Any advices on first time 35mm D.I.?

Tyler Purcell · December 18, 2017

Pitch adjust will reduce the noise, but has no bearing on the stability of the image.

You would think not... but what else causes an unstable image with a Moviecam? They're one of the most stable cameras made.

It can't be a tight loop either because it's not exhibiting the standard "jitter" you'd get with that.

Nojus Drasutis · December 18, 2017

You would think not... but what else causes an unstable image with a Moviecam? They're one of the most stable cameras made.

Right after the holidays I'll check the film manually with microscope whether the perforations an framelines allign to each other.

Dom Jaeger · December 18, 2017

You would think not... but what else causes an unstable image with a Moviecam? They're one of the most stable cameras made.

It can't be a tight loop either because it's not exhibiting the standard "jitter" you'd get with that.

I never came across unsteadiness in any of the Moviecams (or Arricams, which use the same movement and gate design) that were in our rental fleet.

As mentioned, 35mm dual pin registration really makes unsteadiness highly unlikely, unless there is severe wear to the reg pins. Even if the movement has been badly calibrated after a conversion to 3 perf or 4 perf for example, you might get focus issues, or tracking problems, or jamming, or too much noise, but the pins would still keep the film steady and registered during exposure. A loop issue would normally trigger a buckle switch and stop the camera.

Far more likely to be a scan issue IMHO.

Tyler Purcell · December 19, 2017

Far more likely to be a scan issue IMHO.

Ohh agreed... and the OP is going to check the neg so we wait to see.

Nojus Drasutis · January 2, 2018

Hi guys,

Just checked the film today - I was told, there's a 2mm variation between frame line and perforation. I don't If I should trust our old soviet microscope with perf markings and GOST standart metering.

I was thinking to contact-print the film positive just for test purposes (30m) and project it in theater to check. What do you guys think?

BTW I don't know if it's off topic or not?

P.S. happy new year to all of you

Tyler Purcell · January 2, 2018

Good idea to make a print... but you confirmed my suspicion that it's a camera issue.

David Mullen ASC · January 2, 2018

Why not shoot a registration chart test on the camera to confirm whether it is working properly?

Tyler Purcell · January 2, 2018

Why not shoot a registration chart test on the camera to confirm whether it is working properly?

I believe it was a rental package.

Nojus Drasutis · January 20, 2018

Just a quick update:

Yesterday we shot a registration test chart, as Mr. Mullen advised.

Monday I'll send it to film lab in Poland to check. But for now, I talked with one DP who also scanned something in our archival center and he said, that his footage was also unstable. He thought it was camera's fault but checked - and it appears that it's not. In his case that was 435 ES.

Film is a rare beast these days in Lithuania, so all cameras are not regularely in use.

Thanks

Nojus Drasutis · February 21, 2018

Another update:

Film lab checked and the camera is stable. So I suppose the problem is with the film scanning

N

Perry Paolantonio · February 21, 2018

I *think* the arriscan can be used with the registration pins disabled, for scanning shrunken film. I wonder if that's how this was done, since you were scanning in an archive? I don't have any personal experience with that scanner though, so I couldn't say for sure. It might explain the instability though. It's hard to tell without seeing the perfs clearly in the scan, which would be a dead giveaway if that was the case.