Super 8 film cartridges....a newbie question

[Mark Lucchese]

I've never encountered the super 8 film cartridges until now...hoping someone can tell me if the processed film...ready to view... can be extracted/transferred to reels?

ALSO...bonus question....is there a way to tell if the cartridge is ready for viewing - ie: has been processed?

I know there might be an "exposed" indicator?

Any help much appreciated!!

Mark

[Steve Klare]

Hi Mark,

Once you send the cartridge for processing, you never see it again! They crack it like a walnut, extract the film for processing and send the processed film back on a little plastic reel.

These cartridges can be removed from the camera mid-exposure and replaced later. The only catch is any camera I've ever dealt with resets the footage counter to zero upon the cartridge being removed, so you need to write down the footage left before removing and do the math with the remaining footage in your head while you finish exposing it later. (I've done this a couple of times where for example I switch between black and white and color film.)

"EXPOSED" appears on the end of the film when the cartridge is done.
.

[Mark Lucchese]

Hi Steve....thanks for the quick response.

Ok, so what I have is an unprocessed cartridge....no "exposed" visible.

Also, your comment about the film counter and taking note of how much exposed make sense.

The cartridge has "1/4 Used" written on it.

I had an idea there was a "cartridge" projector...but I checked and found a Kodak "movie deck" projector but it still projects only reels.. I remember seeing one long ago.

LOL...Kodak might have done well to design a "cassette" reel projector...maybe an 8 track-type setup with an infinite reel.

SO....next question...is processing possible?...I believe it is but would appreciate any advice on if...how...is it doable/practical?

I know it's probably a roll of the dice....especially if the film has been sitting around for a long time.

ALSO...I guess unless noted, as you mentioned...no way to know if how much film has bee exposed...if any?

Mark

Mark

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi!

An addition to Steve‘s correct answer: Some companies only wrote „exp“ instead of „exposed“ at the end. And some other companies only had the cutouts on both sides of the film.

To answer your other questions: a) There have been indeed various competing „projection cartridges“ (Bolex, Meopta, Technicolor, Fairchild, …). But in all cases, the cartridge differs a lot from the Super8-/Single8-cartridges as used in the camera.
b) There are various companies in Nothern America that can process Super8 for you. The main question is: What kind of filmstock do you have? E.g. Kodachrome was a color-reversal film, but can now only be processed as a B&W. Some early Ektachrome require special processing that costs 70US$ or more. Agfa Moviechrome might have a blue or purple tint, …. (Yes, processing at home is also possible, but requires special and hence expensive gear.)
c) AFAIK there’s no way to check how many meters have already been shot without damaging the film or the cartridge. (You could crack the cartridge open in a darkroom, check and then fill the film into an empty cartridge… or you could ruin the film by x-raying it…)

Hope this helps

[Brad Miller]

Actually Steve, back in the late 80s we were shooting a film and like many people would be frustrated when occasionally a roll would come back from processing with a scratch on it. The explanation I heard was that the labs just grabbed the end of the film and reverse-yanked it out before processing. So the tip was to force the tail end of the film all the way into the cartridge so the lab HAD to crack open the cartridge to process it.

Back then Kodak had a Kodachrome lab in Dallas and always making it a point to shoot Kodachrome and sending it to the actual Kodak lab for processing, we were frustrated with their delivery schedule never seeming to be quite what was promised. Towards the very end of the shoot we were running low on time and I expressed frustration with the rolls that kept coming back late. They invited me down to the lab and said the chief lab technician was going to stay late to run our film through and welcomed me down to see the process.

Needless to say that was the first time I had been inside a processing lab. The gentleman showed me everything, including some extremely careful scratch testing before putting our film through. When I asked if they were just slammed or what the delays were, it was then when everything was finally put together. Apparently any cartridge where "the camera didn't properly stop at the end of the roll and pulled the tail inside the cartridge" was put in a bin to be cracked open and hand-wound once a week...hence the delay!

I told him that was actually intentional, to prevent scratching during removal from the cartridge. He was amazed and had always wondered why so many cameras pulled the tail into the cartridge! But then he showed me how they remove the film using a special tool that ensured the film wouldn't get scratched and that the "tip" was simply bad info. Needless to say after seeing it, I never wound the tail in again.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

BTW: Kodak invented a „cartridge opener“ that works like a „bottle opener“. You can build your own when having a 3D-printer:
https://www.filmkorn.org/super-8-kas...em-3d-drucker/

[Eivind Mork]

Actually Steve, back in the late 80s we were shooting a film and like many people would be frustrated when occasionally a roll would come back from processing with a scratch on it. The explanation I heard was that the labs just grabbed the end of the film and reverse-yanked it out before processing. So the tip was to force the tail end of the film all the way into the cartridge so the lab HAD to crack open the cartridge to process it.

Back then Kodak had a Kodachrome lab in Dallas and always making it a point to shoot Kodachrome and sending it to the actual Kodak lab for processing, we were frustrated with their delivery schedule never seeming to be quite what was promised. Towards the very end of the shoot we were running low on time and I expressed frustration with the rolls that kept coming back late. They invited me down to the lab and said the chief lab technician was going to stay late to run our film through and welcomed me down to see the process.

Needless to say that was the first time I had been inside a processing lab. The gentleman showed me everything, including some extremely careful scratch testing before putting our film through. When I asked if they were just slammed or what the delays were, it was then when everything was finally put together. Apparently any cartridge where "the camera didn't properly stop at the end of the roll and pulled the tail inside the cartridge" was put in a bin to be cracked open and hand-wound once a week...hence the delay!

