Mark Dunn

I do use 3 in 1 or similar for the Steenbeck where it says to use "thin non-resinous oil" but it's only for the flange spindles and the like- it's not going to get all sticky and inaccessible. I can't remember what I used for the gearbox but it must be due a change- any thoughts? The manual quotes oils that get no hits on a search, something like Gazolin BG4 or Shell 2w20.

Does this mean that "3 in 1" is suitable? It's a common brand in the UK and US, I don't know about Europe, and it's always been used for bicycles. I had assumed it was a bit heavy for cameras.

WD40 is a no-no, of course, it's got wax and other undesirable stuff in it.

As an aside, I now use leftover fresh lower viscosity 5w30 motor oil for the bicycles. Not for cameras though!

The older 20w50 is a bit too heavy. Engines have changed.

17 hours ago, Uli Meyer said:

Your German is very impressive, Mark!

Eindrucksvoll?- wie nett- aber Google is ein gutes Hilfsmittel. Leider haben wir seit 2019 wenig gelegenheit außer Online es zu sprechen.

You do need an up-to-date machine as Resolve is demanding on resources- it wouldn't run on my Windows 7 all-in-one. Just a thought.

I'm sure any machine from the past couple of years will be fine but if not, Lightworks is also free with the limitation that the free version will only output SD, but you can take a 1-month subscription just for the render.

7 hours ago, Uli Meyer said:

Hallo Jürgen,

 

Meine Kopie wurde am 30.11 geschickt, ist aber nie angekommen. Die email ist "noreply", wie kann ich in Kontakt kommen?

Aufgrund des Poststreiks ist die Briefpost momentan besonders in London derzeit sehr unregelmäßig (z.B brauchen meine Geschäftsbriefe mindestens 7-10 Tagen, um anzukommen). Kein Tracking ist ein bißchen Risiko.

The BBC and ITV publish tariff guides, but the ones currently out there are rather elderly.

I have no idea of relative costs, other than a suspicion that American shows are expensive because they are over-produced, but high-end drama here now starts well north of £1M/hour.

An example I worked on, 6 hours, 91-day shoot. Even I could count maybe £50,000/day going out BTL the day I was on set, my fees, transport and accommodation costing about 5% of that. So £4.5M BTL. From some homework I did on the financing, the bond on that show was at least £5M. Double that for post and ATL seems an underestimate.

Here

it's LOUD.

I believe they're quieter when CLAd, but not much.

The Arri DS-8 ST sounds fascinating. A bit short (!) of w/a lenses though.

The manual doesn't refer to a power pack and there doesn't seem to be a socket for it- maybe it was for the XLS? The XLS had everything.

NiMh rechargeable batteries are much better in the cold than ordinary AAs used to be.

15 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Dwight Cody helped me move mine back in the 90s from one apartment to another. I learned about how to take it apart and move it down three twisty flights of stairs that day - things I wish I had known previously! By the time I moved out of my last place, I owned a 1971 VW camper van. I considered dismantling the Steenbeck as Dwight showed had me on the previous move, but on a hunch we slid the side door open and lo and behold, it was like that van was designed to move flatbed editors. Four people to lift it and it slipped  right in. Fit like a glove. 

Well, I now have a pair of motorcycle ramps, bought by a show I worked on, with L-shaped storage rack supports as rails bolted on, and some great 3-inch double castor wheels. So I can get it in our large hatchback, legs off, but I prefer a small van rented by the show. The way I make this happen is by charging a lot for delivery. So the last two shows have sent a big prop van (big by European standards- search "luton van" because they used to be made in Luton, Bedfordshire -it's become a generic term).

But as you say the best way is really four strong grips who'll just grab it by the legs and carry it up and down steps.

Like this.

Still had to get it out of the car ourselves back home, though.

360 deg? You're thinking of digital. The shutter has to be closed to advance the film. 220 is usually the maximum for an XL model.

150 is a little narrow for a non-XL camera, 165 was more usual but you have what you have.

There's a manual here

https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/00775/00775.pdf

Looks like white chocolate. Mmm.

2 hours ago, Joerg Polzfusz said:

„light path“ (no clue how this is called properly in English

I'd say "light path" myself.

It's hard to tell as it's hand-held but the camera seems to have quite a bit of weave, because most of the perf movement is lateral. It's quite steady up-down.

I believe that the point of the overscan is so that it can be stabilised later with reference to the perf.

