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Mark Dunn

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Everything posted by Mark Dunn

  1. Back in the day when 16mm. was used for news where the light was unpredictable, a built-in meter made some sense. But if you have some control over when and how you shoot, and the system needed an exposure meter anyway, unless you really need the feature as you say, forget it. If you need to move between areas with different light levels, rehearse the shot and change the aperture manually.. You would have had to do that with the ACL anyway.
  2. This figures in well with the doubling of ASA speeds in the early 60s when the safety margin was removed- so "X" then became 125? 4x125=500 as you note. Although in stills, Panatomic-X stayed at 32. Hmm. Incidentally, what a great forum when someone asks for a Kodak historian......and we have one. Talk about the horse's mouth.
  3. Hopefully you will get a better answer than this, but it's possible that the electronics are out of spec due to age. Capacitors are particularly prone to deterioration after 40 or 50 years.
  4. What comes my ways isn't archive as such, just sources to be mined for new shows, but I've only had material going back to the early 60s on the Steenbeck so no cement splices, except the odd lab splice. But quite a few early 70s tape splices have dried out. Fortunately they're easy to remake with the CIR. My late 70s Super-8 ones have all held up. As, actually, have the cement ones I made before I got the CIR. But at 18fps they are a real mess on the screen. Most of my magnetic stripe has detached, but I've remade my soundtracks (not lip-sync) on CD, hand-cued, then much more recently on computer in Audacity. I assume that with sensors and feedback and whatever modern scanners apply the absolute minimum of tension necessary to ensure a good wind-up. On a similar note I've never handled anything more recent than 1995. But the Steenbeck was hired recently for a music video shot on 16mm. I "star" in that in a small way as a film editor. I hadn't seen an Arriflex for 30 years and I'm ashamed to say that when I first saw the 416 without its mag but with its video tap, follow-focus leads and handling cage I thought I was looking at an Alexa Mini. I should probably be slightly shot for that. Great to hear "turn over" and "cut" when it actually means something.
  5. In my book, left in, as long as the unsteadiness isn't too distracting. You can't really do anything about a cement splice without losing frames, and in any case you've already done the scan. The imperfections in an amateur film are part of it. And it's not GWTW. It doesn't need studio polish. Besides, if you take them out you might be depriving some future academic of the opportunity to write a PhD about it.
  6. In you example, the flare lasts about 2 seconds. I think it was a creative choice by Kubrick- if he hadn't liked it in the rushes he would certainly have re-shot or used a different take. He would have known, or Alcott would have told him, that lights so close to the frame edge would probably flare. He wouldn't just accept that it was unavoidable- he'd spend thousands on a detail like that.
  7. Good on you. What a generous offer. One of the reasons this forum has such a good reputation. Posts are one thing but practical help like this is something else. No need to look up the definition of "professional" here.
  8. There was an attempt to professionalise S-8 in the US in the 70s (Super-8 Sound comes to mind, with location mag film recorders and pulse-sync Nizos, and there were a few Super-8 Steenbecks) but there was never a proper lab infrastructure to back it up, with neg and print stocks, and I think S-8 was just too fragile to stand up to the rigours of cutting news. Although there was a dedicated reversal stock, 7244, with its own compact dry-to-dry processor, but as noted, the stock on its own wasn't enough. There was no ecosystem. 16mm. was used for pretty much everything outside the studio for decades, though news went to tape in the late 70s, when the unions allowed it, and finishing on film stopped in the 90s. UK film dramas were shooting on film into the 2010s. A good piece of "The Blue Planet" documentary (2001) was shot on 35mm.
  9. Obviously if you change a processing chemical there can be differences in colour, but if you are sure of your processing I don't think the mask colour is significant. You might expect the 35mm. and 65mm. stocks to look different if they are different ages and have been stored differently- I assume the 65mm is much older. I know nothing about MP scanning, but I think what matters is not that the scans are different, but that the colour can be corrected.
  10. Could you have lost something from inside the hole, a ball bearing or spring or something, that did the actual jjob of locking?
  11. Would blackening the pressure plates fix it- and can it even be done? Anodising?
  12. Here https://www.orwo.wtf/blog/an-update-wolfen-photo-shipping-new-samples-and-colour-cine-release NC500. Intended for C41 but can be processed ECN2 with a change of contrast. No remjet. Reading between the lines implies it's made in China and only packed in Wolfen.
  13. I'm sure it's b/w. I don't think it's a camera film- that would have the ISO on the can as above. I think it's a laboratory film for making contact prints. The difference in speed ratings may just be down to differences in development. You are better off starting at the lower figure if you're using an ordinary fine-grain developer. It is likely to have lost quite a bit of speed. I would tend to assume at least 2 stops, which may make it inconvenient as a camera film. I think "Tasma" is probably just a brand of Svema (also Ukraine). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svema Edit: This about a company that took over Svema's manufacturing. They have a film rated at ISO 3 to 6 which I'm sure is a print film. http://www.astrum-ltd.com/en/kino-foto-materialy.html mentions a b/w positive film. (It's still negative-working though despite the name).
  14. There's an app called "video tachometer" that would get you the frame rate by freezing the mirror or claw movement. But I'm not sure you should run that fast without film. Maybe a loading/scratch test roll? I sell them!
  15. I tend to agree with Simon. With digital cinema AR is less and less relevant. You'll see documentaries with the archive left at 4:3. Much better that fake widescreen barbarously cropped. But it does suggest a period look nowadays. I think "Wycliffe" (1995-ish) was the first UK drama to be shot in 16:9, protected I think for the intermediate 14:9. If you can get to see some episodes it's an interesting study in how cinematographic grammar was changing to accommodate widescreen TV- sizes of closeups, etc. plus it's got Jack Shepherd in it.
  16. Since my phone light isn't working (the app still works) I've been using a torch- it seems to focus when there's plenty of light.
  17. Brilliant, thanks. The camera doesn't seem to focus but I can see I have the Steenbeck running about 1% slow. Good enough.
  18. Go on then. https://www.ebay.com/itm/284398357957 Pretty fair price I'd say. Not their fault the pound's in freefall. Shipping's going to be a killer though.
  19. Eh? There's a war in Ukraine and an energy crisis, but apart from increasing its costs I don't see why that should adversely affect business in Germany. It's 1500km from Wolfen to Kyiv.
  20. Yes that's not fair to you. But I think it does apply to vendors locking out certain uses that are built-in unless you pay extra.. Like the rented heated seats and the extra fees to use certain hardware features (RAW output, high speed, some aspect ratios, apparently).
  21. Well if the motor's working well, you probably don't want to take it to bits to see what's going on. We're both curious, right? But not daft. What size is the jack BTW? Just, er, curious.
  22. Have you decided the orientation question? As you have it there or side-opening, handle on top, feet on the ground?
  23. Because they can? Same way you have to pay extra to make Arris do certain things. Even happens in cars now- the facility is in the vehicle as manufactures but you have to pay extra to turn it on. BMW do it with heated seats- you rent them by the month. There's some justification if the higher res scans take longer and produce more data, though.
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