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Buying 16mm film off Ebay

posted 12 years ago by FletcherofLocksley
1 reply | jump to latest

I have a Bolex paillard. I used it in film school, but didn't really stray from buying color negative directly from Kodak. Now, I'm becoming more bold, but I still don't know what to do.

I know to never buy kodachrome; however, are these film stocks okay?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-ROLLS-of-KODAK-IMAGELINK-HQ-16mm-x-100ft-MI CROFILM-9-New-and-1-Opened-box-/151031346263?pt=US_Camera_Film&has h=item232a2b7457
What is Kodak Imagelink? Is it a good stock? Can I still get it developed? I usually use Fotokem.

What about this one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/KODAK-POSITIVE-16MM-100ft-SAFETY-MOVIE-FILM-EX PIRED-UNOPENED-OLD-/261204882198?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3c d1063316
What is a positive film? Does that mean reversal? Is this film in black and white or color?

Thank you for your answers. Should I be asking this question somewhere else?

Geronimo

[–] dangus 12 years ago

A wild guess is that "microfilm" would have fine grain and low speed, so it might only be suitable for movies in bright daylight conditions.

As for age... I stumbled across an undeveloped but exposed roll of film that was about 25 years old. When developed, the unexposed parts were grey rather than clear, but the images were there.

If you're making art films where defects and surprises are good things, then using ancient stock of unknown condition makes sense. (I seem to remember reading about some filmmaker deliberately processing colour film using black and white chemistry and getting "interesting" effects.)

And, yes, I'm sure there's a forum somewhere that is more suitable than this.