It was the kind of garden Percy Grainger turned into music - all roses, leafy bowers and green velvet. It should have been dappled with sunlight. But, half an hour before we started to film, clouds rolled in from the sea and spread like a huge stain.
I looked through the viewfinder of the Canon 814. The light, it said, was somewhere between f/1.4 and f/2. We couldn't wait. Everything was organised - models from London, attended by chain-smoking wenches who'd been pinning and powdering them in the most unlikely places, the still cameraman with his Mamiyaflex at the ready, taking incident readings as the sky darkened ... and everyone wondering whether we could do the job before the clouds opened.
One by one, the girls came out, wearing the fabulous new creations, did their little mincing steps and ballerina twirls. The still cameraman clicked away ... and the Canon whirred. I was grateful for the slap-it-in cartridges enabling me to get it all onto film; the models didn't waste any time and, as soon as one had done her stuff, another appeared.
I was glad I didn't have to take meter readings ... and even the zoom lens was a godsend.
The still photographer was the real reason for the proceedings. But Madame, who dreamed up this collection of far out designs, thought she'd like a little film to show her friends at home. I told her colour slides would probably be better - but it had to be a movie.
A year ago I would have used standard 8 probably an H8 loaded with a 100ft spool of K.Il. But, a few weeks before this unexpected session in a Sussex garden, a funny thing happened to me. Funny? You may think it sad.
I had an opportunity to acquire a Bolex H8 at a knockdown price. As you know, this was the most professional 8mm camera ever designed - except of course it was really designed for l6mm and subsequently modified for use with the bootlace.
Acting on Oscar Wilde's dictum that the best way to overcome a temptation is to yield to it, I bought the camera and went home happily convinced I could rekindle the ashes of my old love.
Just to get my hand in again, I loaded it with a 50ft spool and wandered into town for some carefree potshottery. Nothing seemed to go right. Instead of being pleased that I could now use incident light readings, I found the separate meter a nuisance; I couldn't read it without glasses and I didn't have three hands.
The octarneter-viewfinder was a bit of a joke, too, giving a miserably dim little picture that ill compared with the big, bright reflex screen I'd been using.
For a while, I carefully set the focusing ring, but got tired of first taking a reading from the telephoto lens in front of the reflex finder and then transferring it to the 12 - 5nun lens. And again, I was having trouble fishing in my pocket for reading glasses, setting the lens, putting the glasses back in my pocket ...
Hell, I thought, this is the way to make hard work of it. So I set the lens to the hyperfocal distance - and pined for the microdots in the viewfinder of my Canon. I knew then that I'd been seduced - or maybe Uncle isn't as young as he used to be. But it confirmed what I've suspected; once you've done things the easy way, you never again want to make life difficult for yourself.
The old Bolex cameras were magnificent pieces of machinery, capable of excellent results. But look through the viewfinder of the D.8, B.8, or C.8 ... put your eye to that ridiculous little spy hole and, if you've been using a modem reflex camera for any length of time, you'll marvel that the designers of what were generally acknowledged to be top cameras couldn't do any better. Yet it never occurred to me when I was a Bolex enthusiast that the viewfinder was only for young eyes.
It's strange. I now take for granted many of the 'features' I once vociferously opposed when they first appeared. At one time, I thought automatic light meters were a bit of a disaster; now, with the proviso that I can also have manual setting when I need it, I find that TTL metering is more than adequate for ninety per cent of all the shooting I do.
I didn't much welcome electric motors. It was a comfortable, reassuring feeling to know that one always had power in one's wrist. But since the advent of alkaline batteries, I've never run out of juice at the critical moment - and they are less trouble.
The super 8 cartridge offended every engineering instinct I possess. Imagine a camera without a properly designed gate and pressure-pad! But once Kodak had quietly done whatever they did to improve cartridge reliability, reports of cartridge failure became rare.
More interesting (and quite baffling to the theorists), the super 8 cartridge gives a remarkable standard of picture steadiness better, in fact than most standard 8 cameras can achieve. Matching claw-to-gate separations may have something to do with it, but nobody seems quite sure. What is certain is that the 'plastic tatty-pack' performs far more efficiently than anyone thought it would.
Zoom lenses are a convenience, although I've yet to be convinced that the best of them can achieve picture-quality quite equal to what you'd expect from a top prime lens. But again - they're a great convenience. Like so many of the other 'features' that have been introduced in recent years, they've only to persuade you to have a go and you're hooked.
