Canon 1014 meter problem

[capulet8]

Just acquired a Canon 1014. No manual. Everything seems to work fine, although I haven't run a roll through it yet. Light meter not working. Not the biggest deal in the world; I check with my old Weston anyway. And I bought the camera for a "parts" price.
But does anyone have any ideas for servicing the internal meter?

[tom hardwick]

It's a 1014E right, the mute version? As you say a non working lightmeter is no big deal but you'll have to callibrate the Weston by exposing some test footage. The beam splitting prism that ducts light away for the viewfinfer and light meter takes at least a stop away from the film gate, so adjustments will be necessary.

Set 25ASA on the meter and as close to 1/43rd sec on the shutter speed dial as you can get. In bright sun and 18 fps the 1014 shoots with the aperture needle in the viewfinder at f 9,5 (between 8 & 11).

The meter is a simple moving coil galvanometer and just maybe the wires have become detached, though considering the camera's 25+ year age it could well have expired. The top plate comes off the camera fairly easily and it's certainly worth a careful look in there to see what can be done.

If you put the camera on the 70mm setting, pull out the manual exposure setting knob and turn it (with batteries in and the camera turned on) do you see the diaphragm blades open and close as you look down into the lens? If you do, all will be well and you can set the exposure manually for each shot (as you should do anyway).

The 1014E is a favourite of mine. It's silky manual zoom shames all modern camcorders. Its maximum aperture stays at f1,4 until 65mm, where it gently falls to 1,8. In marked contrast to modern teeny zooms that loose speed all the way from wide to tele.

My 1014 runs wild (with film) at 62fps in the slo-mo mode, giving a fluidity to slow motion that (again) shames all modern camcorders. It's easily tested; I filmed my wrist watch's second hand and literally counted the frames (18frames = 3", 24frames = 4")

tom.

[capul8]

TEST TEST TEST

[capul8]

Thanks for the advice, Tom. I had already checked the diaphram movement, so I'm ok.
But I don't think I'm even going to open it up & look inside. My 814XL's meter bounces all over the place, so even if I fixed the 1014E, as you said: after 25+ years, these things just go. What I do need to do now is upgrade to a decent incident light meter. Any suggestions?
Haven't shot a roll yet, but your enthusiasm for the camera has me excited to get going.
Can't wait to experiment with lap dissolves and super slo-mo! And, yes, that's some lens.
By the way, found a downloadable manual, but my computer or browser couldn't handle it.

[capul8]

Thanks for the advice, Tom. I had already checked the diaphram movement, so I'm ok.
But I don't think I'm even going to open it up & look inside. My 814XL's meter bounces all over the place, so even if I fixed the 1014E, as you said: after 25+ years, these things just go. What I do need to do now is upgrade to a decent incident light meter. Any suggestions?
Haven't shot a roll yet, but your enthusiasm for the camera has me excited to get going.
Can't wait to experiment with lap dissolves and super slo-mo! And, yes, that's some lens.
By the way, found a downloadable manual, but my computer or browser couldn't handle it.

[capul8]

TEST TEST TEST

[tom hardwick]

Yes I'm enthusiastic about the 1014E as it's the only camera I know that can do the brick wall test lap dissolve (see my other posting on this) and hide the dissolve completely. All other cameras I tested failed on this one; all other cameras varied the exposure over the dissolve.

The 1014E can also do another trick, not mentioned in the instruction book. If you push forward the lap dissolve knob while filming you have one second before the motor drive engages the variable shutter sector blades. In this time you can grab the shutter dial and turn it from open (or 2 or 4 if you were filming at these shutter speeds) to fully closed.

You wait untill the camera has done it's rewinding of the film and then, immediately you start the new scene you twiddle open that shutter speed dial before the gears engage and voila! A one second dissolve. Much better than the rather too slow 4 seconds the automation would give you.

Takes a bit of practice but worth the experimentation. Go forth and play, it's the only way to find out what your camera can do for you.

tom.

[capul8]

Man, that's what I like about this forum!
Where else are you going to get secret techniques on specific equipment like that.
Thanks, Tom.
Bernie Duffy

[tom hardwick]

Thanks for your input Bernie. It's good to know real people are actually out there.

Hey - the 1014E will also do other things not mentioned in the instructions. One neat trick is to be filming with an intervalometer at 1 frame every 10 seconds, say, and while this is progressing you push forward the lap dissolve knob.

The camera continues with the sunset (or whatever) and finally comes to a stop with the shutter blades fully closed. You rewind all that faded out film and choose your next scene. Choose it with care mind, as in Super8 what you shoot is what you get.

Now the next scene (the dissolve in) can be shot at any frame rate you like, and I find that to come in on a super slow motion scene is pictorially impressive. Dissolve out: super fast. Dissolve in: Super slow.

Or mix two slow mo scenes together; that's also very effective. The camera's in full scream ahead mode and maybe that's why the instruction book is hesitant to suggest it, but go for it. The camera's a tool. Use it and force it to give you what you're after.

tom.