Here are my latest pairing, all the way from the U.S. of A!
Best part about this one... no Customs Charges or delays incurred by the "Dick Turpin" lookalikes! (At least he wore a mask!)... Hoorah!!!
It's nice to be on the winning side of the fence every once in a while.+

Anyhow, not watched either of them yet, just tidied up the boxes somewhat but later this evening, it all begins here... begins again!

(Jungle Book not included, already had it out when the others arrived so it seemed a pity to leave it out the team shoot Ha ha.



another step nearer to completion now.

Andrew what is it like ordering from USA etc, with customs, is it that hit and miss?

It can be astronomically expensive Steve. By having a rapport, trust and confidence between a seller and buyer, things can be alleviated slightly.

I have a lot to thank my last few sellers for in their cooperation in assisting me with such matters recently.

In the past I have been stung to death by certain individuals despite my very best efforts to do sensible trusting business.

I am at the stage now in my collecting days where I hope both my experience and reputation with oversees sellers ensures I am a trustworthy member of the community who just likes for the funds to go to the seller and not 50% to UK taxation system. Especially when the tax has already been paid once on these goods when they were sold from here new!

Any screen shots yet Andrew?.

I've still no screen yet Steve let alone screenshots! Ha ha.
Today I'm taking a radiator off to decorate behind.when all is finally finished and believe me, I cannot bloody wait! Ha ha,my electric screen finally reappears from the loft and gets proudly put in its place again, hopefully for another decade.

Anyhow Steve,as you've asked, I will give them both another viewing this evening and get some small casual shots from a wall again just for you to get a feel for them later tonight.

What I can say is I was extremely pleasantly surprised by the print quality regarding Mermaid. I know this took some criticism when released for not being as sharp as the rest, but to my eyes at least, it looked pretty good to me.

As sharp as some of the other Disney titles I have and no noticeable print defects or flaws.

I will be happy to hear what others think surrounding this issue later this evening and would also be curious to find out if the soft focussed prints were just some of a first released batch or were apparently applicable to all of the Mermaid prints?

Totally agree on the customs front Andrew, blatant robbery, I have been lucky in the past a couple of times, sometimes a helpful seller
will help on valuation, but if its through Pitney Bowes on ebay, forget it.

Any ideas on the Mermaid print Hugh? I know Disney isn't your bag but you've been around the hobby long enough that I figured you may have heard some old talk surrounding this particular print?

Are later ones better prints than the first released do you think?
Maybe others might know such as David etc etc?

Funnily enough Andrew, I actually owned one for a short time, never watched it, it was part payment on a bathroom tiling job I did some years ago locally. As you rightly say, I'm not a Disney fan, but do like the older "drawn" titles. Needless to say it was sold on very
sharpish. From what I gather, it wasn't one of Derann's sharpest prints, although to be fair, they can only work from master material given to them, which is a shame for collectors like yourself that enjoy them. I have been looking through the copies of "Film For The
Collector", to see what Keith Wilton made of it, but so far I have drawn a blank, but I shall carry on looking, its bound to be in there
somewhere.

Thanks Hugh, i have some copies but not all by any means, so knowing my luck, it'd be in one of the ones I don't have!

Thanks a ton for looking Hugh...most appreciated!

Ok these are the shots I obtained from our very ordinary digital camera of Mermaid.

The problem I am going to have here until I have time to do this thing again, is that Mermaid was wrongly photographed as I now realize from too close range when using the Beaulieu. The images on playback from the video footage are blisteringly bright and lose lots of definition by comparison to actually seeing it on the wall in real life.

I will shoot Sleeping Beauty from much further back and post in around 40 minutes. Hopefully i may just about have time to shoot reel 2 of Mermaid in the same circumstances.
Anyhow for now least, for what it is worth,here is reel 1 of Mermaid taken on brand new textured cream coloured wallpaper from around 3ft away using a Beaulieu c/w a Schneider f1.1 lens and what is apparently now, a very bright bulb! lol

I personally though, still don't think the sharpness is too big an issue here, just the saturation in this instance. I will get a much better impression when shot over a far greater distance.

Ok onto S.B. No comparison really under the circumstances, anyhow i will try and post Mermaid in a similar light once I get the opportunity.

This is reel 1 of S.B. from 23ft same machine and lens and no scope lens used just to keep things equal for both prints despite this one being a Scope Stereo film from Derann. One of only a few from the Disney studios.

I have to say this is a beautiful unmarked print and a real credit to it's previous owner and I certainly will make it one of my lifetimes work to keep it that way!

