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Have a chance at an Ultra 16 CP-16R package on eBay. Should I do it?


Matthew W. Phillips

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The ad includes an Ultra 16mm CP16r that the seller claims has been recently serviced. It does come with a mag, battery, and charger but does not come with any lens. This is the part that concerns me because I have been having a hard time finding anything in the CP mount that those cameras take.

He had it marked at $1,800 but is offering it at $1,300 if I pull the trigger soon.

I was in the market for a new digital camera but none of the cameras currently out (in my price range) are going to give me the look I want. I love the look of film but most sync sound cameras were out of my price range while also considering shooting some film stock. 

All thoughts are appreciated. I have shot with CP16's before so I more or less know what I am getting into however the lens issue is a bit worrying. Can I find a better deal? Should I try for a different 16mm camera? Thanks in advance.

Matthew

Edited by Matthew W. Phillips
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It seems like a good camera except for the bowtie shutter. It is known for smearing issues when shooting into light. It may be ok though. 

I may be exaggerating a bit but something to keep in mind. I hope it helps. Other than that, I think well maintained CP's are very robust and quiet running cameras. I think it is a good buy. 16mm is a lot more affordable than 35 any day of the week so I think you will be able to shoot a lot more with it than you could with a 35. 

As you know, Cinelab offers great quality for unbeatable prices so yea...

Also, as for the CP mount dilemma, you could get an adapter made for not that expensive to whatever mount you want at Les Bosher I am pretty sure but of course, check with him. 

With a good lens and a well maintained CP, I think you will be more than happy.

Edited by Giray Izcan
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Here is an example  from this little music video I shot for a friend. I shot this on 7219 stock rated at 250 with a Zeiss 10-100 t/3.1 lens obviously on r16. The one light lowcon print, or the imitation of it i should say, was scanned at 4k. Essentially,  Fotokem puts the regular print stock through ECN 2 to lower the contrast to make it more scanner friendly. I put it through DaVinci to convert the DPX files to prores 422. That's straight up from one light print so no digital corrections etc.. as is. I shot this on an Eclair NPR but camera body shouldn't matter.

 

 

Edited by Giray Izcan
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54 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

It seems like a good camera except for the bowtie shutter. It is known for smearing issues when shooting into light. It may be ok though. 

I may be exaggerating a bit but something to keep in mind. I hope it helps. Other than that, I think well maintained CP's are very robust and quiet running cameras. I think it is a good buy. 16mm is a lot more affordable than 35 any day of the week so I think you will be able to shoot a lot more with it than you could with a 35. 

As you know, Cinelab offers great quality for unbeatable prices so yea...

Also, as for the CP mount dilemma, you could get an adapter made for not that expensive to whatever mount you want at Les Bosher I am pretty sure but of course, check with him. 

With a good lens and a well maintained CP, I think you will be more than happy.

Thank you. I did notice the bowtie shutter also. I have never personally had issues with them but I know that some do. I had forgot to mention that point.

40 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

Here is an example  from this little music video I shot for a friend. I shot this on 7219 stock rated at 250 with a Zeiss 10-100 t/3.1 lens obviously on r16. The one light lowcon print, or the imitation of it i should say, was scanned at 4k. Essentially,  Fotokem puts the regular print stock through ECN 2 to lower the contrast to make it more scanner friendly. I put it through DaVinci to convert the DPX files to prores 422. That's straight up from one light print so no digital corrections etc.. as is. I shot this on an Eclair NPR but camera body shouldn't matter.

 

 

That looks great, Giray. That is the kind of timeless look I am after. Incredible that it looks that good as a one light. 

I feel really good about the purchase but am still on the fence about the lens situation. The buyer told me he can include an adapter from CP to Arri Standard. Are Arri Standard lenses any easier to find now or have all of these disappeared thanks to M43 users adapting all the old glass for the BM cams?

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Well the Zeiss lens I use is I believe Arri b mount so I am not sure about he standard mount lenses. You could get a very nice one made at Les though honestly.

Also, call Visual Products as they are selling one CP package and they may have one laying around.

Congratulations with your purchase.

Edited by Giray Izcan
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4 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I feel really good about the purchase but am still on the fence about the lens situation. The buyer told me he can include an adapter from CP to Arri Standard. Are Arri Standard lenses any easier to find now or have all of these disappeared thanks to M43 users adapting all the old glass for the BM cams?

If the camera body itself works (especially the original electronics which are the weak point of these cameras) then it would be a good buy. If the originals DO NOT work then it needs to be very cheap for anyone to buy it... non working ones should be no more than 300 or 400 even if the mechanics are perfectly OK.

If you are willing to use a zoom lens there is options to adapt Arri Standard or Arri Bayonet zooms to CP16R with an adapter. For example the 12-120, 10-150 and 9.5-95 Angenieux lenses. Additionally it should be doable to adapt a zoom lens to CP16R with a hard mount if you are not using the lens for anything else. 

