"New" super-8 camera to market

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

Just screened the registration test roll: Results are perfect. I don't see the lines moving apart at all. The speed changes are all entirely invisible. While projecting it I just realized how weak the registration of my projector is. :)

Really, the projected test film looks like a slide. I'll tape it of the wall later today when its dark.

[Erkan Umut]

Everything is excellent for now, but, well, I asked myself:

I will spend a good money for a near perfect Super 8 camera, then I've got very good results, and the director will tell me they are so crisp, you told me Super 8 look! This is not the look we are used to have from home movies. Then he will manipulate it with the silly effects, including defocusing, scratching, noise, unsteady pictures in editing, so what? I will have a camera I love with enthusiasm.

Then for documentaries and feature projects? I am pretty sure they will call me crazy :) Come on, we are looking for the highest resolution ever created, and you are telling us a narrow gauge format. Do not dream so much, man!

This is not a wild statement, but true for me...

Despite for these I'll try to do my best for the newborn cameras!

[David Cunningham]

Hey David,

 

sure, but indeed I don't have a scanning facility. The crosshairs I could tape right of the wall though, hotspot and high contrast should not matter here. :)

 

And: The 8mm Bolexes are simply fantastic. E100D is still available in Double-8 (and relatively cheap), so is Plus-X (at Wittner). Aviphot Chrome 200 D is coming soon, though that will be a very grainy, but charming experience...

 

The AGFA 200D is SOOOO grainy. I tried it in Super 8 and don't think I'll be going back any time soon. Plus, I hear Velvia 50 and Provia 100F are back in 1000ft quantities again! Time will tell.

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

Wittner just confirmed purchase of "bigger amounts" of Velvia 100. Good news indeed. I love the grain of 200D though. Both in 16 as well as in 8mm. I think projected (not transferred) it looks beautiful.

[David Cunningham]

Eh... Maybe in 16mm. I haven't tried yet. In Super 8 it's just to big and chunky. And the colors remind me of the E160G stocks of the 70s and 80s. So, I guess if you're looking to reproduce the 70s and 80s Super 8 look, it's a good way to go.

 

 

Wittner just confirmed purchase of "bigger amounts" of Velvia 100. Good news indeed. I love the grain of 200D though. Both in 16 as well as in 8mm. I think projected (not transferred) it looks beautiful.

[Jean-Louis Seguin]

Odd that this ancient article was never was brought up before in the registration and breathing discussions in all this time I have been visiting ciné fora!

It is clear writing and explains all effectively.

It makes clear the NIKON micro gate ramps help forcing the film to the far end of the channel. It is also clear the NIKON stop pin is an invention which works and explains the far better registration on these.

 

For me, Francis Williams' technical articles were the best feature of the old Movie Maker magazine. I have a good collection but I'm also missing many issues. I'll try look up other items that might be of interest as I have never seen these available online.

 

I wish I could put up the SMPTE specs also, but they are protected by copyright.

 

Jean-Louis

Edited November 26, 2013 by Jean-Louis Seguin

[Tom Chabbat]

Thank you Jean-Louis for your priceless contribution ! I'm eager to look at some other articles you may find ! I tried to email you a PM but it seems you're not able to receive any...

Edited November 26, 2013 by Tom Chabbat

[Jean-Louis Seguin]

That's weird. Email me direct: bolextech@gmail.com

 

Jean-Louis

[Nicholas Kovats]

Friedemann,

 

I would be happy to fund a scan of your test footage at bitworks.org. Let me know. It would be intuitive to provide an overscan to observe the frameline and perfs.

 

Nicholas

Edited November 26, 2013 by Nicholas Kovats

[Erkan Umut]

I don't want to be off-the-topic, but I believe the pressure plate and the others are somewhat related to the topic, and gained popularity in the recent posts.

I wonder that why didn't the engineers add a pressure plate provision for Kodak's cartridge (although it is called pressure plate by engineers, pad is the same jargon), and other following manufacturers? Why did the pressure plate become available so late for the Super 8 cartridge for a long time? Why did many finest camera manufacturers leave the cartridge faith alone? Forget Kodak, what about the giant Bell & Howell Manufacturing Co.?

Because of the polyester base is thinner? Because of the Single-8 cartridge needs it and the cameras should utilize it for this reason?

