How Vintage 16mm Cameras Work!
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
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In a past life, Tested's Sean Charlesworth was the camera technician at NYU and repaired countless film cameras that passed through the film school. Sean shares that experience taking apart and restoring cameras in this show and tell of his vintage 16mm camera collection, as he opens up a few Bolex cameras to explain how films were made before the days of digital video!
Shot and edited by Gunther Kirsch
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Do YOU have any old cameras still around?
Plenty photography cameras starting with 1930s Robot cameras. Wind them up for 25 continues shots. I enjoy taking old lenses and use them on new cameras.
I'm in my 30s and regularly shoot super-8 and 16mm and for still photography use 35mm, 120 and 4x5" sheet film. Great cameras - and I just love the real film look! Better get a camera now, analog filmmaking is becoming popular and cameras expensive again 😎
Bolex 16mm W/ cokebottle zoom lens & Most Excellent Bauer Super 8 that I have used for animation & shorts since the 1980s. They still run like new.
I found an Arriflex 16S among my fathers things. It’s just one from his collection but it’s the coolest one for sure
I have a Box Brownie I inherited from my grandfather
As a film photographer, this is fascinating. There are things that I didn’t even consider like having to hold the film still, or the reflex mechanism, these cameras are so much more complex than anything in the stills world.
I love that you can still shoot film like this, the FPP sells it.
The Slow Mo Guys did a great video on how these old cameras work.
Funnily enough, Gavin uses a similar russian camera. Same manufacturer, though I don't know if it's a later or earlier iteration of the one shown here.
@@ketsuekikumori9145 who is Gavin? 🌈
@@robertschnobert9090 The nerdy one on the Slow Mo Guys. aka, the one that usually does the filming, while Dan is the one who normally gets hurt.
Brings me back to my film school days. We actually had two Bolexes AND one of those Russian knock-offs with the funky zoom lens! We used one of the Bolex cameras to do a stop-motion film. Those cameras have a special place in my heart.
To expand on the importance of the loop: there are sprocket wheels before and after the gate which move continuously to pull film from the supply reel or to the take up reel, but the film motion past the gate is intermittent, as the film has to stop to be exposed. The size of the loop will shift between the top loop and the bottom loop each time a frame is pulled down past the gate. The sprocket wheels ensure the loop remains of a decent size.
Watching this reminded me of my first job as a projectionist at a drive-in movie theater. The 35mm film projector worked very similarly, just in reverse.
Its quite beautiful that the camera operator sees all of the frames that noone else ever with , throught the finder.
The features are quite impressive
I went to the U.S. Navy photo school in Pensacola, Fl. in late 1976. If I remember right we used the Bell and Howell Film Camera 70DR.
Interesting how the old tech worked, and the limitations... WOW! It's really fiddley and a lot to know in order to shoot video. We are certainly spoiled with our modern equipment... Makes me appreciate old video more. Thanks for sharing!
Not video... Film!
@@3DJapan LOL... Right! See how it gets mangled in my brain? Thanks for the correction but still my point is that we are spoiled and I appreciate FILM more.
Well, it requires a bit more knowledge how to use these cameras, but in fact they are quite rugged and more reliable than many electronic cameras. Due to them being mechanical these decades old cameras can produce really beautiful images even today - and many do use them, pro and amateur alike. Put in some fresh Kodak color negative or reversal film and it'll look like a movie. Be warned though - you'll be spoiled by the look and if shooting negative, the ability to severely overexpose it and have it look great despite of it :)
In the late 1950s and 1960s, I had an inexpensive 8mm home movie camera. The reels were 16 mm 25ft. but the frame only exposed half the width of the strip. A reel was exposed to the end and then flipped to expose the other half of the film. The processing lab had to split the film into 8mm strips and splice the two ends to produce a 50 ft, 8mm reel. When the reel was being flipped, some of the film was exposed to ambient light and produced a few seconds of faded frames in the middle of the 50ft reel. I’ve had my collection digitized and my grandchildren ask “where is the sound?”. Some of the shots were out of frame because of view finder parallax.
Loving all these Sean videos lately!
Yay! We're glad! (We love them too.)
