The ________ was the first motion picture camera.

An interesting forerunner to the movie camera was the machine invented by Francis Ronalds at the Kew Observatory in 1845. A photosensitive surface was drawn slowly past the aperture diaphragm of the camera by a clockwork mechanism to enable continuous recording over a 12- or 24-hour period. Ronalds applied his cameras to trace the ongoing variations of scientific instruments and they were used in observatories around the world for over a century.[2][3][4]

The chronophotographic gun was invented in 1882 by Étienne-Jules Marey, a French scientist and chronophotographer. It could shoot 12 images per second and was the first invention to capture moving images on the same chronomatographic plate using a metal shutter.[5]

In 1876, Wordsworth Donisthorpe proposed a camera to take a series of pictures on glass plates, to be printed on a roll of paper film. In 1889, he would patent a moving picture camera in which the film moved continuously. Another film camera was designed in England by Frenchman Louis Le Prince in 1888. He had built a 16 lens camera in 1887 at his workshop in Leeds. The first 8 lenses would be triggered in rapid succession by an electromagnetic shutter on the sensitive film; the film would then be moved forward allowing the other 8 lenses to operate on the film. After much trial and error, he was finally able to develop a single-lens camera in 1888, which he used to shoot sequences of moving pictures on paper film, including the Roundhay Garden Scene and Leeds Bridge.

Another early pioneer was the British inventor William Friese-Greene. In 1887, he began to experiment with the use of paper film, made transparent through oiling, to record motion pictures. He also said he attempted using experimental celluloid, made with the help of Alexander Parkes. In 1889, Friese-Greene took out a patent for a moving picture camera that was capable of taking up to ten photographs per second. Another model, built in 1890, used rolls of the new Eastman celluloid film, which he had perforated. A full report on the patented camera was published in the British Photographic News on February 28, 1890.[6] He showed his cameras and film shot with them on many occasions, but never projected his films in public. He also sent details of his invention to Edison in February 1890,[7] which was also seen by Dickson (see below).

William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, a Scottish inventor and employee of Thomas Edison, designed the Kinetograph Camera in 1891. The camera was powered by an electric motor and was capable of shooting with the new sprocketed film. To govern the intermittent movement of the film in the camera, allowing the strip to stop long enough so each frame could be fully exposed and then advancing it quickly (in about 1/460 of a second) to the next frame, the sprocket wheel that engaged the strip was driven by an escapement disc mechanism—the first practical system for the high-speed stop-and-go film movement that would be the foundation for the next century of cinematography.[8]

The Lumière Domitor camera, owned by brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, was created by Charles Moisson, the chief mechanic at the Lumière works in Lyon in 1894. The camera used paper film 35 millimeters wide, but in 1895, the Lumière brothers shifted to celluloid film, which they bought from New-York’s Celluloid Manufacturing Co. This they covered with their own Etiquette-bleue emulsion, had it cut into strips and perforated.

In 1894, the Polish inventor Kazimierz Prószyński constructed a projector and camera in one, an invention he called the Pleograph.[9][10][11][12][13]

Mass-market

Due to the work of Le Prince, Friese-Greene, Edison, and the Lumière brothers, the movie camera had become a practical reality by the mid-1890s. The first firms were soon established for the manufacture of movie camera, including Birt Acres, Eugene Augustin Lauste, Dickson, Pathé frères, Prestwich, Newman & Guardia, de Bedts, Gaumont-Démény, Schneider, Schimpf, Akeley, Debrie, Bell & Howell, Leonard-Mitchell, Ertel, Ernemann, Eclair, Stachow, Universal, Institute, Wall, Lytax, and many others.

The Aeroscope was built and patented in England in the period 1909–1911 by Polish inventor Kazimierz Prószyński.[14] Aeroscope was the first successful hand-held operated film camera. The cameraman did not have to turn the crank to advance the film, as in all cameras of that time, so he could operate the camera with both hands, holding the camera and controlling the focus. This made it possible to film with the Aeroscope in difficult circumstances including from the air and for military purposes.[15]

The first all-metal cine camera was the Bell & Howell Standard of 1911-12.[16] One of the most complicated models was the Mitchell-Technicolor Beam Splitting Three-Strip Camera of 1932. With it, three colour separation originals are obtained behind a purple, a green, and a red light filter, the latter being part of one of the three different raw materials in use.