By the way, this is very interesting statement: "... Super 8's plastic pressure plate could be molded with far smaller tolerance than Single 8's metal version could be machined." on Wikipedia

And we see the plate does not contact fully on film in camera designs for other formats to minimize the surface stress and friction, according to my belief...

[Lasse Roedtnes]

Hi Erkan,

 

I can only say that pin registration, pressure plate and side stabilizers makes our camera stand out from the others and in my opinion we have the best engineered solution ever made for 8mm.

 

Ofcause we have the advantage of 30 years dwell time and we've had all the time we needed (3+ years) to make it work where our former competitors had to release cameras in an endless spree to keep up with competition - just like you see a new TV model being launched every quarter or iPad etc...

 

I wonder that why didn't the engineers add a pressure plate provision for Kodak's cartridge (although it is called pressure plate by engineers, pad is the same jargon), and other following manufacturers? Why did the pressure plate become available so late for the Super 8 cartridge for a long time? Why did many finest camera manufacturers leave the cartridge faith alone? Forget Kodak, what about the giant Bell & Howell Manufacturing Co.?

 

My personal belief is that they opted out because of one (or more) of these facts:

 

A ) It was a cost adder hence less money in their pockets

B ) They didn't think the consumer's had the brains to figure it out (loading is no longer trivial)

C ) Perhaps they didn't have the skills to engineer it in the first place

 

I would say A & B are more propable than C, but think about it - everyone else was using just the cartridge so the consumers where already used to an image shaking like a parkingson patient and they where satisfied - so why change it for a more expensive solution and risk loosing market share?

 

We haven't had any of these concerns ( A & B ) when we designed our camera and the market share issue was non existing since there was no market share to be had in the first place from anyone (our competitor is eBay) and since we are not targeting "average joe" and his dog but either professionals or semi-professionals that have some experience with film already

we do not have to make our camera completely "idiot proof" like the earlier manufactures.

 

Regards

Lasse

Edited November 26, 2013 by Lasse Roedtnes

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

The complicated coaxial design plus the insane filmpath with all its u-turns and snubbers and rollers and gliding discs causes so much friction already that a pressure plate would have killed the camera motor. Or would have teared the film apart. My guess. ;)

 

(I tried it on a Nizo 801: Motor current goes up 60% when using the GK Framemaster plate. Not good for the driver.)

Edited November 26, 2013 by Friedemann Wachsmuth

[Tom Chabbat]

 

 

It was a cost adder hence less money in their pockets

 

 

 

The complicated coaxial design plus the insane filmpath with all its u-turns and snubbers and rollers and gliding discs causes so much friction already that a pressure plate would have killed the camera motor. Or would have teared the film apart. My guess.

Actually, the article Jean Louis provided us prove you both wrong.

 

You can read in it those actual lines :

 

"Subsequently I have exposed several cartridges of sound film in the camera, and I cannot detect that the increased gate tension has made any difference to the running or to the sound quality - exempt that the breathing effect at the start of the shots has now been completely eliminated".

 

Actually, the whole point of this article was to suppress an effect only occurring "at the start of the shots". When running, the design worked well.

 

Here's a passage of the article "The Coming Of Super 8", in Smallformat 01/2005, p. 29 :

 

"Some 8mm users, thinking no doubt of past experience with 8mm magazines, were quick to point out the potential for trouble with the pressure plate being located in the film cartridge rather than in the camera and the possibility of film jamming in the cartridge. Neither of these fears was realized; the cartridge designers had done their work carefully. Millions of Super 8 users seemed to be quite satisfied with the sharpness of their films. Jamming or any other malfunctions due to the cartridge were extremely rare."

[Lasse Roedtnes]

Hi Tom,

 

I do not want to come off arrogant at all, but I take note in these lines below and that reassures me that I'm right in my assumptions which are that people where satisfied with mediocre quality and hence there was no need to improve it further.

 

"Millions of Super 8 users seemed to be quite satisfied with the sharpness of their films. Jamming or any other malfunctions due to the cartridge were extremely rare."

 

Also I cannot understand what the below statement actually means since I fail to see how the sound relates to this issue?

 

"Subsequently I have exposed several cartridges of sound film in the camera, and I cannot detect that the increased gate tension has made any difference to the running or to the sound quality - exempt that the breathing effect at the start of the shots has now been completely eliminated".

