andec pressure plate installation and product information

[ericMartinJarvies]

hello all,

thought some of you might be interested in the andec pressure plate. i took time to examine it, and i took a film carterage apart, and performed some basic observation tests with and without the andec pressure plate. although the plate does indeed provide an axtra thickness between the spring loaded plastic pressure plate o nthe carterage itself and between the actual film, what it does NOT do is provide a horizontal guide that would prevent the film from drifting side to side. now i am not certain if this is an important factor considering that the camera film claw pretty much keeps that in place, but there is definatly play within the claw itself and the perfs in the film itself. so i would assume that slight play indeed takes place under certain circumstances.

i took one of my parts cameras part, which is to say i remove the film gate assembly, which is the same for all the beaulieu cameras. i took it to a machine shop here in town, and am having them open it up so it will expose the full width of the film, including perf'd areas. this can easily be cropped out in post, or so i assume there is a batch utility that can crop in automode ... is there one?? once completed, i will install that gate from the 4008zmiv into my 7008pro and shoot a roll of film, process it, and see the results. do you think this extra real estate will be worth it?

[paulcotto]

I was wondering if you could do me a favor and put the pressure plate on a flat bed scanner along with a 6 inch machinists metal ruler (scale) and scan it so I can try to build one myself. I thinks its made from brass sheet and then chrome plated. I bet I could make one. I am an aircraft metal worker and an A&P in my real life I have access to all kinds of machine shop equipment and sheet metal tools.

By the way your Beaulieu has little brass springs in the gate that are supposed to prevent gate weave by applying a side pressure to the film as it goes through.

Regards,
Paul Cotto


[quote="ericMartinJarvies"]hello all,

thought some of you might be interested in the andec pressure plate. i took time to examine it, and i took a film carterage apart, and performed some basic observation tests with and without the andec pressure plate. although the plate does indeed provide an axtra thickness between the spring loaded plastic pressure plate o nthe carterage itself and between the actual film, what it does NOT do is provide a horizontal guide that would prevent the film from drifting side to side. now i am not certain if this is an important factor considering that the camera film claw pretty much keeps that in place, but there is definatly play within the claw itself and the perfs in the film itself. so i would assume that slight play indeed takes place under certain circumstances.

i took one of my parts cameras part, which is to say i remove the film gate assembly, which is the same for all the beaulieu cameras. i took it to a machine shop here in town, and am having them open it up so it will expose the full width of the film, including perf'd areas. this can easily be cropped out in post, or so i assume there is a batch utility that can crop in automode ... is there one?? once completed, i will install that gate from the 4008zmiv into my 7008pro and shoot a roll of film, process it, and see the results. do you think this extra real estate will be worth it?

[ericMartinJarvies]

ok, i will need to pull my scanner out from the piles of boxes and stuff i have spread about my under construction home, arg, ug. i have some ideas of my own regarding a pressure plate. but first, although i did not see any patent claims on the paperwork i received from andec, nor have i gone ot the uspto to perform a patent search, this item may be protected. and even if it is not, you should not copy it directly, instead, improve upon its design or make an entirely new design, of which i have some obvious suggestions:

1. the configuration of the plate need not be cut/patterned like the andec plate is, it need only be a rectangle design.

2. the back side of the plate however should be the 'male' match of the 'female' plastic design of the actual plastic carterage pressure plate itself.

3. the long sides of the top side of the rectangle plate should have slightly bent upwards to act as the film groove. however, this may prevent it from working correctly with various cameras dependign on the position of the internal pull claw ... i am not certain.

4. the surface need not be chrome like the andec, but it must certainly be free of any jagged or sharp or rough edges. after all, the carterage pressure plate is plastic and is not smooth chrome, and the film does not get damaged. grant it, when the pressure plate is inserted, it causes more presure against the film itself, in which case the logic of the smooth chrome surface has valid argument, but i honestly do not beleive it is a requirement.

i think a simple snap in design, with a little receiving loop on one side, out of the film path way, for use with a second plastic part that would be used to remove the plate after each use. or tweesers or toothpicks would work. i will create my own version within the next few weeks, and i will see how it works. you should to the same. i paid over $150.00 for his andec plate!!! expensive, and in my opinion a rip off. $50.00 is fair, $100. is steep. $150.00 is downright usery. imho.



if you want to see some more detailed photos of the plate, browse the following directory, and remember, you have to enter the image name becasue the server doesn to allow dir browsing. the range is as follows: dsc02357.jpg to dsc02381.jpg
http://www.earthid.org/equipment/camera ... ure_plate/

here are some super8 carterage photos of the built in plastic pressure plate. notice what a piece of junk it is.

