Jump to content

Canon Scoopic Sound 200


Paul Vanderhoof

Recommended Posts

Hello -- looking for information and a repair manual / schematic for a Canon Scoopic Sound 200. This was created by Canon about the same time as the Scoopic M / MS 16mm news gathering cameras. Built for single system sound (sound on mag-film). Instead of the 100ft load of the M/MS it can take 100 or 200ft daylight loads. Also has TTL auto-metering, so it will meter through your filters, a mirror shutter instead of a prism for the viewfinder -- ie, you see shutter flicker, and was built to be much quieter than the M/MS. It has only one filming speed - 24fps, a removable sound head, and a real registration pin in addition to the claw.

 

It is quite a heavy tank, but surprisingly even balanced handheld. Far simpler, fewer options than the M/MS but with the same lens -- except no Macro.

 

I need to get the power pin-outs figured out because I don't have the original external sound amplifier / battery pack. It has a bigger connector with more pins than the M/MS. I also would like to know more about the speed regulation -- Canon's site says it is :

 

Electromotive film feed by a built-in mini-servomotor controlled by electronic governor (used jointly with registration pin), manual feed knob provided

 

Image Stability Within 01.5% vertically, within 0.1% horizontally

 

BUT....does not say anything about crystal synch....so I'm wondering just how accurate the 24fps is. Single system sound did not have to be as accurate as dual system.

 

Also would like to see if I can modify it to run on multiple speeds.

 

Also, anyone have some 200 ft daylight spools....I really need some. Also, anyone have a clue if I can use 200ft cores in this guy????

 

Anyway....I really like my Scoopic MS and I am looking forward to see what the Scoopic Sound 200 can do.

 

I really do need some data / schematics on this if anyone can help with that!

 

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think A-Minimia reels are 200ft but they are wound backwards or something... maybe you could call Kodak and ask about them, see if they are on a daylight type reel.

 

Yes, I saw the A-Minima spool in pictures and they seem different, different shape hole than the 16mm spool, but yes, I will contact Kodak and ask about it.

 

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Hi Paul,

 

So, you got lucky, too?

 

My 'new' Canon Sound Scoopic 200 SE is the apple of my eye at the moment. Very quiet, runs smoothly and seems to be quite rugged overall. I really like that it has a registration pin (like an ARRI) for the best image steadiness. But the light meter is not responding in the AUTO mode in my camera, so until I get that fixed I have to use my SPECTRA Professional meter, take separate readings and adjust the T aperture manually. My camera has a large external 12 volt lead-acid battery, which seems to be sufficient enough.

One thing annoys me, though - it doesn´t have a thread for the cable release in the trigger as the later models (M/MS) do. I have to get this fixed as well, if I can find an experienced repair technician here in Stockholm, who has Scoopic parts. This is my camera:

 

CanonSoundScoopic200SETraderase.jpg

 

Re. 200 ft standard metal daylight spools or A-Minima plastic 200 ft daylight spools:

I hot some empty A-Minima spools from a professional cine lab here in Stockholm. I tried one in the camera - I have no core adapters yet (I found one on eBay, though), so I made one from a black rubber plug. I put it on the camera´s small feed spindle and the A-Minima spool on top of it. It works just great but only on the feed side - on the take-up side, the somewhat larger spool touches the socket for the tripod thread at the bottom of the film chamber, and does not move. So, A-Minima spools are OK on the feed side, if you want to down-spool 400 ft core-loads to them in the darkroom. I dismantled the A-Minima spools (you just twist them apart) and made a slit in the center core with a fine Japanese saw - so now it will be easier to put the film onto the spool in the darkroom. The size of the A-Minima core is exactly the same as the standard small 400 ft plastic core (orange or white). This is my camera opened up with both 200 and 100 ft spools - by the way, I am going to use wide black Gaffer´s tape along the edges of the film chamber lid, when I have fresh unexposed film in the camera - you never know . . . :

 

CanonSoundScoopic200SE30moch60mspol.jpg

 

If you have a hard time finding 200 ft black metal daylight spools (with the small square hole), you may order them from Wittner Cinetec in Hamburg, Germany - their web site is excellent, just scroll down this page for the black 200 ft daylight spool: http://www.beaulieu.de/pages/16_azub2.php?rubr=16_azub2

 

However, with a bit of tenacity, I actually managed to find both two split reels (for re-spooling 400 ft film), a core adapter and some empty 200 ft metal daylight spools (with cans and black bags) on eBay.com, so I´m set to try both kinds of spools soon.