I do not know how sound was made on super-8 film back in the day, but if it was a magnetic stribe I would argue that you wouldnt be able to tell from the sound wether the camera's film was shaking around or not since the camera's run rate would run in the range of 1fps to perhaps 60fps which would be heard as a hum (just like 50/60Hz line hum) and for magnetic stribe solutions they do not typically have the dynamic range to record such a signal anyway (just like on an LP).

 

Regards

Lasse

Edited November 26, 2013 by Lasse Roedtnes

[Tom Chabbat]

Oh, and I almost forgot :

 

 

 

They didn't think the consumer's had the brains to figure it out (loading is no longer trivial)

 

 

people where satisfied with mediocre quality and hence there was no need to improve it further.

Aside from sounding condescending, there were already actual "professionals" in those consumers, it was not only used for "amateur" purpose, if not Beaulieu wouldn't had sell much of its expensive cameras...

Think of the engineers and technicians that were behind those products. Don't you think they wanted their design to work well, to be the best available, to make the finest product ? What was the point of making such marvels as the Angenieux 1.2/6-80 if it could not focus properly ? Or making the Nikon R10 ? The way you say it, people could just be happy with cheap instamatics.

 

About the sound, I think you misunderstood, I never talked about it. The lines I'm quoting makes an allusion to it saying "gate tension has made any difference to the running or to the sound quality", but that's all. It was just here to prove neither running OR sound quality were affected by gate tension.

 

This article alone proves that there were serious amateurs too concerned by image quality.

 

Regards,

Tom

Edited November 26, 2013 by Tom Chabbat

[Tom Chabbat]

Oh I see now what you meant for the sound.

 

Actually, recording of sound depends too of the film running speed, since the magnetic stripe is on it. So if there was erratic running of the film, it would have impacted on sound, like when you play back a record at a lower or higher speed.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Tom Chabbat

[Lasse Roedtnes]

Hi Tom,

 

 

Aside from sounding condescending, there were already actual "professionals" in those consumers, it was not only used for "amateur" purpose, if not Beaulieu wouldn't had sell much of its expensive cameras...

Think of the engineers and technicians that were behind those products. Don't you think they wanted their design to work well, to be the best available, to make the finest product ? What was the point of making such marvels as the Angenieux 1.2/6-80 if it could not focus properly ? Or making the Nikon R10 ? The way you say it, people could just be happy with cheap instamatics.

 

Every engineer wants to see their invention succeed, otherwise they wouldnt have become an engineer in the first place so obviously they did what they could to make their products the "top notch" however it's extremely rare that a design is not driven by a marketing team - what I mean by this is that marketing would figure out what will their user segment pay for the item in R&D, what do the users expect in terms of features etc. and how should it look appealing enough for people to actually buy it?

Once this is figured out a MRD (marketing requirement document) is written which is then handed over to the R&D team together with a target cost price and a whole set of design constraints, especially in terms of estetics (the way the product should look when done) and in 99.9% of all cases the wanted look of the product or the target cost contradicts the best way to design it and then you have to make compromises - I have never in my 10 years of R&D heard about a (bigger) company that doesnt do this simply because if you dont do it you are not sure that your product will satisfy the market and hence you could end up designing for nothing.

 

The camera's you mention I do not know but they properly had a wealth of buttons and features that made them appealing when they came out - perhaps it was the build quality, perhaps it was the feature or maybe it was the marketing budget in terms of ads in newspapers that did the trick - I wouldnt know but people have always wanted to purchase for sometimes less-obvious reasons.

 

Look at the people who sleep outside apple's stores before a product launch - that's great marketing right there!

Is the products really better than anyone elses on a technical level? - I doubt it. People, unlike machines sometimes act upon "feelings" and emotions rather than common sense and facts and that to me what makes life worth living and also why I believe we have a chance of actually selling our camera in the first place because compared to the millions of digital cameras out there it would be hard to compete if just looking at the technical details since they have 1000x the features etc.

 

Regards

Lasse

[Lasse Roedtnes]

Oh I see now what you meant for the sound.

 

Actually, recording of sound depends too of the film running speed, since the magnetic stripe is on it. So if there was erratic running of the film, it would have impacted on sound, like when you play back a record at a lower or higher speed.

