Double exposure

[Tormod Rossavik]

I wonder if anyone knows how to double expose a S-8 Kodak film.

Tormod

[#Pedro]

It?s possible, but it depends on the camera that you have.
Simple camera: Use an external backwinder. Before exposuring the first szene, cover the take up drive of the cardrige with adhesive tape. Shoot up to 100 frames. Backwind the number of frames you had exposured with the external backwinder (EWA), insert the cardrige again (without adhesive tape) and exposue the second szene. You will only loose 7 frames at the beginning and the end of the trick szene. Loading and reloading the camera in absolute darkness would avoid this. It works, I practiced it many times with a Agfa movexzoom camera.
Some more sofisticated cameras have a friction stop, which avoids that the exposured footage gets winded up inside the cardrige. This way it?s possible to jam up to 100 frames and backwind these frames to exposure them a second time.
The construction of the silent Kodak cardrige does not allow to really backwind the film. (Was possible with the sound cardrige).
Pedro

[Tormod Rossavik]

Thank you very much, I'll give that a go. But what do mean by an external backwinder, and by the way my camera is a Canon 814.

Tormod

[tom hardwick]

I had an 814E and shot a lot of multiple exposures (5 movies in a frame). I loaded and unloaded the footage in complete darkness and as Pedro says, you have to cover over the dog clutch drive on the side of the cassette with tape - that way the take-up mechanism doesn't get to irretriveably take up the film.

Also be aware that due to the design of the Super8 cartridge you can't do multiple exposures in the first 5' or last 5' of film - there's no place for the unspooled film to go as it were.

I rewound all my footage by hand (in the dark of course). I'd film till the camera jammed (about 100 frames) then take out the cartridge and by feel alone stuff all that footage (about 1 1/2 feet) back up into the area at the top of the gate.

Reinsert the cartridge and film the second scene - with the tape over the drive dog if you wanted to make further exposures.

It all works very well, and to have four separate little films going on at once is quite a wow. One can be in slow motion, one can be speeded up (single frame shooting) one can be fireworks at night and one can be underwater (I have a Nautica too).

And the fifth film? Well, I had centralised white titles zooming up from infinity, burning out the pictures with the letters as it came.

tom.

[Tormod Rossavik]

Thank you Tom.

You said you've had a 814, would you then happen to know how I can fix the wheel on my Autozoom 814 Electronic. It is stuck, there's no way that I can move it. I've tried to combine turning it with pressing and pulling all of the buttons and other wheel. More specificly, it is the wheel with the Open function, grey filters 2 and 4, close and stop. I'd be grateful if you or anyone else would be able to help me with this one.

Cheers.
Tormod

[tom hardwick]

The wheel is a shutter sector dial Tormod, and turning it mechanically varies one of the shutter sector blades in relation to the other. Something must've jammed in there (it's jammed in the "open" position, right?) and if you're careful and good at such things it shouldn't be too difficult to take the side panel off for a look-see and a fix.

You call the 2 & 4 positions "filters" but they are in fact just higher shutterspeeds. The Canon uses a focal plane shutter and the speed is altered not by speeding up the shutter travel, but by decreasing the shutter sector angle, which in turn exposes each frame for less and less time.

At "open" each frame gets 1/43rd sec at 18 fps. At "2" each frame is exposed at 1/86th sec, and at "4" each frame gets 1/172 of a second.

Generally it's better to use ND filters to soak up the light rather than increasing the shutterspeed as the latter can make the movie look jerky - the "shutter-stutter" effect where each frame is too shapr to record fluid motion.

This is one reason why Beaulieu don't recommend using 18fps with their 4000 series. The oscilating shutter gives too high a shutter speed and motion is too frozen as a result.

tom.

[Tormod Rossavik]

Thanks again.

I really thought they were grey filters...
Now I know otherwise, thanks again.
When it comes to opening the camera, I don't see myself as being competent in that sort of operation, and as you reckoned, it is stuck in the open position, so I think that I'll leave it for now. Maybe, if I ever come across a person here in Oslo with the ability to help me fix it... Not likely though.

Grettings
Tormod

[#Pedro]

External Backwinder:
You can see one at Walter Wienens private Hompage (sorry, only in German): http://home.t-online.de/home/Walter.Wienen/
when you click at the link "Film-R?ckwickler" in the navigation bar.
Mr Wienen is describing his own method for doing very exact multi-exposures. He uses the Backwinder and a simple cutter, as used for cutting the leader berfore inserting in a autoload projector.
He first removes the cardrige and blocks the take up with a tape, clips out 3 notches and passes the film forward by hand until the missing notches dissappear.
Then he films the first szene, removes the cardrige once again and clips out 3 notches at the end of the szene.
Then he backwinds the szene in the backwinder, until the film reaches the first cutted notches.
Ready for the second szene. The camera will recognize "end of film" exactly, when it reaches the missing notches and you can rewind for the next szene ... and so on. Only before shooting the last szene of this multi-exposure, you remove the tape that blocks the take-up reel.
Pedro