Author
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Topic: Been thinking about converting.
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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006
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posted November 01, 2007 07:33 PM
Michael,
One of the things you will discover here is that there are some serious Elmo fans, myself included.
I have the Elmo St1200HD and it is one of the best handful of Super-8 machines ever made. 1200-ft reel capacity, 2-track playback of sound, metal construction, and just an all-around feeling of it being a scaled-down 16mm machine. It is still fairly readily available on EBay, and at dealers from time to time.
Bauer and Eumig machines also have fans here, but if reel size is an issue, you should go with the above-mentioned.
If you want to get into the statosphere, there are the Elmo GS1200 (one of our benign rulers, Mr. Faulkner, is a leading proponent of this beauty), the Beaulieu, and the Fumeo. All feature 1200-ft or longer reels (the Fumeo MUCH longer capacity) and a wealth of features. All you need is to locate one of these in good shape and to be able to pay for it, and both requirements are getting tougher by the day, as I see it.
A full-on manual-threading machine in that league I cannot say I know of; perhaps someone else can chime in on this. The Elmo has fairly fool-proof auto threading as long as you trim your leader on the little blade Elmo attaches to the front of the machine. It has never eaten any of my films per se; only when I was optimistic/dumb enough to feed it semi-mangled leader did it really object.
So, from me, being biased, the Elmos are lovely, long-lasting machines that also 'satisfy' in terms of operational touch, and produce very nice images and sound.
I'm sure you'll hear more.
Best, Claus.
-------------------- "Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)
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