In 1923, Eastman Kodak introduced a 16mm film stock, principally as a lower-cost alternative to 35 mm and several camera makers launched models to take advantage of the new market of amateur movie-makers. Thought initially to be of inferior quality to 35 mm, 16 mm cameras continued to be manufactured until the 2000s by the likes of Bolex, Arri, and Aaton.

Digital movie cameras

Main article: Digital movie camera

Digital movie cameras do not use analog film stock to capture images, as had been the standard since the 1890s. Rather, an electronic image sensor is employed and the images are typically recorded on hard drives or flash memory—using a variety of acquisition formats. Digital SLR cameras (DSLR) designed for consumer use have also been used for some low-budget independent productions.

Since the 2010s, digital movie cameras have become the dominant type of camera in the motion picture industry, being employed in film, television productions and even (to a lesser extent) video games. In response to this, movie director Martin Scorsese started the non-profit organisation The Film Foundation to preserve the use of film in movie making—as many filmmakers feel DSLR cameras do not convey the depth or emotion that motion-picture film does. Other major directors involved in the organisation include Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan and many more.[17]

Most of the optical and mechanical elements of a movie camera are also present in the movie projector. The requirements for film tensioning, take-up, intermittent motion, loops, and rack positioning are almost identical. The camera will not have an illumination source and will maintain its film stock in a light-tight enclosure. A camera will also have exposure control via an iris aperture located on the lens. The righthand side of the camera is often referred to by camera assistants as "the dumb side" because it usually lacks indicators or readouts and access to the film threading, as well as lens markings on many lens models. Later equipment often had done much to minimize these shortcomings, although access to the film movement block by both sides is precluded by basic motor and electronic design necessities. Advent of digital cameras reduced the above mechanism to a minimum removing much of the shortcomings.

The standardized frame rate for commercial sound film is 24 frames per second.[18] The standard commercial (i.e., movie-theater film) width is 35 millimeters, while many other film formats exist. The standard aspect ratios are 1.66, 1.85, and 2.39 (anamorphic). NTSC video (common in North America and Japan) plays at 29.97 frame/s; PAL (common in most other countries) plays at 25 frames. These two television and video systems also have different resolutions and color encodings. Many of the technical difficulties involving film and video concern translation between the different formats. Video aspect ratios are 4:3 (1.33) for full screen and 16:9 (1.78) for widescreen.

Multiple cameras

Multiple cameras may be placed side-by-side to record a single angle of a scene and repeated throughout the runtime. The film is then later projected simultaneously, either on a single three-image screen (Cinerama) or upon multiple screens forming a complete circle, with gaps between screens through which the projectors illuminate an opposite screen. (See Circle-Vision 360°) Convex and concave mirrors are used in cameras as well as mirrors.

Sound synchronization

One of the problems in film is synchronizing a sound recording with the film. Most film cameras do not record sound internally; instead, the sound is captured separately by a precision audio device (see double-system recording). The exceptions to this are the single-system news film cameras, which had either an optical—or later—magnetic recording head inside the camera. For optical recording, the film only had a single perforation and the area where the other set of perforations would have been was exposed to a controlled bright light that would burn a waveform image that would later regulate the passage of light and playback the sound. For magnetic recording, that same area of the single perf 16 mm film that was prestriped with a magnetic stripe. A smaller balance stripe existed between the perforations and the edge to compensate the thickness of the recording stripe to keep the film wound evenly.

Double-system cameras are generally categorized as either "sync" or "non-sync." Sync cameras use crystal-controlled motors that ensure that film is advanced through the camera at a precise speed. In addition, they're designed to be quiet enough to not hamper sound recording of the scene being shot. Non-sync or "MOS" cameras do not offer these features; any attempt to match location sound to these cameras' footage will eventually result in "sync drift", and the noise they emit typically renders location sound recording useless.

To synchronize double-system footage, the clapper board which typically starts a take is used as a reference point for the editor to match the picture to the sound (provided the scene and take are also called out so that the editor knows which picture take goes with any given sound take). It also permits scene and take numbers and other essential information to be seen on the film itself. Aaton cameras have a system called AatonCode that can "jam sync" with a timecode-based audio recorder and prints a digital timecode directly on the edge of the film itself. However, the most commonly used system at the moment is unique identifier numbers exposed on the edge of the film by the film stock manufacturer (KeyKode is the name for Kodak's system). These are then logged (usually by a computer editing system, but sometimes by hand) and recorded along with audio timecode during editing. In the case of no better alternative, a handclap can work if done clearly and properly, but often a quick tap on the microphone (provided it is in the frame for this gesture) is preferred.

