Mark Dunn

So you'd be extra careful in loading the rewound spools in VERY subdued light? I guess if you tried wobbling the spool to get the light-trapping effect you'd grind lots of nice dust off the film edge.

David's spot on as usual. You pick a circle of confusion and then work out the DOF based on that. Or better still, you look it up in Samuelson's or ASC manual, (or use a Kelly calculator?).

As for reading the tables, for each aperture with a given lens, at each distance setting in the table there's a 'near' and 'far' distance to tell you what's in focus. My Samuelson's tables also give the hyperfocal distance for each stop- set the lens there and everything's in focus from half that distance to infinity.

The viewfinder prism is in front of the 85 filter, so doesn't look through it at all. The only cameras that do are those with mirror shutters, and the Elmo isn't one of them, so your blue tint is just down to the finder optics and won't photograph.

You can check the filter operation by looking through the front of the lens whilst operating the filter lever; you should be able to see it moving in or out of the light path.

If the auto exposure is duff, you may need a test to see how much light is absorbed by the zoom lens, because you'll need a wider stop than that given by the meter to compensate.

The 85 doesn't really affect black and white, but you'd shoot without it for preference to avoid the loss of speed.

Would a Steenbeck do, or is it a bit fierce? I ask because I got one off ebay and they're more available (and not much dearer) than rewinds.

Never mind video transfer, I'm staying on film. Steenbeck, pic-sync, K3- but CIR splicers go on Ebay for more than Steenbecks! Can't figure that one out, except maybe they're a bit easier to wrap.

Thanks for the replies. The shorthand of 6x6 actually meaning 6.6 square is what put out my buyer. The MB14 is widely referred to as 6x6, you have to go to Arri's site to find out the true dimensions. Whenever it happened, it was a while ago. I checked a 1980 Samuelson's catalogue and there's no mention of 6x6, although 6.6 is correctly referred to, so what I have must be quite a bit older than that. 6x6 is a still photography size, but you'd never need 85s for stills. perhaps someone, ahem, quite a bit older remembers? I'm not letting them go for a few quid on Ebay. Maybe I'll keep them as a talking point, or some rich collector will want them. Anyone?

Crumbs. Those super-8 prices are starting to make 16mm. look reasonable. Think I'll carry on collecting old 16mm. kit.

Can you not see the shutter through the lens port, maybe trace the shutter sector and measure the angle? Or photograph the shutter and measure on your monitor. Or guess at 180deg.

I've just had a sale of a set of 85s fall through because the buyer thought I meant 6.6 inch square. They're not, they really are 6inch. Are they quite obsolete, and if so, can anyone tell me a bit of history on filter sizes? I could have them cut down but they're perfect and I hate to spoil them

It's trickier on Super-8, but I've just tried scratching straight onto black 16mm. leader and you get a lovely 'breathing' sort of animation. Kind of like the paper animation I used to do on Super-8 when it didn't cost a small fortune and arrived back through the letterbox in a few days. Ah nostalgia! Still, at least equipment is cheap now- I've recently got a Steenbeck for £75 and a pic-sync for £1. (One pound). And the black leader was 4p a foot, all off ebay. More power to you. Who needs a camera anyway?

Are you sure it's an Arri Standard mount? My K3 has a bayonet but I think it's proprietary. The flange focal depth and mount diameter don't seem right.

There's some light loss in the reflex viewfinder, but a stop and a half seems a lot to me. Are you sure it doesn't mean 1.5 times, maybe half a stop?

Going in and out of focus? Hmm. The cartridge pressure plate isn't that bad. If it's a momentary unsharp frame or two a bit after the start of the shot, well, the film comes round a sharp bend above the gate and can have a 'set' on it, but that fault doesn't repeat. Did it just happen on a single cartridge? If so, it could have had a fault. If not, does the camera sound right? Is the gate clean? I can't think of a cartridge fault that would only affect film flatness without mucking up the film advance and you'd see that.

Try a good clean and a different cartridge. If not, the Nizo's a good enough camera to have repaired. Thing is, it might be cheaper to buy another.

Sounds like your Nizo focusing ring is out of alignment. Perhaps it's been dropped and incorrectly adjusted. Happened to me once. You'll need to test again. If your background is sharp whilst focusing close, then the lens needs to be further away from the film. You need to loosen the focusing ring and rack the lens out more, then re-tighten the ring. Exactly how much, you'll have to test, making small adjustments each time, and shooting at a wide aperture and at a long zoom setting to minimise depth of field.

IIRC Kodak will put any emulsion on any format if you order enough of it. I think it's 4000 sguare feet. I make that about 80,000' of 16mm. I can only find a reference to this in respect of aerial film, though, so don't quote me.

Sounds like a cartridge problem. The Super-8 pressure plate is built-in to the cart and is a possible source of unsteadiness. Perhaps the old cart was sticky? Try fresh one.

The grain is quite intentional. It's called ground glass and is to give the eye something to fix on for focusing. 35mm SLRs used to have something similar until the Japanese figured out the much brighter microprism arrangement. But the Russians stayed with ground glass, which is rather dim by comparison, and of course with the mirror shutter you have to look through the stopped-down iris, which is even dimmer.

Oh, and don't clean the mirror too often! It's front-silvered and quite fragile.

Something like a Eumig Mini shoots at 18 and 24 and has exposure override. They're a few pounds on Ebay.

If it doesn't have a speed setting marked, it may be unregulated. If so, all you can control is the speed at which the film accelerates, by feeding it a set voltage, then arranging for your event to occur when the film is moving at the correct rate. I used these in 16mm on a weapons range and they're intended for recording a short-lived event, not continuous action. They're calibrated by calculating the framing rate from timing lights on the edge of the film, then plotting the speed against time to get an acceleration graph for a given voltage. You can then pick a point at which the speed is correct and arrange to synchronise your event. Film rolls will run for a matter of seconds.

The prism doesn't affect the flange focal depth. The equivalent of shutter angle is the shutter constant, which should be marked somewhere on the prism, as a fraction or ratio. So a constant of 1/3, or 0.33, equates to 0.33x360 or 120 deg.

You probably are in for some experimentation. The power supply would probably control the timing lights as well, so you'll need one.

I used the BL at college and we had a separate blimp for primes. They're probably on Ebay for peanuts now. We preferred it to the new CP-16 for studio work because ours was quieter. That might have been down to adjustment, but the CP was new, after all. I'd compare them as a Mercedes to a Ford.