53 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Tell me about it. I have stacks of unpicked up negative from clients, currently we are scanning our 2nd feature this year and they don't want the negative. 

Presumably you have something in your contracts about disposal. Of course neg used to stay at labs for a while, but the scan is the equivalent of release printing now as far as you're concerned. So you should either be charging for storage or- out it goes. (I have 20 years of client still negs, and near 30 of my own scanned, neg and slide, but have I actually thrown any away? Of course not. We don't. Someone will do it for us, later.

35 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

the negative is permanently damaged, which does make me upset. 

Something which happened recently pointed up to me that the current generation of film-makers who only occasionally use film just don't regard the OCN as sacred in the same way we do.

I was hired for a 16mm. music video shoot with the Steenbeck. The performance had already been shot and scanned, so I was filmed actually running the neg on the Steenbeck. It was S16 and my machine is R16, so some scratching was guaranteed.

Then there was the scene of my actually cutting and splicing the neg on a CIR. I asked the directors if they minded where I cut it- could have been at the slat. They didn't mind. As far as they were concerned the neg had done its job. The scan was holy writ. Things move on.

I even had to grit my teeth when I cut up some old neg left by a client into loading rolls. He didn't need it anymore either.

Adding on the fact that an SR1 is getting on for 50 years old (could be 1975) I get the feeling it's not a keeper.

Well not running properly would be a deal-breaker for me if sold as a runner, unless it was very cheap. After all the board could be fried.

Hope this isn't bad news- Kodak taking its eye off the ball.

You could still buy a 2709. Wow.

That's a bit tiresome. You'll have to get really expert at hearing when the film ends. Or just get a feeling for your shot length. A quarter of the cart is 50sec at 18, so not very helpful.

How good is your exterior footage counter? The one on my old camera is marked off every 10 feet and the divisions are about 1/4" apart, so you can gauge the length remaining to a couple of feet. A foot is 4 seconds at 18.

The sound should change quite a bit when the claw is no longer pulling on the perfs, but running fresh film just to listen to it is a bit expensive these days. Try listening on a projector if you have one.

You can try to stop the drive dog rotating and listen to the change in sound as well.

Does the indicator bar look any different, or behave differently, when the film ends? Can't think what it might do- a change in opacity, or movement, or something. There was always some way of indicating when the film ran out. I could always tell by the sound, but that would be something you have to get used to.

There was always some visual way of indicating when the film ran out IME. But then I only ever used three or four cameras.

I think a camera that actually stopped when the film ran out would have been very prone to stoppages. It would have had to detect the load on the drive clutch, and with a Super-8 cart that's quite variable.

There should be a run flag in the viewfinder. One of my cameras had a little moving pointer, another, a green LED which stopped flashing when the film ran out. If there's some symbol or marker in there that's not doing anything, perhaps that's your problem. You can test it with no cartridge- it should be moving/flashing or whatever it's supposed to.

It shouldn't cause any damage- there's a friction clutch to disconnect the mechanism from the drive dog when the cartridge spindle stops.

Anyway you get an idea for how long a cartridge lasts- so many 5- or 10- second shots in a 200-second cartridge (at 18) or 150 at 24.

Edit: I've just read the manual -this one?

https://www.super8camera.com/manuals/leicina-super-rt1-manual.pdf

it says the transport stops when the film runs out. I'm not sure if that means that the motor stops dead- that would be unusual. It doesn't mention a run indicator. But we've already had some imprecise language with the shutter angle, haven't we?

15 hours ago, Gareth Blackstock said:

I had a quick conversation with an electrician regarding 3 phase converters, he said that while a converter would likely get a 3 phase machine running, once the machine started drawing big power the converter would fail. And getting 3 phase connected.... thousands.  Sadly i do not think 16mm shooting and processing in Australia will last much longer... enthusiasts on the ground are dwindling.  And with a kid, house repairs, and a full-time job... i dont get time to shoot film, let alone start a business developing film.

Sigh....

Here's a spec for a 1000ft/minute machine, looks like 6kW for the drive, 6kW for the pump and another 8kW for the dryer. So you're not plugging it into your house supply.

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/38481322/specifications-for-negative-film-processor

Well "<" does indeed mean "less than" in mathematics, but 180 was about standard for non-XL S8, IIRC, for a nominal exposure time of 1/36sec at 18fps.

I can only think it's a casual use of the symbol in the manual because I can't imagine a German manufacturer being so vague as to give an approximate shutter angle for something that would have been made to very precise measurements.