Help with small gauge film type not seen before

Website · Post by **Raimo** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:47 am

A friend brought me two rolls of BW film of his parents wedding shot in 1939. The film is 1cm wide and has a single row of sprocket holes right down the middle of the film with the frames between the holes. The film is inside a metal casing saying it was processed by Pathescope and Made in England. The frames show a wonderfully preserved image which are very sharp. Anyone out there know more about this type of film and suggestions on how to transfer the two rolls. Thanks

Post by **MovieStuff** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:50 am

Raimo wrote:A friend brought me two rolls of BW film of his parents wedding shot in 1939. The film is 1cm wide and has a single row of sprocket holes right down the middle of the film with the frames between the holes. The film is inside a metal casing saying it was processed by Pathescope and Made in England. The frames show a wonderfully preserved image which are very sharp. Anyone out there know more about this type of film and suggestions on how to transfer the two rolls. Thanks

That is 9.5mm film. We will soon be releasing some 9.5mm Sniper Specials for frame by frame telecine of this material. We will also be offering it as a service in the near future.

Roger

Post by **etimh** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:33 pm

MovieStuff wrote:We will soon be releasing some 9.5mm Sniper Specials for frame by frame telecine of this material. We will also be offering it as a service in the near future.

Seriously cool. 8)

Tim

Post by **bakanosaru** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:29 am

Sorry to hijack this thread but I came across this diagram yesterday in an old cine mag. 9.5mm looks like a really neat format, although I'd be a little nervous about the claw leaving scratches down the middle of the film.

Post by **dagman** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:45 pm

the french pathe folks all swear that the registration was much better than with edge perfs, ie 16mm or 8mm. never seen anything on the format myself... just a text book curiosity to me.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:09 pm

bakanosaru wrote:Sorry to hijack this thread but I came across this diagram yesterday in an old cine mag. 9.5mm looks like a really neat format, although I'd be a little nervous about the claw leaving scratches down the middle of the film.

I am becoming increasingly enthusiastic about 9.5mm. The degree of claw retraction on the projectors I have looked at so far is significant. The only time you could possibly get marks in the middle is if you were wanting to load a film mid-way through a reel and didn't seat the film before turning the projector on. Otherwise, it's very precise and the registration is just this side of pin registered. In my opinion, the idea of scratches down the middle is really a none issue. In fact, just look at super 8 or regular 8 and notice the total lack of scratches in the middle of the perf area, even on films that are 40 years old and have been watched repeatedly on less-than-maintained projectors. Again, you really only get scratches if the projector is not loaded properly or if you are loading a movie in mid-reel. So far, all the 9.5mm films I have collected have had zero scratches from the claw. I think that 9.5mm is the bomb. Very cool. 8)

Roger

Post by **Bjarne Eldhuset** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:21 pm

I just saw this ebay auction for a dvd with som 1930s 9.5 mm film on. Might be interesting!

http://cgi.ebay.com/DVD-of-RARE-9-5mm-f ... dZViewItem

I you check the bottom of this auction, there are some 9.5 mm frames. If you click on them, you'll see a larger version ofthe picture. 630 x 475 pixels to be exact. Kind of cool.

Post by **Herb Montes** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:25 pm

I joined the 9.5USA club a while ago and even met the president, Kevin Phillips. He lives near College Station in Texas and he came down to Houston for one of the Camera Collector's shows. I bought two Polariod MP stands from him. He also showed me his Pathe 16mm Reflex he had modified to 9.5mm. He has to buy his film from a supplier in England. I was thinking of getting into the gauge myself and even acquired a dual-gauge Bolex projector (9.5-16) from eBay. I've been hoping to find a Pathe like Kevin's that is already 9.5mm. Things being as they are I drifted away from that concentrating my energies more on my art and animation rather than gear. I don't know if the club is still active but his website does have some useful information:

http://www.9-5usa.org/

Post by **Old Uncle Barry** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:22 pm

Many years ago,I used to be a film checker in a very large film library.We had a very extensive sound and silent library of 9.5mm films.I can honestly recall that no picture damage was evident in over five hundred titles.All that did occur was splitting of the sprocket holes.These were repaired by cutting out small bits of clear celluloid and reinforcing the sprocket area! Then it was a case of just punching out the holes properly.
Then an advancing technology appeared-someone invented stick on repair patches,problem solved!!
Those were the days.

Post by **timdrage** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:59 pm

<--- Posting just because I feel obliged due to my avatar ^_^

I love the idea of 9.5mm, such a weird format! Glad to read here that the central sprocket holes aren't as insane an idea as they might appear in terms of film damage!

I got a 9.5mm camera a while back, but never shot any yet...

We will also be offering it as a service in the near future.

That's good news, and might even inspire me to shoot some finally!

Post by **Bjarne Eldhuset** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:36 am

According to Wikipedia, it's actually not so weird!:

The width of 9.5 millimeters was chosen because 3 strips of film could be made from one strip of 35 mm film. This was useful when duplicating films because only 1 strip of 35 mm had to be processed. Then the sides, which contained the 35 mm sprocket holes, were cut off, the remaining film was cut into 3 strips, and the central sprocket holes added to each new strip.

Post by **wado1942** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:53 am

9.5mm seems to be a great idea. Much less wasted material than normal 16mm, but not as cool as a pin registered super-16 cam. Anyways, you think that's weird, NASA developed a 3mm center sprocketed film format back in the '60s.

Post by **super8er** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:31 pm

if it is possible cut three strips of this stuff out of 35mm than that means a company similar to pro 8(who cuts 35mm into three strips of super8 ) could produce it for the same price as super 8, and it would have much better image quality than s8!!that would be pretty cool 8)

Post by **jpolzfuss** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 11:53 pm

Some links for telecine:

http://www.9-5usa.org/video.htm

http://www.dvdinfinity.com.au/film_to_dvd.htm

http://www.avp-vt.de/avp_amateurfilm_filmformate.html

There are also some labs that'll blow-up 9.5mm to 16mm or 35mm.

Post by **imaxfan** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:42 pm

Wikipedia knows a lot, but obviously not everything. The quoted text is absolute nonsens.
What I have here, is a print neg, used for printing 3 x 9.5 mm positives. This type of 35mm film had a special perforation, similar to the special perforation for 4 x S8 print film. The edges were cut off and thrown away, when the print film was splitted. ItÃ‚Â´s totally impossible to cut 3 rows of 9.5mm film from an ordinary perforated 35mm film.

Filmshooting

Help with small gauge film type not seen before

Help with small gauge film type not seen before

Re: Help with small gauge film type not seen before

Re: Help with small gauge film type not seen before