Plus-X Change?

**r.j.** · August 31st, 2004, 01:47 AM

Hi folks,
I have'nt shot any black and white in a while, just kodachrome, so I was shocked to hear that kodak has changed the ASA of plus -x? Is this true? If so, then my in-camera light meter will over expose the film???
And when did they make this change?
Did they change tri-x as well, or can I still use that with the in-camera meter?
Full details from someone in the know would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tolagson

**cameraguy** · August 31st, 2004, 02:35 AM

Originally posted by tolagson:
Hi folks,
I have'nt shot any black and white in a while, just kodachrome, so I was shocked to hear that kodak has changed the ASA of plus -x? Is this true? If so, then my in-camera light meter will over expose the film???
And when did they make this change?
Did they change tri-x as well, or can I still use that with the in-camera meter?
Full details from someone in the know would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tolagson

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, the ASA of Plus-X is now 100. You can still use your built in meter cause the cartridges are notched to tell the camera what the ASA is. They made the change earlier this year. Tri-X was changed as well but the ASA is the same as before. They changed the processing for these stock to something supposedly better for the enviroment though I doubt that was the main reason.

**Jeremy Lunt** · December 30th, 2004, 02:52 AM

I hope environmental reasons were why they did it. A few weeks ago I came across a list of the top corporate polluters and Eastman Kodak was on it.

**Chezdigtlstudio** · January 2nd, 2005, 01:45 PM

Wow, the film is notched? When I use the light meter reading from any of my cameras with K40 INDOORS and Tungsten lites it always looks underexposed big time no matter how much light I use. I did some tests rolls and discovered that for some reason manually setting the aperature 1 stop below whatever the light meter says makes it look correctly exposed indoors. Why do you think that is? I must be doing something wrong.

I don't have to do that for higher speed film like the Tri-x stuff. What do you think?

**Nigel** · January 2nd, 2005, 07:30 PM

It could be a few different things...

What camera are you using?? If it has a prism finder the prism steals some light from the film.

What is the shutter angle?? It could have a smaller shutter angle thus making the camera have a faster shutter speed. My Beaulieu has a shutter speed of 1/87th of a second but my Aaton has a speed of 1/48th.

So those are some things to consider...

Good Luck
PS--Where are you from in Detroit??

**Chezdigtlstudio** · January 2nd, 2005, 11:22 PM

Originally posted by Nigel:
It could be a few different things...

What camera are you using?? If it has a prism finder the prism steals some light from the film.

What is the shutter angle?? It could have a smaller shutter angle thus making the camera have a faster shutter speed. My Beaulieu has a shutter speed of 1/87th of a second but my Aaton has a speed of 1/48th.

So those are some things to consider...

Good Luck
PS--Where are you from in Detroit??

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey Nigel thanks for replying! Wow I have a feeling I'm about to learn alot you know I never went to film school or anything I'm just a low-budget wannabe filmmaker mofo and as you can see I get most of my knowledge from expensive film mistakes, books and of course listening to the experience of others.

I have two Super8 cameras. The one I use the most is an ELMO SUPER8 SOUND 1012S-XL. What a cool camera, it's got a great lense. The other is a Minolta XL-Sound42. I like this one because it came with a neat screw on wide-angle lense that provides a cool fish eye perspective. I just gave the third camera away to my cousin in film school, she shoots mostly digital but wanted a cool effect for a project. That one was OK but didn't have a manual aperature setting.

Anyway, I have a couple of questions about your response;

what is a "Prism finder"?
what is "shutter angle"?

I can't wait to find out, I mean my girlfriend is a photo assistant at General Motors so she gives me alot of help understanding film and lighting (all that 'aperature' stuff) but I've never heard of either of the terms prism finder or shutter angle. As far as shutter speed goes, I have the manual for the Minolta camera and it this is what it says on the tech spec page:

SHUTTER: Rotary type with 220 degree sector opening and speed of 1/29.5 at 18fps in both sound and silent and single frame with silent cartridges operation.

Is that good or bad? That camera only shoots 18fps but when using the Elmo I always chose its 24fps option. When I'm done shooting I have my film developed and transferred to MiniDV cassette at a place called FilmCraft labs for editing on my PC. They adjust the speed and color correct during that process, doing a great job I might add.

So I live in Grosse Pointe Park which is on the east side just a few blocks north of the Detroit border. You know, Detroit (reffering to the city and all its surrounding areas)is really a great place for an artist to be. There's alot of art culture here.

So I try to learn all I can about filmmaking by doing as much as possible in the time I have outside of work. I don't know how you feel about it, but my view is that a filmmaker is one who writes, lights, shoots and edits his or her own film and that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Each one of those areas is an art in itself & so how can it be right for one to say that it is THIER film when so many other creative minds worked on it?

What is your experience with Super8? Have you made any films? You know, I've talked to so many "filmmakers" over here who have little or no writing skills but years of experience using a camcorder and a computer so they manufacture these mainstream cliche' digital effect films in hopes of just squeezing thier way under the closed door of mainstream hollywood & getting some sort of moneymaking deal out of the whole thing. That's why I prefer film over digital- it kind've forces one to become more creative and appreciate the artistic part of filmmaking.

I'm really trying hard to learn good lighting skills so my stories will look good on film. I try doing everything myself and as a matter of fact I'm in the middle of building a 5X5x6ft tall soundproof booth for vocal dubbing and instument recording for the films (any advice on acoustic foam vs. using blankets or egg crates?)

Well thanks again for your help Nigel!

**Nigel** · January 3rd, 2005, 12:05 AM

Shutter angle is the 220 degree opening that you mentioned...What says is how big of a slice out of disk your camera has. If a shutter is a pie 0 would be closed 360 would be open. Many movie cameras have a 180 degree shutter so half of the pie is missing.

To get your exposure you can use the following formula.

(1/shutter speed in fps) X (shutter angle/360)

As for the prism...Your cameras as do most Super8 cameras use a beam spliting prism to take the image from the lens and move it to the viewfinder. This robs some light from the film plane. A mirrored shutter allows 100% of the light through.

----------------------
Visit the site associated with the board www.super8filmmaking.com there is a lot of info there. Also get some books on shooting film and filmmaking books like:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...52279577&itm=1

Good Luck

**Chezdigtlstudio** · January 3rd, 2005, 03:18 AM

Great thanks for the info! [img]smile.gif[/img]

**FastFilms** · January 21st, 2005, 09:39 PM

I have some plus-x that I shot using the older speeds (40/50 asa). Can I still have these rolls processed using the newer chemicals?
Nigel,
Can you help me on this one?

Thanks,
Michael.