Finally last month I sold a very minty Kodak Cine II with 4 lenses and many goodies in It's case. I had it on Craigslist for literally years. What a tank. One owner, who attached a brass plate with his name on it. He was a set painter for 3 different studios way back around 1955-65. Or so. Harry Zutto. The guy who bought it was a government physicist from San Jose. He got a super clean machine. I bought a 16mm 1.4 Fuji X lens. I shot Super and regular 8 in the 60's. Later made a short film noir around 2013. It did all right.
To clarify a little bit more about 18:38, you don't need slack just because of the speed of the film, it's because the speeds of the payout and takeup reels are roughly constant, and the length of film at the aperture needs to be intermittent so it can stop, get exposed, advance one frame, stop, expose, advance, etc. 24 times per second (at least on 35mm). So the length of the film in the loops is constantly growing and shrinking by 1 frame of film's length.
One of the big things I miss about watching movies these days is the "imperfections" that film added. The grain, the film gate causing a slight wobble to the frame. I get overly excited when I see a modern production that uses film. Everyone else asks "How can you tell?"
"Can't you see the gate?"
"Gate??.."
I love when Sean does his videos on things like his clocks or this one on his film videos cameras and how they work. I very much enjoy them a lot even if I don't always understand everything in them.
I remember doing black and white photography and development in art class and those light tight bags, fumbling around to get the film out of its prison and into the cylinder that you'd pour chemicals in and start developing. Honestly after a couple you got pretty quick at it.
The prism that directed parts of the light / image to the eye piece were interesting.
Sony actually used that technology just some years ago with their SLT camera lineup, before they went "full mirror less"
Excellent video !
Shot my first 16mm news story on a bolex
Film is not dead. ♥️
You can tell when someone is passionate. Kick ass.
we had these cameras in our FTV department at my City College. this video really took me back. Especially the having to master putting in the reel in the dark
just watched "They shall not grow old" and they explained that with the hand crank the film rate would change speed because of a human turning it when something exciting would happen they would turn it faster, so that is why you get film flicker because certain frames would be over exposed.
That was the most shocking and beautiful movie I watched
@@angrymario8259 same!
The spring-powered film drive was a truly marvelous improvement: high fidelity wherever projected.
This brings me back to film school. Holy crap!
I would've never guessed on how they allow you to see between every frame. Though thinking about it, an SLR does a similar thing.
That's such a simple yet ingenious solution.
The camera used by Zapruder to film the JFK assassination from a location near the grassy knoll used 16mm film that ran two 8mm footage side by side. During film processing the 16mm film is cut lengthwise and joined together to produce a single 8mm film
I have one of those cameras its called Double 8. Mine is a bolex P2 ZOOM REFLEX never got around to using it. Looks cool sitting on a shelf. you run the film through expose one side then flip reel over and expose the other side.
As best I recall, all 8 mm film (NOT "Super 8" film) was sold as a single 50 foot 16mm double-perf reel, which you exposed twice in the camera, once in each direction. Then in the lab they split it after developing and spliced the ends together, returning to you a 100 foot 8 mm reel for your projector. I have some vague memory that the perforation shape was different for 8 mm and 16mm film, but that may be a false memory. It's been a LONG time since I've worked with this stuff.
Adam, I got into film back in the 70's. People though that I was crazy. Most super 8 film camera were about $80-$100. OH no, not me! I wanted control over the setting of the zoom, focus, et4c. So I spent a premium price for a Bolex S155 super eight movie camera. you could focus down to almost the lens, control the visor to create swipes, manual focus for dissolves and clear plastic cards to write on to make scene titles to focus thru. The only problem that I had with the camera was the cartridges. 50 feet long gave about 3 min. not very long. So I would buy a bunch. Then came along Beta tape system. On the top shelve with the Bolex. Oh, I forgot to mention the flood light for indoor shots. You know the light source that made everybody squint and back off. Video tape, not so much, plus sound attached, right away no waiting for processing. Those were the "good old days" haha
I have my late (and terribly missed) father’s Bolex he got it in the 60s! Labeled Paillard Bolex and looks just like the one you have! I even have the case. Even still has gelatin filters in their envelopes. Dad would have loved this video! He went on to be a cameraman and cinematographer. (He loved Mythbusters, if Mr. Savage sees this)
The Bolex bayonet mount cameras can be converted to super 16mm, and aside from that they are HD compatible too. I would be inclined to check the gate before loading new stock, it’s always good practice.
