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If you are a lover of quality 16mm amateur film, now is the time to look away!
I bought this super c1933 Kinecam 6 camera a few months back, and I've had some success shooting B&W film and developing it in a bucket in the shed.
Last week I tried colour film developing for the first time with 20 feet or so from a 400 feet reel of movie film, Kodak Vision3. It doesn't say when it expired but I'm hoping the 08 sticker means it's 'only' 12 years out of date
Using the Tetenal C41 Kit at the alternative temperature of 30 degrees rather than 38 degrees, I got this result, using bucket development. Fail!
The negatives were extremely thin, and with a heavy blue cast, and worst of all, everything was blurred. The main problem is that the claw hadn't engaged with the film so every frame was streaked like this.
Some more research on the Vision 3 film revealed that standard C-41 processing is suboptimal at best, and disastrous at worst, as it's supposed to be developed using ECN-2 chemistry. The Eastman Colour Negative (ECN) process is the standard development method for all modern motion picture colour negative developing. Using C-41 can lead to thin negatives, unpredictable results and strange colour casts.
You can buy ECN-2 kits online but they are expensive for the small quantities I need, but RA4 chemistry can be used as a substitute, so I've ordered some of that to test out. Another suggestion is that Vision3 must be developed at the right temperature if you use C41, presumably that's 38 degrees, not the alternative 30 degrees.
Also, it's designed for indoor filming (T for Tungsten) so you need a filter for outdoor filming otherwise everything will be blue.
I got an 85B filter, held it in front of the lens and shot a few feet of some glass ornaments with the sun illuminating them from behind against the blue sky.
then developed the film in C-41 at 38 degrees.
Result: fail again! The claw still wasn't engaging properly so everything is smeared. But the filter has helped with the colour cast, and although the negatives are still very thin, it's an improvement, of sorts:
And a close crop suggests the film is not too grainy:
For one filming session the claw actually engaged properly with the film, and using the 85B filter (but 30 degree development) there is a film to share! It's thin again, and it has lots of weird colour shifts, but hopefully this will be addressed by changing to RA4 chemistry next time, and developing at 38 degrees.
And on a positive note, I adapted a 1930s Mickey Mouse projector and it worked really well for the telecine:
Here are a couple of still frames from it. I asked my wife to "act about a bit" and she always throws herself into the part. My stepson looks suitably embarrassed!
And here's a link to the final video of the result. Only some very short sections could be saved in the telecine as some areas were too thin, so each clip is repeated to make it last.
Well it's a start...
https://youtu.be/vHZMLnV6fxM
I bought this super c1933 Kinecam 6 camera a few months back, and I've had some success shooting B&W film and developing it in a bucket in the shed.
Last week I tried colour film developing for the first time with 20 feet or so from a 400 feet reel of movie film, Kodak Vision3. It doesn't say when it expired but I'm hoping the 08 sticker means it's 'only' 12 years out of date
Using the Tetenal C41 Kit at the alternative temperature of 30 degrees rather than 38 degrees, I got this result, using bucket development. Fail!
The negatives were extremely thin, and with a heavy blue cast, and worst of all, everything was blurred. The main problem is that the claw hadn't engaged with the film so every frame was streaked like this.
Some more research on the Vision 3 film revealed that standard C-41 processing is suboptimal at best, and disastrous at worst, as it's supposed to be developed using ECN-2 chemistry. The Eastman Colour Negative (ECN) process is the standard development method for all modern motion picture colour negative developing. Using C-41 can lead to thin negatives, unpredictable results and strange colour casts.
You can buy ECN-2 kits online but they are expensive for the small quantities I need, but RA4 chemistry can be used as a substitute, so I've ordered some of that to test out. Another suggestion is that Vision3 must be developed at the right temperature if you use C41, presumably that's 38 degrees, not the alternative 30 degrees.
Also, it's designed for indoor filming (T for Tungsten) so you need a filter for outdoor filming otherwise everything will be blue.
I got an 85B filter, held it in front of the lens and shot a few feet of some glass ornaments with the sun illuminating them from behind against the blue sky.
then developed the film in C-41 at 38 degrees.
Result: fail again! The claw still wasn't engaging properly so everything is smeared. But the filter has helped with the colour cast, and although the negatives are still very thin, it's an improvement, of sorts:
And a close crop suggests the film is not too grainy:
For one filming session the claw actually engaged properly with the film, and using the 85B filter (but 30 degree development) there is a film to share! It's thin again, and it has lots of weird colour shifts, but hopefully this will be addressed by changing to RA4 chemistry next time, and developing at 38 degrees.
And on a positive note, I adapted a 1930s Mickey Mouse projector and it worked really well for the telecine:
Here are a couple of still frames from it. I asked my wife to "act about a bit" and she always throws herself into the part. My stepson looks suitably embarrassed!
And here's a link to the final video of the result. Only some very short sections could be saved in the telecine as some areas were too thin, so each clip is repeated to make it last.
Well it's a start...
https://youtu.be/vHZMLnV6fxM
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