Mind you, I think they're getting a little desperate now. The 'in' features this season are macrozooms and automatic lap-dissolves. And a few manufacturers are waking up to the fact that an expensive camera should have a sync pulse.
In the clubs, there's still a lot of unrelenting opposition to super 8 ... and I understand why. The people who own (and paid the earth for) beautiful standard 8 equipment still dream up every possible objection to Kodak's seven year old upstart. Some of the criticisms are valid but, in the light of experience - actually using some good super 8 equipment, you discover in the clubs an emotional rather than a rational appraisal of the 'new' format.
As someone said to me recently: "There's so much super - 8 junk being sold today - I just don't want to have anything to do with it". He's right - but has forgotten the vast quantity of standard 8 junk that found its way onto the market. I could name many cameras and projectors which are best forgotten. The surviving standard 8 Bolexes, Nizos, and Leicinas were the cream - and, In their day, very expensive.
Anyway, the fashion film came out well, despite the encircling gloom. The girls looked wonderful, the colours were dazzling - and Madame was delighted. I think I was right to take the line of least resistance by using an automated super 8 camera. After all, the footage is only 'raw material' for the real work.
At the editing bench.
Years ago, before super 8 was even a twinkle in Papa Kodak's eye, I bought a French camera which turned out to be a real dream - if you like nightmares. After valiantly coping with at least a hundred feet of film, something deep down in the guts of the thing shuddered and died. I sought out the importers. They occupied a flyblown office at the back of a furniture warehouse.
What they knew about cameras could have been printed in triplicate on a postage stamp. Their servicing facilities consisted of a screwdriver and two hammers (which I suspect they used on an elderly typewriter). I made my complaint.
"Now that's awkward," said the elder of the two.
"Very awkward," crooned little Sir Echo who looked like a brother.
"Tell you what boy," suggested Spiv the Elder, "we could fly it over to France, but you'll have to pay airfreight." I waded in with my stock lecture about common-law rights. They looked hurt.
"Now that's no way to talk, is it. We didn't flog it to you. Anyway, we've retired from the camera business. No gravy in it since the Nips moved in. Better tell your dealer . . ."
The dealer did his best to help by sending the camera to one of the independent repair shops. Somehow they injected life into the thing and it digested another two rolls of film before it finally gave up the ghost. I wrote a libellous article, thought better of it - and gave the camera to a man who said he could use some of the bits for model making.
The moral is - when you buy a camera, make sure you're getting an after-sales service with it. Not just any old after-sales service ... but a fast, efficient and courteous one. And if you want to know who provides such a service, go the round of the dealers, chat 'em up . . . and the answer will be - David Williams.
Every dealer yearns to live the tranquil life and, if possible, do nothing more exhausting than push the camera across the counter, ring up the till ... and, at the end of the day, return to the bosom of his family. If there's one thing he hates more than paying his bills, it's the irate customer who tells him the thing doesn't work, never has worked and probably never will.
The less cameras bounce, the better it is for his ulcers. When they do bounce, he can live with it if he knows there's a benign distributor to keep his customer happy.
Now if you're a cynic, you'll explain. the ubiquity of Sankyo cameras by suggesting that the mark-up must be pretty good. It is an observable fact that shops ranging from the local chemist to the big photographic emporium seem to stock more Sankyos than any other camera. I don't have any figures, but that's the way it looks to me.
I don't doubt the mark-up is satisfactory - but this isn't the answer. David Williams keeps his dealers happy by looking after their customers.
For some time now I've been searching for a long-discontinued piece of equipment. I know that if I go into enough shops, I'll find it. So, for weeks now, I haven't walked past any window with photo gear in it. And I've used each occasion to do some homework - like innocently asking what movie cameras they recommend and why.
The result of this persistent questioning appears to be an almost unanimous vote of confidence in the David Williams organisation - and if I'm upsetting anybody by mentioning it, sorry - but that's the way it is. I don't have any shares in D.W.'s business - and if they'd all recommended the Hong Kong Consolidated Camera, Tape and Fishing-Tackle Company, I would have reported it here.
