[Frameworks] Bell & Howell Film 70 series

[Dave Tetzlaff]

Missed this thread before…

The Filmo 16 dates from the 1930s and there were many iterations over the years, including the military models used by combat photogs in WWII. Those weren’t actually model 70’s, but basically the same guts. 

Only the later Filmos are really modern enough to be useful, the 70dl and 70dr. The dr has the finder-objective and taking-lens turrets geared so they turn together, The dl has two turret that turn separately. 

The original 70d has a single finder where different aperture masks roitate in to show different focal lengths. In all but the widest setting the windows are too small to see anything. I consider that finder unusable. The 70d also had a double-claw for double-perf film. You can modify it for single perf, but it’s hardly worth the work unless you get a body for free and are very handy and into DIY.

Filmos have the issues common to spring drive non-reflex MOS cameras, just to varying degrees: 

One of these is that you need a different and matched finder objective for each prime lens. This either limits you to what you get when you buy the camera, or sets you out on a time consuming quest to find individual parts on eBay or elsewhere. You find a nice used wide lens, but never a finder objective to match. Or the objective costs more than the lens, etc. etc. 

Another issue is the spacing between the three mount positions on the turret. If the width of two lens barrels are too wide, they won’t go in simultaneously. A long lens with a long barrel might appear in the frame of a short lens with a short barrell, and of course that won’t show in the parralax finder. On the Filmo, there’s also the question if the rear of the lens barrels clears the side or top of the turret center nut.

IOW, while the body may be inexpensive, you be stuck either with meh lenses that came with it, or forced into getting more expensive lenses, since than you might otherwise, since (of course) the available cheap-and-decent options don’t fit…

Many decades ago, I had a student who obtained a Revere. He did single-frame animation with it, and regular shoots. It served him well. I’m not sure an “upgrade” will really get you much, unless you can move up to something like a Bolex. 
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One alternative to a Filmo is a Kodak K-100. It has a longer spring run than a Filmo a more usable finder, and iot does single frame. Again, locating finder objectives other than whatever you get with the body is an issue, and they didn’t make any wider than 15mm. (There are 12.5mm and 10mm objectives for B&H)
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One reason a non-reflex Bolex is the MOS ‘standard’ is the Octameter finder, which has a decent sized image and adjusts to a useful variety of focal lengths. 
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I haven’t kept up with the used 16mm market on eBay.. But, 15 years back, say, a patient and thorough buyer could eventually get quite a bargain on a Bolex –– something with a mistaken or poor listing but a picture showing a desirable model, lens, general condition, etc.

Buying anything on eBay can be a pig-in-poke matter, but especially 16mm gear and especially a Bolex. Bolexes don’t have long spring runs to begin with, and if they sit for years and tears with any tension in the spring, the spring will start to loose poop. Those potential ‘bargain’ listings will be from people closing out an estate who don’t really know anything about cameras. So they’ll wind up the spring a bit, push the shutter, hear it run, and describe it as working fine, not knowing that this doesn’t mewan anything unless it’s actually loaded with film. Such folks also are unlikely to know how to check lenses, for things like separation, or stuck rings etc.

So, while you could maybe get a bargain, and I did, you could also get burned, and I did. I was trying to build a stock for use in a school program, and it was still cheaper to absorb the lemons than to just buy stuff of known quality from dealers charging as such. But I wouldn’t do it again. As it turned out, the Bolexes were still too expensive - in the context of the maintenance required to counter the abuse they got from beginning students. So, eventually, I sold off the Bolex stuff and moved everything toward K-100s, which would regularly appear cheap enough that we could consider them semi-diposable, cheaper than a similarly usable Filmo, which woukld have been my second choice…


The one thing about a Filmo bargain you might find on eBay, it will probably either work fine, or be fairly easily fixed, e.g. after a proper oiling… 

But if your Revere is working fine, you have a bird in the hand, so to speak…

[I don’t remember the finder particulars for the Reveres… I think at least one version may have used B&H finders ???]

P.S. I don’t care for Bolex reflex models. Too quirky for the $$$ ionvolved in getting a good one.

P.S.S. On the non-reflex Bolex, realize the older ones with the chrome speed dial are far less desirable/valuable than the newer ones with black speed dials. I would avoid investing in one of those...