Eclair factory (?) S16 NPR newbie questions (with pictures!) [And Bonus Aaton Alcan 54 pictures!]

[Duncan Brown]

Just picked up this little gem - I wasn't sure it was what it is until I got it in my hands, but now I am.  I think this is a factory S16 NPR, though it later had a PL mount put on it quite professionally, almost certainly by Van Diemen in the UK (since it's their mount, and I'm 99% sure they used to do stuff like that.)  I'm saying it's factory, not converted later, because absolutely nobody is going to go to the trouble to engrave and paint-fill the markings like this has.  If someone can verify that, say, Van Diemen actually did go to all that trouble, then I'll stand corrected.  But for instance, their carving away of the body for the mount just got gloss black paint slapped on it, doesn't seem like their attention to detail went above and beyond to the level of engraved markings, you know?

Some notes

-- clearly it had a lot of double-perf film run through it in its life, as there is a wear spot around the bottom of the gate that matches up with the location and width of the other perf.

-- When I pondered how you would recenter the mount on an NPR, I imagined the simplest thing to do would be to move the locating pin, since the mount already moves sides to side.  When I pondered how you'd make it switchable back and forth I imagined an offset pin that could spin to two locations.  Well lo and behold, Eclair imagined doing it the same way!

-- If the engravings near the filter slot are supposed to let you know which format you're in, by noticing which one is clear and which one is slightly covered... well it's pretty damn subtle.  Easier to spin the lens mount plate and look at the marker on the offset pin I'd say.

-- I wondered how these motors could park in the mirror position, with a rubber coupling that allows the motor to be put on in any orientation.  The answer is, the motor just lands in the same spot every time, it's up to you to put it in such that the spot it lands in every time is the spot where the mirror is in the right position.  Simple but effective!  There are guide marks but frankly just letting the motor come to rest under power, then assembling it on the camera without moving it, with the mirror centered, is all you need to do.

-- The two positions of the motor switch are: to the left (from the operator's orientation) it clicks and stays on, in run position.  To the right, it is a momentary switch that fires one frame, then when you take your finger off it springs back, then each time you press it one more frame.  I assume the little two pin connecter next to it is for a remote switch for this function.

-- The little toggle switch in the back, when pushed towards the rear of the camera, enables the speed dial.  When pushed forward the motor always runs at 24/25fps (set with a separate switch on the hidden face of the motor), I assume as a quick way to get your sync speed without fiddling with the speed dial.

-- Note that the gate plate is relieved all the way for the full S16 width.  Compare this to the normal gate pictured, plus the gate from a parts camera I bought, that has been modified to (almost) be S16 width.  Quite well done, actually, but still the extra image area is running on polished plate the whole way.  Not sure if there's a significance to the black paint in the relieved areas vs the stock plate. 

OK, on with the pictures!

Duncan

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Duncan Brown

[Duncan Brown]

[Duncan Brown]

[Duncan Brown]

[Duncan Brown]

Yes, it came with half a Kinoptic finder.  If someone has the front half to a Kinoptic finder...or a whole Kinoptic finder... or an Angenieux finder...they'd like to sell, please let me know!

Duncan

[Duncan Brown]

I'm also guessing it lived its life as a rental camera?  The shutter angle warning plate would make more sense in that setting.

Duncan

[Heikki Repo]

Beautiful!

[Gregg MacPherson]

22 hours ago, Duncan Brown said:

 

Really interesting pictures. The motor looks like its clicks into a bionic socket in your shoulder. Is that dinky adjustable pad to prevent that accidentally happening...

I'm looking for the wear spot from the perf, I see something on the left side of frame but not the right. There is a place that looks relieved near the frame edge, visible on both left and right, more visible on the right.

Has anyone seen wear from the perf like that before, and can confirm that's what it is, and the why of only showing wear on one side.

The angled abrasions at the top of the gate plate (also some on the RH guide block). Are they telling anything? 

Can you see any difference in the edge radius on the left vs the rest of the aperture?

[Duncan Brown]

The perfs don't run across the gate on the right side, of course - they're over where the claw is.  But on the left side, I see a little wear patch, more obvious on the bottom side, but also there on the top, that corresponds with where the perfs are, to my eye.  On most S16 cameras you wouldn't see that, because you'd only ever run single perf film through it.  But this convertible camera, especially if it really were a rental, would have double-perf film run through it back in the days when that was plentiful.