I told him that was actually intentional, to prevent scratching during removal from the cartridge. He was amazed and had always wondered why so many cameras pulled the tail into the cartridge! But then he showed me how they remove the film using a special tool that ensured the film wouldn't get scratched and that the "tip" was simply bad info. Needless to say after seeing it, I never wound the tail in again.

But the ones coming back with scratches; did you ever get an explanation as Kodachrome seemed to have a sound setup for pulling out the film? Was it just caused by other labs not using the same equipment, or were there other explanations?

[Steve Klare]

-and is the usual method of extracting the film "pull" or "crack"?

(-or does the choice depend on the lab?)

Literally in the last Century, when I was in College, I found a couple of cartridges of Tri-X at the local camera store, and being very young I shot them before I knew where to get them processed. I went to Foto-Mat and they'd stopped processing black and white Super-8 only two months earlier. My friends processed 35mm stills in their basement (-at night) so we started hatching these wild schemes to process these two 50 foot rolls down there. This was before the Internet, so there didn't seem to be any other choice!

I found a customer service (postal) mailing address in a Kodak book and wrote an actual (paper) letter to them. They replied with a letter (paper, typing, envelope, signature, stamp) telling me there were several labs locally that processed this film and I went that way.

I know people did and still do home-process Super-8, but considering the people and process involved here, I have a feeling that letter from Kodak saved that film!

[Mark Lucchese]

Ok, so..lots of info!!...thanks to all.

@Joerg... so "„projection cartridges“ (Bolex, Meopta, Technicolor, Fairchild, …)...does that mean there were some formats that offered a projection system that accepted a cartridge? So, send in your film for processing and have a "cartridge" returned to you, that could be inserted into a projection system...therefore no reels to thread onto a projector? Something that would/could mimic a videocassette?

@Steve....I'm amazed that someone would attempt development at home...I'd love to see a video on that darkroom setup!!

SO...to all...any experience/recommendation with any of the labs still processing film?...the US?..Canada??

[Steve Klare]

I'd say the biggest thing is having an 8mm processing tank, but being that we were young, foolishly optimistic and about 20 years too early for the Internet, we had no idea those even existed!

The cartridge based systems were a medium for commercial prints to make them easy for daylight viewing in settings like stores, business training and schools, as well as some others for film-based toys. If it was possible to get amateur film cartridge loaded, I've never heard of it.

For color processing, I use Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas. They have to be the biggest player and were the last lab to process Kodachrome. I use Yale Film and Video for Black and White.

[Brad Miller]

But the ones coming back with scratches; did you ever get an explanation as Kodachrome seemed to have a sound setup for pulling out the film? Was it just caused by other labs not using the same equipment, or were there other explanations?

The processing machines were absolutely massive and with Super 8 being so tiny, the smallest speck of dirt that got on the film would hit the squeeges (like two windshield wiper blades pressing against each other) and the dirt would get lodged in the squeeges and start scratching until a lab technician caught it and wiped them clean again.

Squeeges are required in between chemical tanks to strip off the majority of the solution from the previous tank before the film pulls it into the next tank. Without them, the chemical baths would very quickly become contaminated and major film processing damage would occur.

In later years someone invented the "air knife", which uses filtered, compressed air blasting through an extremely thin slit (often thinner than actual film). The knives would basically blow the liquid off and back down into the tank as the film was coming up out of each tank before running over a couple of rollers and down into the next tank. We use air knives on all of our cleaning and processors for this very reason to ensure no film we are restoring ever gets a scratch on it.

[Ty Reynolds]

Mark - Given the (likely) age of your film, I recommend Film Rescue, in Saskatchewan, for processing. They are not cheap, and not fast, but they are the experts in processing old film.

https://www.filmrescue.com

[Joerg Polzfusz]

@Joerg... so "„projection cartridges“ (Bolex, Meopta, Technicolor, Fairchild, …)...does that mean there were some formats that offered a projection system that accepted a cartridge? So, send in your film for processing and have a "cartridge" returned to you, that could be inserted into a projection system...therefore no reels to thread onto a projector? Something that would/could mimic a videocassette?

When using U-Matic from 1971 as reference point (first major video format with a cartridge), then most of the „projection cartridges“ for Super8 have been invited/introduced before video.
I‘m not old enough to say whether there have been labs that returned the processed films in such a „projection cartridge“. All current labs return the film on a „default“ lab reel with 15m/50ft capacity (unless you provide your own larger reels). But I haven’t heard of any labs that is currently supporting cartridges. So -at least today- you would have to fill the cartridges on your own. But this isn’t a problem as you cannot edit your movie while it’s in one of those cartridges.


As for labs:
http://super8wiki.com/index.php/Category:FAQ#Canada

http://super8wiki.com/index.php/Cate...tes_of_America

[Douglas Meltzer]

There were film labs that you could send your film (already processed) to and they would place it in a Moviepak cartridge. Corporations that used the Fairchild system would send in their completed industrial 8mm films (or have an 8mm print made from their 16mm original) to these labs where the prints would first be treated to increase "flexibility" and reduce friction since many of these would be played in a continuous loop. Then they would be placed in a cartridge.

In the late 1970s, Columbia Pictures Super 8mm division offered their condensed features for sale in Kodak, Technicolor and Fairchild projector cartridges at an additional cost.

Here's one of the Fairchilds in action:

[Steve Klare]

I remember one of these Fairchild cartridge viewers in use doing a product demonstration in a department store well into the 1990s, and I was pretty surprised to find it.

-and then again there was Polavision.
(You can't have this talk without at least mentioning that!)