35BL2, Super 35mm and Arri Wide Angle Eyepiece?

[Nick Peterson]

Hi all,

 

I recently bought an Arri BL2 which came with a custom Super 35mm gate and ground glass. Now, I know the BL2 was never intended to shoot S35, which explains why the eyepiece vignettes the left side of the image. However, I was surprised to find that the video tap showed _almost_ all of the Super 35mm GG. It just slightly vignettes on the left corners of the frame. My question: if I were to find a newer wide angle Arri eyepiece and swapped it out with the original one, would I be able to see almost all of the Super 35mm frame? Has anyone had any experience with this before? I am aiming to shoot S35 1.33:1 ("Big TV") ratio and can deal with slight vignetting in the corners, just not the current loss of the left of frame I am getting with the stock Arri BL2 eyepiece.

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

[Dom Jaeger]

Hi Nick,

 

yes a wide angle eyepiece should give you slightly more coverage. The viewfinder optics will still be centered for Standard though, so you may need to adjust the mirror prism in the viewfinder elbow - from memory if you remove the elbow cover plate you can sometimes reposition the prism a fraction.

 

Make sure the wide angle eyepiece fits your viewfinder, ones for an SR3 or 435 have a different connection.

[Tim Carroll]

Nick,

 

I have an ARRI Super Wide Angle eyepiece that I would be willing to sell, it is the one that fits the Arriflex 16SR, and SRII, not the one for the SR3. Let me know if you're interested.

 

Best,

-Tim