[paulcotto]

I have several ideas as well. I also have a few pressure plates for Fujica single-8 cameras that became toast. The fujica pressure plate is a work of art compaired to the plastic one in the kodak cart. I dont know if it can be adapted to the kodak cart but I always wondered if I could use it to build a reusable sound cart. I don't see why it would be so hard and I have one in progress in my work shop. I tend to work on things when I get inspired for a few days then I put them down for a while.... Right now I just got a Fujica sound camera that I will build a 200' adapter for. It will be simple compaired to the same job for a Super-8 camera. The film path is so simple I just need to feed film through and drive the spools. Then put a procket in an empty film cart, which I have plenty of.

Regards,
Paul Cotto

[Alex]

I was wondering if you could do me a favor and put the pressure plate on a flat bed scanner along with a 6 inch machinists metal ruler (scale) and scan it so I can try to build one myself.
Regards,
Paul Cotto

Paul, my opinion is no doubt the minority, but you really should purchase one rather than take a scan off off the internet. The designer of the product would love to make an additional sale, then you can experiment from an actual version and perhaps alter the design and make a better one. I call that supporting the inventor via a purchase while perhaps enhancing the design, which is competition (assuming you change the design enough). A win, win for Super-8.

Mr. Jarvies, you started this topic about the pressure plate then switched to the virtues of extending the frame width to the sprocket hole and perhaps beyond.

On the issue of the extending the frame width, I see many reasons not to do it, and one reason to do it. The reason to extend the frame line width is it will give more flexibility in the film transfer to video to scan left or right for purposes of reframing the original shot.

But I think there are many reasons not to do it. The main ones in my opinion are the image quality probably drops off the farther towards the edge of the frame you go (just an opinion, I'm not a lens expert).

The other reason is I think the more you widen the picture, the muddier it becomes when transferred to video. You actually will begin to add additional depth of field the wider you try and make the video transfer. Super-8 already has a lot of depth of field, why give it more?

There is only so much resolution that the video image can absorb from the film original, by addiing width to the film frame, and trying to capture that added resolution via a film transfer, you will have LESS video resolution overall because the same video frame has to capture MORE film info with the same amount of video pixels.

This may give the illusion of a better quality picture, but in reality it is a worse quality picture because the picture will have more in focus areas than before, which will make the picture look "flatter".

[ericMartinJarvies]

ah. that makes sense. the only beneift then would be a direct to s16 or 35mm blow up, correct? although i am not at all certain about any of this, just kind of doing things as i go, my thoughts were i could shoot using a 16x9 adapter on my set of lenses, and the actual film would take on a close to 16x9 aspect ratio with these above-mentioned changes, which would then give me an overall better 16x9 picture quality for my dvd productions. thereby having a nice 16x9 and regular tv frame image to pull from. i have not had the privelage to work with a telecine machne, and do not understand how they work. i was hoping that, considering larger, 16mm film is transferred to tape without problems, then any size between mm and 16mm would not be an issue. this is basically the same concept as converting a 16mm camera to a s16 camera, but with super8 instead. correct? i am hoping the little plate i end up making will make certain the film edges are held down firmly to avoid that obvious problem you mentioned. then the issue is with the lenses one uses. i would assum any 16mm lens would provide great sweet-spot coverage over the entire film, as would most likely all s8 type lenses, or most of them anyways.