One of the most common uses of non-sync cameras is the spring-wound cameras used in hazardous special effects, known as "crash cams". Scenes shot with these have to be kept short or resynchronized manually with the sound. MOS cameras are also often used for second unit work or anything involving slow or fast-motion filming.

With the advent of digital cameras, synchronization became a redundant term, as both visual and audio is simultaneously captured electronically.

Movie cameras were available before World War II often using the 9.5 mm film format or 16 mm format. The use of movie cameras had an upsurge in popularity in the immediate post-war period giving rise to the creation of home movies. Compared to the pre-war models, these cameras were small, light, fairly sophisticated and affordable.

An extremely compact 35 mm movie camera Kinamo was designed by Emanuel Goldberg for amateur and semi-professional movies in 1921. A spring motor attachment was added in 1923 to allow flexible handheld filming. The Kinamo was used by Joris Ivens and other avant-garde and documentary filmmakers in the late 1920s and early 1930s.[19][20]

While a basic model might have a single fixed aperture/focus lens, a better version might have three or four lenses of differing apertures and focal lengths on a rotating turret. A good quality camera might come with a variety of interchangeable, focusable lenses or possibly a single zoom lens. The viewfinder was normally a parallel sight within or on top of the camera body. In the 1950s and for much of the 1960s these cameras were powered by clockwork motors, again with variations of quality. A simple mechanism might only power the camera for some 30 seconds, while a geared drive camera might work for as long as 75 – 90 seconds (at standard speeds).

The common film used for these cameras was termed Standard 8, which was a strip of 16-millimetre wide film which was only exposed down one half during shooting. The film had twice the number of perforations as film for 16 mm cameras and so the frames were half as high and half as wide as 16 mm frames. The film was removed and placed back in the camera to expose the frames on the other side once the first half had been exposed. Once the film was developed it was sliced down the middle and the ends attached, giving 50-foot (15 m) of Standard 8 film from a spool of 25-foot (7.6 m) of 16 mm film. 16 mm cameras, mechanically similar to the smaller format models, were also used in home movie making but were more usually the tools of semi professional film and news film makers.

In the 1960s a new film format, Super8, coincided with the advent of battery-operated electric movie cameras. The new film, with a larger frame print on the same width of film stock, came in a cassette that simplified changeover and developing. Another advantage of the new system is that they had the capacity to record sound, albeit of indifferent quality. Camera bodies, and sometimes lenses, were increasingly made in plastic rather than the metals of the earlier types. As the costs of mass production came down, so did the price and these cameras became very popular.

This type of format and camera was more quickly superseded for amateurs by the advent of digital video cameras in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, amateurs increasingly started preferring smartphone cameras.[citation needed]

• Animation camera
• Camcorder
• Camera stabilizer
• Digital movie camera
• Eyemo and Filmo
• History of cinema
• List of film formats
• Konvas
• Multiplane camera
• Debrie Parvo
• Prestwich Camera
• Professional video camera
• Video camera