Then there is the possibility to make a custom B4 mount adapter which converts the camera to B4 mount. This is the option I evaluated a while ago and now when having one spare camera body I may try it if not deciding to convert it to PL.

So lenses are not an issue unless you want to use prime lenses (in which case it would be probably necessary to convert the camera body to PL mount to get enough prime options for it to be usable) . 

As said, the electronics are the weak point of these cameras and if the original ones are not in perfect condition it may be necessary to custom make completely new crystal sync electronics for it.  This is possible as I am just designing new ones for my two cameras but it will cost around 1K depending on what is needed. Just something to know in case something happens with a camera like this and the original electronics start to malfunction... don't throw it away or purchase another one, the electronics can be replaced with completely new ones to make it working again. it is time consuming and costs around that 1K but if the camera is mechanically good and recently serviced it is worth it and one gets much better features than the original electronics had

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I purchased an Angenieux 12-120 CP-Mount lens off of eBay just to have (in case I purchase this kit or another that doesnt have a lens). 

I have no experience with Ultra 16 so can anyone tell me if the 12-120 should cover the Ultra 16 without a vignette? Thanks for anyone who can help.

 

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8 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I purchased an Angenieux 12-120 CP-Mount lens off of eBay just to have (in case I purchase this kit or another that doesnt have a lens). 

I have no experience with Ultra 16 so can anyone tell me if the 12-120 should cover the Ultra 16 without a vignette? Thanks for anyone who can help.

 

Not absolutely sure, but I would think so.  Most zoom lenses seem to cover ultra-16 fairly well.  You could always try projecting an image say of a window with it,  on to a card with dimensions drawn.

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8 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I purchased an Angenieux 12-120 CP-Mount lens off of eBay just to have (in case I purchase this kit or another that doesnt have a lens). 

I have no experience with Ultra 16 so can anyone tell me if the 12-120 should cover the Ultra 16 without a vignette? Thanks for anyone who can help.

 

It should cover it but on the wide end it may vignette a bit as 12-120 barely covers r16. 

Check out the link I posted up named Suffragette as it was shot on that lens at 2.8. It was scanned at 4k. Good luck with your purchase and happy holidays to you and to your family.

15-150 version will cover for sure as it covers s16.

Edited by Giray Izcan
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6 hours ago, Doug Palmer said:

Not absolutely sure, but I would think so.  Most zoom lenses seem to cover ultra-16 fairly well.  You could always try projecting an image say of a window with it,  on to a card with dimensions drawn.

Thank you. I will give it a shot. For sure, I will do a camera test before shooting anything serious but was just curious if anyone here knew or had tried it.

6 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

It should cover it but on the wide end it may vignette a bit as 12-120 barely covers r16. 

I was worried about this. Granted, I can probably live without the most wide portion of this lens but hopefully not too much needs to be given up (or I might just shoot R16). I really like the look of the U16 package for the money though so I might take a chance.

6 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

Check out the link I posted up named Suffragette as it was shot on that lens at 2.8. It was scanned at 4k. Good luck with your purchase and happy holidays to you and to your family.

I watched the footage and I did not notice any vignette with that. Of course there were a couple of shots where my eyes would not good enough to make out because the sides looked a bit dark on my monitor. But the footage looked sharp.

Did you use a tripod for this or handheld? Just curious...

6 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

15-150 version will cover for sure as it covers s16.

Sadly, I had to go with what was available and the 12-120 was the only one I found in CP mount.

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6 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I pulled the trigger on the U16 kit on eBay.

Thanks for everyone who helped out. I will be sure to post some camera tests once I get everything set up and done.

Hope I didn't raise hopes and mislead you. Merry covid-free Christmas everyone?

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  • 2 weeks later...
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To post an update, I must rant a bit to my brethren here...

I received my Ultra 16mm package and the seller forgot the charger. An honest mistake, perhaps, but it is just another delay that is frustrating. I had wanted to do a camera test this week but that set back those plans since the seller sent off the charger yesterday and it wont be here until next Monday.

However, the charger issue is now a non-issue because my Angenieux 12-120 zoom came in and it had a massive fungus spot on the front. Not only that but this lens vignettes in the viewfinder even at full telephoto. I was surprised because I expected a light vignette at the wider end but not beyond 50mm. The seller accepts returns so I sent that off for a return but now I am back to square one without a lens. Even if I wanted to sell the camera, I doubt I could without a lens because someone else would end up with the same problem.

Also, the CP16r runs a wee bit loud. My sound meter showed 50 dB noise at the lens mount which I think is high for these cameras. They are never whisper quiet but I don't recall getting readings that high in the past. I was careful to load the tester film correctly with a slack loop before the gate as is commonly the problem.

I have attached pictures of the lens for those that are interested. I am feeling quite down now as I had hoped to shoot a short film soon but that is not going to happen.

