First time shooting with the Bolex-Paillard-P1

First time shooting with the Bolex-Paillard-P1

I just came back from shooting the first half of the first double 8 roll.

It was the first decent sunshine in weeks, so I felt it needed to be done now or never. Mistakes have been made...

I must have loaded the film crooked, somewhat, because after the first 5 seconds it got stuck. So I had to open the film chamber and fix that, loosing part of the frames of course. But I wanted to fix it on the field, just to see what impact that will have.

Next it got stuck again, or so I thought...

I opened up again, this time, no movement, darn...

I forgot to wind up this time. 

From here on things went smoother.

First thing I learned, even though my film is 100 ISO,

Direct sunlight is too bright, I might need to use some ND filters or shoot in higher frame rates to compensate.

I will have to develop the footage to confirm this though.

I managed to develop some workflow before each recording:

• Lock the camera
• Wind up the motor
• Check frame rate
• Check ISO setting
• Check how much film is left on the roll
• Zoom in all the way on the subject
• Set the focus
• Set the exposure
• Zoom to best framing, shoot

In general these steps are always good to check, even with a digital camera. Just replace the camera specific steps with:

• Check recording is off
• Check battery state
• Check how much storage is left

I learned a lot today, but I also will have to repeat a lot to remember it all and make it automatic.

Double 8 film needs to be turned over after the roll was shot on one side, so there is another side to shoot before I can develop.

I also need to get accustomed to looking at how many meters of the film have been shot, since I forgot this entirely on my first shoot. 

Alex H.

December 02, 2024