1. ^ Joseph and Barbara Anderson, "The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited," Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Spring 1993): 3-12. ""The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited," Journal of Film and Video, Vol". Archived from the original on 2009-11-24. Retrieved 2009-11-24.
2. ^ Ronalds, B.F. (2016). Sir Francis Ronalds: Father of the Electric Telegraph. London: Imperial College Press. ISBN 978-1-78326-917-4.
3. ^ Ronalds, B.F. (2016). "The Beginnings of Continuous Scientific Recording using Photography: Sir Francis Ronalds' Contribution". European Society for the History of Photography. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
4. ^ "The First "Movie Camera"". Sir Francis Ronalds and his Family. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
5. ^ "Picturing Motion in Photography: When Time Stands Still". Art21 Magazine. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
6. ^ Braun, Marta, (1992) Picturing Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904), p. 190, Chicago: University of Chicago Press ISBN 0-226-07173-1; Robinson, David, (1997) From Peepshow to Palace: The Birth of American Film, p. 28, New York and Chichester, West Sussex, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-10338-7)
7. ^ Spehr, Paul (2008). The Man Who Made Movies: W.K.L. Dickson. UK: John Libbey. pp. 105–111.
8. ^ Gosser (1977), pp. 206–207; Dickson (1907), part 3.
9. ^ "Polska. Informator", Wydawnictwo Interpress, Warszawa 1977 (in Polish)
10. ^ Maciej Ilowiecki, "Dzieje nauki polskiej", Wydawnictwo Interpress, Warszawa1981, ISBN 8322318766, p.202, (in Polish)
11. ^ "Polska. Zarys encyklopedyczny", PWN, Warszawa 1974 (in Polish)
12. ^ Wladyslaw Jewsiewicki, Kazimierz Prószynski, Interpress, Warsaw 1974, (in Polish)
13. ^ Alfred Liebfeld "Polacy na szlakach techniki" WKL, Warszawa 1966
14. ^ "Kazimierz Proszynski, Polish inventor". Victorian Cinema. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
15. ^ "Arthur Samuel Newman, British camera manufacturer". Victorian Cinema. Archived from the original on 12 January 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
16. ^ "ASC Museum: Bell & Howell 2709 - The American Society of Cinematographers". theasc.com. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
17. ^ Siede, Caroline (23 August 2018). "Maybe the war between digital and film isn't a war at all". AV Club. Retrieved 14 January 2019. In 2017, 92 percent of films were shot on digital.
18. ^ McGregor, Lewis (2016-07-07). "The Surprisingly Fascinating World of Frame Rates". The Beat: A Blog by PremiumBeat. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
19. ^ Buckland, Michael. The Kinamo camera, Emanuel Goldberg, and Joris Ivens. In: Film History 20 (1) (2008): 49-58. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/film_history/v020/20.1.buckland.pdf
20. ^ Ica and the Kinamo and Joris Evens. In: Buckland, Michael: Emanuel Goldberg and his Knowledge Machine. Libraries Unlimited, 2006. ISBN 0-313-31332-6. pp. 85-92 and pp. 92-95

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Movie cameras.

Eastman Kodak introduced 16 mm film in 1923, as a less expensive alternative to 35 mm film for amateurs. The same year the Victor Animatograph Corporation started producing their own 16 mm cameras and projectors. During the 1920s, the format was often referred to by the professional industry as sub-standard.[3]

Kodak hired Willard Beech Cook from his 28 mm Pathescope of America company to create the new 16 mm 'Kodascope Library'. In addition to making home movies, people could buy or rent films from the library, a key selling aspect of the format.

Intended for amateur use, 16 mm film was one of the first formats to use acetate safety film as a film base. Kodak never used nitrate film for the format, owing to the high flammability of the nitrate base. 35 mm nitrate was discontinued in 1952.

Production evolution

The silent 16 mm format was initially aimed at the home enthusiast, but by the 1930s it had begun to make inroads into the educational market. The addition of optical sound tracks and, most notably, Kodachrome in 1935, gave an enormous boost to its popularity. The format was used extensively during World War II, and there was a huge expansion of 16 mm professional filmmaking in the post-war years. Films for government, business, medical and industrial clients created a large network of 16 mm professional filmmakers and related service industries in the 1950s and 1960s. The advent of television production also enhanced the use of 16 mm film, initially for its advantage of cost and portability over 35 mm. At first used as a news-gathering format, the 16 mm format was also used to create television programming shot outside the confines of the more rigid television studio production sets. The home movie market gradually switched to the even less expensive 8 mm and Super 8 mm film formats.

16 mm, using light cameras, was extensively used for television production in many countries before portable video cameras appeared. In Britain, the BBC's Ealing-based film department made significant use of 16mm film and, during its peak, employed over 50 film crews. Throughout much of the 1960s-1990s period, these crews made use of cameras such as the Arriflex SP and Eclair NPR in combination with quarter-inch sound recorders, such as the Nagra III. Using these tools, film department crews would work on some of the most significant programmes produced by the BBC, including Man Alive, Panorama and Chronicle. Usually made up of five people, these small crews were able to work incredibly efficiently and, even in hostile environments, were able to film an entire programme with a shooting ratio of less than 5:1.[4]

Beginning in the 1950s, news organizations and documentarians in the United States frequently shot on portable Auricon and, later, CP-16 cameras that were self-blimped and had the ability to record sound on film. The introduction of magnetic striped film further improved sound fidelity.

