Part 2 of amateur early 1950s (?) found film

[Iain Petrie]

I'm slowly working my way through the amateur film I bought recently and here's Part 2, which is a lot more interesting than Part 1, and finally, people are appearing. Also my telecine methods are improving so the whole thing is more stable than previous efforts.
The section filmed inside Tintern Abbey was completely black even when held up to the light, with only the silhouette of the frames of the window visible, but with long exposures, more detail and the people inside appear. Interesting to think that this is almost certainly the first time this part has been seen, and it was not visible to the person who shot this. The Wye Bridge, Monmouth, appears briefly, with an old bus and car on it. More to come.

[Dominique De Bast]

Lain, what makes you think that this film has been projected before ? The man who had this camera had probably also a projector.

[Iain Petrie]

Hi, Dominique, yes the rest of the film is OK to view with a projector, but not the section in the abbey. The section beginning with the inside of the abbey couldn't be seen even with a projector light, I think. I held it up to a very bright LED and apart from the silhouette of the frame of the window illuminated by the sky outside, nothing could be seen. The frames appeared black. It was only when I took long exposure shots (maybe a second or so) that the images inside started to appear, then I enhanced in Photoshop to bring them out more. Unless it's been telecined before of course, but that's unlikely I imagine.

[Dominique De Bast]

Thanks for the explanation. Hope you will be able to get a good projector, soon.

[Iain Petrie]

Thanks mate. You've reminded me that I actually have a projector I bought about 10 years ago but there's an issue with a drive belt slipping. It's a Pathescope H. I'll get it out and try again with it.

[Simon Wyss]

Remarkable job, correct thinking. Too dense scenes cannot be compensated for by stronger projection lamp on the fly. I think you’d get interesting prints from data after that work, steadiness improved, too. An other approach is what I attempt to do, namely the best possible contact duplicates on special film. By doing so I can correct all photographic mishaps in order to have an even internegative throughout. One method is longer exposure. As everybody understands the lack of slitting and perforating equipment is hindering me, else I should have done it already. In 16mm I did.

Interesting to see almost sharp hole corners with this perforation.

[Dominique De Bast]

Simon, there was a machine that could copy 9.5 films in France but sadly I think it was destroyed several years ago :-(

[Simon Wyss]

Many thanks for the input

[Iain Petrie]

Thanks Simon. Yes, those sharp corner sprocket holes are really noticeable, especially on the original photographs of each frame. They look almost hand cut, which they not of course! I'd assumed socket holes were a standard size and shape , and were the same on all film. I'll post an image or 2 once I've worked out how to do it properly. My previous attempt at uploading Jpg images seems to have gone wrong .

[Simon Wyss]

There were French standards set up by Pathé engineers. The last one was withdrawn in 2016, IIRC.