Camera mania

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I said in another thread a friend ‘hired’ me to work on his upcoming film. (He paid for my airline tickets.) And now I have camera fever.

My Aaton LTR-54 super-16 camera had an issue with one of the magazines. I met with a tech Wednesday, and he took the kit. He’ll fix the balky spindle on the one mag, check out the other mag, and have a look at the camera body. It’s going to be ready well before I need it. But coincidentally my friend sent me a link to an Aaton LTR-7 super-16 for sale. The -7 and the -54 are basically the same, except the -54 has a higher available speed. The LTR-7 has a PL mount, a later mount than the Arri bayonet mount on the other camera. I shouldn’t be spending money, but it was too good a deal to pass up. Oh, but I don’t have a PL-mount lens! The Arri-mount lens on the -54 won’t fit. It also doesn’t cover the super-16 frame at focal lengths less than about 22 mm. But wait! Here’s a Zeiss 10-100mm T2.4 lens that’s been modified for super-16 12-120mm, and it has a PL mount! And it a guy’s selling it for about ⅓ or ¼ what they normally go for! Got the camera, may as well get the lens. I shot some test footage with the new camera and lens yesterday.

But what the heck. It was a great deal. And then… My friend sent me another link. A Canon Scoopic M. He has two, and loves them. I coveted one back in the early-'80s when we were shooting super-8. This one had had only one owner, who bought it new in 1978 and shot less than 1,000 feet of film with it. And he recently had it modified to Ultra-16. And it had the case, all of the accessories, re-celled batteries (2), and the literature. And he was selling it for not much more than just the Ultra-16 conversion costs. :smack: So I have a Canon Scoopic coming.

You know, I needed a case to put the LTR-7 in so I could show it to the tech when I gave him the LTR-54. May as well use this metal suitcase my Beaulieu R16 lives in. Say… I liked the R16 years ago. I should shoot some stuff with it. No handgrip battery though. Du-All has a re-celled one in the mail for me. In the meantime, I got another Pelican 1610 case for the second Aaton.

Now I need to find things to shoot. There’s the film coming up, of course; but when I get home I need to shoot more than ‘test footage’. I’ve had an idea for a shot for several years. It would take a ferry trip to Nanaimo though, since it needs to be on a BC ferry. I need an actor, too. (And gosh, wouldn’t it be great to have wood sticks to support my Arri 16S? :stuck_out_tongue: ) And then, I don’t have a story to go with it. Other than that… Well, I’m not a writer. Lots of nature up here, but I’m not really into nature photography.

In any case, the camera mania is upon me. I have the gear. I’m sure the inspiration will come.

2

Make selfie stick for it. What is it, a mere 25 to 40 lbs or so?

3

What are you using for sound recording? Might as well update that, too!
.

4

Cantar X-3!

5

The Aatons weigh about 18-20 pounds. Even the Canon would be a stretch on a selfie stick! :stuck_out_tongue:

I have a Tascam DAT recorder, but it needs to be re-celled. For the film, my friend has a sound guy whom I think has a DAT recorder or a digital recorder of some kind.

6

Dig out your xwing and tie fighter models, add green screen or blue depending and stop motion magic begins again. Renew that old highschool flirtation with being the next Dave Turnbull.

Declan

7

I got the newly-recelled grip battery for the R16. Alas, it works not. The camera works with external power, and the needle moves to half where it should be with the new battery. :frowning:

8

Do you mean David Turnbull the materials scientist; or Douglas Trumbull the film director, who was the special effects supervisor on 2001: A Space Odyssey? :wink:

One of the issues of Cinemagic (I bought a couple dozen issues and started a thread about an article from one of them that tells how to build your own camera crane) had an article on DYI optical printing, and another one on matte painting. We thought it would be great to do blue screen, but neither of us had the funds to build the optical printer.

9

Du-All says my Power Grip may be faulty. I thought I might take the battery off the grip, unplug the grip, and use a cord to connect the battery to the camera, bypassing the Power Grip. That should tell me whether it’s bad. Naturally, I think of this on a commuting day when I’m 115 miles away from home. :smack:

I just got off the horn with a guy well-known for his work on 16 mm cameras. I’m going to send the R16 to him for cleaning, lubrication, and adjustment. And as long as he has it, conversion to Ultra-16. :cool:

10

Yeah , my bad, that would be Douglas. He also did a number of other sfx projects beyond 01. Pretty much the steve jobs of the starlog set back in the 80’s.

Declan

11

Wouldn’t you know it? I don’t have a 3-pin XLR cord. (I have too many 4-pin ones.) I’ve ordered one from B&H. As for the CLA and the Ultra-16 conversion, the guy says he can do it for $450. Wittner (the factory in Germany) wants €960 just for the CLA! :eek:

Also just won the bidding on a Beaulieu 4008 XM II. I’m sure I have one, but I can’t find it, and there was an issue with the auto-exposure. Got it for a good price. (Obviously, else I wouldn’t have bought it and would look harder for the one I have!) The seller could probably have gotten more for it if she’d listed it properly.

