Heavy Arts » Super 8

More on mercury cells

Alex — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:21:49 +0000

Okay, so a common problem with Super-8 cameras is their reliance on 1.35v mercury cells (PX625, and variants), as I’ve covered in previous posts. I recently got a Canon Auto-Zoom 814 which suffers from this problem, but it did come with half a dozen old batteries that worked well enough at the time. They’ve now given up, and I’ve had to find some replacements. The 1.35v Wein Cells are the best option, that work on the reaction of zinc with air, but they’re pretty expensive too…You can get them from ebay for around $10AUS a pop, so that’s $20 in batteries plus a wait to get them in (closer to home, Nanolab also sell them).

Another Alternative
Now something I’ve heard around the playground is that these wein cells are simply hearing-aid batteries inside a metal jacket to make up the space, as the old mercury batteries were larger. On the way home today I picked up a pack of four Energizer 675 hearing aid batteries for $5.50, which is $1.37 per battery. The packet says they’re 1.4v, but a peek with my multimeter shows a solid 1.35v.
I taped two together and wrapped a rubber band around them, to make up the space, and popped them in the camera. Meter responds and seems in line with my previous experience, so – works a treat.

$2.75 plus some tape sure beats 20-odd dollars for batteries, so it’s worth a shot.

First roll of Super-8

Alex — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:48:08 +0000

Well I got my batteries and repaired my light seals and actually went out into the world and took some footage. Who expected that?

First is my block of units, then the pool out the back. Then you have chantal at the aroma cafe, with her sore wisdom teeth.Then you have north terrace as we drive to gallery 139 for Toby’s exhibition, then just stuff about the place, then the next day at school with friends.
Focus I’m still getting used to (an 8.8mm lens has a pretty huge depth of field), and exposure is off in some spots, but damn it I’m impressed. I’ll be shooting more.
Developed by [nanolab], of course, who did an excellent job and had it back to me with telecine in a week.

Nanolab are fast

Alex — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:43:18 +0000

By express post, they mean express. I officially places my order for my two rolls of 64T yesterday morning, about 8AM. It arrived today, picked it up at the post office at 11.
Can’t beat that.

Getting my Super-8 Camera back to workin’

Alex — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:00:03 +0000

A while ago…well, ok, 2 years ago, I bought a super-8 camera at a garage sale for $10. A Nikon Super-zoom 8. I had a 50ft roll of Kodachrome 40 to play around with, but the batteries were dated and the thing could do with a clean up. The Kodachrome ended up getting ruined when my fridge got flooded, so I never bothered to get it sent off for processing. You can see how it ended up [here], and my [previous post on super-8 here].

Now, to get this poor thing back in action, my shopping list has been as follows:
-Light Seal repair kit (From the ebay seller [interslice], easily the classiest ebay username ever.) – $20AUD-ish, including postage
-2 Wein-cell 1.35v batteries (ebay) – $20AUD-ish, including postage
-2 rolls of Ektachrome 64T ([nanolab]) – $55AUD, including postage
-Some AA batteries (local) – $10AUD-ish
-An Xacto knife (local) – $10AUD-ish
-Some turpentine (local) – about $5AUD for 1 liter

So around a $100 investment to get it off the ground and shoot 2 rolls of film. I’d intended to get the battery adapters, but at $30 a pop – and I need two – that’ll have to wait until I’m using the camera a lot more. The Wein-cell batteries last about a year in-camera, so should be plenty of time for me to play around. Just gotta wait for all of it to show up in the mail, and I’ll piece it together.

What’s interesting is that [Nanolab's film prices] are pretty damn good. You can buy from America, but the postage is such a killer that it’s hardly worth the extra wait. To make it economical you need to buy half a dozen cartridges at a time. Nanolab is in Australia, have a huge range, and their postage is just $7 for express on 1-3 rolls. Can’t beat that.

Oh yeah, I bought a digital camera. Just a crappy Kodak Easyshare P&S, but it works fine for just taking snaps. $96 at K-mart, cant really complain – so you’ll get to see photos of this whole process soon.

Super-8 in Australia today

Alex — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:20:21 +0000

Super 8 was introduced in 1965 by Kodak as a new home-movie format. You can see my in depth examination of a Super-8 cartridge [here], achieved with a knife and some curious determination. It was of course superseded by Video technology, as people moved from the movie projector to the VHS. Super-8 is a variant of the standard 8mm format, which sits along side double-8, 16mm and 35mm movie film stocks. There are a few variants of the small-gauge film stock, but Super-8 is one of the most popular today.

Super-8 cameras can be picked up at a reasonable price on eBay these days, and most are still in good nick. If they take PX625 batteries, like mine, [check out my previous post]. Most film processing services will transfer them to DVD as well, so the cost of a projector is negated a bit, but considering how cheap they are it’s worth getting one.
At 18 frames a second, about standard, a 50ft cartridge (the only size) will get you 3:20 of movie. At 24 frames a second, 2:47 of movie.

There’s a remarkable number of film stocks still available for Super-8, not least for the efforts of a few specialists putting still film like Velvia 50 into Super-8 cartridges. Very very cool.