 

lens01.jpg

lens02.jpg

lens03.jpg

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I think the Konvas can be around 50db so that is pretty loud. There was only the normal running sound and nothing extra noises which might give up hints what is going on with it?

These cameras have rubber sound isolation pieces between the mechanism and the body ( 3 mounting points to connect the central mechanics assembly to the body) and the lens mount is part of that same assembly having a small gap between it and the outer body of the camera. There is additional three sound isolation pieces between the motor and the mechanism assembly, I think those pieces are made of polyurethane insteaf of rubber.

It may be that some of these part have deteriorated or wrongly assembled and that causes the louder running sound of the camera? 

About the lenses. Do you have any arri mount lenses which could be used with an adapter? A zoom lens with a arri standard mount would be easy to adapt inexpensively to cp mount

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34 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

The sound level is measured 3 ft away  from the lens. 50db is like a 2c almost. 

I was not aware that this was a standard. I could redo the test but what is important is that it is too loud. How much louder than acceptable is what I have yet to determined. 

I did do a test with the boom mic about 10 feet away from the camera and I could still hear the motor even with noise reduction. I cannot do too many tests now because I am waiting on the charger and the battery had enough charge for me to test running a 400' test load through.

24 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

I think the Konvas can be around 50db so that is pretty loud. There was only the normal running sound and nothing extra noises which might give up hints what is going on with it?

The strange thing is that is sounds like a normal CP16 but louder. It doesn't sound ratty-tatty or off in any way. It just has too much hum for suitable sound without wrapping a jacket around it or something. I would prefer to stay away from ghetto-style modifications for now.

25 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

About the lenses. Do you have any arri mount lenses which could be used with an adapter? A zoom lens with a arri standard mount would be easy to adapt inexpensively to cp mount

I have no Arri lenses and the seller did not end up throwing in an Arri adapter after all so I couldn't use one even if I had one.

I am torn between fire selling this beast (once I get the charger) or contacting Whitehouse or Visual Products and seeing about a PL mount conversion. I inspected the internals and the electronics look clean, the board looks sturdy, and the belt looks new (it was the same belt in the Whitehouse belt kits on eBay). The battery isnt a Whitehouse recell but it still holds a charge.

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To me it sounds like a soundproofing issue unless there is something wrong with the belt tension or the motor bearings. 

Did you try putting the lens cap on, mounting the camera on locked tripod so that it cannot move, then running it and gently moving the lens mount + the inner assembly to various directions by holding and carefully moving the lens mount and cap? If the noise level changes in different positions then it has to be a soundproofing problem which compromises the sound isolation of the floating central assembly. 

I would check the motor sound isolation pads too as they are an obvious fault point and can be deteriorated in old cameras

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1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

To me it sounds like a soundproofing issue unless there is something wrong with the belt tension or the motor bearings. 

Did you try putting the lens cap on, mounting the camera on locked tripod so that it cannot move, then running it and gently moving the lens mount + the inner assembly to various directions by holding and carefully moving the lens mount and cap? If the noise level changes in different positions then it has to be a soundproofing problem which compromises the sound isolation of the floating central assembly. 

I would check the motor sound isolation pads too as they are an obvious fault point and can be deteriorated in old cameras

Ill check this out once I get the charger and can recharge the battery.

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The CP-16R should run at 28 dB at one meter, the same as an Aaton 7 LTR (source: Victor Duncan Production Equipment catalog, 1980). 

I don't think I ever shot with a CP-16R, but did many rolls with beat-up old CP-16A's, and with the right mag and some luck they were pretty darn quiet.

Incidentally, the same catalog states that Arri was supposed to release an "ultra-quiet," SR-1 in 1981, which would run at 24 dB's. I'm not sure if that ever happened. It doesn't list the original SR-1 dB's but I would be surprised if they weren't 28dB's or probably lower.

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8 hours ago, charles pappas said:

The CP-16R should run at 28 dB at one meter, the same as an Aaton 7 LTR (source: Victor Duncan Production Equipment catalog, 1980). 

I am quite positive that mine is not nearly that quiet. The boom mic (AT4053B) picked it up 10 feet away and even denoiser @ 37 in Adobe Audition didnt get rid of it.

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Checking Wikipedia, the "ultra quiet'" Arri SR-1 to be released in 1981 apparently became the SR-2, which was released in 1982 and was much quieter. The early SR-1, per Wikipedia, was about 30 dB, which would be louder than the CP-16.

The reason I thought the SR-1 was very very quiet is that I watched a little of the filming of "Dazed and Confused," (1993) and they were using an Arri SR to make a "the making of," documentary," at the same time, and that Arri was so quiet that from a foot or two away one couldn't tell if it was running of not. I thought it was a SR-1 but checking my dates however it must have been an SR-2 (or conceivably an SR-3, 1992).

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