12

The Scoopic M arrived. It looks almost brand new. The seller says he checked his fridge and found 5 rolls of colour film he bought from Kodak 10 months ago, and 11 rolls of film someone gave him. He’ll sell me them for $100 plus shipping.

I’ve remembered a script I wrote in the '90s, and my attempt to incorporate it into a larger project several years ago. I think I might rewrite it for my current location, and finish the other stories. I don’t know where I’ll get the resources to film it, but it’s designed so it doesn’t all have to be done at once.

I also thought I might do a c.1940 TravelTalks-style travelogue about where I live. Modern images, vintage style. That would be fun to shoot on super-8.

13

I… think I want to play with your toys. :slight_smile:

14

I do need cohorts. :wink:

15

Good news! The 3-pin XLR cable arrived so I can test the grip battery as an external battery!

Bad news! It’s too big!

So I got a multimeter to test connectivity in the Power Grip. There is a 3-pin XLR plug that plugs into the camera. At the other end is where the battery screws on. There are three terminals; one in the middle, one near the middle one at 9 o’clock, and one farther away from the middle at 3 o’clock. The middle terminal corresponds to the ground on the battery. The 9 o’clock one corresponds to the 3.6v ring on the battery. The 3 o’clock one corresponds to the 7.2v ring on the battery. Given that the needle on the camera only swings half way when I do a battery check, I think you can see where this is going.

Touching the multimeter probes to the terminals on the battery end and pins on the plug end, I’m seeing resistance of ~1.3Ω on the ground wire and the 3.6v wire. I’m not getting a reading on the 7.2v wire – which would explain the battery check indication and why the motor won’t run on the grip battery. The solders are good on the XLR plug. (I opened it up.) I don’t see how the battery end is assembled. I assume the disc screws into the same threads the battery does, but it’s not moving. I’m reluctant to force it.

16

Who still processes all that stuff, and at what cost?

Processing a measly eight shots on 120 film when I dust off my 1930 Brownie box and hold a tag day for myself costs upwards of $35, or $40 and up including the film and burning a CD.

Edited to add that it’s colour film.

17

There are still places that process film. My friend is using Cinelab. Basically, you’re talking 20¢ to 30¢ per foot of 16mm film. So $20 to $30 for a 100-foot roll, or $80 to $120 for a 400-foot roll depending on the type of film and options. Super-8 is $17 or $18 per roll.

18

^^^ Wow. That’s good news. Who’da thunk it?

19

I’ve mostly been geeking out on 16mm, with less attention being paid to super-8. Now that I’m expecting a ‘new’ camera, I think I’ve noticed something. Super-8 reversal stock is a little hard to come by. Looks like B&W reversal (Tri-X) is still available, but the colour stocks tend to be negative. According to Pro8mm’s description of the stock they sell, ‘Unlike modern color negative film stocks that produce amazing results over a wide range of exposure and conditions, reversal film stocks produce the more traditional film and are best shot under the conditions specified.’

16mm was envisioned as an amateur format that, unlike 35mm, would be affordable to the masses. It turned out it wasn’t quite that affordable. So 8mm (‘double-8’) came out. It really was affordable for the casual shooter. I still have dad’s spring motor Canon around someplace. But you had to thread the film, shoot half of it, turn it over, thread it again, and then shoot the other half. When super-8 came out in 1965 it not only had a larger frame, but it came in a cartridge so loading was a snap and you could shoot the whole roll at once. This lead to everybody having a super-8 camera. A lot of people bought cheap-ass cameras like the GAF or Bell & Howell models. But there were high-end cameras like the Beaulieu 4008 ZM II too, which Lenny Lipton says in his 1975 The Super 8 Book cost $1,100. Though the masses were generally satisfied with less-capable cameras, there clearly was a market for professional users. (Not that all consumer super-8 cameras were like the GAF and Bell & Howell. Minolta, Canon, Bolex, and others made high-quality cameras that were also very popular.)

Super-8 was problematic as a ‘professional’ medium in the '70s. It’s too small to be projected on a large screen. Today films can be shot on super-8 and projected in HD video. My friend used super-8 in some shots in Horror Anthology Movie Volume 1 (2013). When I saw it, projected at the Lovecraft Film Festival I was sure he’d used 16mm. Colour reversal film was fine for ‘home movies’. Nobody expected the same quality of images we expect today, and reversal film can be processed and projected. With the advent of cheap HD video and the death of film as a ‘home movie’ medium, the only ones using super-8 nowadays (aside from vintage movie buffs) are people who are serious about it. For them, negative film is the way to go. Inconvenient for those of us who dabble, but the market for reversal film is pretty small. I still bemoan the loss of super-8 sound film!

20

Got an email from the seller. The transaction has been completed through PayPal, and PayPal says it’s OK to ship. But the funds won’t be available to the seller until the 13th. Here’s the thing: The seller doesn’t actually have the camera. There’s an estate sale, and the estate still has possession. I suspect that the estate doesn’t want to turn it over for the selling price, and the seller is trying to weasel out of it. I told the seller that while I would like the camera ASAP, I can wait until PayPal releases the funds. Of course I saved the detailed photos the seller posted in the auction, so I can compare what I get with what the seller posted.