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Breaks my heart to see these sales. This is the same little camera that was sent into outer space. 16mm 400 foot rolls. I just threw half a dozen of them away and I have film rotting in the freezer. We'll never use them again. I wish I could send them to folks like you that want to play, but that's not how our govt works, and that is also as it should be. This Milliken is a 16mm 125 or 400 foot. It will run reliably at 500 fps (although that would be expensive for a hobbiest :o . There is also quite a lot of ood film getting dumped these days on ebay so your main expense would be processing fees. I wouldn't try to do it myself unless I bought a Houston Peerless processor on ebay and had a lot of space.
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Super Reveral Film is the way to go. Kodak still makes PLus-X, Tri-X, and Ektachrome 64T. You need to make sure to get a camera which will meter the Color properly. Nikon Bauer, and even Minolta made some great Super 8 cameras. Don't need to pay for a pro model.
 Originally Posted by Fintan  I'm hoping this is the correct place to post this. I'd like to try some old movie camera for which b+w film is available and that I can process myself.
I've absolutely no idea what I should consider and searches on ebay are confusing me.
My budget would be about $600 USD for camera plus developing tank/reels etc.
Can anyone please advise which format would be best for my needs.
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Originally Posted by jimgalli Breaks my heart to see these sales. This is the same little camera that was sent into outer space. 16mm 400 foot rolls. I just threw half a dozen of them away and I have film rotting in the freezer. We'll never use them again. I wish I could send them to folks like you that want to play, but that's not how our govt works, and that is also as it should be. This Milliken is a 16mm 125 or 400 foot. It will run reliably at 500 fps (although that would be expensive for a hobbiest :o . There is also quite a lot of ood film getting dumped these days on ebay so your main expense would be processing fees. I wouldn't try to do it myself unless I bought a Houston Peerless processor on ebay and had a lot of space. Yeah, I just chucked about 3000' feet of Eastman VNF long-pitch (.3000') on 100' daylight spools I had horded for my Fastax; can't get it processed any more and it was probably starting to fog anyway...
I was holding on to the Fastax, hoping to find a Goose unit, but now that is a moot point. Looks like it will become a very expensive paperweight or just rot in my basement...
In college, we used to have fun blowing up things with firecrackers and filming them with a fastax and a goose unit.
No more, alas!
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Dan,
Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Yes, getting some modern rechargeable batteries connected to one of those cameras wouldn’t be a problem to me, but budgeting serious workmanship well. If I obtained such a camera it would be for play only (serious play…). For any other work I would rent professional 16mm gear. (The German custom authorities just sold an old Arriflex HS 16 SR kit for about 6000€… not bargains everywhere.)
An other issue with 8mm, and I think this would be of interest to Fintan too, is the DOF issue with that small format. Any comment on this?
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Well, you've got lots of DOF in general with Super-8, but there are some fast lenses out there in the f:0.9-1.4 range that let you get a little selective focus.
I guess I'm fortunate to be in New York, where care and feeding of the Beaulieu doesn't require overseas shipping. I do have to have the camera looked at for a couple of minor things, so I'll report back if it turns out to be a major repair bill.
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Wow, a lot more film makers here than I would have guessed.
"There are two ways to avoid most trouble in life: live below your means... and within your seams."
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I have to disagree with some of the comments on the Beaulieu cameras.
I have a 4008ZM Super8 and an R16 16mm.
In particular with the super8 camera, the Beaulieu is the only camera that is like a real scaled down proper Movie camera - you get a proper aperture ring and a mirrored shutter etc etc.
The advantage of them is that they are easy to service because they are designed to be serviced and, critically, there is a supply of parts. You just have to have them done by the right person. The only tricky thing is that there are only a few people factory trained to handle them (although others who are not factory trained, but still good)
The best is Bjorn Andersson in Sweden - he has a huge stock of parts and handles repairs and service work from all over the world. He has serviced both my cameras - the 4008 cost about £200 to do.
Both operate brilliantly and up to their max frame rate (70 and 64 respectively)
I recently took the R16 on a ski trip and snowboarded with it in a Lowpro rucksack or hand held and it performed flawlessly, even at high altitude (13,000ft)
As regards cost I have to say I now shoot more 16mm then super8 as the cost, today, is about the same - in Europe at least. With 16mm I can buy direct from Fuji for £15 +vat / 100ft. and have it processed in London by Soho images (overnight if I want) for 0.10p /ft. I then have the negative scanned on a Rank Cintel at a post production house near where I live in Birmingham.
However this is all for colour neg and I haven't bought any B+W for ages.
So my vote woudl probably go for 16mm - there is a much wider array of factory packed film too, and more labs that handle it.
A great website to look at and ask some questions would be www.filmshooting.com
Matt
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But for the price of a `professional´ Super8 camera you wouldn't get a professinal 16mm camera.
Or would that comparison not be apt?
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It would be a very difficult comparison, as you suggest.
Not all Beaulieus are built like the 4008 series. I had a couple of 7008 versions, one of which was crystal controlled. Unreliable and expensive - they could not be trusted for professional work without a backup. I still have a 6008, but I wouldn't use it for a professional job.
The Beaulieus are not the only cameras with a 'proper aperture ring', and I'm not sure that a mirror reflex system/shutter is inherently better all-round than a beamsplitter.
My personal preference as the best all-round Super 8 camera ever made is the Nizo 6080. It is very quiet for a Super 8 camera, and can usually be found with a simple matte box/shade system.
The Leicina Special is worth considering - if it fits your purposes. I find mine to be very good for animation, time lapse/time exposure and stop motion. It takes Leica M lenses - which is not all that useful in practice. It is fairly noisy. Film speed is set manually (unusual for a Super 8 camera) and it has interchangeable viewing screens at the turn of a knob (unique among all reflex cameras, both movie and still?)
If you are going to transfer to video, and you wish to maintain sync for sound, it might be an idea to check what frame rates are available. Though most Super 8 cameras are not crystal controlled (ie accurate to between 3 ppm and 5 ppm - parts per million - in speed) they do have sufficiently good speed control for short takes in sync without using pulse tone for later synching.
Some cameras, like the Leicina Special and many of the Nizos, have 16⅔ and 25 fps as set speeds. That is 50/3 and 50/2 - ie each film frame can be transferred to exactly 3 or 2 PAL video fields with no skip and no fancy equipment.
One of the big questions should be whether or not you want the capability of shooting sound. If you do, then an old 16 mm camera like an Eclair NPR might be the thing. Extremely reliable, fairly quiet (quieter than the quietest Super 8 camera I've ever used - the aforementioned 6080 - but not studio quiet), takes C-mount and Cameflex-mount lenses, has a viewfinder that makes any Super 8 camera look like a toy, very fast magazine change with 400 ft loads, and heavy. For not much more money, but much better in a number of ways, there are the Aatons, beginning with the LTR varieties.
I think that the Eclairs and early Aatons are slightly better cameras than the early Arri SRs at the lower-price indy end of the sound camera market (ie cameras suitable for use with seperate sound) especially if you want to do a lot of hand-holding (ahhh, sweet), but Arris aren't so bad and they are much more plentiful in many places - Eclairs and Aatons are very rare in some parts of the world I've been to.
If you don't require a quiet camera or quick-change magazines then look at Bolex H16s. Real system cameras with a lot of advantages at remarkably low prices. They don't have pin registration, but they manage quite well without it.
Best,
Helen
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