It's odd that others have the same experience. I've had a suggestion that I should just use a DSLR set to B&W (or convert in GIMP) but it just doesn't feel right to me. I like the experience of the older cameras and home processing film, and with Ilford HP5 you just have to follow the instructions to get perfect results.

I recently looked at insurance quotes for a Subaru Forester Turbo and was getting £1000 quotes on cars priced at £1500. Is it any wonder people don't bother with it...

Thailand appears to have a very nasty backward little government who need a good slap IMO.

As opposed to around here, where you get overtaken by a motorbike as though you're standing still...then a few bends later find the road's closed because they've decided to take a closer look at the landscape but forgot to slow down first...

You might be able to use a can of compressed air to clear it without needing to open anything.

Stan Lee has turned up in all of the recent Marvel Universe films too. Even though he was mistaken for Hugh Hefner by Tony Stark in Iron Man...

I came to it without any previous experience of image manipulation software (I was pretty handy with Corel Draw at one point, but in those days you were assembling text and clipart!) I think it's just as easy to learn the GIMP as to learn PS.

I have to say I'd suspect a scam of some sort. STV can surely afford to employ people able to write coherently?

I also think that while such an arrangement might be acceptable for a small student production it's out of order for a major broadcaster to expect people to work for nothing. You can be certain that their directors wouldn't work for expenses only because it would "look good on their CV"!

It might be normal for them to run continuously if not attached to a camera, but they should behave the same regardless of whether there's film in an attached camera or not in my experience (Winder MX and a couple of Winders ME II).

It's funny how if they want a sound effect of a camera to indicate "stardom" it's still something of that age with the bolt-on winder!

I would make a video of my MX/winder but I don't think it'd help much, as you can easily make something sound louder or quieter depending on recording levels and distance to microphone.

It works well with the Pentax-M 35-70mm f2.8-3.5. The lens is too big and heavy to go with an M series camera alone IMO, but add the winder and it balances nicely.

Edit, the continuously turning winder may be suffering from dirty contacts. I know I had one which did that when not attached to a camera, but it was absolutely fine once attached to a body and hasn't played up since. I would assume that one of the contacts tells the winder to stop turning. Try a cotton bud dipped in lighter fuel and wipe the contacts on the base of the camera.

I think they're generally pretty noisy, but a service couldn't hurt given the age of the combination. I've just picked up a jammed MX (think a previous "repairer" put it back together wrongly) with a view to having it repaired and serviced to give me a reliable backup body alongside my currently working MX.