35mm reversal cinema film stock

[Guest]

Hello,

Does someone know a cheap b/w 35mm reversal film stock?

I'm tryibg to make a short film in 35mm and develop it myself,

But i don't know what stock should i use

regards,

John

[David M. Leugers]

John

I don't know if you plan to make prints or to either project the original or transfer to video, but I have never seen a 35mm B+W reversal movie film stock. All 35mm motion picture shot in B+W is filmed on negative film. I would recommend this anyway if you are developing it yourself since it is much easier to develop and negative film has much more latitude than reversal so your results should be better. Making prints is certainly available at most professional motion picture film labs. You can develop negative film as reversal, but you loose some speed and the grain may be more pronounced. You could buy some "short ends" of 35mm B+W which can be bought very cheaply and try developing as a reversal shooting tests to determine accurate film speed. Good Luck!

David M. Leugers

[moviemat]

HI,

I once used a bulk load 50 foot of Ilford Pan F to make a film where I cut holes in the side of a half frame camera so that I could shoot the whole lot frame by frame. i used a Reversal processing kit from Widescreen Centre and although I've never actually seen it projected it seems to have come out well enough for me to carry on in this vien. I lost my adapted half-frame camera on a train. Doh.

I remember the tricky part is that the Blix exhausts itself really quickly because of the greater surface area of 35mm film, so when I do it again i think I'll try to find the chemical out of "kit" form.

My next plan was to make a rough pinhole 35mm movie camera. If you did find a better supply of 35mm b/w film I'd love to know.

Another idea I'm looking forward to trying is to contact print 8 or 16mm negatives onto it, just by laying it along a long surface in the dark and running a torch along the length.

But then if experimentation isn't part of the point of what you're doing these techniques are probably a bit daft.

good luck, keep us informed of any discoveries,

Mat

[timdrage]

My next plan was to make a rough pinhole 35mm movie camera. If you did find a better supply of 35mm b/w film I'd love to know.

I was thinking of that and similar experiments too!

I cut holes in the side of a half frame camera so that I could shoot the whole lot frame by frame.

Not sure quite what you mean by that, how did it work?

[moviemat]

For my half frame cmarea thingy I took an Olympus Pen EE stills camera and cut slots on the outside ends of the camera body with a tiny model makers circular saw dremel thing. One slot where you would normally load your film, one on the outside of the post that you would normally wind on to. These where just over 35mm long and a millimeter or 2 wide. then I took 2 of the boxes that 35mm film comes in when you buy a 50 foot length and kind of cut the corners off them and used loads of cardboard and tape to botch them together so that in the dark I could tread film through the camera left to right, jam the camera ends into the gapping corners of the boxes and wrap tape around all the joins, it was a mess but it worked.

The only thing that advances the film is the cogs that go round when you wind the camera on, so I made a kind of pressure plate out of a bent piece of metal (like the middle piece from as slide mount) stuck to the back of the camera that held the film tight against the teeth on that cog.

I also made a crude cardboard daylight spool with the centre post (from an old 35mm film canister) sticking out of the middle of the take up box so I could gather the film in the take-up box every 15 frames or so to prevent it from jamming. With my thumb working like crazy I got about 1 frame a second. My guess is that when I see the film there will be no proper registration and it will be as shakey as hell.


My pinhole camera ideas:
1) a cardboard "maltese cross" mechanism driving a square wheel which has 4 sproket hole holders on each face, I am a big fan of cardboard and black electrical tape (or maybe I just dont have the patience to do anything properly)

2) a very long square tube with 1 pinhole opposite each frame and a shutter which slides along the length (ideal for vertical travelling shots). This is how the "time-slice" effect was first done by the artist whose name escapes me right now.

how ere you going to make yours?

Mat

[portosuper8]

There is a 35mm bw reversal film stock for photography, it's a slide film, Fomapan R-100, i don't know if Foma can make 30 meter reels out of it, but you could ask them if it is possible.

Maybe they can do it.

Regards

[timdrage]

2) a very long square tube with 1 pinhole opposite each frame and a shutter which slides along the length (ideal for vertical travelling shots). This is how the "time-slice" effect was first done by the artist whose name escapes me right now.

I did just that at college! Tho it was quite a small version, and using a strip of photo paper rather than film. I put dividers in to stop the pinhole images blending together. I only shot about a second's worth of images, it was only a foot or so long, but it worked surprisingly well!

how ere you going to make yours?

By modifying a cheapo plastic 35mm stills cam similar to how you describe... no doubt even with similarly lo-fi construction, we're obviously on the same cardboard and tape wavelength!

The only setback, and one reason I haven't actually tried to make one yet, is how to make the winding on advance the right distance to make a proper movie film frame size as opposed to the horizontal format of stills... if you see what I mean???

Some cool pinhole and toy camera stills stuff on this site which inspired me to think about the idea:
http://www.merrillphoto.com/JunkStoreCameras.htm
I especially like the multi-pinhole pics, if you cross your eyes they appear 3d, which could be an interesting area too...!

[moviemat]

Tim,

Thanks for the link, some wonderful looking cameras there.

Half-frame was my solution to the same problem of pulling the film four sprokets. They made them during the oil crisis when film looked like it was going to be expensive. cameras cost between £10 and £100 my method was nice because I could tape up the holes and it still worked as a normal camera.

My plan with the long camera thing was to have a s shutter apeture that meant a few frames were open at the same time so the scenery would be still but the motion blurred, but who knows when I'll get round to it.

Nice to meet a lo-fier on this forum.

Mat

[timdrage]

Ah, right, half frame, I see... cool!! Thanks for that info! I may well give that a go some time... but probably should do some shooting with the cameras I have before I go building new ones!! But being able to shoot 35 in a completely DIY way really appeals to me, so one day no doubt...

Good luck with the 35mm, let us know how it goes and if you find a good source of cheap stock!

[jukkasil]

There is a 35mm bw reversal film stock for photography, it's a slide film, Fomapan R-100, i don't know if Foma can make 30 meter reels out of it, but you could ask them if it is possible.

Maybe they can do it.

Regards

Yes, they can do that and offer it straight from factory at price about 30 euro/one 30,5 m. Note: You need anyway 2000 euro minimum order to buy straight them. They sell also their B/W negative stock in 30,5 m length, but also longer one.