Ideas for modifying a motorised 24x36 camera to shoot 12x36 in the lower and upper part of the frame?

I just saw a 20 min movie on Mubi.com shot on the crappy LomoKino - inspiring but looked too bad for my liking.

I do like the idea of a 3-4 frame per second movie on analog film, though.

I am playing with the idea of doing something similar in panoramic format with a regular motorised camera (at 3-4 frames per second).

This is my thinking:

1. Masking the upper part of the filmgate and run the film through the camera exposing only the lower part- that should give around 10 seconds "movie".
2. Rewind the film and move the film gate mask to the lower part and repeat.
3. Process and assemble the images to a 3-4 fps movie.

I am thinking about using a Nikon F801/N8008 or F90/N90 cameras as they are cheap and plentiful.

I imagine this would interfere with AF and light metering, but I plan to use it in full anyway.


I am aware that it may not be possible to achieve a razor sharp edgealignment between the upper and lower exposure, but a 10X36mm effective frame would be totally acceptable.

What could be a robust (and preferably reversible) way to achieve the masking?
In front or behind the shutter?
What material and means of attachment could be used?

Any ideas would be appreciated.


PS: The LomoKino film mentioned above was "Ashes" by Thai Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul https://mubi.com/en/at/films/ashes

Ok, not many bids on this one

Update: I just found an old Cokin filter holder and thought I may try to see if I can do the masking in front of the lens.

I may have to experiment with focal lengths and apertures in order to get a sufficiently sharp transition between mask and picture halfs.

If this approach works, it would be the easiest by far.

might be easier to just put a better lens on the lomo.

How would you project the movies? You would digitize them? If so it's not worth the effort. If I shoot film I want to view it with the projector.

ic-racer said:

might be easier to just put a better lens on the lomo.

Click to expand...

It is not so much the lens. The Lomo box is impossible to hold reasonably still when cranking and on top of that, every second or third image is blurred due to the poor film transport, so it doesn't even help to put it on a tripod.
The LomoKino is a great idea but too cheaply implemented IMO.

Hmmm. 4ips with a 36 exposure roll ==> <= 9 seconds/roll = 9 seconds/shot. Limiting.

4ips * 60sec/min*20 min = 4800 frames = 133 rolls of film. 67 rolls if you can make your masking scheme work. $$$

Re the masking scheme, in camera mask is probably the way to go.

If you really want to make "projectable" movies and are committed to the Nikon F mount, look into used Nikon DSLRs, a couple of generations back, that will shoot movies. I just looked for 'em on eBay, want to get my wife back to shooting flowers. They're less expensive than I expected. Depreciation ...

If you have the budget and desire to do things as you've laid out above, go for it and have a good time.

Nitroplait said:

It is not so much the lens. The Lomo box is impossible to hold reasonably still when cranking and on top of that, every second or third image is blurred due to the poor film transport, so it doesn't even help to put it on a tripod.
The LomoKino is a great idea but too cheaply implemented IMO.

Click to expand...

Oh, that is too bad.

How about someting like this:

Eyemos shoot on academy format, basically half-frame, so you wouldn`t get a panoramic picture. Unless you use an anamorphic lens before the actual lens. This would be big, heavy, expensive and image quality was dependent on lens quality - there also are uncoated lenses for the eyemo.
An eyemo does about 12lbs without anamorphic lens i think and slowest speed is 8fps - on the later models. This here is an earlier model and slowest speed is 16fps.

Nitroplait said:

Ok, not many bids on this one

Update: I just found an old Cokin filter holder and thought I may try to see if I can do the masking in front of the lens.

I may have to experiment with focal lengths and apertures in order to get a sufficiently sharp transition between mask and picture halfs.

If this approach works, it would be the easiest by far.

Click to expand...

So could you mask (top or bottom) then do like the old standard 8mm and flip the film, process then split it into 2 single perf 16mm? It would need horizontal projection like 70mm Imax. In my cluttered mind 12x36mm sounds pretty !

mshchem said:

So could you mask (top or bottom) then do like the old standard 8mm and flip the film, process then split it into 2 single perf 16mm? It would need horizontal projection like 70mm Imax. In my cluttered mind 12x36mm sounds pretty !

Click to expand...

Great idea (if impractical).
This is the Analog section of Photrio so I hardly dare say that my results would probably end up scanned to viewed and edited into other film/video projects. The LomoKino results also requires scanning to be viewed - there is no projection solution as far as I know.

I have gotten totally sucked into the double 8 rabithole recently and love the results and texture, and would love to work with larger formats.
The Eyemo suggested by @ic-racer is really tempting (i think Wim Wenders used one and said it holds 1 minute worth of film), but the cost of running it would be prohibitive.
Double 8 and Super 8 is already pretty spicy.

The idea of masking a motorised still camera would be to add visual variations to my 8mm projects. If the masking idea fails, I may just shoot the still camera in the regular manner and crop afterwards, but I hate to waste film unnecessarily.

Nitroplait said:

I imagine this would interfere with AF and light metering, but I plan to use it in full anyway.

Click to expand...

AF and light metering go via the mirror. Only exposure-time adjustments like TTL flash measurement would be affected by something that interferes with the film gate. Your idea should work in principle.

Nitroplait said:

What could be a robust (and preferably reversible) way to achieve the masking?
In front or behind the shutter?
What material and means of attachment could be used?

Click to expand...

You want something behind the shutter and as close to the film as possible to get the 'cleanest' cut between both halves of the exposure and also to reduce issues with flare. I'd personally start with something like matte black cardstock or plasticard and just tape that into the film gate, just behind the shutter.

Nitroplait said:

Great idea (if impractical).
This is the Analog section of Photrio so I hardly dare say that my results would probably end up scanned to viewed and edited into other film/video projects. The LomoKino results also requires scanning to be viewed - there is no projection solution as far as I know.

I have gotten totally sucked into the double 8 rabithole recently and love the results and texture, and would love to work with larger formats.
The Eyemo suggested by @ic-racer is really tempting (i think Wim Wenders used one and said it holds 1 minute worth of film), but the cost of running it would be prohibitive.
Double 8 and Super 8 is already pretty spicy.

The idea of masking a motorised still camera would be to add visual variations to my 8mm projects. If the masking idea fails, I may just shoot the still camera in the regular manner and crop afterwards, but I hate to waste film unnecessarily.

Click to expand...

The Eyemo uses daylight load reels like regular 8 mm. That would be handy in the field