Replacing analog video devices, digital video has made significant inroads in television production use. Nevertheless, 16 mm is still in use in its Super 16 ratio (see below) for productions seeking its specific look.

Two perforation pitches are available for 16 mm film. One specification, known as "long pitch", has a spacing of 7.62 mm (0.300 in) and is used primarily for print and reversal film stocks. Negative and intermediate film stocks have perforations spaced 7.605 mm (0.2994 in), known as "short pitch". These differences allow for the sharpest and smoothest possible image when making prints using a contact printer.

Film stocks are available in either 'single-perf' or 'double-perf', meaning the film is perforated on either one or both edges. A perforation for 16 mm film is 1.829 mm × 1.27 mm (0.0720 in × 0.0500 in) with a radius curve on all four corners of 0.25 mm (0.0098 in). Tolerances are ±0.001 mm (4×10−5 in).[5][6]

Standard 16 mm

The picture-taking area of standard 16 mm is 10.26 mm × 7.49 mm (0.404 in × 0.295 in), an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, the standard pre-widescreen Academy ratio for 35 mm. The "nominal" picture projection area (per SMPTE RP 20-2003) is 0.380 in by 0.284 in,[7] and the maximum picture projection area (per SMPTE ST 233-2003) is 0.384 in by 0.286 in,[8] each implying an aspect ratio of 1.34:1. Double-perf 16 mm film, the original format, has a perforation at both sides of every frame line. Single-perf is perforated at one side only, making room for an optical or magnetic soundtrack along the other side.

Super 16 mm

The variant called Super 16 mm, Super 16, or 16 mm Type W is an adaptation of the 1.66 aspect ratio of the "Paramount format"[9] to 16 mm film. It was developed by Swedish cinematographer Rune Ericson in 1969,[10] using single-sprocket film and taking advantage of the extra room for an expanded picture area of 12.52 mm × 7.41 mm (0.493 in × 0.292 in).

Super 16 cameras are usually 16 mm cameras that have had the film gate and ground glass in the viewfinder modified for the wider frame, and, since this process widens the frame by affecting only one side of the film, the various cameras' front mounting plate or turret areas must also be re-machined to shift and re-center the mounts for any lenses used. Because the resulting, new, Super 16 aspect ratio takes up the space originally reserved for the 16mm soundtrack, films shot in this format must be enlarged by optical printing to 35 mm for sound-projection, and, in order to preserve the proper 1.66:1, or (slightly cropped) 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratios which this format was designed to provide. And, with the recent development of digital intermediate workflows, it is now possible to digitally enlarge to a 35 mm sound print with virtually no quality loss (given a high quality digital scan), or alternatively to use high-quality video equipment for the original image capture.

In 2009, German lens manufacturer Vantage introduced a series of anamorphic lenses under its HAWK brand. These provided a 1.33× squeeze factor (as opposed to the standard 2×) specifically for the Super 16 format, allowing nearly all of the Super 16 frame to be used for 2.39:1 widescreen photography.

Ultra 16 mm

The DIY-crafted Ultra 16 is a variation of Super 16. Cinematographer Frank G. DeMarco is credited with inventing Ultra 16 in 1996 while shooting tests for Darren Aronofsky's Pi.[11] Ultra 16 is created by widening the left and right sides of the gate of a standard 16 mm camera by 0.7 mm to expose part of the horizontal area between the perforations. Perforation placement on standard 16 mm film at the divisions between frames accommodates use of these normally unexposed areas.

The Ultra 16 format, with frame dimensions of 11.66 mm × 6.15 mm (0.459 in × 0.242 in), provides a frame size between standard 16 mm and Super 16—while avoiding the expense of converting a 16 mm camera to Super 16, the larger lens-element requirements for proper aperture field coverage on Super 16 camera conversions, and, the potential image vignetting caused by trying to use some "conventional" 16 mm lenses on those Super 16 converted cameras. Thus, almost all standard 16 mm optics can now achieve the wider image in Ultra 16, but without the above pitfalls and optical "shortcomings" encountered when attempting their use for Super 16.

The image readily converts to NTSC/PAL (1.33 ratio), HDTV (1.78 ratio) and to 35 mm film (1.66 [European] and 1.85 wide screen ratios), using either the full vertical frame, or the full width (intersprocket) frame, and at times, portions of both, depending upon the required application.