where i think the main problem will reside is in the frame location/position in relationship to the perfs, as that will no doubt change. so the question is, can most telecine machines be adjusted so that the frame relative to the perf can be adjusted. if so, no probs. if not, then i would have to transfer using the digital slr setup that i am purchasing, which will allow me to adjust any which way but loose, thereby allowing me to capture the entire width of the frame. again, if you cna capture the width of 16 or 35 mm film, then a slightly larger s8 frame hould not be an issue, rather only a slight challange

perhaps i am wrong, but i will try to discover as much as i can regarding this, as i have been trowing the idea of s versus 16 around for the past few weeks. i refurbed my 7008pro, and it is almost completely silent now, and that makes me happy. and paul had suggested i repalce the metal gears with plastic ones, which i had not previously thought of, but would not doubt almost completely eliminate the noise issue. then, this would allow me to stick with s8 which i really really enjoy because the carts are so so easy to load/remove, and that is an absolute plus in my book. the downside has been the 16x9 issue. using just a anamorphic attachment is not the answer. the film needs to expose that aspect ratio for proper, clean image quality, which makes it easy to grab/crop you tv standard frame from the location of your choice, usually the center/middle. but i need ot live and learn a bit more regarding this subject matter.

regarding the andec pressure plate, and paul's statement regardign the scanned image, i understand his point of view, as i understand your point of view. it is really a personal issue. i like to purchase a product and if i can build a better one based on it, or a complete redesign, then so be it. but sometimes the inventor does not have the resource to make such purchases, in which case i see no harm in reverse engineering any product by way of any means, providing it is not outright copied/plagerized. using design/ornimental patents as your reference point in perfectly legal. making a photocopy or scan is perfectly legal if it has not been trademarked as the logo/mark, which i am sure this item has not been. everything has been improved upon, very seldon are theri original ideas from clear blue skies. thus is life. respecting and being forthright and truthful about ones intentions is really the only governing principals that matter, everything else is a legal argument, under various legal jurisdictions, which require legal advise, of which does not come for free. litigation for intel. property is both time consuming and expensive, especially as it relates to arguing patents.

thanks for your input, if you have more regarding my ideas/comments about the wider gate, please reply. any and all info greatly apreciated

[Alex]

I hadn't considered the blowing up to 16mm issue. That's an interesting reason to do the enlargement. Do you think you have made your Beaulieu camera quieter than when the camera was new?

[MovieMaker]

i will create my own version within the next few weeks, and i will see how it works. you should to the same. i paid over $150.00 for his andec plate!!! expensive, and in my opinion a rip off. $50.00 is fair, $100. is steep. $150.00 is downright usery. imho.

Eric,
you also have to think of the long process a (really dedicated) person to Super-8 filmmaking has to spend to design such a really helpful device like the pressure plate.
Hours and hours of drawing, building the prototype and testing - that has to be vauled by other filmmakers!! Just waiting until someone comes off with a practical (and sometimes new) idea and then call their price a "rip off" is in fact a cheap statement. To copy it afterwards will prevent other companies (or individuals) in the future to provide us with "new" inventions or gadgets that make our hobby a lot easier!
If you come up with a good accessory (and I mean the finished product and not idea after idea) then I will also be willing to pay a fair price. Think about the situation that someone buys then one piece from you, steals your idea and manufactures it for half the price, starting his own business!!!! Creativity has more value than material costs....

MovieMaker

[Lucas Lightfeat]

Frankly Moviemaker, that's rubbish. Are you working for the company?

That pressure plate is priced at the cost of several movie cameras, and IS a rip-off. It may be good, I don't know (also, I've had no image stability problems), but it's stupidly expensive.

Home-made creativity is what's really interesting and useful to our hobby, and the shape of the Andec pressure plate is hardly unique is it? It is clearly copied from the Kodak cartridge. I'd make one myself if I could understand why I'd need one - my images are solid.

Lucas

[MovieStuff]

Mr. Jarvies, you started this topic about the pressure plate then switched to the virtues of extending the frame width

But I think there are many reasons not to do it. The main ones in my opinion are the image quality probably drops off the farther towards the edge of the frame you go

It depends on the lens and its inherent COI. If the COI is large enough, it actually becomes a rectilinear lens and you get a very nice, flat field across the entire image. That was the case on many R8mm lenses, which were often just lenses for 16mm repackaged for use on R8 cameras. If the COI on a super 8 camera is large enough, then the image at the edges will be just as good as in the center. We've done tons of transfers off of R8 where the image literally spills off the edge of the film on both edges and it is sharp as a tack.

The other reason is I think the more you widen the picture, the muddier it becomes when transferred to video. You actually will begin to add additional depth of field the wider you try and make the video transfer. Super-8 already has a lot of depth of field, why give it more?

