Getting started with Nizo 156

[Disastrous]

Hey guys,

First post here so forgive me if I’ve missed an FAQ or some such but have just acquired a Nizo 156 and have a few questions about how to get started with shooting on film.

My day job is as a video producer so I know what I’m doing in terms of the basics of shooting, and have shot 35mm stills for years but have never dabbled with super 8 until now.

Firstly, I have a few questions about the camera itself:

1). Which film stock works well? If I understand the manual correctly, Kodak’s new stock won’t work without manual aperture...so what would be a good colour, and black & white stock to start off with?

2). The manual refers to a red ‘under lit’ lamp and also a green lamp appearing to the left of the viewfinder display in certain conditions such as a battery check. Are these actual bulbs? Or just coloured filters in the display that may have faded? I see nothing at all, but the camera seems to be In incredible condition, so wondered if this is something fixable or just something to live with?

3). The inside of the viewfinder glass looks a bit grubby. Is this accessible to clean or am I best just not going there?

And finally, more generally:

4). Can anyone point me in the direction of a good source of film stock and processing in the UK? I’d like to integrate this into my digital workflow so ideally would like to get my footage processed and scanned digitally for adding character to projects etc etc.

Thanks very much in advance and I look forward to sharing my results on here...

[Silverdream]

Welcome,
Unfortunately first posts seem to take a while to appear so hopefully you will come back.
I don't know this camera specifically, so can't help you much. It's fiddly work to open cameras so be careful if you attempt to clean the viewfinder. Sometimes the automatic exposure can be adjusted internally and you may be able to do this to get correct metering for one or two types of film.
It sounds like negative type films will be ideal for your use. Kodak 200T negative would be a good start especially if you want to do some inside shooting and will be less contrasty than the Kodak 50D negative.
There's also 500T negative and TriX B/W reversal.

[Disastrous]

Thanks very much silverdream - much appreciated.

Having spent a bit more time with the camera, I think it seems relatively easy to meter automatically and then simply adjust the aperture manually by the correct number of stops to match the film speed. I’m hoping this will work but was hoping to run a roll of ‘correct’ film that it can auto expose for through first to understand how accurate, or not, the meter is.

200T sounds like a good general purpose film though so will aim to make that my starting point.
Thanks again.