The only supplier of 16 mm color reversal/negative film in 2022 is Kodak (Agfa and Fuji closed their film manufacturing facilities in the 2010s). B&W films are still produced by Foma and ORWO/Filmotec, with ORWO/Filmotec having announced to also produce color negative film „soon“.[citation needed] 16 mm film is used in television, such as for the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology (it has since been produced in 16:9 high definition) and Friday Night Lights and The O.C. as well as The Walking Dead in the US. In the UK, the format is exceedingly popular for television series such as Doc Martin, dramas and commercials. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) played a large part in the development of the format. It worked extensively with Kodak during the 1950s and 1960s to bring 16 mm to a professional level, since the BBC needed cheaper, more portable production solutions while maintaining a higher quality than was offered at the time, when the format was mostly for home display of theatrical shorts, newsreels, and cartoons, documentary capture and display for various purposes (including education), and limited "high end" amateur use.[12] As of 2016[update] the format is frequently used for student films, while usage in documentary has almost disappeared. With the advent of HDTV, Super 16 film is still used for some productions destined for HD.[12] Some low-budget theatrical features are shot on 16 mm and super 16 mm such as Kevin Smith's 16 mm 1994 independent hit Clerks, or Man Bites Dog, and Mid90s.

Thanks to advances in film stock and digital technology—specifically digital intermediate (DI)—the format has dramatically improved in picture quality since the 1970s, and is now a revitalized option. Vera Drake, for example, was shot on Super 16 mm film, digitally scanned at a high resolution, edited and color graded, and then printed out onto 35 mm film via a laser film recorder. Because of the digital process, the final 35 mm print quality is good enough to fool some professionals into thinking it was shot on 35 mm.[citation needed]

In Britain most exterior television footage was shot on 16 mm from the 1960s until the 1990s, when the development of more portable television cameras and videotape machines led to video replacing 16 mm in many instances. Many drama shows and documentaries were made entirely on 16 mm, notably Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, The Ascent of Man and Life on Earth. More recently, the advent of widescreen television has led to the use of Super 16. For example, the 2008 BBC fantasy drama series Merlin was shot in Super 16.[13]

As recently as 2010, Scrubs was shot on Super16 and aired either as 4:3 SD (first 7 seasons) or as 16:9 HD (seasons 8 and 9). John Inwood, the cinematographer of the series, believed that footage from his Aaton XTR Prod camera was not only sufficient to air in high definition, it "looked terrific".[14]

The Academy Award winning Leaving Las Vegas (1995) was shot on 16 mm.

The first two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer were shot on 16 mm and switched to 35 mm for its later seasons.

The first season of the popular series Sex and the City was shot on 16 mm. Later seasons were shot on 35 mm. All three seasons of Veronica Mars were shot on 16 mm and aired in HD. This Is Spinal Tap, and Christopher Guest's subsequent mockumentary films, are shot in Super 16 mm.

The first three seasons of Stargate SG-1 (bar the season 3 finale and the effects shots) were shot in 16 mm, before switching to 35 mm for later seasons.

Peter Jackson's 1992 zombie comedy Braindead was shot on Super 16mm, so that more of its $3 million budget could be spent on its extensive gore effects.

The 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The Hurt Locker, was shot using Aaton Super 16 mm cameras and Fujifilm 16 mm film stocks. The cost savings over 35 mm allowed the production to utilize multiple cameras for many shots, exposing over one million feet of film.[15]

British Napoleonic-era TV drama Sharpe was shot on Super 16 mm right through to the film Sharpe's Challenge (2006). For the last film in the series, Sharpe's Peril (2008), the producers switched to 35 mm.

Moonrise Kingdom was shot using super 16 mm.