In less than a week, three separate dealers said much the same thing - including one of the discount boys who put it this way:
"David Williams plays fair. He's handling a damn good product - a range of cameras to suit every pocket and offering as good value as you'll find anywhere. The Sankyos rarely bounce - not when you consider how many we sell. You don't have to be in this game to put a high value on reliability. Customers can be really nasty.
"But a modem movie camera is quite a box of tricks. It doesn't matter who make 'em or how well they're built - now and then you get a fault. May not be a serious one but any fault is a disaster in the eyes of a customer who's just handed over his lolly. This is where David Williams scores. He puts it right or replaces it - and doesn't hang about. Some of the other perishes keep you waiting for weeks - even months, and all the time you've got a dissatisfied customer on your back who gets meaner every week."
I wasn't surprised by these bouquets. I first met David Williams many years ago when he was on the way up. I can see him now, sitting in my office and quietly enthusing about the Admira cameras he was handling. I felt quite sure that this unassuming man, with film-star looks (which later an astute advertising agent put to good use) would one day be somewhere near the top in his chosen field.
David Williams already knew the first law of success in business - nicely formulated in Newton's famous 'third law' of physics: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". I don't mean that he ever put it this way to me (or that Newton was thinking of economics and human relations). I just got the impression that he knew it instinctively.
In an uncertain life, it's about the only thing I'm certain of - for everything we do, we get an equal reaction. It works at all levels and in every sphere of life. In this case, look after the customer and he'll look after your good name. Give the dealer what he wants and he'll give you what you want. You get what you give - which is the only way to make the world owe you a living.
While I'm climbing down from the pulpit, I will add that David Williams has always had this plus-attitude - the conviction that to do enough to get by isn't enough to get ahead. He still enthuses - still believes in his products. Only recently he wrote to me about a new, super-duper Sankyo. "Just wait until you see it," he said.
He means he has a winner. And he's probably right.
This is an aspect of the after-sales business that's been worrying. me for some time. Certain organisations charge far too much for work done outside the guarantee period.
I know good camera mechanics are hard to find .... and they don't work for peanuts. Even so, this shouldn't be made an excuse for blatant profiteering.
Several cases have come to my notice recently and I've been shocked by what I regard as wholly unreasonable charges. There was the case of the reader who needed a new pilot-lamp. The identical lamp - but he didn't know this - is featured in several catalogues as a standard item. It costs about 10p. With a couple of leads soldered to it, the equipment distributor asked this reader to pay £4.10 - an astonishing and impudent charge, to put it mildly! I was able to put him onto a company that provided what he needed for 20p.
I know of cases where a routine overhaul (greasing and perhaps a replacement of a small part) has been charged at more than a third of the retail cost of the equipment. A friend of mine who was going on an extended trip to Africa decided as a precaution to have his camera 'serviced' before he went. There was nothing wrong with it - he just happened to be a conscientious type with a feeling for precision machinery. They did no more than clean and grease it - and charged him a staggering £27!
A friend of mine at the BBC recently paid ,£37.50 for a job which would have been expensive at £12 - and the cost was something like forty per cent of the original cost of the equipment.
Unless you need a difficult-to-make part, unobtainable elsewhere, you don't have to be taken for a ride. Once the equipment is outside the guarantee period, it can be serviced by any competent organisation - and there are skilled, independent repair shops that may give you a very much better deal.
If the price quoted by the original distributor shocks you, I suggest you contact one of these specialist firms and ask for their estimate. It's a fact that quite a few dealers use the independent repair people, and, even after the dealer has added his own mark-up, the job may cost a lot less than the distributor's estimate.
One thing to bear in mind is that, when a job is costed by the big boys, they add to the variable costs - i.e., they may stick on a thumping great charge for overheads.
The little man, working with a couple of assistants in a back room or garage may be a first-class craftsman - and his overheads are low. Which brings us to the problem of discount and dealer-service. What do you get for your money when you pay the full 'recommended retail price' ?
You may think that nowadays the recommended retail price doesn't mean a damn thing. Who, in his right mind, pays the full price for anything - especially if it's a cash deal ?
Until recently, I would have agreed that the R.R.P. is a fiction - an opportunity for a slick salesman to convince you that you're getting an all-time bargain. I've even suspected that, in some cases, the R.R.P. is set artificially high so that the price can be knocked down.
But my recent 'tour of the dealers' has changed my mind for me. For example, I was in a little Lancashire cotton town and the local photographic emporium was selling everything at the full recommended retail price. I noticed in particular a projector for which the R.R.P. is close on £90 - and that's what they wanted for it.