I gotta say, I just love these rich vibrant colourful images that just bounce off the screen with these Disney prints. It almost takes you back to 1977 when those original WDHM shorts were brand spanking new and beautifully colourful! Just sensational!

ok that's it for one night, Night Night all and see you all tomorrow God willing!

Fantastic colours Andrew. Very good screenshots, they are not easy to take, at least I don't find so. I take maybe 20 and lucky to get 5 that are in focus due to the movement on screen. Well done. How can digital beat the experience of watching this.

Indeed Robert. The secret I've found to gaining any sort of reasonable screen shots even remotely good enough to show anyone, is as Vidar knows, to shoot them as a motion picture video and then capture stills from it just as the shutter on the projector is wide open.

Trying just to take a still photo of moving pictures is really difficult because you are doing it in the dark for the most part and therefore cannot use a really fast camera shutter speed as would be best.

The image you obtain in a fraction of a second can be anything from a closed projector shutter blank shot to shutter perfectly wide open giving you a decent capture.

Using video allows you to stop the footage anywhere so as to obtain only the still photos that you consider are captured with the PJ shutter wide open.

Most of the time I am watching B&W films, so had to set the camera for B&W otherwise I got a yellowish picture. Also set it on P, whatever that is, instead of Auto. I took some video on my smartphone, I'd like to know what the speed is of the video as I don't get flicker on it, as I do when I use a camcorder. Pity they don't make camcorders to run at the same speed then copying home movies would be a doddle. I found that if I watched films in daylight, and projected the picture about 6 feet from the screen I could get great photos from my digital camera.

Beautiful Andrew, just wish some of my films had retained as much colour, it's nice to see a Super 8 colour film in COLOUR!.

There are many hundreds if not thousands of Super 8mm films that look like this Steve. It is just a case of capturing the ones that are on post 82 film stock and ensuring if not, they were printed on LPP or similar.

Obviously they cost more, these after all are the sought after prints, but it's worth it to me because I doubt they will ever fade in my lifetime at least.

I have also many partially faded prints Steve of which I still thoroughly enjoy. A little bit of fade here and there on the right titles does not bother me at all.

It's on film, it's a film I enjoy, the thrill of the reel is still the same.

For capturing video Robert you really need a two bladed shutter projector running at 25fps as the Beaulieu can do.

This is the reason this projector has "Video Transfer Capability" written on its lamp house cover. It is the best by far I find for doing this work though having said all of that, the images taken on here are all taken with the projector locked down electronically to 24fps as I was enjoying actually watching the films on these occasions.

Andrew, have you ever tried using filters for faded prints?, Hugh Scott is the man for this. Its possible to restore some films to almost normal colour; some people don't like them saying they reduce the light reaching the screen, but it wasn't a problem for me. Is faded right, I was thinking of those prints turning red.

I have yes Robert and to varying effect. The best I have came from a very good friend of mine, Mr Keith Ashfield.

It certainly improves things no end but I am never thrilled at losing brightness or any sharpness on a print, hence the reason why I am also not a huge fan of even the very best scope lenses that you can place in front of your projectors lens.

I use them when necessary but much prefer flat prints on Super 8.
I know I am of a minority in saying this but clarity and sharpness of a print on both picture as well as soundtrack are of the highest importance to me.

Yes Andrew I do not mind too faded prints I have been experimenting with camera glass filters, blue is not too bad, but the one I find the most natural is the yellow/green filter, it just works for me, and I also find that because they are available in various ring sizes (Oh, er, misses) they fit on the lens a treat with no added tape or such like, also the glass ones let more light through, or to my eyes they do.

Ha ha ha Steve..cheeky!
Like a carry on sketch there for a moment.

I found yellow and green the best combination too Steve, they can make an unwatchable print watchable . One film I have is totally red, but turning the sky blue does seem to give it a sense of normality. More than 95% of my films, other than my own home movies are B&W.

Well that combination of yellow/green brought my 4 x 400ft Derann Robin Hood back to life, it still has a lot of colour but varies from reel to reel, I have it edited correctly, one part being about 1,000ft on a 10.5 reel the last part on a 600ft reel. The Maid Marion reel is very soft focus, but I can stand that, as I enjoy the movie so much. At the very least you get Lincoln Green and instead of nasty red hue you get brownish hues which appeal to me. I remember when I hired a new print of 'That'll Be The Day', I think I was the first at our local library to hire it, this Derann print had a brownish hue all the way through

'That'll be the Day' was on TV only a few days ago, I saw it at the cinema, then bought some of the original singles used in the soundtrack. Doesn't David Essex look young.