Darren Aronofsky shot mother! on 16 mm.[16]

Linus Sandgren shot most of the 2018 biographical drama First Man on Super 16.[17]

Spike Lee shot the Netflix film Da 5 Bloods' flashback scenes on 16 mm film. This is part of the reason cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel was considered for an Oscar nomination. The Insider reports that Netflix was "initially concerned about having the movie's flashback scenes shot on grainy 16 mm film ... There was pushback because it opened up a lot of challenges." According to Sigel, the film stock Lee wanted to use was expensive because it is rarely used. It would be even more expensive to shoot on 16mm film while on location in Vietnam and then ship the film back to the United States to be processed at a film lab. Lee was "pretty adamant" about using 16mm for the flashbacks; Sigel said "I would never have been able to do it without such fervent support from him." Sigel had pitched to Lee the idea to shoot the Vietnam sequences using the kind of camera and film stock that would have been available during the Vietnam era.[18]

Digital 16 mm

A number of digital cameras approximate the look of the 16 mm format by using 16 mm-sized sensors and taking 16 mm lenses. These cameras include the Ikonoskop A-Cam DII (2008) and the Digital Bolex (2012). The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera (2013) and the Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera (2015) has a Super 16-sized sensor. The Z CAM E2G (2019) even offers Digital 16 mm in 4K and with a global shutter.

The professional industry tends to use 16 mm cameras from Aaton and Arri, most notably the Aaton Xtera, Aaton XTRprod, Arriflex 16SR3, and Arriflex 416. Aaton also released the A-Minima, which is about the size of a video camcorder and is used for specialized filming requiring smaller, more versatile cameras. Photo Sonics have special extremely high speed cameras for 16 mm that film at up to 1,000 frames per second. Panavision has produced the Panaflex 16, nicknamed "Elaine".

Amateur cameras

For amateur, hobbyist, and student use, it is more economical to use older models from Arri, Aaton, Auricon, Beaulieu, Bell and Howell, Bolex, Canon, Cinema Products, Eclair, Keystone, Krasnogorsk, Mitchell, and others.

Most original movie production companies that use film shoot on 35 mm. The 35 mm size must be converted or reduced to 16 mm for 16 mm systems. There are multiple ways of obtaining a 16 mm print from 35 mm. The preferred method is to strike a 16 mm negative from the original 35 mm negative and then make a print from the new 16 mm negative. A 16 mm negative struck from the original 35 mm negative is called an original. A new 16 mm print made from a print with no negative is called a reversal. 16 mm prints can be made from many combinations of size and format, each with a distinct, descriptive name:

• A 16 mm negative struck from an original 35 mm print is a print down.
• A 16 mm negative struck from an original 16 mm print that was struck from a 35 mm original is a dupe down.
• A 16 mm print struck directly from a 16 mm print is a double dupe.
• A 16 mm print struck directly from a 35 mm print is a double dupe down.

Film traders often refer to 16 mm prints by the print's production method, i.e., an original, reversal, dupe down, double dupe, or double dupe down.

Color fading of old film and color recovery

Over time, the cyan, magenta and yellow dyes that form the image in color 16 mm film inevitably fade. The rate of deterioration depends on storage conditions and the film type. In the case of Kodachrome amateur and documentary films and Technicolor IB (imbibition process) color prints, the dyes are so stable and the deterioration so slow that even prints now over 70 years old typically show no obvious problems.

Unfortunately, dyes in the far more common Eastmancolor print film and similar products from other manufacturers are notoriously unstable. Prior to the introduction of a longer-lasting "low fade" type in 1979, Eastmancolor prints routinely suffered from easily seen color shift and fading within ten years. The dyes degrade at different rates, with magenta being the longest-lasting, eventually resulting in a pale reddish image with little if any other color discernible.[19]

In the process of digitizing old color films, even badly faded source material can sometimes be restored to full color through digital techniques that amplify the faded dye colors.

• 7.62 mm per frame (40 frames per foot) for print stock—7.605 mm per frame for camera stock
• 122 m (400 feet) = about 11 minutes at 24 frame/s
• vertical pulldown

• 1.37 aspect ratio
• enlarging ratio of 1:4.58 for 35 mm Academy format prints
• camera aperture: 10.26 by 7.49 mm (0.404 by 0.295 in)
• projector aperture: 9.65 by 7.21 mm (0.380 by 0.284 in)
• projector aperture (1.85): 9.60 by 5.20 mm (0.378 by 0.205 in)
• TV station aperture: 9.65 by 7.26 mm (0.380 by 0.286 in)
• TV transmission: 9.34 by 7.01 mm (0.368 by 0.276 in)
• TV safe action: 8.40 by 6.29 mm (0.331 by 0.248 in); corner radii: 1.67 mm (0.066 in)
• TV safe titles: 7.44 by 5.61 mm (0.293 by 0.221 in); corner radii: 1.47 mm (0.058 in)
• 1 perforation per frame (may also be double perf, i.e. one on each side)
• Picture to sound separation: sound in advance of picture by 26 frames for optical sound and 28 frames for magnetic.

