Elmo1012 XLS problems

[oldasdirt]

My Elmo 1012 XLS has two significant problems.The trigger doesn't work.It runs fine when the master switch is on,but the trigger doesn't work.I've had some suggestions here of turning it over on it's side,which hasn't worked.I can live with this problem though as I can always use a remote control to shut it off.The Problem I'm having is with the iris readout in the viewfinder.I had one of my engineers at the TV station I work for open it up and he showed me where there was a damaged prism that was responsible for reflecting the f stop numbers up to the VF window.

My chances for finding an inexpensive fix for this don't look good,so I'm just looking for options here.The camera is functional and the auto iris seems to work fine.I can go manual but I have no way to tell what f stop I'm shooting.Now I thought about locking the auto itis on a grey card,but that would only work right with film stocks that auto keyed the light meter via cart nothches.Limits me pretty much to K 40 (no longer made) and E160(also defunct).Anyone have any other suggestions?

[oldasdirt]

Originally posted by Alex:
Turning the camera on it's side trick was for the Canon 814-XLS and Canon 1014-XLS.

I
Irv Higdon in the San Fernando Valley (CA) may be willing to sell you the part for a fair price. ??

Another option would be to find the actual internal dial that controls the aperture and build a small extension arm so that the extension arm actually sticks out through the camera casing, then you move this dial to set your exposure. Youidea.

<font size="2" face="verdana, sans-serif">You got Irv's email?I've heard some shady things about him,though I did do biz with him once and he didn't try to screw me so I got no problem with him.
The camera already has a manual exposure knob on the side,so it could just be a matter marking fstops on the knob,just not sure how to do that with any accurcy.
Maybe light a grey card to what a proper f 5.6 should be if shooting say K40.Which brings me to the question of what the camera's ASA default setting is,any ideas?Then I would need to eyeball the camera's aperture through the film gate while the camera is running(don't ever do this with a Beaulieu 3008S or 5008 S,according
to Lenny Lipton it will damage the lower cartridge drive),make a good eyeball judge of it and then find it on the manual dial and mark it off accordingly.Then marking each section of mathematically,I should be able get a reasonably accurate setting on the dial.**** ,I wish I didn't **** so badly at math!
Thanks for the quick reply,Alex,you're the best on these super 8 forums.

Any easier ideas on this are welcome and do you have an idea of what these camera's default their ASA settings on when there's no cart loaded in the camera?

[Alex]

If one notices, over time, many (but not all) service oriented Super-8 business get accused of something shady over time.

My opinion is if the person who owns the business is not the actual person that does the work, they are forced into charging minimums that in many instances will cost more than the item that is in for repair. This leads to the accusation that they are shady.

The owner of the business cannot force an employee to work above and beyond the budgeted time to fix a hard to find problem. Throw in that no new spare parts exist, and that the network of repair specialists is so disparate that the repair people can't share experiences or problem solving, and you have a very unsympathetic situation when it comes to repairing Super-8 equipment. Oh, and lets not forget the Super-8 equipment that has been opened up by a hack and then repackaged and sold on ebay.

Sometimes units take several months to be repaired, and the longer the unit is in for repair, the higher the expectation that the unit be fixed when it is returned. Yet sometimes the opposite happens. The unit is no closer to being fixed, the repair person has put ample time into trying to fix the unit, and now the owner may have to pay from the profit of other repair jobs to try and figure out how to proceed.

[Alex]

As for a solution to your situation.

Here's how I would handle the manual exposure dial on your camera. The simple way would be to assume that the mathematical distance percentages equal the f-stop difference from one extreme of the dial to the other and match your f-stops accordingly.

(Refer to what I posted two posts ago).

After trying this method, film a black and white gray scale in which you move the dial from one increment to the other. Do a film transfer to video in which the video aperture is LOCKED.

Now review the footage with a waveform and see how much the brightness drops each time you turned the manual exposure to the next setting.

In theory the waveform should drop in half each time the f-stop drops by one????

Maybe I'm wrong about that. Why not use a good Super-8 camera move the f-stop one stop at a time and film some. Then evaluate how much the wavefore image decreases and than match that drop by doing a couple of tests on your Elmo.

OR, just do the waveform test with an actual video camera, video a black and white gray scale and determine how much the waveform drops as you drop the f-stop one stop at a time, then when your markings on the elmo create the same drop, you probably have decent markings set up.

Before there were f-stop numbers on cameras they actually had symbols, one was sunlight, one was shade, etc...and people would turn the dial to the appropriate setting based on the symbol.

I don't like that technique as well unless you actually know what the f-stop number is, because it's info you cannot share with anyone else unless you want them to look at you strangely.

[Alex]

Turning the camera on it's side trick was for the Canon 814-XLS and Canon 1014-XLS.

Inexpensive fixes for your situation would include buying one off of Ebay that most likely will be represented as being in perfect condition but will probably have something wrong with it. Open it up and use it as parts.

Better still, bid on one in which the seller states, "as is", or "didn't test it because I'm too stupid to put batteries in it and try", usually those will auction out for less. By the way, I'm not being mean by saying that, usually that is the "excuse" given once it's determined the camera does not work. I call it the "fallback excuse". If the camera does not work, simply put in the auction that the camera was not tested and is being sold "as is".

Irv Higdon in the San Fernando Valley (CA) may be willing to sell you the part for a fair price. I seem to recall giving him a broken Elmo 1012XLS at one point so hopefully he would be willing to "Pay it forward" and sell you the part for 20, 25 bucks??? That is assuming he actually stores these parts in bulk, otherwise a 25 dollar part still nets him a repair billing job that could cost a hundred dollars or more, so is the part really worth $25.00, or is it worth a hundred dollars???

Another option would be to find the actual internal dial that controls the aperture and build a small extension arm so that the extension arm actually sticks out through the camera casing, then you move this dial to set your exposure. You'll know that in one extreme the iris is close, and in the other it's wide open, and then in between you can "fractionalize" your settings, the halfway point is probably an f5.6-8 split. The quarter way mark will be either 11-16 split or a 2.8-4 split. I don't know if this is really a feasible idea and I don't know if it may lead to light leakage as well, or if the lever will stay once you set it.

I like finding a broken Elmo 1012 XLS off of ebay and taking the part from that camera as a better idea.