 

Good luck with repair manuals - try eBay!

Cheers,

Bengt ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Philip Rigby & Sons Ltd. in the UK sell new 200ft black plastic daylight loading spools for £6.40 each and 200ft metal cans for £3.10 each. I've just bought a handful to use with my Beaulieu R16 magazine, and also a Vinten scientific camera I've been fiddling with.

 

Incidentally, they also sell 100ft metal daylight spools and cans for £5.90/£2.60, but you really don't want to know how much 400ft daylight spools cost! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Incidentally, they also sell 100ft metal daylight spools and cans for £5.90/£2.60, but you really don't want to know how much 400ft daylight spools cost! ;)

 

Hi Ian,

 

I for one would like to know just that! Care to share it? Else I'll just give these guys a call!

 

Regards, Dave

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Ian,

 

I for one would like to know just that! Care to share it? Else I'll just give these guys a call!

 

Regards, Dave

 

I suppose I should have seen that coming!

 

According to their price list both 16mm and 35mm 400ft daylight spools have "By quotation" against their price! Having said that, when I contacted them just over a year ago they found a 'damaged' spool & can which had been on display at an exhibition and become scratched. They gave me a substantial discount, but it still worked out at £15. Don't quote me on this, but I think the 'new' price was around £30+VAT.

 

You'll obviously need to contact them to get a proper price for a 400ft daylight spool, but if you email them via their website they can send you a PDF version of their full price list. They advertise 100,200 & 400ft daylight spools in both 16 & 35mm formats.

 

 

Regards,

Ian.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bengt: Keep posting as I for one am interested in your progress and results with the Sound Scoopic 200 (I really think that the 200 refers to kilos this camera weighs!). I sent you a message after reading your post but maybe you didn't receive it. Anyway, I found mine without the battery pack or power cable and thought to make my own power cable / battery pack but so far I haven't done anything with the Scoopic 200. I don't know what the pin outs are for the power and there are many contacts -- some for the sound. I removed the sound module from mine as of course it's useless. I was quite excited about the registration pin and the actual through the lens mirror shutter. Mine also is in sad shape as far as the light seal foam is concerned -- everything a sticky gooey mess. I have not yet even run it much less run any film through it. I did get lucky on ebay and found some cheap 200ft daylight spools -- with film and still sealed!

 

Well, anyway, if you had any documentation, you know, technical schematic or any hint on how to rig a power cable and battery (I don't want to damage anything connecting power to the wrong point) I would appreciate it and if it could be scanned and sent email I'd be ecstatic. The camera in general looks very good and I am hoping that it will run and shoot good film. Also like to know how quiet / noisy it is. Since it was designed for sound I was hoping that a well serviced Scoopic 200 would run reasonably quiet. Also I am sure that it isn't crystal synched but how accurate is the frame speed?

 

Ian: Good to know the 200ft daylight spools can be ordered in England but ordering them and getting them to US for a reasonable price is probably quite a hassle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, and note that there are posts about an outfit in Los Angeles, California (I think) that is successfully doing an Ultra16 mm conversion on the Scoopic. I know some people have done it themselves for a lot less also, but don't know if the quality was good. Anyway a Scoopic 200 with near Super 16 film area is interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One further thought for those with 200ft cameras, although Kodak only supply the 'inside out' A-Minima 200ft spools these days, reference to numerous Fuji datasheets seems to suggest they still supply 200ft/61m spools:

 

Eterna Vivid 160: 61m spool (single & double perf)

Eterna 500T: 61m spool (single & double perf)

Reala 500D: no packaging info. on sheet.

Eterna 400T: 61m spool (single & double perf)

Eterna 250T: 61m spool (single & double perf)

Eterna 250D: 61m spool (single & double perf)

Super F-64D: no packaging info. on sheet.

 

Of course I realise just because something is included in a brochure doesn't mean to say it is actually produced or easily available, but at least only the 30m spools of 35mm film are actually marked as being by special order only.

