New NPR owner w/dumb question

Dan Laporte · September 13, 2009

Hi All,

Just bought a Eclair NPR converted to Super16 in beautiful condition. Haven't worked with film since dropping out of film school many years ago, so I'm pretty excited to get started again. I have a quick question though about mounting my camera to a tripod. There is what appears to be a hole in the base of the motor to mount the Eclair to a tripod, but it's considerably larger than the screws on the tripod mount I have. Is there an adapter or something that I can use to mount an older film camera to modern tripod? I'm sure there's an easy fix, I just haven't found anything online that I can use. I've seen adapters for 3/8" to 1/4" screws, but mine looks wider than just 1/4".

Any help is appreciated.

Best,

Dan Laporte

Bernie O'Doherty · September 13, 2009

Hi Dan, Never heard of anything other than either 1/4 32 or 3/8 16. Sometimes there are two thread sizes on the motor adaptor base. Another possibility would be to change the tripod male threaded unit completely to a 3/8 16 threads per inch one.

Dan Laporte · September 14, 2009

Hi Dan, Never heard of anything other than either 1/4 32 or 3/8 16. Sometimes there are two thread sizes on the motor adaptor base. Another possibility would be to change the tripod male threaded unit completely to a 3/8 16 threads per inch one.

Thanks for getting back to me Bernie. Your name had actually come up a number of times while I was researching NPRs prior to buying mine. Given your familiarity with Eclairs, maybe a better question for you would be what is typically found on the bottom of the Beala motors and is there an adapter or something I can use to mount this to a run-of-the-mill tripod?

Your help and advice is appreciated.

Bruce Taylor · September 14, 2009

I'm going to take a wild guess here that the screw coming out if the tripod head is 1/4" and the hole in the bottom of your Eclair is 3/8?

If that's the case you should get a tripod head with a 3/8 mounting screw that's made for a bigger camera, because 1/4 is for light duty stuff.

You could of course bush the Eclair mount hole down to 1/4, or alternatively adapt the 1/4 screw to 3/8, but that's not good practice.

Bruce Taylor

www.indi35.com

Adrian Sierkowski · September 14, 2009

I second Bruce's advice.but it would help to know what tripod you have. If you need a new one; look into a nice used O'Connor head and legs, nice smooth old fluid head that they are. I picked up my 50D and legs for about 1000 or so; and I haven't looked back since.

Stephen Smith · September 14, 2009

The base of my NPR's motor had a slight taper so appeared to be bigger than the standard 3/8.

As everyone has said, make sure your tripod is able to take the weight/ or look around for something that can. Its a heavy camera to balance, if your stuck for cash some of the old wooden legs can be picked up pretty cheap, but if your going to be using it alot a solid tripod and head will be a good investment in the long run.

Stephen.

John Sprung · September 14, 2009

The base of my NPR's motor had a slight taper so appeared to be bigger than the standard 3/8.

Yeah, that happens to all of them after a while. The soft aluminum CIFIX casting wears out. Originally, they came with two holes. In the old days, I used to drill them out and put in steel inserts, and add a third hole farther forward for better balance with big zooms. You can get this done at a machine shop. Tell them you need them to shoot some helicoils.

-- J.S.

Dan Laporte · September 14, 2009

Thanks for the input everyone! It's hugely appreciated. I'll check with the local film board where I rent some of my equipment and see if there are other tripods that compatible. It probably is the 3/8-16, it just looks deceptively large to me.

Apropos of nothing... When the Super 16 conversion was done, it was modified to a fixed pl mount, but the lens is less than stellar (it's the angenieux 12-120mm.. doesn't cover super 16 at the wide end and has some nicks in the lens). I'm thinkning on getting two new lenses, one of the 17.5-70mm angie's that are floating around out there, and maybe this one off ebay. I've heard consistently good things about the 17.5-70mm lens, but was wondering what you guys thought of the older 25-250mm angenieux lenses? I think these two angie's had been manufactured around the same time, so I'm hoping they'd produce a simialr look if I wanted to use them on the same shoot.

Has anyone on the board used these older angie's. If so, what do you think?

Best,

Dan

John Sprung · September 15, 2009

The 25 - 250 is basically a scaled up 12 - 120, or vice versa. They were made in the same era, just for 35, rather than 16. If you can find a decent 25 - 250 that the early Red adopters haven't yet snapped up, you're in luck. You'll need other lenses for the wide end, and definitely put that third hole farther forward on the CIFIX. The 25 - 250 is way heavier than anything the NPR was originally designed for.

-- J.S.

Dan Laporte · September 16, 2009

The 25 - 250 is basically a scaled up 12 - 120, or vice versa. They were made in the same era, just for 35, rather than 16. If you can find a decent 25 - 250 that the early Red adopters haven't yet snapped up, you're in luck. You'll need other lenses for the wide end, and definitely put that third hole farther forward on the CIFIX. The 25 - 250 is way heavier than anything the NPR was originally designed for.

-- J.S.

Thanks J.S.,

Any thoughts on what would be a good price for one of these angie's in near mint condition (or as close as you can get with a 20-30yr lens). Also, would you recommend a support bar for it. I think it weighs in at about 5lbs and comes with a pl mount.

Dan

John Sprung · September 16, 2009

Sorry, I have no idea on price. The Red guys have heated up the market for old glass so much it's hard to guess.

Giving the big zoom some support is an excellent idea, though probably kinda cumbersome given how tall the NPR on the CIFIX is. I haven't done it, perhaps someone else here can advise on a rails setup for the NPR.

-- J.S.