifts constantly out of focus.

Yes, my youngest of two. I like that Double X negative stock. Haven't tried the Plus-X negative yet.

I bought a Pentax 35mm still camera to get this lens actually... 50mm 1.4, Super Takumar. Beautiful shots from it although you have to back off from your subject since its somewhat telephoto on a 16mm camera. Here's a still from my Super 16 K3 with the 50mm lens on Double-X negative b&w stock. The nice scratch on the right I first thought was the gate but I haven't seen it since this reel so it was probably dirt on the gate or something.

I checked both lenses and as expected there is very little difference in viewing area. The only advantage on the 16mm Zenitar is the full Super 16 coverage and it is smaller & lighter. Not even sure if it would be sharper. But if you have a Super 16 K3 I highly recommend it.

The Zenitar is slightly wider obviously than the Meteror at 17, but it covers the entire Super 16 frame while the Meteor lens only covers it above 24 or so. The results aren't fisheye on a 16mm camera... only on a 35mm camera. The distortions are there, but MUCH less than the Peleng. Keep in mind that on the Peleng if you use it on a 35mm, its a TRUE fish eye and you get a completely round shot while 16mm cameras basically use the center "half" of the coverage area.

Very fun lens. That's one of the great things about the K3, picking up relatively inexpensive lenses for effects. Interesting that the distortions seemed to be roughly centered; I would have expected them to be slightly off since the lens/gate isn't recentered, the gate is just widened on one side. Another lens worth looking into is the Zenitar 16mm which you can buy new from Russian camera importers. It also covers the full S16 frame, is wider than the Meteor Zoom, and much less distortion than the Peleng. Also, find a 50mm Pentax Super Takumar 1.4 for really sharp (and low light) shots. Sometimes you have to buy a camera too to get this lens but then its fun to have a 35mm still camera to mount all these M42 lenses without adapters.

More negative area = less "zooming" in telecine which will translate to less visable grain. If you're shooting outside with Vision2 50D then grain becomes much less of an issue, but if you're shooting with Vision2 500T you would be able to tell the difference and lighting becomes very important. As you can see from Tim's tests, regular 16 can look amazing even when cropped down to 16:9... so don't worry too much if you're stuck with regular 16. So, if the only reason you aren't using Super 16 is because someone is telling you that its only for projection, then they are wrong. If you aren't using Super 16 because of budget reasons that's fine, just use the slowest stocks you can to keep grain at a minimum unless of course you want that look.

Du-All actually widened the viewfinder, Bernie cleaned up the ground glass for me... can't say with 100% certainty that I see the entire area, but I definitely see more on the right side than the standard version. You say it can only be marginally larger, but it seems like its in the correct proportions for Super 16. Guess I should do some tests to check for real.

Had Bernie O'Doherty do routine maintenance, collimate the Meteor lens and do his "Laserbrightening" on the ground glass for my K-3. What a difference the brightening made! Much easier to focus now. Du-All had widened the viewfinder for Super 16 but I couldn't really see the edge very well. Now I can see the entire Super 16 area clearly. www.super16inc.com

I've never even tried the internal meter... what kind of batteries does it take? I've had great success with my Scoopic MS's internal meter so I'd like to try the K3's. Of course, I use these cameras for fun/hobby work so an internal meter might be just fine.

Tim: I've seen your tests before and was impressed, but even more now that I realize it wasn't a Super 16 shoot. Gives me hope for my Scoopic footage to be transfered to HD. Remi: With modern stocks, 16mm can look amazing when transfered to video. The lighting is usually the key as well as lenses of course. Find a good telecine house and ask for demo reels from their colorists. When you find a colorist whose work you like or matches your project make sure you ask for him/her.

I'd suggest using Bernie O'Doherty at www.Super16inc.com. He charged me $75 for a clean and lube for my K3 (I had him do other work as well) and I'm planing on sending him my Scoopic for a good cleaning as well. He's been doing this work for 30 years and he's extremely reliable. I've had work done by Du-All on my K3 and my lens wasn't collimated correctly (maybe it went out in transit but I doubt it) which caused me some problems with focus on the Meteor lens.

There was a great interview on Kodak's "Exposed" promotional DVD about NFL Films and their history and love of film. They believe that NFL Football is the most filmed thing since World War II. I've seen some of those films in high def, and they are amazing... especially the ever-present slow motion shots.

Interesting, I've loaded about 200 reels on my Scoopic MS and never once cut the film at an angle; it's always autoloaded perfectly with the straight cut from the factory.

While your viewfinder may have been widened to view the Super 16 area, its probably not "re-centered." Not that big of a deal on a K-3, just that the brightness falls off quite a bit on the right side of the viewfinder but the film should be fully covered. Shoot some film and check it out, you may be just fine. I ran into a problem with my lens where the first frame of a take would be perfectly in focus and then go slightly blurry. It was a collimation problem with the Meteor zoom lens... other M42 still camera lenses didn't show that problem. I'd suggest picking up a 28mm, 35mm or even 50mm M42 Pentax Super Takumar lens so you can have another lens option and see if you notice a difference in quality or focus. They're pretty cheap on eBay and plenty of small camera stores have them laying around.