I'm not sure how you can say the picture gets muddier when depth of field increases. At any rate, increased depth of field is one of the best things going for super 8. The notion of shallow depth of field being a "virtue" because it looks more like 35mm is really sophistic reasoning, when one thinks about it. Low budget 35mm films always have crappy depth of field because they are always using small lighting packages. If you look at a big budget 35mm film, you will find that they have plenty of depth of field when they want it because they have large lighting packages. So, in reality, if you want your film to look like a low budget 35mm film then, by all means, go for the shallow depth of field look.

The choice to go to shallow depth of field should be a discrete artistic one, where one wants to isolate the actor or item on screen, and is generally achieved with longer lenses. I've worked on a variety of 35mm and 16mm productions and I can tell you that fighting shallow depth of field is a constant battle and no professional DP I know of thinks it's a problem to have "too much depth of field", since one can ALWAYS reduce depth of field by adding ND filters and using a longer lens.

There is only so much resolution that the video image can absorb from the film original,

???? Granted, the video does not have the resolution that film has, but your statement flies in the face of reality that a 35mm frame looks better on video than a super 8mm frame. A larger film original is always going to be better for video transfer than a smaller film original.

by addiing width to the film frame, and trying to capture that added resolution via a film transfer, you will have LESS video resolution overall because the same video frame has to capture MORE film info with the same amount of video pixels.

Yes, if the picture is reduced in height to accomodate the extended left and right areas of the picture, there will be fewer lines of video representing the final image. However, the grain of the super 8 will be reduced and that will make it sharper for final viewing if the goal is for a letterboxed image.

When we transfer, we often give people the choice of whether they want the super 8 image to spill off the edges of the video frame or if they want us to pull back until the entire video frame is visible within the open viewing area of a normal television set. If so, then either we or they put a black matte around it to hide the adjacent frames and sprocket holes. The black matte is outside the viewing area of a normal television set and the image looks MUCH sharper since the grain is reduced. And, since televisions crop the video image quite a bit, pulling back allows the whole super 8 frame to be viewed. So, in reality, the final image IS better if the super 8 is reduced in size.

This may give the illusion of a better quality picture, but in reality it is a worse quality picture because the picture will have more in focus areas than before, which will make the picture look "flatter".

Again, the illusional increase in depth of field from having a reduced picture size is a distinction without a difference compared to the universally obvious benefits of having the frame appear sharper. Pulling back during telecine and using more of the super 8 frame always creates a sharper picture with tighter grain; the very same reason that 16mm telecined looks better than super 8 telecined. For your counter position to be valid, then pushing into the super 8 image would result in more resolution and a better picture, which it clearly does not, since doing so would increase the effect of grain.

Roger

[flatwood]

nice pictures eric. can you tell if the andec pressure plate is machined out of brass sheet or stamped??? just interested, im not planning on making one. in one of your photos it looks like it might have been stamped out and then polished. my big question is, did it give you a positive result when you shot some film with it???

[MovieStuff]

Think about the situation that someone buys then one piece from you, steals your idea and manufactures it for half the price

Doesn't that then prove that the original is overpriced if it can be produced by someone else for half price? Granted, if you have something original and unique, then the world is your oyster and you can charge what you want. But, really, having done my share of machining, I feel that it is way overpriced at $150.00. Great money, if you can get it, but someone else producing a better product for less is what drives the market and benefits the buyer. It's called "competition".

Now, as far as someone copying the original design, if the item is patented then the subject is academic. As far as improving on the item or building one for their own personal use, what can you do? I can not tell you how many people have built their own version of the WorkPrinter. Does it bother me? Well, sure. But I also know these people don't have the money to buy my unit and aren't trying to compete with me in the market place. But, if someone comes up with a better version of the WorkPrinter and decides to go head to head with me, then it's not my place to cry about it but, instead, stay on my toes and up the ante by creating a better version than their unit. Again, that's how competion works and that's what makes products better.

I say if Paul can create a better, cheaper pressure plate, who's to complain? Of course, "better" would have to be defined as doing anything at all, since I have yet to see any real improvement in image quality, based on the samples I've seen. Of course, there might be more samples around if the pressure plate wasn't $150, eh? ;)

Roger

[paulcotto]

If I build one it would be for my own personal use. I have no time to market them or mass produce them. I would like to build a reusable super-8 cart with a real pressure plate. I would pull them from fujica single-8 cameras. I would rather not reinvent the wheel if it exists already.

