First proper use of the hand cranked Pathe Baby c1923

[Iain Petrie]

My wife bought me the early Pathe Baby some time ago as a Christmas present. I was allowed to test it to see if it worked, then it was wrapped up for Christmas day.





I got to use it properly on Christmas day and she kindly agreed to model too.

With Perceptol stock solution developing, and slight overexposure with the filming, and with the digital capture in the telecine process, grain in the long expired Ferrania film is reduced to very acceptable levels.

Luckily the press-on close up lenses from my Pathe B fit on it, so this is shot at normal distance, 1m and 0.5m. This frame is at 0.5m:




And the link to the video:

https://youtu.be/DOzaniNuDkQ

[Dominique De Bast]

It's fantastic to see that an almost 100 years old camera is still working.

[Iain Petrie]

Yes, and with no issues at all! It's rather nice to have complete control over the frame rate too. I was turning this at around 7 frames per second rather the recommended 14 frames a second (one crank per second second rather than 2) just to make the film last longer, and it's still good with slowed down play rate here.

[Dominique De Bast]

Two handcrancks per second turns were supposed to give, Indeed, a 14 fps speed. It was considered then to the minimum speed to avoid flickering with a maximum use of the film lenght. It was rather quickly decided to adopt a 16 fps speed and later (in the mid '60s) 18 fps. It seems that some people (or should I say some eyes ?) are more sensitive to fickering than others so the 18 fps speed was justified by the idea that 18 was the "universal" minimum but some people say it was more a commercial decision (you obviousely use more filmstock at 18 fps than at 16) than a scientific one.

[Iain Petrie]

Very interesting. I might try lower speeds with the Ercsam, which has a choice of 4 speeds. Since I'm doing digital capture with telecine conversion, the flickering won't be an issue for me, I think, so I can perhaps make my precious stock stretch further!

[Dominique De Bast]

With reversal stock, I would have advised to shoot on a that still allows to watch the film with a cine projector but in your case, I'm afraid the only option is to convert. I'm still puzzled with this negative stock. I know there is a modern filmstock that can be process as negative or as positive. Are you sure the film you have is "negative only" ?

[Iain Petrie]

That's a good question Dominique. I must admit as a newcomer to all this, I'm rather confused about the difference between negative and reversal Black and White film . I mean, I understand, (of course!), that one produces a negative and one produces a positive image, but I'm not sure if it's the processing which makes the stock positive / negative or the nature of the actual film itself. Can some negative B&W film be processed to produce positive images and some can't, I wonder? I had a suggestion about my stock from Michael Bentley, who was involved in the business for decades: " Regarding the Ferrania negative, it's only speculation, but I would think it was made to supply packaged movies to companies who did not have access to Pathe's 3-strip equipment. "

[Dominique De Bast]

I'm sadly not a specialist, neither, Iain. All I can say is that I read the possibility of processing a negative film as reversal (for a specific stock, at least), here : http://www.filmotec.de/?cat=23&lang=en&lang=en

[Iain Petrie]

Ah yes, and I've seen people online doing it with a second exposure to light using bleach. I'll look into that again