Burak Oguz Saguner Posted December 16, 2006 Share Posted December 16, 2006 Hi all, I need your opinions about shooting an independent feature -also short drama- with a Bolex H16 EBM This is the package: Bolex H16 EBM Electric with custom 4 pin 12v cable. Speeds 10,18,24,50 crystal sinc.. the crystal snyc accessory , Bolex to C-mount adaptor, C mount to Nikon adaptor. Lens is Kern Vario-Switar 1:1.9 f16-100mm Poe Bolex h16rx. One 400 ft magazine... What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Mulder Posted December 16, 2006 Share Posted December 16, 2006 (edited) Hi all, I need your opinions about shooting an independent feature -also short drama- with a Bolex H16 EBM This is the package: Bolex H16 EBM Electric with custom 4 pin 12v cable. Speeds 10,18,24,50 crystal sinc.. the crystal snyc accessory , Bolex to C-mount adaptor, C mount to Nikon adaptor. Lens is Kern Vario-Switar 1:1.9 f16-100mm Poe Bolex h16rx. One 400 ft magazine... What do you think? assuming its a regular-16 EBM ? The POE is nice enough, but you wont get the wide shots like say the switar 10mm will get you ... It has a auto-iris function which shouldn't be relied on, whatever the case it leaves you with a funky two blade iris system - I know a lot of people laugh at discussions re. bokeh but you gotta see this, it really is noticeable on wide open shots with blinkin lights in the background, it fuses from a really nice 'ace of diamonds' when fully closed to a krappy truncated circle fully open (where the light meter reflector is installed) If its a super-16 camera the POE will not cover at wide angles, unless someone has been inside it fiddling and has probably ruined the optics (guilty) attempting to get rid of the corner creep (the lens was riddled with jock itch anyway) - Every now and again you see references to people who have succeded though As for the EBM, its loud, especially with the 400' load motor grinding your coffee away up there, so xtal sync is kinda contradictory unless you want to blimp it really well or shoot telephoto well away from the dialogue - what sync box do you have - a 24/25 fps ? There are heaps of great things about the bolex range, but for this application and depending on your expectations it might not exactly shine... It might be interesting for us to have a hint as to the format of the final product .. (?) :ph34r: Edited December 16, 2006 by Nick Mulder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member adam berk Posted December 16, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted December 16, 2006 we've gotten really great results with super16 EBM HD transfer's for a music video... as long as you blimp the camera....i'm really excited to see some results once you've got something to sbow Hi all, I need your opinions about shooting an independent feature -also short drama- with a Bolex H16 EBM This is the package: Bolex H16 EBM Electric with custom 4 pin 12v cable. Speeds 10,18,24,50 crystal sinc.. the crystal snyc accessory , Bolex to C-mount adaptor, C mount to Nikon adaptor. Lens is Kern Vario-Switar 1:1.9 f16-100mm Poe Bolex h16rx. One 400 ft magazine... What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Tim Carroll Posted December 16, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted December 16, 2006 Hi all, I need your opinions about shooting an independent feature -also short drama- with a Bolex H16 EBM This is the package: Bolex H16 EBM Electric with custom 4 pin 12v cable. Speeds 10,18,24,50 crystal sinc.. the crystal snyc accessory , Bolex to C-mount adaptor, C mount to Nikon adaptor. Lens is Kern Vario-Switar 1:1.9 f16-100mm Poe Bolex h16rx. One 400 ft magazine... What do you think? Definitely do some testing before you go this route. We tried to do what you are attempting about five years ago with pretty much the same package you listed. We sent the camera to a reputable camera repair house in New York to have it overhauled and then did a quick test for registration and focus and were "off to the races". After a little over 2000 ft were shot, we processed and transfered the film and realized that our recently rebuild EBM had an intermittent shutter bounce (not uncommon in those older Bolexes) and we had flicker throughout the whole 2000 ft of material. The way the crystal sync works with that camera, the motor is constantly speeding itself up and slowing itself down to maintain sync. And if the gears in the camera are too worn, the shutter pitches slightly back and forth as the camera motor speeds itself up and slows itself down. This effects the exposure, causing the flicker. If you have a strobe, you can load a 100 ft load of test film (film that you don't care about wasting) and run the camera with the sync connected and shoot the strobe into the front of the camera with the lens removed. You should be able to freeze the shutter as it passes halfway through the frame. Then study the edge of the shutter as it is lit by the strobe. You are looking to see if it moves slightly up and down (bounces). If you see it bouncing, get another EBM, cause Bolex wanted $1800 to fix ours. If you have no shutter bounce with the camera, then the only real issues besides the lens issues mentioned above, is the noise issue. Best of luck. -Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Mulder Posted December 16, 2006 Share Posted December 16, 2006 If you have a strobe, you can load a 100 ft load of test film (film that you don't care about wasting) and run the camera with the sync connected and shoot the strobe into the front of the camera with the lens removed. You should be able to freeze the shutter as it passes halfway through the frame. Then study the edge of the shutter as it is lit by the strobe. You are looking to see if it moves slightly up and down (bounces). If you see it bouncing, get another EBM, cause Bolex wanted $1800 to fix ours. either that or the strobe is not charging fast enough - ie. get a dedicated film lighting strobe, not just a dance party style one with one of those inputs that can take audio/whatever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Tim Carroll Posted December 16, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted December 16, 2006 either that or the strobe is not charging fast enough - ie. get a dedicated film lighting strobe, not just a dance party style one with one of those inputs that can take audio/whatever My bad, I made the assumption that everyone on a cinematography forum would know what a "strobe" is. A strobe is a very specific tool that is made for testing motion picture camera shutters. It can be set very precisely to many different shutter speeds and is very accurate. -Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Mulder Posted December 16, 2006 Share Posted December 16, 2006 My bad, I made the assumption that everyone on a cinematography forum would know what a "strobe" is. A strobe is a very specific tool that is made for testing motion picture camera shutters. It can be set very precisely to many different shutter speeds and is very accurate. -Tim Just like a timing strobe for cars... The reason I mentioned dance strobes is that we attempted to sync them with a bolex and it fired all over the place, looking through the shutter as you say yeilded interesting viewing. That was at 25fps but at slower speeds the stobe was much better at firing so we chained 4 of them so the reletive fps the strobes would see was divided by four, presto it worked ... I guess I've got dance stobes on the brain because of this... what fps can these testing stobes get up to ? I'm assuming it output is low but could it come in handy say for macro super low shutter angle effects ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Tim Carroll Posted December 16, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted December 16, 2006 Just like a timing strobe for cars... The reason I mentioned dance strobes is that we attempted to sync them with a bolex and it fired all over the place, looking through the shutter as you say yeilded interesting viewing. That was at 25fps but at slower speeds the stobe was much better at firing so we chained 4 of them so the reletive fps the strobes would see was divided by four, presto it worked ... I guess I've got dance stobes on the brain because of this... what fps can these testing stobes get up to ? I'm assuming it output is low but could it come in handy say for macro super low shutter angle effects ? Nick, It is not something used for lighting, it is used strictly as a measuring instrument for testing the shutter on a motion picture camera when it is in motion. The one I have goes up to 99 fps, but its light output is very low. You couldn't light anything with it. The timing light I have that I use on my car is a totally different thing and does put out quite a bit of light, but its pulses are in direct relationship to the speed of the engine it is connected to. A camera shutter test strobe is a strobe that generates its own crystal pulse and precisely pulses at whatever speed it is set at. -Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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