The reference numbers of the
controls (shown in Main
Pictures) are repeated below
with a brief definition of each control, followed by
advice on how to start filming without delay. If you
adjust all controls to the red dots, you need not bother
about technicalities.
Get to Know Your
Nizo
1. Cassette Compartment
Insert the cassette so that
the label remains visible, otherwise you cannot close
the compartment door.
2. Label Window
This tells you at any time
what type of film is loaded.
3. Footage Indicator
It will be reset to the start
position when you remove the cassette
4. Aperture Control
Can be adjusted to 'auto' or
'manual' control.
To check the battery power, hold
this control in the spring-loaded control position and
look through the viewfinder. The aperture stop
indicator to the left of the image should point to any
value between 2.8 and 22. If the value is less than
2.8, change the battery immediately.
5. Film Speed Switch
The normal speed is 18 frames
per second (18 f.p.s.). The speed of 24 f.p.s.
provides a slight slow motion effect. Position 1 is
for single frame exposures with wire or the optional
Nizo remote-control release.
6. Flash Synchronizing
Terminal
Will synchronize the
flashlight for single frame or trick shots. Details
under Filming
with your Nizo.
7. Filter Switch
Commercial Super-8 film is
designed for artificial light. Your camera has a
built-in filter for adjustment to daylight.
Adjust to the sun symbol, also for
black and white film. If you are going to use
artifical light, the lamp symbol should be
visible.
8. Master Switch
Adjust to red dot for
filming. When you have finished, adjust this switch to
0 to save battery power.
9. Eyepiece Adjustment
Adapt the camera lens to your
vision.
Rotate until you see a sharp
picture.
10. Range Indicating Ring
First adjust the zoom control
11 to the longest focal length. Then look through the
viewfinder and adjust the ring 10 until the double
contours of the scene coincide (rangefinder effect).
If you have no time for rangefinding, exploit the
large depth of field of your Nizo 116 for film shots
calling for quick reaction. Adjust the range
indicating ring to the red 4 m. and the zoom control
to the red 15 mm.
11. Zoom Control
Power operated during
filming, manually adjustable before filming. For any
focal length exceeding 25 mm. steady your hand by a
support or lean against a wall or tree. Only a tripod
provides a stable picture.
12. Release trigger
Readily accessible to your
left or right hand index finger. Do not operate
jerkily.
13. Jack for Remote Control
Cable
Insert the cable of the
optional remote control release here and operate the
camera mechanism with the built-in magnet.
14. Jack for Wire Release
This is for a release by wire
from the panning lever of a tripod or for trick shots
by single frame exposures.
15. Handle Latch
Push this knob to swing out
the handle. Two threaded holes will become accessible
in the camera base for the tripod.
Filming with
Your Nizo
Drive
The camera mechanism is driven by four
1.5 volt cells accomodated in the handle of your Nizo.
This battery also powers the CdS exposure control of your
camera.
Open the cap in the handle bottom
using a coin. The battery compartment shows how to
position new cells. Recommendation: use only
alkaline-manganese batteries.
To test the battery voltage, adjust
the film speed to 18. Then rotate the aperture control
into the spring-loaded 'control' position and hold it
there. Look through the viewfinder. If an aperture stop
between 2.8 and 22 is indicated, the battery voltage is
satisfactory. If the aperture diameter is larger (value
less than 2.8), replace the battery at once; at least
remove the exhausted cells from the handle.
You save battery power when you
develop the custom of adjusting the master switch to 0
before any idle period.
Film
Loading
Press the button on the rear narrow
side of the camera and open the cassette compartment
door.
Insert the film cassette with the
round recess down and the label up; otherwise the door
cannot be closed. Do not apply force. The door has a
window so you can check at any time if and what film
material is loaded.
The footage indicator will jump back
to the start position as soon as you take the cassette
out of the compartment; remember this when you remove a
film not fully exposed to change from colour to black and
white and vice versa. The film of a cassette is
completely exposed when the footage indicator is 0 and
the word 'exposed' appears in the cassette film
opening.
Built-in
Filter
When you adjust the filter switch 7 to
the sun symbol you will insert a filter adapting the
artificial light Super-8 film to daylight. For exposures
under artificial light, adjust the switch so that the
lamp symbol is visible, thus taking the red filter out of
the path of light rays.
