Motion Picture Cameras and Related Applications
In motion picture cameras, the pin(s) hold the film immovable during exposure.
In certain "professional" motion picture cameras and "step" printers, there may be two registration pins: one is called the "big pin" and it is employed for primary (axial and lateral) registration while the other one is called the "little pin" and it is employed for secondary (axial) registration. With the "big pin"/"little pin" concept, it is not required to employ side pressure or other means to guide the film through the intermittent movement with absolute precision as the "big pin" is fully fitting in the perforation (the "little pin" is not fully fitting in width, but is fully fitting in height; this difference accommodates slight changes in the dimensions of the film media due to changes in relative humidity and possibly other factors such as media age).
This system is employed primarily in high-end "professional" cameras in the West. In the East (the former Soviet Union and its former Satellites), a single registration pin, corresponding to the "big pin", is employed along with side pressure.
Additionally, Western "professional" cameras always employ Bell and Howell (BH) pins whereas Eastern "professional" cameras generally employ Kodak Standard (KS) pins, which standard was originally recommended by the Western standards organizations, but was soundly rejected by Western studios and camera equipment manufacturers. Western "professional" cameras provided to the East during WW-II's Lend-Lease program were generally converted to KS pins by the receiving country.
To further improve upon registration accuracy, the perforations which are utilized for registration are never used for film advancement (i.e., for pull-down).
The above description applies to "professional" applications, which is generally taken to mean film gauges larger than 16mm (i.e., 35mm and 65/70mm).
For 16mm, only, a modified strategy is generally employed, at least for "step" printers which utilize 1R (single-row) perforations.
The lower pin, the "big pin", will be fully fitting in the axial and lateral dimensions but the upper pin, the "little pin", will be fully fitting in the lateral dimension only, for the same reason that the "professional's" "little pin" is fully fitting in the axial dimension only.
This, then, also accomplishes absolute precision, but within the context of "sub-professional" film gauges.
For practical reasons, the 1R 16mm "little pin" is usually spaced two perforations above the 16mm "big pin".
Again for 16mm, only, certain cameras and "step" printers which utilize 2R (two-row) perforations may employ the same strategy as for "professional" applications, but 2R is seldom utilized except for certain high-speed photography and almost never for duplication or prints.
Read more about this topic: Registration Pin
Famous quotes containing the words motion picture, motion, picture, cameras and/or related:
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“I have seen in this revolution a circular motion of the sovereign power through two usurpers, father and son, to the late King to this his son. For ... it moved from King Charles I to the Long Parliament; from thence to the Rump; from the Rump to Oliver Cromwell; and then back again from Richard Cromwell to the Rump; then to the Long Parliament; and thence to King Charles, where long may it remain.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“... everybody who is human has something to express. Try not expressing yourself for twenty-four hours and see what happens. You will nearly burst. You will want to write a long letter or draw a picture or sing, or make a dress or a garden.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“Guns have metamorphosed into cameras in this earnest comedy, the ecology safari, because nature has ceased to be what it always had been—what people needed protection from. Now nature tamed, endangered, mortal—needs to be protected from people.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“There is nothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest us,—kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron show,—the roots of all things are in man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)