These are readily available in Australia
Colour:
-Kodak Ektachrome 64T
-Velvia 50D
-Ektachrome 100D
Black and white:
-Plus-X (7265)
-Tri-X (7266)

Kodak Vision2, the 35mm standard movie stock is also available from overseas too.

If you want to get into Super-8, acquaint yourself with [Nano Lab]. They sell film, they process film, they can scan and output digitally. $35 per 50ft, fixed price for processing. $20 per 50ft for scanning. Film is $24-$32. So to buy, shoot, process and scan a 50ft roll, or a few minutes of super 8, you’re looking at around $80. You can cut down on your expenses by buying film from overseas, and Dwaynes lab is cheaper so far as processing but takes longer.

Outside of Australia, [Dwaynes Photo] also have your back here, as they will process the now uncommon Kodachrome 40 Super-8 stock, as well as Ektachrome 64T.
They too sell film, but only the Ektachrome 64T at $15USD.
Processing is $10USD, transfer is $10USD for the first 50ft to DVD, $5 for every extra 50 feet.
So to buy film at Dwaynes, shoot, process and get it scanned, you’re looking at $35USD, plus shipping back and forth, all at whatever the exchange rate. So I think the lowest you’ll get it anywhere is about $50 for 50ft of film, purchased, shot processed and scanned.

[Freestyle Photo] will sell you [Plus-x] and [Tri-x].
[Spectra Film and Video] also sell a lot and are one of the original sources of Velvia 50D. [Pro8mm] also sell and process film.

Something to mention here; despite a multitude of super-8 cameras with audio capabilities, there are no film stocks currently manufactured with the required magnetic strip for sound. All super-8 stock today is silent…but that doesn’t stop you adding sound in post-production. Super-8 is popular for music videos.

So that’s the state of Super-8 in Australia today. So why not grab a $20 super 8 camera and have some fun?

The PX625 Mercury Battery Problem

Alex — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:24:39 +0000

Mercury batteries provide a pretty consistent voltage over the course of their life, so this was quite an ideal choice when designing a camera back in the day. Light meters require an solid voltage to be accurate, so using mercury batteries was a pretty good way to skirt the added cost of a voltage stabaliser in the design. This was a brilliant idea at the time, until the environment concern of all this mercury being thrown into the garbage was realised…mercury batteries were banned, and now quite unavailable for good reason.
The most common of these batteries used in cameras was the PX625 battery, also known as MR9, 1124MP, PX625 or EPX625. A mercury based cell that delivered a firm voltage of 1.35v, and frequently found use in older cameras like Canonet rangefinders and Practika SLR’s. If you buy enough old cameras you’ll find one that requires this battery.
Now the replacement cells, both alkaline (A625PX) and silver (S625PX), deliver 1.5v. As such you’ll need to get your camera re-calibrated to make up for this voltage difference, which can be done by any competent repairman. You can also use a Zinc-Air battery (Z625PX), which works on the reaction of Zinc with air (duh), and deliver 1.4 volts. You could safely use these without recalibration I’d expect, but Zinc-Air batteries have a rather short life span. Wein Cell batteries, working on the same technology deliver an accurate 1.35v – available from [Microtools] and, as with anything, ebay.
Something else I’ve ran across recently though is the [C.R.I.S mercury battery adapter]. These take a 1.5v S386 Silver-Oxide battery, and incorporate a diode to step the voltage down to 1.35 volts. Basically a perfect replacement without any recalibration, and 386 batteries are quite common, being used in many watches.
The price, however, is inhibitive. $33USD for one adapter, but they’re reusable of course.

Links:
[photobattery.com] – Loads of batteries, selling all alternatives mentioned above.
[C.R.I.S.] – Mercury battery adapters.
[Microtools] – Sells an array of batteries, and other cool stuff

Let’s take stuff apart: Super-8 Cartridge

Alex — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:14:33 +0000

Now I realise I’m ruining a now reasonably rare Kodachrome Super-8 cartridge here, but it was flooded when my fridge decided to defrost itself and I’m pretty sure it’s ruined, full of water when I got to it. I found it in a broken super-8 camera someone gave me and it’s been in my draw for 2 years, so I decided to crack it open and have a look. Why not?
I’d been curious for a while, since I knew that the film wound from one side to the other as it was used, I wanted to see how it managed that efficiently. Grab a knife and do some jimmying, there you go.

Before being ruined

Rather flimsy knife, couldn’t find my good one. The “EXPOSED” lettering obviously indicates it’s exposed. That’s the film gate, built into the cartridge, so film flatness is quite good.

The bottom half of the cartridge, where the film is wound into as it’s used. It passes through the gate to be exposed, and is then wound safely into this compartment.

There’s a lot of film in there. 50ft/15-ish meters/a few minute’s worth.

A closer look at the lower section, without the spool of exposed film

A roll of 35mm for size comparison

The upper section. The film is just wound up, it’s not attached to anything here, so it rolls to the lower section freely.

All the bits

Back together…totally fine, right?

So my curiosity is satisfied, and I’m reminded that I really do need to get a decent digital camera one of these days.

Fun fact: I stabbed myself in the thumb twice doing this. Once would be acceptable, twice is just silly. Where the hell is my good knife.