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Krasnogorsk K-3 Reviews?


Brendan Maroney

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Hey there.

 

Wondering how many of you have used the Krasnogorsk K-3 in any filmmaking. It seems like a decent camera and for an extremely low price. I'm thinking of buying one myself, and would like some reviews from those who have used them or possibly own them.

 

Also, anyone with footage from their K-3, I'd love to see it.

 

Thanks,

Brendan :D

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Hey there.

 

Wondering how many of you have used the Krasnogorsk K-3 in any filmmaking. It seems like a decent camera and for an extremely low price. I'm thinking of buying one myself, and would like some reviews from those who have used them or possibly own them.

 

Also, anyone with footage from their K-3, I'd love to see it.

 

Thanks,

Brendan :D

 

I shot this with a k3 - enjoy!

 

http://www.kitashton.com/video.htm - u need quicktime 7

 

oh and next time - use the search button

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What I like about the K-3 is the ability to put good M42 lenses on it.

 

I shoot with my non-reflex Kodak K100 often and I'm always underwhelmed with the optics from those older c-mount lenses during telecine sessions, then the K-3 footage comes up and I can be amazed (on a good day.) Just wish the camera was a little more stable, but for the money its a no brainer.

 

p.s. I like the Kodak K-100 body and winding better than the K-3 and recently got a reflex lens with side viewfinder to see if that will make me like it enough to keep.

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Just like to add something about the K3 which hasn't been mentioned.

 

Its a great no budget camera BUT, you cannot get decent wide-lenses for it easily.

 

The stock zoom lens only goes down to a 17mm focal length. Considering a typical super 16mm prime kit may include a 9.5mm, 12mm, 16mm, 25mm and 50mm, being forced to 17 and above can be quite limiting. Practically when in smaller spaces it restricts the ability for long or wide shots - infact it generaly makes handheld a fairly messy thing. Also if like me you like the affect of a wide lens for its visual nature there are very few decent options out there.

 

The famous Peleng 8mm lens fits m42 mount but its fairly distorted, expensive, and slow (only opens up to 3.5), and you'll be lucky to find a still camera wider than 16mm - and still camera lenses tend to be fairly slow.

 

A guy who deals in them here Olex, has some soloutions for bayonet mount K3s only, but that means restricting yourself to a bayonet version, which is identical in every way except for the lens mount,

 

On the other hand its still a great little afordable camera to learn on, perhaps in the same league as the much more romantic and expensive Bolex.

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  • 10 years later...

 

 

Its a short film we did just to experiment and test a K-3 we just bought. Now we are having it modified to super 16, getting rid of the loop formers as we noticed some scratches, and we are sticking with the M4s (mount type) lens and not using the Zoom lens that it came with. I wasn't too happy with that lens and with the change of gate size, I'd rather not worry about vignetting off to the side it was widening. Also looking into an anamorphic adapter to get a nice 2.39:1 ratio. If you like the footage, share it. I've been trying to dig up films shot on a K-3 and not turning up much, let alone with sound. Its just a shake n bake film.

 

We threw it together to see what shooting with it would be like. Over all, I loved it. I loved looking at the footage, sitting back in the chair with an "oh wow" look over our faces. We went for a 80's slash Terantino. kinda style. But now not being able to find other attempts like this, I'm starting to realize it was way more unique than I thought. Not in terms of a story but in terms of shooting a narrative with dialog with a K-3.

 

If you guys have videos like that I would surely love to see it. My camera requirements are 24fps. The fact that its spring wound I actually like. I don't have to worry about batteries. I also found that when your limited to 23-30 seconds, most edits are less than that. So ya have to shoot economically.

 

What we did was do several takes with a DSLR, then when things felt good and settled, we would shoot one or two with the K-3. Basically the DSLR for safety, also to double check the exposure since we set it for the same ISO and Shutter speed to make sure we weren't way off with the light meter. Had been a while since I needed one.

 

But one of the things I love about it most.

 

1. The technology is in the film. They can improve the film, and I don't have to buy a whole new camera

 

2. You really do best to plan every frame of your shot. Too often I go to sets and see the DP shooting a hundred takes from so many angles like they hadn't thought this out yet. So you come to set, ready ya know the shots, you don't waste everyone's time.

 

3. Shooting only what ya need. Maybe a few seconds after. I've edited movies that Had hours and hours of footage...lol thanks to the DP in number 2 above. And its like the whole project should be a run time of ten to fifteen minutes.

 

4. The equipment. A 50mm M42 lens can be bought for 20-30 bucks...now imagine A redone 50mm, a canon 50mm, I mean some of you shuddered when thinking of a redone lens cost.

 

5. Cost. This is where ya have to consider Digital versus film. If you are shooting tons of projects a year. Film will kill ya in cost. However most people don't make but 1 movie every few years. Cause ya gotta write it which takes time, the budget for actors, location, planning. Its a lengthy campaign. So if you make one film every three years then, well I am, stick with film. Cause when it comes to digital, first of all Rolling shutter, hate it, hate it more than anything. So global shutter cameras are going to be at least 7 grand, then ya need the batteries. I think the Ursa was at 400 each, then the charger for 700? Ugh and my friend got the whole REDONE package for 35,000. So in that frame of thinking....yeah I can't actually afford the good digital. I'd be better off renting a SR2 or 3 for features, or a K3 for shorts.

