Beaulieu 2008 with Angenieux lens

Kenneth Wajda · May 28, 2008

Hi,

I am hoping someone has the experience to help me with this. I have a Beaulieu S 2008 with an auto 8-64mm f1.9 Angenieux lens -- bought the whole thing for $100 at a local photo store, though I am waiting on a charger/batteries -- and the lens has an auto iris motor, which I can hear the gears turning if I try to manually set the iris.

Is there a way to disable the auto iris so that I can set it manually, and not have the motor gears dragged along while I do it? I am thinking this cannot be good for the lens gears.

Thanks,

Ken

Michael Lehnert · May 29, 2008

What I am going to post here is not only valid for the Beaulieu 2008-series, but also the 4008-series and 3/5008-series featuring a vario lens from either Angénieux or Schneider with the Beaulieu Reglomatic, those two electric motor servos housed in two lateral tubes alongside the lens for controll over exposure/aperture and zoom/focal range:

On the lower left side of the body of your Beaulieu 2008 S (it's actually called Beaulieu 2008 S despite the badge being written as "S2008") or other above-mentioned cameras, you will find a dial switch with three click stops, called 'Manual', 'Auto', and 'Test'.

The 'Test' setting is the battery power test, indicated by the viewfinder's pointer needle set within a notch to the right of it that can both show the relative exposure level or the battery power capacity - in the latter case, to be satisfactory, it should be pointing above the horizontal level.

The 'Auto' setting puts the Beaulieu Reglomatic electric motor servo on your lens onto automatic exposure control, adjusting the diaphragm or iris of the lens motorically all the time to allow "good" exposure.

The 'Manual' setting deactivates the Beaulieu Reglomatic electric motor servo, so that you can either lock a certain f-stop or set f-stops by hand for manual aperture control.

Crucially, and this is probably the answer to your questions, the internal cogs remain "clutched" to the lens in either setting, which means that you cannot declutch the internal cogs to loose the friction on the f-stop setting ring on the lens. This is actually the case in most Super 8 cameras and even several Normal 16 cameras using similar systems; not only from Beaulieu but all leading manufacturers (only the top Nizo big-bodied cameras and late Nizo sound cameras offered a complete declutch). Despite what one might rightly think, it does not harm the mechanical parts at all.

So you can turn the f-stop setting ring on any Beaulieu camera manually while those cogs are clutched. The only thing you have to pay attention to is to always (!) have the camera in the 'Manual' setting when doing these manual aperture control changes by hand!

Hope that helped.

Cheers, -Michael

Kenneth Wajda · May 29, 2008

Thanks, Michael. That helps a lot.

One last question. What does the button on the front of the Beaulieu Reglomatic do?

Thanks again for all your detailed help.

Ken

Michael Lehnert · May 29, 2008

Sure!

If I am not entirely mistaken, this is essentially a critical focus control button which automatically adjusts maximum aperture.

I.e. it opens the diaphragm to the biggest lens opening, denominated by the smallest f-stop; in your case: f/1,9 . If you combine that with moving the zoom to be in the tele-angle (64mm), then this is narrowing the depth-of-field down. So the band of depth with depicts things sharply is very narrow, which allows you - as I am sure you know - to focus very accurately on your object of choice, and save this "assured sharpness with things being in focus" when reverting to the f-stop and focal length you actually require for your shot to have the right frame composition (say, 15mm) and exposure (say, f/5.6) that you want.

So this button is basically generating a handy focusing aid.

P.S.: Beaulieu Reglomatic with two tubes, i.e. for zoom and aperture, combine this function in their critical focus control button: it drives both settings electrically, so no need for manual zooming.