• 1.66 aspect ratio
• camera aperture: 12.52 by 7.41 mm (0.493 by 0.292 in)
• projector aperture (full 1.66): 11.76 by 7.08 mm (0.463 by 0.279 in)
• projector aperture (1.85): 11.76 by 6.37 mm (0.463 by 0.251 in)
• 1 perforation per frame, always single perf

• 1.85 aspect ratio
• camera aperture: 11.66 mm by 7.49 mm (0.459 by 0.295 in)
• projector aperture: 11.66 mm by 6.15 mm (0.459 by 0.242 in)
• 1 perforation per frame (may also be double perf, i.e. one on each side)

•  Film portal

• List of film formats
• Sync sound
• Pilottone

• Direct cinema
• Cinéma vérité
• Docufiction
• Ethnographic film
• Ethnofiction

1. ^ Kattelle, Alan (2000). Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897–1979. Transition Publishing. p. 334. ISBN 0-9654497-8-5.
2. ^ Kattelle, Alan (2000). Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897–1979. Transition Publishing. p. 231. ISBN 0-9654497-8-5.
3. ^ Eisloeffel, Paul (2013). "16mm Format History" (PDF). Archives Filmworks. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
4. ^ Ellis, John; Hall, Nick (November 9, 2017). "ADAPT". Figshare. doi:10.17637/rh.c.3925603.v1.
5. ^ "Film specifications" (PDF). Kodak. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-26. Retrieved 2019-04-20.
6. ^ "How to Read a Kodak Film Can Label" (PDF). Kodak. 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-23. Retrieved 2019-04-20.
7. ^ Specifications for 16-mm Registration Test Film. doi:10.5594/SMPTE.RP20.2003. ISBN 978-1-61482-073-4.
8. ^ For Motion-Picture Film (16-mm) — Projectable Image Area and Projector Usage. doi:10.5594/SMPTE.ST233.2003. ISBN 978-1-61482-382-7.
9. ^ Jones, Andy (2014). "Beyond HD". BBC Academy. Archived from the original on 2014-12-19. Retrieved 2019-04-20.
10. ^ "The Early Years of Super 16 and How it All Started – Film and Digital Times". Film and Digital Times. August 20, 2009.
11. ^ Gullickson, Brad (May 29, 2018). "Frank G. DeMarco On Capturing Punk Rock Grit in "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"". Film School Rejects. Retrieved July 19, 2018.
12. ^ a b Ferrari, Alex (2016-10-17). "How to Shoot Super 16mm Film Tutorials". Indie Film Hustle. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
13. ^ "Mill TV Taps Baselight to Work Magic for BBC's 'Merlin'". Archived from the original on July 18, 2011.
14. ^ "A new HD frontier for Scrubs" (PDF). Retrieved November 1, 2009.
15. ^ Macaulay, Scott (November 14, 2011). "Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd Discusses Oscar Winner The Hurt Locker". Filmmaker Magazine.
16. ^ Thorsteinsson, Ari Gunnar (October 11, 2016). "Darren Aronofsky on His Private Writing Process, Fighting Financiers and His Mysterious New Film". indiewire.com. Retrieved December 2, 2021.
17. ^ Kadner, Noah (January 7, 2019). "Moon Walk: First Man". ASC Magazine. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
18. ^ Sharf, Zack (2020-06-18). "'Da 5 Bloods' Cinematographer Says Netflix Pushed Back Against Spike Lee Using 16mm Film". IndieWire. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
19. ^ "A History of Low Fade Color Print Stocks". In70mm.com. 1963-07-11. Retrieved 2014-05-20.

• Demonstration of a BBC 16mm film crew preparing to shoot
• Discussion and demonstration of 16mm film cameras by former BBC cameraman
• Demonstration of 'lacing up' a 16mm film camera
• History of sub-35 mm Film Formats & Cameras
• SUPER-16 modification of Bolex Reflex 16 mm camera
• "Sweet 16: A-list Cinematographers Say the Emulsion's Never Looked So Good, Here's Why...", written February 1, 2005, and accessed December 29, 2005.
• DIY processing 16 mm – guide for DIY processing of black/white 16 mm film
• Early list of films shot in Super16

(Wayback Machine copy)