 

It might be worth a call to Fuji to find out what the situation is? Unfortuanately I haven't had much luck with Fuji Uk, they don't seem inclined to answer any email correspondance I've sent them. Oh well, at least Kodak Uk have been most helpful - in fact it was Kodak Uk who put me on to Philip Rigby when I was searching for suppliers of 100ft daylight spools.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

Hi Paul,

 

I finally got in touch with the DP in southern Sweden that had previously owned my Canon Sound Scoopic 200 SE - I wrote him a letter and he phoned me back yesterday. He is a very pleasant guy and a very experienced cinematographer, and also a camera technician.

 

He told me that he had bough TWO Canon Sound Scoopic 200 SE cameras in the US (one in L.A. and one in New York) in the beginning of the 80s - one with the faster lens (f=1.8) - that´s the one I got, and another with the slightly smaller lens (f=2.5). He and a DP friend of his used them a lot for short films and documentary work. He was very impressed with the 12.5 - 75mm Canon lens, so impressed that he bought one from England that was supplied without the Canon camera (with an ARRI bayonet mount). In his opinion, it is a much more modern optical construction, with higher contrast, than the Angénieux lenses from the same period (early 70s), for example the f=2.2/T2.5 12-120mm or the 9,5 - 95mm.

Because we had liked the Canon Sound Scoopics so much, he later got TWO newer (and smaller) Canon Scoopic MS cameras as well. But he never used the 'electric eye'-meter, always a hand-held meter.

 

He furthermore told me that he had exchanged the electrical contact in the hand grip of my camera, so that it only accepts the power from the external batteries. So, the contact that you have is probably the original one, with a lot more contacts, for the exposure meter and the sound also. He had bought TWO 12 Volt lead-jelly acid batteries and connected them in a series, so they deliver 24 Volts, which is what this camera needs, at about 0,5 Ah. He had also checked the speed of the potentiometer and set it to exactly 24 fps. He said that if I want to change the speed to 25 fps (European sync speed, at 50Hz), I will have to exchange the potentiometer altogether. I will perhaps consider this later if I can find someone who performs sync conversions for Scoopics (perhaps a Tobin motor). I will, however, buy two more 12 Volt batteries, to be able to have an extra 24 Volt back-up battery.

 

He recommended that I shouldn´t use the internal CdS meter in the camera, which isn´t as accurate as a hand-held meter. So, I think I will save up for a Sekonic L-758 Cine incident/spot meter and a large Kodak Grey Card PLUS instead.

 

I have checked the viewfinder vs. the image in the gate today (with a 16mm strip of matted clear tape!), and you get a bit more on the negative (on all sides) than you frame for in the viewfinder. This is probably because in the days when this camera was released, much of the fottage was projected in a projector, which masks away a good deal of the original image.

 

The DP also told me that the upper and lower lines of the 'TV safe' marker area in the viewfinder can be used for framing cropped Std. 16 that will be shown in a theatre in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. By the way, he didn´t recommend messing with the camera gate for Ultra16, because he says that you will have to polish all the link drive rolls in the film chamber, to make sure they don´t scratch the film negative. Well, Paul Korver at Cineliscous they seems to have done it . . .

 

 

Paul,

I hope that you will be able to find a suitable new rubber seal for your film chamber - perhaps a long, round rubber belt for a projector?

And also that you will be able to figure out which of the contacts that you should use for the batteries - remember it has to be 24 Volts for this camera!

 

If you send me your regular e-mail address in a PM, I will scan and send you some pages from a brochure on the Canon Sound Scoopic 200 camera, that I bought off eBay. I hope this has been of some help to you. Let me know how you are doing with your camera!

 

Very best regards from Stockholm,

Cheers,

Bengt F

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ian - have you used those plastic 200ft daylight reels in your Beaulieu yet? I have the same camera but haven't had much luck finding compatible 200ft reels for the magazine. I notice on the Philip Rigby site only grey plastic 200ft reels that are not daylight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ian - have you used those plastic 200ft daylight reels in your Beaulieu yet? I have the same camera but haven't had much luck finding compatible 200ft reels for the magazine. I notice on the Philip Rigby site only grey plastic 200ft reels that are not daylight.

 

I haven't actually loaded them with film, exposed it, processed it and seen the end results. But I do have four of the spools sitting on the bookshelf. They're plain black daylight spools, just made of plastic rather than metal. They drop in the beaulieu magazine no problem, and I don't anticipate any issues - although I will be ultra careful not to bend or distort the side cheeks of the spool when I'm loading it into the magazine to reduce the risk of edge fogging. (I always unload the cameras in a changing bag anyway so I don't fog the last scenes shot.) I understand this is a wise precaution when handling the 200ft plastic A-Minima spools as well.

