Need a super 8 camera, $500 budget, what should I get?

David Nethery · July 27, 2013

Russian Quarz 1x8S-2 camera.

Small size, small weight.

mechanical, spring motor.

Zoom lens.

manual and auto aperture control ( ask battery ).

Without batttery work mechanical aperture control.

High light viewfinder.

Cheap and high quality camera.

The technical details on my web pages.

https://sites.google.com/site/procinecameras/amateur-cinema-cameras/super-8-quarz-1x8s-2-1

As of my opinion, Quarz 1x8S-2 better from Canon 814.

I would be interested in seeing some comparison tests of footage shot with the Quarz and footage shot with a Canon 814 that prove that .

I admit that have always been intrigured by the Quarz 1x8S-2 because of wind-up motor (no batteries !) and the ability to remove the zoom lens and attach an anamorphic lens , but honestly I have never seen any footage from a Quarz 1x8S-2 that looks sharp to my eyes. All the footage I've seen looks "soft focus" . (which in certain cases can be a desired effect , but not usually . And I'd rather get a soft focus effect with filters or a matte box with gauze ) . I've shot film with a Canon 814 Autozoom and the footage is always very sharp. And most footage I've seen from any of the Canon 814 series (Autozoom, Electronic, and the XL-S) looks very sharp. My own eyes tell me the lens on the Canon is better. Can anyone post footage from a Quarz 1x8S-2 that looks as sharp (or even close) as footage from a Canon 814 ? I would love to be proved wrong on this. Even footage from the little Canon 512 XL and Canon 310 XL cameras looks sharper in most cases.

Olex, do you have any suggestions for getting sharp images from the Quarz 1x8S-2 ?

On an older thread on this forum David Leugers writes:

Two things about the Quarz = (1) unscrew the zoom lens and clean the outside surface of the lens half that is inside the camera body and then clean the backside of the removed lens. The gunk on those two surfaces makes for most of the soft image resolution.

(2) screw the auto exposure. Use a light meter and set exposure manually for happy results.

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=20930&p=155738

Has anyone found that following this suggestion to "clean the gunk on the outside surface of the lens half that is inside the camera body and then clean the backside of the removed lens" helps improve the image sharpness of footage captured by the

Quarz 1x8S-2 ?

Also , has anyone ever found a way to adapt other C-Mount lenses to fit on the Quarz 1x8S-2 ? Even though the Quarz is C-mount as I understand it it is only possible to use the Quarz zoom lens that comes with the camera , because of how the focus plane is configured. It would be very interesting to see how the Quarz would perform if other C-mount lenses could be adapted to work with it.

Edited July 27, 2013 by David Nethery