Automatic
Exposure Control
The automatic exposure control feature
of your Nizo will accept Super-8 film cassettes with the
following film sensitivities:-
40 and 160 ASA (17 and 23 DIN) for
color artificial light film
25 and 100 ASA (15 and 21 DIN) for
switched-in filter
40 and 160 ASA (17 and 23 DIN) for
black and white film
The automatic exposure feature will
not process intermediate values. When you insert the
cassette, the exposure control adapts itself to the film
type used.
After light metering through the lens,
the exposure control will open the diaphragm to the
correct aperture stop number in an automatic operation.
You can check the stop number by looking through the
viewfinder. If the index points to a red field, the
illumnation is either too bright or too dim. If it is too
bright, which is a rare case, you can film after you have
screwed to the lens a commercially available grey filter.
If it is too dim, use a powerful lamp.
Manual Aperture
Control
You can switch off the automatic
exposure control and adjust manually any aperture stop
desired. To do so, rotate the aperture control 4 out of
the 'automatic' position. The stop indicator in the
viewfinder will now follow the rotary motion of the
control knob.
In this way you can correct the stop
determined by the automatic feature, for instance, when
the important part of a scene is much brighter or darker
than the surroundings. In such a case, either use the
automatic feature at a closer range to the important part
or else take the reading from a better accessible subject
with comparable illumination. Adjust the aperture stop
detemined in the manual mode.
Example: You want to film the 'man at
the helm' surrounded by sun-reflecting water and the
automatic exposure control indicates the stop 11. Under
these conditions, the surrounding waters will be
correctly filmed while the man will appear too dark
during the projection of the film. Hence the exposure has
to be corrected.
The manual aperture control also
allows of fade-out and fade-in under certain conditions.
If you slowly reduce the light reaching the film you get
a fade-out, otherwise a fade-in.
Start by reading the valid aperture
stop number and adjust this stop with the aperture switch
4. (Before you start filming: take the reading and note
it. Then rotate until the stop number noted is indicated
in the viewfinder.) During the filming, slowly rotate the
aperture control towards the stop number 22 for smallest
aperture.
You will thus achieve an effective
fade-out under normal light conditions with stops between
5.6 and 8; smaller apertures with stops of 11 or 16
preclude any fade-out because the path is too short.
Larger apertures permit even better effects of
fade-out.
A similar operation permits fade-ins.
Read and note the proper stop number. Then start filming
at stop 22 and slowly open the aperture to the noted
value. After any manual correction of the aperture, reset
the aperture control 4 to 'automatic'.
Zoom
Control
The zoom lens offers you two
advantages. Literally by a turn of your hand, you can
change the focal length and thus the angle of view before
you start filming. When you purposefully exploit this
feature, your movies will give the impression of having
been filmed with several cameras although you have hardly
changed the position. For this mode - and also to save
battery power - adjust the focal length by the zoom ring
before filming.
You can also change the focal length
during the filming and thus achieve movies seemingly
obtained by the camera moving towards or away from the
scene - although you never changed your
position.
However, during exposure you should
control the focal length only by the rocker switch on the
camera body. Press only one end of this switch, never its
centre.
Distance
Metering
A prerequisite for distance measuring
through the lens is the adaptation of the lens to your
vision. Adjust to the shortest focal length. Adjust the
range-indicating ring 10 to the infinity symbol. Look
through the eyepiece and rotate the knurled roller next
to it until the image of an object over 10 m. away is
sharp.
Before you start with the actual range
finding, adjust to the longest focal length. Then rotate
the ring 10 until the double contours in the rangefinder
observed through the viewfinder, merge into single
contours.
Now select the focal length suitable
for the take and start filming. Exact distance
measurement becomes the more important the longer the
focal length selected, the dimmer the light (and the
larger the aperture), and the shorter the distance to the
object. If you wish to check the distance to the object
by a measuring tape, place the tape end on the film plane
symbol between aperture control and timelapse switch.
Hold the tape to the lens edge only when you use a front
lens attachment.
If you have no time to adjust the lens
for a sharp picture, simply exploit the large depth of
field available for short and medium focal lengths. For
this mode, the 4 m. of the range indicating ring and the
15 mm. of the focal-length scale are marked red. Using
this red-dot combination and the stop number 4, you get a
depth of field from 180 cm. to infinity even at a
relatively dim illumination. The shorter the focal
length, the larger will be the depth of field.