 

This is true (that playback speed would change with fps) however that the film would move slightly sideways for example wouldnt be noticeable since it would be a very slow motion compared to what your ear can hear - also the filtration on the playback device together with automatic gain control would eliminate this.

 

if the playback speed varied that would be noticable only as "lip sync" problematic - you wouldt be able to tell if it was running too slow or too fast (unless we are talking many fps difference) :)

 

Regards

/Lasse

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

Tom,

 

what was that with reading more thoroughly? Did you also read page 2?

 

"However, I would certainly not recommend any general modification of camera gates. It happens to work on the Elmo because this camera has a fairly powerful motor and a claw drive that is robust enough to take the increased load, but I cannot imagine that the drive in a lightweight silent camera (such as the Mini 3, which has a very small compact motor) would stand it. So please be cautious, and don't start wrecking good cameras!"

 

In addition to that, and you should know most of that by now,

- film is thicker today than Kodachrome was (by about 15%), so has more friction

- modern reversal film no longer has remjet and thus does not glide as well

- reversal films cut from slide film widerolls is often more sturdy, doesnt like U-Turns an has thus more friction in the cartridge

- Most camera motors today haven't been lubricated for 20-40 years, so they don't like extra load very much

 

Furthermore, the author has exposed sound film. This film came in special cartridges and the corresponding cameras had a capstan drive to eliminate the intermittent film movement. The capstan drive also helped with film transport -- similar to a sprocket gear. Sound Cartridges no longer exist.

 

 

But Hey, file down your gates and/or use the framemaster plate and get lucky. Some people gotta make their own experiences. :)

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

Florian has finished translation of my Logmar Article now.

You can now read 50% more contents than yesterday:

 

http://www.filmkorn.org/sensational-a-new-super-8-camera-from-denmark/

 

Have fun!

[Tom Chabbat]

Lasse,

 

I all agree with you, some people sometimes buy on a feeling, on an impression. But "some", not "all". If you look at the specialized literature of the time, like "Popular Photography" or "Movie Maker", you can see that nonetheless they tested the cameras, and wrote articles about picture quality, because a lot of people cared as much as us today for picture quality. They compared models. Even serious cinematographers of the time used sometime Super 8, be it for personal use or even work.

 

I saw on Friedemann's blog that you "never shot super 8"... Is that true ? Maybe the reason you feel it's cheap is because you didn't actually tried it. I can assure you, having (and still) used it a lot of time, it's not as bad as you may think. Now that I've seen this statement, your product makes me feel a little uncomfortable, because I thought it was at last a product made by someone like us here, a real enthusiast that love the format. Now I can't see clearly your goal if you won't use it, apart from just making money.

 

You too are trying to sell a product here. You too put a wealth a feature to appeal to us. "Pressure plate, sprocket feeding, register pin" are too words to make the potential buyer comfortable.

 

I don't want to prove anyone right or wrong here, so be it clear. I'm just using some critical thinking to better understand your product, to see if it really is better than what we already have as you claim.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Tom Chabbat

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

Read carefully, Tom, once again. Read carefully! There are two people behind this camera. One of them is an enthusiastic filmer. He does the mechanics. The other one is into electronics -- he makes the mechanics work together well.

 

What you call "critical thinking" I would call major ignorance and total, pathetic reluctance to accept simple facts from reality. So can you please once do a little research yourself to find out how often the most enthusiastic filmers have been begging for a S8 camera with pressure plate, sprocket feeding and pin in the past 30 years, since th Super 8 system has so many drawbacks?

Yes, the filmer's magazines of the 70, 80s and 90s are full of that. Easy to find. Go for it!

 

Boy, it again smells so incredibly troll-ish here.

[Erkan Umut]

Dear Lasse,

 

I was busy with my toys including several camera gates with various heat treatments and finishing quality, also one of them adjustable lateral guides (you mentioned as side stabilizer), as well as a 60X magnifier. :)

 

You mention:

 

A ) It was a cost adder hence less money in their pockets

B ) They didn't think the consumer's had the brains to figure it out (loading is no longer trivial)

C ) Perhaps they didn't have the skills to engineer it in the first place

 

Probably, you are not serious, or angry for some reason. Anyway,

 

"Eastman Kodak's head designer team: Jasper S. Chandler, the father of the system and the 1974 presented 200-foot sound film cartridge; Evan E. Edwards and Lloyd Sugden, the two fathers of the cartridge.