Most excellent video. Thanks a bunch. Please do more of these.
I miss the film days, and I don't miss the film days at all. Still own a Bolex-R, a Canon Scoopic and a beautiful Beaulieu 4008 zmII, for display purposes.
In the age of iPhones with incremental upgrades of laughable and stupid small levels every year to fool the public, this mechanical genius and beauty of a machine literally put every feature that is possible in such a compact package, that they didnt have to upgrade it for 20+ years. I am just in awe at the mechanical ingenuity behind the design of this camera.
Cool stuff, Sean.
This is fascinating, thanks for sharing with us
oh god i love old movie cameras. i really wish i had some. one day though..
Thanks for the video. It takes me back to my vidiot days. Got my Hitachi color camera with a real tiny b&w monitor and a portable vhs deck that weighed at least 30 lbs in 1980. It used lead acid batteries.
My grandpa had normal8 cameras. Now the Bolex is displayed in my camera display cabinet. The Kodak Brownie is stored.
I recently got two old 16mm cameras because I bought a lot of old lenses.
You habe a lovely set of Schneider Kreuznach Xenar and what looks like Kern Switar R. The R meaning reflex which has a slightly different flange distance than normal c mount lenses due to the reflext viewfinder mechanism. Adapting reflex lenses go digital cameras causes issues since the light isn't telecentric. So you get out of focus and no infinity focus. Also vignette and CA. Film is a single plane. Photosites have depth. So it's only an issue with modern technology.
Those lenses still cover MFT sensors at times, and the glass doesn't degrade if kept well. So I have been shopping for some exotic stuff. My biggest dream is to find a genuine vintage anamorphic lens that covers 16mm or even 35mm. To use for stills on my stills camera.
Little hint on the Bolex: there should be a plague at the bottom which gives you a stamp of the year they made that unit.
This is very interesting! Thank you, Sean!
I love my K-3 16mm, and it still works beautifully❤️
This was immensely helpful! Thx so much
Adam, before video tape, I purchased a Bolex S155. It was a Super 8 camera. Not very much on it was automatic. That is why I bought it. BTW, it was NOT cheap. I think I paid ~ $250 for it. Most consumer level cameras were ~ $100. Anyhow, Kodak brought out a sound Super 8 camera. The sound was laid down on a cassette in a recorder connected by wire to a camera and controlled by the camera trigger. When the film cartridge was exposed, the film and the cassette were sent to Kodak. The film was processed, and the sound was added to a magnetic strip applied to the edge of the film. Then video tape came out and took over. OH WELL!
Well done !Thank you
Krasnogorsk. NIce episode. Thank you!
I actually have one of those old Bolex cameras.
I got very lucky with my K3. The auto spool feature works, even the light meter. Had to fudge the batteries a bit, but it agreed with my standard light meter. I miss the look, esp of reversal film, but digital is a heck of a lot easier, and cheaper.
Looking foward to watching !
Was camera operator for a friend and I screwed up on the fader or thought I did went back out and reshot having rewound the film IN the camera. Ended up with a double exposure that look intentional. Like Bob Ross said happy accidents. BTW it was b&w film. Still have that roll and would like to get it digitized.
Interesting realization when Sean explained how the shutter mechanism works. Everything the filmmaker sees in the viewfinder is what is not being recorded on the film. Huh.
wow really informative..well presented!
Thank you for the clear vid.. Are all frames have same shutter speed? How to know or convert shutter angle to shutter speed so I can manage the right aperture?
Love me some film cameras.
I now this trinket shop that has one on their top shelf, which is "do not touch shelf"
Awesome video!
Also, Krasnogorsk. It means “Red Mountains City”, essentially.
Please do share me about how to shoot timelapse on this bolex🙏🙏
This is mind blowing. The digital? Not so much... 🙂
Starting from 3:38, what is that second screen that is seemingly in front of the viewfinder? A focusing lens? I am curious.
I was just thinking about 16mm cameras the other day. I have a few film cameras for stills but nothing for movies.
Wondering what would be a good projector for 16mm though.
I'd go for one that's slot load or has manual threading. Automatic threading can ruin the film if it for some reason gets stuck.