I asked the proprietor if he really got that amount for it. He said yes ... and they were selling two or three a month. This is extraordinary. For, as Arthur Dakin pointed out when I was discussing it with him, you could get on a train to London, have an excellent meal and a day out ... and still come back with the projector and some spare pound notes.
Why does anyone pay £26 more than he need? How do all the little chemist shops, up and down the country, get the full R.R.P. when the discount boys are offering the same thing for many pounds less ? ,
I'm now in no doubt that many shops do I get the full amount. They may not dispose of vast numbers of cameras and projectors but they get -a very healthy mark-up for what they do sell.
The most incredible case I encountered was at two adjacent seaside towns. One organisation, a mere 10 miles away (and they are both well known) was charging nearly £100 more than the other for a Leica outfit.
The dealers who are charging the full whack will tell you that, if anything goes wrong, the discount boys don't want to know, whereas your local friendly dealer will break his neck to see that you get a square deal. This, I think, is partly true. Some discount organisations, letting you have the stuff at cost price and working on a ridiculous two-and-a-half per cent cash-settlement- within-a-month basis, simply haven't enough in hand to do anything but push the camera over the counter or mail it to you.
The dealer-service can be something worth having - or sweet nothing. Few dealers are equipped to do any servicing themselves. in or out of the guarantee, most of them send equipment straight back to the distributor - which, I suppose you could do yourself.
Most guarantees (for what they are worth) give you 12 months cover. If anything goes wrong after that, you have to pay for the repair. A dealer will send the equipment away for you - attend to the nitty-gritty, so to speak - and add his handling charge to the bill.
And I have heard of cases where distributors refuse to honour any guarantee on equipment bought at less than the recommended retail price - which sounds crazy to me and bordering on the dishonest.
So what do you get when you pay the full R.R.P.?
Assuming he's a good dealer, you get advice about the choice of equipment. You can have a demonstration if a demonstration is possible. You can handle and inspect the goods before you buy. You can stand in the shop, nattering to your heart's content - and the dealer will play along with you.
Again, if he's a good dealer, he'll want your future custom. He'll give you a fair part- exchange deal when you decide to up-grade your equipment. (If he's a stupid dealer, he'll refer to that dreadful little blue book and offer you exactly what it says ... and the sooner he goes out of business, the better)
I wish I could say that a complete, convincing case has been made out in favour of the orthodox dealer charging the full recommended price. I'm by no means certain that any such case exists and I blame the dealers for this. Until the abolition of Retail Price Maintenance, far too many of them gave precious little service.
If it's known that the mark-up on an expensive cine camera can be as much as £100, the customer is entitled to ask what he's going to get for his money - what the dealer can do for him that he can't do for himself.
Here and there, you find a dealer who is showing some imagination and enterprise. Matt Skipp of Ewell charges the full retail price for his Sankyo cameras - but he sells them already modified for lip-sync.
The little shops, as alike as peas in a pod, all selling the same equipment and charging the same 'official' prices, are just lying on their backs and waiting for plums to fall into their mouths. Or awaiting some innocent character who never reads movie and photographic magazines and just doesn't know that it may pay to shop around.
The experienced shopper develops a sixth sense about 'bargains'. He knows that things are not always what they seem.
The worst kind of bargain is a relatively new camera which is suddenly offered at a fraction of its launching price. You can bet your life that either it was never built to sell at the 'original list price' or it's been a 'complete flop and someone wants to unload stocks. If it's been a flop, there's a reason for it.
The best kind of bargain is a discontinued camera, which has been offered for some time by a reputable distributor - especially if the camera has been discontinued simply because they've added a few more features to a new version.
I would cite as an example the Canon 814 - a truly excellent camera, beautifully engineered and originally priced around the £200 mark. Even at this price, it was a bargain compared with quite a few cameras costing as much or more. In recent months, it's been offered, complete with case, for as little as £119 ... and I predict that when all these discontinued cameras have been sold they'll be like gold-dust.
The 814 has come out in a new version - and, in my opinion, it's still an excellent buy at the full R.R.P. The older version has been around some time - a tribute to its design and versatility. If you buy one at the bargain price - almost half what a lot of other people have been happy to pay for it - you'll own a top super 8 camera.
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002