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| Beaulieu 4008 with Schneider Kreuznach 1:0,95/50 | Beaulieu 4008 with Schneider Kreuznach 1:1,5/25 |
Super8 was developed for consumers, both the format and the cameras were designed to deliver acceptable results without demanding to much knowledge from the user. Therefore the necessary controls of a motion picture camera were hidden behind a simplyfiyng user interface, with automatics and presets making sure that the user will have little possibility to interfere and screw things up. Unfortunately this also limits the full exploitation of the medium. Beaulieu did not follow this philosophy, and made a camera that used the simple super8 cartridge, but otherwise had inherited all controls of the previous manual cameras. This made it the most versatile super8 camera. But for the unsavvy user it is certainly not the easiest one to operate.
If your asking yourself what camera to buy, the answer in this case is easy. if you are just playing around with super8, you will likely be very frustrated with a Beaulieu. I'd recommend to go for the top models from Canon, Nikon, Nizo or Bauer. They are equipped with the best lenses and will deliver excellent results, without burdening to much. If you want to learn every possible thing about filmmaking, the Beaulieu won't disappoint you, and you might soon outgrow other cameras.
They look terribly cool. Certainly a good part is nostalgia, the 4008 carries all signs of the good, old times, and you can litterally see the skilled technicians assembling, testing and adjusting the cameras in the factory. It has a hand-made flavor so very different from the today's ubiquitous plastic that is so much more efficient, cheaper, and disposable. The old school design of the Beaulieu has it's advantages. It is hand made. It can be hand repaired. A skilled person will almost certainly bring a dead 4008 back to life again. I've disassembled several 4008, and the simplicity of the construction is stunning. Just like the spring-wound Bolex cameras, the Beaulieus will work forever, since they are completely built out of very simple and trivial parts. With most other cameras I have, it's once they're broken, they're gone. They seem not to be made to be repaired, sometimes you even have to break parts to get deeper to find the defect.
When handholding, not everybody wil be happy with the small handgrip, which obviously is made that way for design reasons. The shutter button also is not really comfortable. Other than that the ergonomics of the camera are quite good compared to other super8 cameras I used. The "on" switch is pressed automatically as soon as you hold the handgrip, making it immediately ready to film. All other controls are easy to find and operate. The finder is very bright and big, what makes focussing easy.
A Beaulieu 4008 is a very simple camera. Very simple. After knowing the basics of cinematography, you completely understand the way everything works, and you can use it to do exactly what you want. Any type of automatism takes this control away from you, and starts to make decisions of it's own. Fine for average images in average situations, but as soon as you have your own vision, this just gets in your way. It's confident to have such an easy instrument, and be able to rely on it. You're in control. This is why the Beaulieu is considered by many to be the most "professional" camera of the super8 family. In the end, I consider it easier to operate the essential controls myself than having to invent ways to work around automatic presets when I want to do something that someone in 1969 did not think of. It offers a convenient auto mode, too, by the way.
Back in the 70s the exchangeable lens thing might have been only a theoretical option given such special lenses costed a fortune. Today all these optical gems are available cheap on ebay. I paid $27 for the f0,95 lens mentioned above.
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| Beaulieu 4008 with Schneider Kreuznach 1:0,95/50 | Beaulieu 4008 with Schneider Kreuznach 1:1,5/25 |
But take it with a grain of salt. The c-mount’s big tolerances, together with the Beaulieu’s viewer system, can make it necessary to have the lens adjusted to the camera body. This seems to be true especially for wide lenses, although I would have guessed otherwise. If I were you, I’d simply try it out. Get a lens, pop in a roll, and see how the results are. If you like them, you’ll be fine. If not, then you can best contact Bjorn Andersson for adjusting the lens to the body
The Bealieu leaves a lot of things to the user. The daylight filter has to be activated with a key instead of a comfortable switch. Setting the film speed accordingly has to be done manually. You can ruin your footage easily when you forget to adjust the setting. But you can use any filmstock available without any further worries, because you're camera is not limited to film speed presets defined in the sixties. Think of filmstocks like the new PlusX, or the Vision family.
ASA setting
Last not least, the Beaulieu is with one switch set to complete manual mode. The meter is still active, but you can walk the entire set with your light meter, calculate, and set everything exactly as you like to have it according to your own zone system. The auto mode produces, as to be expected, nice results under average circumstances. When lighting gets complex, high contrast, strong backlight, change of lighting while the camera is running, or you simply want to achieve a certain result, it's great to be able to switch to manual mode without having to worry about any automatic stuff outsmarting you.
Main switch with manual, auto, and test setting
On a Beaulieu, you can set any speed between 2fps and 70fps, the ZM4 model allows even 80fps. In general, super8 cameras offer only fixed preset speeds, additional to the normal speed of 18fps or 24fps a slow motion, mostly 48fps, and a time lapse speed ranging from single frame to 8fps.
I consider it both an important end easy to use feature of the camera. Filming just a little faster than the normal speed produces a very subtle slow motion effect, as often seen in features and commercials. Increasing the speed while filming, starting from normal and ending to max, would continuously slow down the action. Or speed it up, if done the other way round. Certainly not for every days filming, but it expands your possibilities.
That's a totally overrated feature in my opinion. The ZM4 and some of the ZM II models offer the capability to rewind the film and double expose it, and fetch a considerable premium for this. God for spooky effects, or for smooth, pro-looking dissolves. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, in real life I never ever used that feature, although I have the necessary accessories. It's just to cumbersome. You need a third hand to operate it, and have the camera on a tripod. If you need that feature, best get a Bauer 715XL, or one of the later Beaulieus, which do this automatically.
A lot of common knowledge around the Beaulieus is, unfortunately, not based on facts.
Beaulieu fans will often claim that their favorite camera is built like a tank and will never ever break down under no circumstances. This is unfortunately not true. The Beaulieu is indeed a mechanical camera, built in a solid, heavy way very different from the cheapo plastic we've gotten used to these days. While nothing will fall of this camera, or simply break, or whatever - the mechanics need to be serviced, cleaned, lubed and adjusted in order to work properly. The camera has to be treated carefully, like any mechanical product.
The other extreme states that Beaulieus are so unreliable that they are not usable for practical work. A primadonna camera, that constantly needs to be pampered, that sometimes will work, and most of the times won't work. Nonsense, of course. A properly maintained Beaulieu is as reliable as a camera can be. Most of this is originated by frustrated ebay bargains, poor cameras that spent 20 years rotting in a basement and were bought way to expensive.
Unlike most super8 cameras that run with standard cells, Beaulieu decided to use rechargeable batteries. Charging was done in the camera with an ac adaptor. Seems quite a revolutionary concept to me, I remember that most consumer devices until the 90s had to be charged externally, and were not meant to run with rechargeable batteries in the first place. After 30 years, these batteries are of course dead or close to dead, what leads to the forementioned unreliability myth. Since Beaulieu decided to use a not-so-frequent battery type, most people give up or invent workarounds. Indeed, a little craft and time or some $$ are needed to bring the battery back to life, but I believe it can be done. Not as easy as inserting a couple of standard cells like most super8 cameras.
You probably know that every super8 camera is equipped with a built-in filter, necessary to film in daylight with filmstock balanced for artificial light. In the 4008 and 5008 cameras, Beaulieu chose to use gelatine based filters, which are unfortunately prone to aging. Common knowledge claims that these filters are junk, and need to be removed to unleash the full potential of the lens. This is a misunderstanding. The filters in good state of course do not degrade the image! If the filters are damaged, though, it is a better idea to have them replaced by a knowledgeable serviceman than to simply remove them.