You could also look into 8mm cameras and projectors, they are smaller and especially latest super-8 projectors really easy to use. Or go for double 8mm if you'd rather load your camera like in this film and not use the super-8 cartridges.
And if you'd like to have something in between, Film Photography Project has 16mm film available for even those 16mm cameras that use film preloaded in cassettes. Those cameras are cheap, since for some time there were no loaded cassettes available.
Shout out to the techs on the 9th floor.
Very cool video!
About film speed 12:10 What's the significance of 18 fps that it was highlighted in red?
Where one can find and purchase such beautiful cameras?
eBay. But be ready to pay if you want one of the nicer models like the REX 4,5,EBM,SBM,SB, or EL. Not to mention the cost of a CLA and repairs if needed. Lenses can get really pricy too. And accessories like Gel filters, Matte Boxes, external 24FPS motors and battery packs, Rex-o-Faders, handgrips, 400ft magazines, sidefinders, cable releases, tripods, and Film cost too. But if you’re up for the cost it makes beautiful movies!
I at one time ran the film in the theater.
How big can you realistically scale 16mm film to when converting these to digital(e.g 720p, 1080p, 4k, etc)?
There's movies shot on 16mm that have been released in 1080p on Blu-ray, like Running Time:
www.blu-ray.com/movies/Running-Time-Blu-ray/281847/#Review
There's not an exact relationship between film size and digital resolution, since film grain size also matters. Also, film grain varies between each frame of film, so to accurately capture it you may go higher resolution, but you eventually hit diminishing returns.
gammaraydigital.com/blog/busting-resolution-myth
This person captured 16mm film at 4K, and in the comparison shots of the slate, the 4K better captured the grain detail, but the text on the slate doesn't look any sharper than on the 2K.
www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/buying-guide/guide-scanning-motion-picture-film
You should consider the ASA of the film stock too.
I so wish I had saved up for a 16 mm Bolex before they became retro cool. :(
yes yes yes and yes but he did not talk about de diferent types Single and Double-perf 16 mm film optical or magnetic soundtrack
and Super 16 mm and Ultra 16 mm
2 and a half minutes but by the time you get to the end the spring starts to slow down and basically ruins that section of the film so you really get closer to 2 minutes.
The spring only lasts for 28 seconds at 24fps though, so shouldn't the slow down be on the last few seconds of each windup? Like, maybe realistically you get 20 seconds of consistent speed per windup?
Where the one day builds at?
Adam's been working on a huge one that we'll release later this year. There's been no time for the smaller ones due to this big one, and in general Adam's not been feeling small projects lately. There are some One Day Builds coming up in September, though.
woAAAH
I have a Bolex motor that I got in a bunch of stuff from an estate sale. Would you or anyone want it? I don't want to just send it to eWaste.
I have one and it's great but cost a fortune to use.
And to get ahold of if you buy a REX5
Couldn't stand the um/uh in every sentence 😕 sorry, it was very annoying
You're talking as if this is in the past.
Booo! Where are the graphics that support the explanations? This is a very poorly planned piece. Please remove Sean or, support him with the visual aids his explanations require.
I remember doing black and white photography and development in art class and those light tight bags, fumbling around to get the film out of its prison and into the cylinder that you'd pour chemicals in and start developing. Honestly after a couple you got pretty quick at it.
I spent so much money on film school to get the same information taught to me in a setting where 20 other people were there shuffling around, coughing, interrupting to ask dumb questions, or ultimately didnt even want to know the information, and this video just taught me everything in that class in half the time.
And for free❤
@@noscaasifilmstudios the best part of film school was when my teacher took the whole class into the mens bathroom and turned out the lights so all 20 of us could listen to the teacher explain what she was doing to change the film in the camera in the dark. couldnt see a thing.
I learned to shoot on a Bolex.:) love these cameras:)
Now you should make a video using one of these cameras.
🤔
Do it! 👋 A roll of Kodak's latest Vision3 500T would work really well, it feels like ISO 1000 film to me 😎 Show people what kind of images that decades old camera is capable of producing with modern filmstock and 4K scan 😁
I have a 8mm projector you can have In the original box. I couldn`t save the screen. It was in bad shape.