Regards,
Paul Cotto

Think about the situation that someone buys then one piece from you, steals your idea and manufactures it for half the price

Doesn't that then prove that the original is overpriced if it can be produced by someone else for half price? Granted, if you have something original and unique, then the world is your oyster and you can charge what you want. But, really, having done my share of machining, I feel that it is way overpriced at $150.00. Great money, if you can get it, but someone else producing a better product for less is what drives the market and benefits the buyer. It's called "competition".

Now, as far as someone copying the original design, if the item is patented then the subject is academic. As far as improving on the item or building one for their own personal use, what can you do? I can not tell you how many people have built their own version of the WorkPrinter. Does it bother me? Well, sure. But I also know these people don't have the money to buy my unit and aren't trying to compete with me in the market place. But, if someone comes up with a better version of the WorkPrinter and decides to go head to head with me, then it's not my place to cry about it but, instead, stay on my toes and up the ante by creating a better version than their unit. Again, that's how competion works and that's what makes products better.

I say if Paul can create a better, cheaper pressure plate, who's to complain? Of course, "better" would have to be defined as doing anything at all, since I have yet to see any real improvement in image quality, based on the samples I've seen. Of course, there might be more samples around if the pressure plate wasn't $150, eh? ;)

Roger

[MovieMaker]

Frankly Moviemaker, that's rubbish. Are you working for the company?

No, I´m definitely not working for them. Bought one myself and tested it with several cameras of mine and clearly found some improvement on some functions of my cameras (for example the slow-mo on my Nizo 6080 - always had unstable images until now).

Doesn't that then prove that the original is overpriced if it can be produced by someone else for half price? Granted, if you have something original and unique, then the world is your oyster and you can charge what you want. But, really, having done my share of machining, I feel that it is way overpriced at $150.00. Great money, if you can get it, but someone else producing a better product for less is what drives the market and benefits the buyer. It's called "competition".

I understand your point. And I´m absolutely for competition. But (maybe I stated myself not clear enough) what I don´t like is when people always pick at someone else´s real-life product. I wouldn´t dare to confront your WorkPrinter with if´s , what´s and why´s and claim that it can be done for less money (in fact I´m going to buy one from you soon!) until I´ve shown the world with another product of the same quality that it can be done.
It always can be done for less. And if the "inventor" of the pressure plate would produce it in China maybe he could sell it for a third of the price. But in a fragile (and still small) market for Super-8 products, chances are that it won´t go into mass production and so has to be manufactured at local shops around. And after splitting the final price with the company that does the plate and another one that does the hard-chroming and some money for the reseller the benefits won´t be that high, I´m shure. And if there´s not a small profit for the person who started to labor out his idea, why should anyone invent new things for us? Anyone ever complained about an ARRI Follow-Focus (that starts at 2.000,-) related to the material costs that are less than a quarter of that price? Is it because of the name-tag that we don´t scrutinize the price?

If someone finds a way to produce 100.000 units of the pressure plate in China and be able to sell it for 49.99,- then he should go for it! One piece manufactured for 20,-by a friend of a friend of a friend does not count...

MovieMaker

[Alex]

Think about the situation that someone buys then one piece from you, steals your idea and manufactures it for half the price

Doesn't that then prove that the original is overpriced if it can be produced by someone else for half price? Granted, if you have something original and unique, then the world is your oyster and you can charge what you want. But, really, having done my share of machining, I feel that it is way overpriced at $150.00. Great money, if you can get it, but someone else producing a better product for less is what drives the market and benefits the buyer. It's called "competition".

Roger

The knock-off people can make it for half the money because they aren't putting the sweat equity / and time into the Research & Development in any amount equivalent to the original inventor. The inventor needs to recoup all the time they spent perfecting their idea, the knock off people don't.

The Good news is a PATENT was made for a Super-8 product. Whoo hooo!

As for the price being a bit steep, I would agree that $150.00 seems to be a bit steep. Would a bulk purchase reduce that price in half? Perhaps the manufacturer needs to check their pricing formulas and see if 10 times the sales at half the price might be worth it to them.