 

6. Resolution and content. I have heard [people say so many times. Oh yes once I get my 4K camera I am going to be shooting great movies. LOL you'll have the resolution, but it doesn't make the story magically better. All it does is make the image professional both Film and 4K(higher end 4K that is), what you put in front of it is up to you.

 

Anyhoo. my two cents hope it helps

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Sean,

As far as K-3 narratives, a couple guys on the east coast shot this feature about 10 yrs ago:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FbwB8H5XvZ8

Not speaking for the quality of the story or how well it synced up but they deserve credit for going for it, they refer to it as 'backyard cinema' and it's at least interesting to check out. -PG

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Just like to add something about the K3 which hasn't been mentioned.

 

Its a great no budget camera BUT, you cannot get decent wide-lenses for it easily.

 

The stock zoom lens only goes down to a 17mm focal length. Considering a typical super 16mm prime kit may include a 9.5mm, 12mm, 16mm, 25mm and 50mm, being forced to 17 and above can be quite limiting. Practically when in smaller spaces it restricts the ability for long or wide shots - infact it generaly makes handheld a fairly messy thing. Also if like me you like the affect of a wide lens for its visual nature there are very few decent options out there.

 

The famous Peleng 8mm lens fits m42 mount but its fairly distorted, expensive, and slow (only opens up to 3.5), and you'll be lucky to find a still camera wider than 16mm - and still camera lenses tend to be fairly slow.

 

A guy who deals in them here Olex, has some soloutions for bayonet mount K3s only, but that means restricting yourself to a bayonet version, which is identical in every way except for the lens mount,

 

On the other hand its still a great little afordable camera to learn on, perhaps in the same league as the much more romantic and expensive Bolex.

 

I use a bayonet K2 every now and then, I have modified by myself a 10mm T3 kmz lens to fit (a lens made originally for Kinor16SP, the mount is NOT the same but can be modified by milling the flanges + recalibrating) and it works great though does not cover super16. For super16 one has very limited wide angle lens options which is why I normally shoot regular16 with my cameras... it is much better idea to get a modified arri sb or similar camera with one or two bayonet mounted Optars if needing small daylight spool loading S16 camera with limited amount of money and S16 is absolute necessity at all focal lenghts. It is, however, cheaper to use a S16 modified C-mount camera like Bolex and use cheap Chinese C-mount lenses with it, like a 8mm F3.5. they may not be any better than a Peleng in S16 but are very lightweight, small and handy and affordable with pretty good image quality compared to price so they might be an option. with Krasnogorsk both the bayonet and the M42 mount are quite limiting, it is a good idea to choose your film camera based on the lenses you want to use, not the other way around <_<

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OMG!!!! Thanks for the video share! Ive been looking and looking for narratives shot on the K-3!!!! Hopefully I can find more. lol. So often I run into "Ya can't do that" kinda folks. And I don't like giving up without at least trying. Again thank you!

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I have a lens and F stop question. I know that Using a 35mm lens on 16mm film doesn't change the Focal length. Its fair to assume that the F stop doesn't change as well?

 

An F 5 exposure reading on the light meter, you'd set it on the lens just as you would if it were on a 35mm camera? I'm pretty sure that this is true. I seem to see good enough results. But I just want to be positive. Cause in my head, weather its 35mm or 16mm is just a matter of how much being projected onto at focal plane is actually being used.

 

I hope this wasn't already brought up in some other forum. Since this is usually related to the K-3 as we are often using 35mm M42 lenses on it. Confirmation would be far better than assuming things.

 

Thank you for your time.,

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weather its 35mm or 16mm is just a matter of how much being projected onto at focal plane is actually being used

 

yes that is correct.

you can sometimes see quite a lot difference in brightness when comparing different lens designs's F-stops because the internal light losses differ and the aperture ring is calibrated to the physical F-stops, not T-stops. but you can interchange different formats lenses and get exactly similar results exposure wise.

 

large format lenses used on small formats can have reduced contrast and more halations compared to a dedicated small format lens because of the larger unused area on the lens surfaces. that is one of the drawbacks of using large format lenses on small formats, together with the generally smaller maximum apertures of the lenses compared to small format ones and the difficulties of finding short focal lenghts. large format lenses may also have a bit more chromatic aberration because there is no need to correct it as much as with the small format lenses where the produced image is "magnified more" and therefore the aberrations are relatively more apparent

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large format lenses used on small formats can have reduced contrast and more halations compared to a dedicated small format lens because of the larger unused area on the lens surfaces

this is more of a generalised lens design difference and linked to the image circle size vs physical focal lenght vs needed ffd of the lens mount. for example a 50mm lens can be for example a Planar design if made for S35 or S16 but for medium format, for example, a Distagon style design may be more preferred because of various reasons. you can project a very large image circle with a physically small lens if needed but generally the large format lenses have larger elements/more glass surface than the small format ones to correct the aberrations and to bring the ffd to a suitable levels for the used camera designs so that leads to more areas prone to flare and contrast difficulties. a mattebox with tight mattes will help a lot though as long as the lens coatings are great quality. with bad quality coatings you can have for example colour difficulties (green forest's colour ghosting all over the image etc. problems) whether using a mattebox or not

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Thank you guys! One of the things I like about going back to film, its like I'm going back to school. Digital is too easy cause Ya can look and see if its right on the spot, where as film, ya gotta really know what's going on otherwise it can cost ya. Someone once mentioned that that kind of training is getting lost in the digital world. You still have to know your lenses. But overall, they can guess there way through it. I don't ever see anyone using a tape measure to check critical focus.

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