The Film Speed
Switch
You can adjust this multi-position
switch 5 to the standard filming speed of 18 (red-dot
position for 18 frames per second or 18 f.p.s.) or to 24
for a slight slow-motion effect recommended for panning.
When the film is projected with the standard 18 f.p.s.,
all motions and also those of the cmaera will appear
slower and softer. Hence, the film speed 24 is
recommended for certain exposures out of a moving car on
a poor road. The automatic exposure control will adapt
itself to the changed shutter speed.
Adjust to position 1 for manual
single-frame shots.
Manual Single
Frame Shots
A sequence of single frames exposed
with a wire release or the optional remote control
release allows film-making with
1. extreme time lapse
2. animation of still
objects.
Example for time lapse: the slow
passage of clouds can be made visible by exposures with
intervals of several seconds.
Example for animation: dolls will wave
their arms if you move them for increments during
exposure intervals.
For this mode it is best to place the
camera on a tripod and to insert the longest possible
release wire into the camera jack. The optional Nizo
remote-control release may also be used for single frame
exposures. Push the remote-control cable plug into the
jack beside that for the release wire. Adjust the
film-speed switch to 1. If none of these release aids is
handy you can use the trigger, but at the risk of a shaky
film. A tripod is the best guarantee for successful trick
and effect exposures.
Time Lapse
Exposures with Flashlight
The electronic flash is similar to
daylight, radiates no heat and has a constant colour
temperature. It thus makes possible time-lapse films of
heat-sensitive objects e.g. growing plants.
Adjust the film-speed switch to 1.
Join the camera with the flash unit on a bracket and
mount the assembly on a tripod. The camera can be
fastened to the bracket with the threaded hole behind the
camera handle which is also useful for coupling a
powerful lamp to the camera. Push the contact-pin of the
flash-synchronizing cord into the jack on your Nizo.
Manually operate the aperture control to adjust for the
required stop number, but select the next larger aperture
as compared with that of a photographic camera in a
similar situation i.e. for instance 5.6 in place of
8.
Tripod
Shots
If you want to mount your Nizo on a
tripod, swing out the camera handle and leave it in
suspended position. The tripod screw will fit into one of
the threaded holes on the camera base.
Filmng with a tripod is always worth
while because of the improved picture stability when the
developed film is projected. This is particularly true of
exposures with a moving camera, zooming, single exposure
trick effects, at time-lapse film speeds, and with the
long or longest focal lengths (tele).
Electromagnetic
Remote Control Release
The camera mechanism can be actuated
by a built-in magnet if you use the Nizo remote-control
release cable. This is one of the options comprising a
reel with 30 ft. (10 m.) of litz cable 2 mm. thick,
push-button release and a jack for connection of another
cable of this type. Up to ten cables may be connected in
series.
Remote control permits filming with a
concealed camera or of scenes in which you yourself play
a part without having to worry about recruiting an
'assistant camera-man'. Firmly mount the camera in front
of the scene, best on a tripod. Adjust the aperture
control to 'automatic'. Push the remote-control plug into
the left-hand jack on the camera. When laying the remote
control cable, make sure it cannot overthrow or pull down
the camera by somebody stumbling over the cable.
Extremely Close
Shots with Front Lens Attachment
The options for the Nizo camera
include three front-lens attachments for extremely close
shots. These attachments, combined with the long focal
length of the camera, emable you to film scenes only
centimetres in size. It would be outside the scope of
these instructions to list all tabulated data on image
ratios, fields of view, and diopters that depend on the
focal lengths selected. Therefore tabulated object sizes,
shooting distances, and depths of field are supplied with
each Nizo front-lens attachment.
An attachment does not require any
aperture correction, but very accurate ranging or
distance measuring. A tripod is extremely
useful.
Front-lens attachments for the Nizo
116 camera are available for the following distance
ranges:
|
Supplementary Lens
|
Focusing Range
|
Minimum Subject Area
|
Scale of Reproduction
|
|
Nizo NL 1
|
1.00 - 0.47 m.
|
50 x 38 mm.
|
1:9.5
|
|
Nizo NL 2
|
0.50 - 0.32 m.
|
35 x 26 mm.
|
1:6.5
|
|
Nizo NL 3
|
0.33 - 0.24 m.
|
25 x 19 mm.
|
1:4.7
|
Lens thread: M 49.