Mark Dunn

In fact, you won't have ANY sound. Do check because if you're quoting your tutor verbatim he's missing something. Super-16 uses the area previously devoted to the soundtrack. Projectors don't screen that area. Even Steenbecks have to be converted to Super-16, but they have sepmag sound, of course. You can't sensibly have a 16mm. print from 16mm. 16mm. optical sound a few generations down can be a bit horrible, I agree. But there's no reason why a good dub transferred to stripe should be.

Being a film fan with a Steenbeck next to my computer I'm biased, but if a print is required then you can't shoot Super-16 in any case. It would be silly to shoot S-16 then make an optical 16mm. print. I'd disagree about 16mm. sound. It's as good as any reel-to-reel mono recording. The running speed is very nearly 7 1/2 ips, after all. If you could stay on mag film and show on a double-band projector, even better. But I don't know if festivals can still do that.

I'd echo that. You CAN shoot widescreen in 16mm- just mask the viewfinder (carefully) and have the black borders printed on from a C-roll. As Saulie said, if you even MIGHT need a print, ever, you've had it with Super-16. It's not a projection format. It was devised for blowing up to 35mm. But if you're going to video, fair enough. But you're stuck with that.

If it's made in Germany, it's not HP5. Ilford film is still made in England. The perforation pitch and profile of stills film isn't the same as that of MP film; I don't know how it would run in a cine camera, if that's your intention. I'm fairly sure it wouldn't print properly.

John Alcott used a 25-250 extensively on Barry Lyndon, and IIRC that was a zoom shot, towards the long end.

The difference was that 405-line mono transmissions continued until 1985. No-one had to throw away a TV set. Analogue here is being switched off very rapidly, over only 4 years. And digital looks worse, especially on black-and-white films.

There's no separate leader. The paper band just keeps the film tight on the spool before loading. Take it off. It's not attached to the film. The spool should go onto the spindles after you remove the collapsible cores, but remember you'll need a takeup spool if you want to unload in daylight. If you takeup onto the collapsible core, don't sent it to the lab by accident. Replace it with a 2" core. However, IIRC, 100' on a core won't fit into a 100'can, so you'll need to put the film in a lightproof bag (the sort which comes with film on a core) and then pack it in a 200' or 400' can. The mag may run noisier with all the scraping from the daylight spools, though.

I've never had a splice jam. Of course, if the film HAS to be repaired, a splice is the only option, and tape has to be better that cement in super-8. The wrap-around can be fiddly, but I've found that a single-sided splice is perfectly adequate. You just snip off the excess. It's less noticeable and goes through more smoothly. (For the OP's benefit: the standard CIR splicer cuts a single piece of tape which you wrap around the film). Plain tape is SO much cheaper, though. 100 times cheaper. On a ten-minute film, that's 20p instead of £20. Nowadays that's a roll of super-8. Or I can recut axtravagantly and blow a whole pound.

Apparently '47 was so different from '54 that Kodak reintroduced '54 for a time. http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/bl/page1.htm

Although the splicers are cheap, the pre-perforated tapes are about 10p. each. So if you're going to edit on film a lot, you'd be better off with a CIR splicer, which is more expensive, but uses plain tape (it cuts and perforates itself). They're about £150 new. I have one , but I'd need a very good offer to part with it. You can buy super-8 leader, but after a bit of editing you'll accumulate enough junk film to use for practice.

Lab splicing is done with a stapler. As far as I recall the staples are specially formulated to resist the chemicals. The lab would quite annoyed if one of your tape splices parted and wrecked someone's footage. So do check. Or don't tell them. If you're well insured.

That article is a bit misleading about 'cheap bits of plastic'. Gel filters are perfectly satisfactory and there's no reason why the built-in 85 should perform worse than an external 85 unless you pay a lot of money for a Tiffen or the like.

This, from Amazon Availability: Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. Request this item from another seller. made me laugh, though.

Gaffer tape is a lot dearer per foot than Sellotape. Mind you, it does peel off the wrapping paper without damaging it...

If it's completely unserviceable, then fair enough. Mine was running rough and I serviced it myself. It's not difficult if you're careful and are reasonably handy. I even went as far as removing the prism block. Obviously you can't do such things as setting the bearing backlash without special tools, but the Steenbeck is reassuringly mechanical, and German as well, which helps. If the toothed drivebelts are brown in colour, they're probably perished and will soon need replacing. Fortunately they're still available. I got mine from the UK dealer, Mel Worsfold, but I'm sure Steenbeck will point you in the right direction.

The Americans adopted rounders before it refined itself into cricket, I think.

Well, I've just watched 'The Astronaut Farmer', so you have my answer. (OK, so I downloaded it, bit it hasn't been released here. If it is, I'll buy a ticket, I promise).

So you DO want a closed shop. You've just said as much. What is 'getting the college-grad buddies off the set' if it isn't a closed shop? We did away with them as well, 20 years ago.

The two lugs enable you to get some purchase to turn the locking ring. Without them you'll need to get a very firm grip, or put in a couple of pegs. It turns clockwise (as you look at the front plate) to release, btw.

Even experts find colour negative difficult to interpret, so there's no real point projecting it and every reason not to. You won't be able to judge exposure, facial expressions, colour or anything useful but you will certainly damage it. Scratches on reversal project black, but neg scratches print (or transfer) white, which is much more noticeable.

Price-fixing of the sort apparently practised in the US, by the DGA, IATSE and the like has been illegal here for years. My professional association (in still photography) stopped publishing even suggested day rates twenty years ago to avoid any suggestion that it was a cartel. I'm amazed that it is still allowed in what is supposed to be a free market.

30 years. Gosh, it IS that long, isn't it? Although it wasn't really. Only 24. I shot my last Super-8 in Venice in 2001. With the demise of K40 it's unlikely I'll use it again. <Sigh.>

Some of your flash frames are near the start of a shot but most aren't, so check for leaks. If you put in the inverted roll upside down, you wouldn't have been able to get the emulsion facing the gate without putting a twist in the film, so unless you did that you've certainly shot through the base. As to what's on the film, have you actually looked at it? If it's not yours get your money back and tell the lab not to bother finding yours, because if you've shot through the base there's no point.

If you want a manual out of interest, fine, but if there's anything about the operation you haven't worked out, PM me, because I've had a 1600 for a year or two and have figured out most things.

Reversal is rather different. You wouldn't overexpose it for repro, rather the opposite.