If it has a screen, I think it may be an “editor “. It let you manually scan the film for the part you wanted to cut out. I have my dad’s. Pretty cool
In the sixties I work at McGill university as an Illustrator for the Engineering Faculty. Part of my job was to make short films to show Engineering principles. I used the Bolex like the one Sean demonstrated here. It took forever to create anything between drawing the frames and shoot them. Most were never longer than two minutes, but could take weeks to produce.
We shot on these for our first film project in school.
*LOVED* shooting with Krasnogorsk-16 cameras when I was at university in the mid-90s. They could be doctored into a pretty darn reliable student camera if you cleaned, filed and polished the internals properly.
I used to covet the ARRI cameras at the rental house, but could very rarely justify the extra expense.
And you had no idea what the results were until the film was developed. We are so spoiled with modern technology!
The anticipation as you got that thick envelope of photos (and often the inevitable disappointment with half of them) ... we remember!
Whatever respect I had for you Sean just tripled... I didn't know you worked on cameras.... I knew there was something about you, lol, that is super cool man! I loved this video, it's one of my favorites. I'm fascinated by the old school cameras and the incredible pieces of engineering they are. Watchmaking and camera making are close cousins for sure.
The Sean videos are always good!
We're so glad you think so!
Almost all of the iconic foreign co-respondent news reports of the 60s and 70s from places like Vietnam were shot on Bolex cameras with sound recorded on a "Uher 4000 reporter" tape machine carried by the reporter or "Nagra III" tape recorder if they had a sound recordist synced with a hand clap.
The two and a half minute duration of a spool explains why the film from such events were all very short clips.
I have a bolex like this that I love. Just waiting to get enough money to develop the film.
I used a Bolex for main projects in college film classes in the late 90s. For smaller weekly assignments we were allowed to use VHS but for bigger projects we had to shoot on 16mm film. I believe it was the middle one here if I remember correctly.
The greatest thing about film is that you can take any camera like this and produce *phenomenal* images because it's like the ultimate modular system. New film can go in an older camera and in fact you can shoot on the same stock that filmmakers like Wes Anderson, Tarantino, Nolan, Scorsese, etc.. shoot on, albeit sometimes a slightly different cut of it since most of those filmmakers don't normally use 16mm, which is what these Bolexes shoot.
For example, here's some stuff I've shot on my Super16 converted Bolex: ruclips.net/video/_rMEQppKI9g/видео.html
I used to work at a film lab until we closed in 2016, and now I'm doing film scanning for a living (the above was also scanned by myself). I work with a ton of filmmakers and archives to scan film of all formats into 6.5K digital files using a top-tier scanning system. I absolutely love shooting on film!
Awesome!
Always wanted to know how those work, thanks 🙏
wow been a while since I used one of those on my stop motion ...
Now do a video on getting the film developed and/or digitized
Keep these vids coming! This guy's enthusiasm is directly hitting the pleasure centers of my brain!
It's fascinating to look at stuff from 30's to 70's. The engineering on it is crazy. The digital is absolutely easier with better results but this camera is so beautiful inside and out.
Another Sean video :) As I've mentioned on videos with Adam and others, I love watching these videos, but it makes it even more enjoyable when someone's on here talking about not only something interesting, but something they're passionate about.
Thanks for sharing these beautiful machines with us, Sean!
Hi brother I am from India. exceptionally fascinating brother.. gratitude for this video.🎉
I just got a Bolex H16 REX5. This has to be the most expensive thing I have EVER bought on eBay by FAR! But it’s so awesome I can’t wait to use it!!
Truly beautiful Bolex ASMR at 19:43
This video really takes me back. I was a film student at UCLA back in the late 90's and shot my senior thesis film on the Bolex Rex 5, which was what they provided to the undergrads. I believe we were the last class to shoot on those and the next year they transitioned to digital cameras. Another nifty feature on the Bolex is it has a small chrome lever on the side of the viewfinder which allows you to close the viewfinder, which blocked any stray light from exposing the film while you were shooting, for say a locked off shot or for frame by frame animation. So your eye didn't need to be pressed up against the viewfinder.
Hi. Since watching your video I've been interested in purchasing the Bolex H16 Reflex. What is a reasonable Price in your opinion for such a camera? Thx a bunch.