 

I guess you've been looking on their website under: Products > Film Spools & Cans > 16mm Spools & Cans (Plastic/Film). This is the top option and only shows grey open-sided spools. If you look down the list below the 16mm spools you'll see an entry called "Daylight loading spools & cans 16mm/35mm). This page here. These are the solid daylight versions. Their 100ft and 400ft 16mm spools are metal, but the 200ft version is plastic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • Premium Member
David,

 

If you are still looking for 120m/ 400' black daylight spools, there is actually one for sale on eBay at the moment, at $9.99:

 

Grab it while it´s there!

 

Thanks, Bengt! Missed that one as I was busy w/ other stuff.

 

Cheers, Dave

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...
  • Premium Member

Hi folks,

me got offered a Sound Scoopic 200 for very low and i couldn't resist. Sigh! It's a curse but i'm an addict!

As usual i will try to get it back to work and hoped that it uses the same batteries as my Scoopic M - but no way.

This baby runs on external 24V cells via a 3 pin cable.

I don't have a manual and do not know the wirings. Please help. Thank you so much. Oliver

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Will, for now i'll stick to the 100ft. Once had to wind a 400ft onto 4 daylight rolls and it really s*ck*d. Is there any chance to avoid winding it twice?

After metering and testing the camera with a power supply and measuring i have spent half the day putting together a new battery with 20 NiMH cells that i can take out and charge individually. No way i use the old NiCad cells. The camera works fine, it runs 25 fps only which is fine for me in Europe. So here it is, my pride of 70s newsgathering...

post-39275-1267830909.jpg

post-39275-1267830923.jpg

post-39275-1267830938.jpg

post-39275-1267830950.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Will, for now i'll stick to the 100ft. Once had to wind a 400ft onto 4 daylight rolls and it really s*ck*d. Is there any chance to avoid winding it twice?

After metering and testing the camera with a power supply and measuring i have spent half the day putting together a new battery with 20 NiMH cells that i can take out and charge individually. No way i use the old NiCad cells. The camera works fine, it runs 25 fps only which is fine for me in Europe. So here it is, my pride of 70s newsgathering...

 

Oliver -- could you measure the voltage on the power cord pins and determine which ones provide voltage to the camera drive system and metering, as opposed to the pins for the sound which I do not care about. Still could not find any one to give me the specs on that. Also, are you providing 24 volts to the camera? Do any of the pins pull down to lower voltages? If you could post or send me a quick drawing of the actual power pinouts that would help me make a cable. How is the speed stability and camera noise?

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Will, for now i'll stick to the 100ft. Once had to wind a 400ft onto 4 daylight rolls and it really s*ck*d. Is there any chance to avoid winding it twice?

Actualy a 400 ft rolls makes about 3 1/2 100ft spools as they should have 6 ft at each end for leader. If you REALLY don't want to wind the film twice, you COULD always use Double perf, but the editing numbers would not work right.. When I re-roll film I wind it onto a 400 Ft daylight spool first, then wind it down to the camera size (I use a filmo) The 400ft Daylight spool give the film just that much extra protection, prevents the film from getting away when winding and is easy to handle. Of course I still do everything in the dark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Actualy a 400 ft rolls makes about 3 1/2 100ft spools as they should have 6 ft at each end for leader. If you REALLY don't want to wind the film twice, you COULD always use Double perf, but the editing numbers would not work right.. When I re-roll film I wind it onto a 400 Ft daylight spool first, then wind it down to the camera size (I use a filmo) The 400ft Daylight spool give the film just that much extra protection, prevents the film from getting away when winding and is easy to handle. Of course I still do everything in the dark.

 

Charles,

 

Where could I find a 400 ft daylight spool? I would like to create some 100 ft loads for my Arriflex 16S.

 

Best,

-Tim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Charles,

 

Where could I find a 400 ft daylight spool? I would like to create some 100 ft loads for my Arriflex 16S.

 

Best,

-Tim

I found mine on E-bay. they turn up form time to time, the TV news guys used to use them as they could reload a mag in the trunk of their car (I saw this happen once.)

 

see E-bay Item number: 390169603857 in PA for example.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...em=390169603857

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...