Scoopics are about the easiest loading 16mm camera I've ever seen. Just push the film up into the mechanism, push the button and it sucks it right through. Similar to old school 16mm projectors. Then just thread the otherside onto an empty 100' reel and place the reel back into the camera in the direction that the arrows show. Most stock from Kodak and Fuji will not need to be trimmed to load properly. Great camera to learn on, its almost like a Super 8 witht the auto exposure system. Or maybe that makes it not such a good camera to learn on... too easy!

I have a Kowa 16H Anamorphic lens that I have yet to rig an adaptor for... I've heard they've been used on Super 8 cameras, but I'm curious about trying it on my Scoopic MS. The focus will be a pain since the Scoopic lens can't be removed. Perhaps the K3 would be a better option to try this lens on since it could actually be adapted for the M42 mount.

How strange, I just bought my first roll of 35mm Kodak HIE film yesterday and was thinking how interesting it would be to have it in 16mm. At $15 for a 36 exposure 35mm roll, it wouldn't be cheap.

I have a Super 16 K3 and I've been impressed with the footage. Negatives: Your hand will get very tired winding it Each wind is pretty short, like 25 seconds Loading the film is a bitch and takes practice, you have to learn the sound of your camera to make sure its running correctly The meteor lens that comes with it doesn't fully cover the Super 16 frame when its at its widest You never know if you'll get a bad one or not, poor quality control Pluses: They are CHEAP They are simple cameras, so pretty simple to work on The M42 lens mount makes plenty of 35mm still camera lenses available (the Pentax Super Takumar prime lenses are particularly good) The stock lens can be good if you get lucky and get a good one Picture quality is surprisingly good and steady for a $175 camera Did I say how cheap they are?

Mine came with a 15mm, 25mm and 50mm lens. I believe you could choose which lenses you wanted when it was new. Unfortunately most of my shooting doesn't allow time to think through focus distance so the non-reflex thing was bringing me down. So I found a reflex c-mount zoom. I thought it would be great until I realized that you can't really focus with this lens, just frame the shot and you must focus by distance guessing. Oh well. Looks cool though.

I've been after Bernie O'Doherty (www.super16inc.com) to do a S16 mod to my Scoopic MS for a while now. Its basically a nightmare to do, almost rebuilding the camera completely. Just like the K3, the lens doesn't cover the Super 16 area unless you recenter it. On top of that, the SHUTTER isn't actually big enough either which is another problem altogether and also means you have to recenter the lens. Takes a talented camera tech with a some creativity too. He did it once a long time ago and couldn't believe the time involved. It could be upto $2000 in labor alone. That said, an Ultra 16 mod is easily possible just by widening the gate, but its hard to find a telecine house that can handle that format (coverage goes between sprocket holes on the left). The K3 Super 16 mod that everyone does is cheap ($200) but keep in mind that it doesn't re-center the lens, just expands the gate on the right so some strange optical effects can occur with zoom lenses (when zooming). But since its so cheap, its probably worth doing. $400 will get you a Super 16 K3 and you can pick up some Pentax Super-Takumar M42 mount lenses pretty cheap. 28mm is easy to find, 24 would be better, and there are some great 50mm lenses as well.

That's actually what I'm trying to figure out. :) I have a K3 modified for Super 16, but just the gate is widened, the lens isn't recentered like a professional camera would have been. The results are ok/passable with prime lenses but you get bizarre effects if you use a zoom and actually zoom while filming... not that I do that very often. The Scoopic's shutter is actually not wide enough for Super 16 if just the gate is widened (plus the lens would not cover that area when its at its widest), so you have to go in and rebuild the thing in a machine shop to recenter the lens and shutter. I've gotten an estimate for around $2000 to do this and obviously its not worth it even if I'd have one of only a handful of true Super 16 Scoopics. For my use (small band music videos, weddings, home movies) the Scoopic is a great camera. I'd just like to future proof my footage a little by getting closer to the 16:9 ratio. But as Bernie O'Doherty just told me, its much simpler to just mark the 16:9 area on the ground glass and simply zoom in durring transfer. I might have the Ultra mod still done in case I have the opportunity to use a Millenium in the future, but its sounding less and less like a practical option.

I agree. It boils down to finding a gate/device that can see the sprokets; if it can "zoom out" to see those, then I'm sure I can work with the colorist and a little math to get to my anamorphic SD or HD transfer. I was told that a Millennium can do it as it can see the entire film. I thought the Spirit could, but I defer to more experienced people on that. Just trying to find if someone that has actually worked in this format and had any transfer successes. The mod for my Scoopic will be affordable while a Super 16 mod would be crazy labor intensive and not worth it by a long shot. p.s. What a pleasure to be a member of a forum that doesn't rely on cheezy nicknames and has professionals that actually care about their craft and helping other artists develop.