Evan A. Edwards and Lloyd Sugden had the responsibility for cartridge design.

Edwards was a specialist in molded parts, having worked on the Instamatic 126 cartridge (1963), the Pocket Instamatic 110 cartridge (1972), and held numerous patents on injection molding, molded products, and injection molding machines.

Another major consideration in designing the new cartridge was to achieve absolutely smooth transit of the entire 50-foot length of film through the cartridge, essential for steadiness of the film image. To study the dynamics of the film transit, Edward’s group constructed a “dynamometer camera.” This ingenious device continuously measured and recorded the force required to move each frame through the film gate. The pull-down claw, just a quarter-inch thick, was equipped with a strain gauge. Thus force/displacement graphs could be plotted over a wide range of temperatures and humidity levels.

The final cartridge design was an assembly of six injection-molded parts, each of different composition depending on their function, and one phosphor bronze spring, bearing on the pressure plate, all manufactured to extremely close tolerances. To avoid the film plane positioning inaccuracies to which previous magazine designs were subject, the new cartridge had a spring-loaded pressure plate behind the film. When the cartridge was inserted in the camera, that plate pushed the film into the camera’s film gate where three locator studs arrested the pressure plate and film in precise position relative to the optical system.

Large scale testing of the cameras and cartridges was considered imperative. While cartridges were tested at Kodak Park, the Apparatus Division made over 100 trial cameras that were given to employees to test on weekends. Over 300,000 cartridges and 15 million feet of film were tested before the system was released to the public".

1) Single-8's pressure plate was designed for more rewinding possibility, not for steadiness!
2) Super 8 design killed the Regular 8 having the metal pressure plates!

Note: Dr. Arthur Cox, the father of Photographic Optics Science (his successor is Sidney F. Ray nowadays), was the head of designing of the optical components of the Bell & Howell Super 8 cameras.

 

Do you believe your A, B and C?

 

Thank you for your time and patience!

 

Best,

 

Erkan

Edited November 26, 2013 by Erkan Umut

[Tom Chabbat]

Friedmann,

 

Your insults are not a way to prove your point.

 

I'm aware that I lack some informations, that I don't know everything, but who can really claim it ? I'm not ashamed of it, I'm just asking questions, because, apart from Jean Louis and Erkan, nobody seems able to provide actual proofs of what they're saying. Again, I want to see some critical test results, some serious articles. I'm not all new to this world, but as we experienced with Jean Louis' article, vintage super 8 documentation is hard to find nowadays.

 

I know there's also Tommy on the team, but he's not the one we're talking to. I asked about Lasse's motivations, not Tommy's. I read too that they initially wanted to make a 16mm camera, but as the market is declining more rapidly, they turned to Super 8 instead. Put this way, it sounds like a marketing move to me.

 

My whole point is that I find it difficult to believe that Super 8 is this flawed, with so many talented people having working on it, be it on the manufacturer or user side.

 

Friedmann, I understand your point about newer film stocks not being the same, but do you think the Super 8 cartridge was only made for Kodachrome ? I thought that from the start they used different stocks, with a black and white emulsion too.

 

Please, do not insult me this way, there's an actual person behind those word. Filming, being Super 8 or any other format, has always been my passion, and being curious by nature, I tend to ask questions. This is not by sounding condescending that you'll prove to me you actually know what you're talking about. You'll just seem rude.

 

So again, sorry to ask questions, sorry for sometimes being wrong, but I feel I help this way other people to better understand what's going on. Without my "pathetic reluctance to accept simple fact", we won't have seen Jean Louis' article or Erkan's specs they had. Don't you think it's good sometimes not to blindly accept everything as true ? To try to know how things really work ?

[Erkan Umut]

Dear Lasse,

 

Also you mention: "if the playback speed varied that would be noticable only as "lip sync" problematic - you wouldt be able to tell if it was running too slow or too fast (unless we are talking many fps difference)".

 

Small format sync difference could be more understandable due to the slower speed than larger formats!

Film transport speeds, mm/sec. @ 24fps: 456 for 35mm film, 182,98 for 16mm, and 101,5 for Super 8/Single-8.