The aperture looks to be even, and to have been made as S16 width from the get-go, another reason I think it's the factory option.

That motor is AMAZING, even without being able to bionically click into your shoulder.  It's very light.  The camera doesn't lurch forward if set down carelessly.  The trigger switch is well placed.  I need to weigh it in comparison to the stock Perfectone motor, but it is very noticeably lighter when lifting the camera.

Duncan

[steven jackson]

super nice!

[Duncan Brown]

I've been shooting some test footage on several NPR bodies, including this one, so once I finish up that film and get it processed and scanned, I should have some better idea of how well the normal/Super 16 switchability works in terms of the viewfinder framing, etc.  (I've just been moving the magazine filled with 400' of film from camera to camera.)  The film I used for this was some badly outdated 250D - double perf even! - so it will make for some lousy footage, but should provide some useful frame grabs in terms of scoping out what I wanted to see about this camera.

Duncan

[Jack Seibert]

On 4/30/2022 at 4:21 PM, Duncan Brown said:

-- I wondered how these motors could park in the mirror position, with a rubber coupling that allows the motor to be put on in any orientation.  The answer is, the motor just lands in the same spot every time, it's up to you to put it in such that the spot it lands in every time is the spot where the mirror is in the right position.  Simple but effective!  There are guide marks but frankly just letting the motor come to rest under power, then assembling it on the camera without moving it, with the mirror centered, is all you need to do.

Thanks for all the info and pictures! I was curious about this part of it, because I've been having the same issue with my NPR, which has the same motor as yours. At first I thought it came to rest randomly, but then quickly realized that it couldn't random to always land with the mirror out of place. Is the idea that I would run the motor, let it stop, then remove the motor and inch the mirror around until it was centered? I've been struggling to find those guide marks. Thank you!

[Duncan Brown]

1 hour ago, Jack Seibert said:

Thanks for all the info and pictures! I was curious about this part of it, because I've been having the same issue with my NPR, which has the same motor as yours. At first I thought it came to rest randomly, but then quickly realized that it couldn't random to always land with the mirror out of place. Is the idea that I would run the motor, let it stop, then remove the motor and inch the mirror around until it was centered? I've been struggling to find those guide marks. Thank you!

Yes, even without the guide marks you can do it.  Run the motor and let t come to rest.  Take it off of the camera without disturbing its position.  Now turn the rubber coupling around a few times so you get a feel for how wide the mirror is, then keep turning it until the mirror is in the center of its motion across the gate.  Now carefully put the motor straight on to the coupling without moving anything...and  you should be good to go.

Duncan

[Jack Seibert]

59 minutes ago, Duncan Brown said:

Yes, even without the guide marks you can do it.  Run the motor and let t come to rest.  Take it off of the camera without disturbing its position.  Now turn the rubber coupling around a few times so you get a feel for how wide the mirror is, then keep turning it until the mirror is in the center of its motion across the gate.  Now carefully put the motor straight on to the coupling without moving anything...and  you should be good to go.

Duncan

Thank you! This worked great. Appreciate the help.

[Volker Bendt]

Hi Duncan,

there is my ACL viewfinder on ebay, 

eBay-Artikelnummer:

314029738371

I'm not quite shure if it will fit your NPR..

Distance between mounting screws is 32mm.

Volker

 

[Duncan Brown]

This seemed like as good a place as any to post some pictures of my other, S16-modified-after-the-fact NPR.  The cases and equipment came with Optical Electro House stickers all over the place so I'm going to assume they did this mod back in the day.  But I was trading pictures with someone who has a freshly-Les-Bosher-S16-modified NPR and the c mount fix looked 100% identical, so that's what made me think to post these pictures here.  It seems to be a standard way to do the mod.

The C-mount is remade with the hole offset, then put back in the same hole in the turret plate, such that the offset is in the correct location for a S16 widened gate.  The Cameflex mount was pulled out and remounted in an offset position - maybe by widening the hole in the turret, maybe by narrowing down the outside diameter of the mount, maybe both, hard to tell without disassembling it all.  But it's definitely been moved the appropriate amount to the correct side.  The gate aperture was widened, but the relieved portions that are scooped out of the gate plate were NOT made wider, so the image area of the single perf film will in fact ride on a bit more metal that in a proper S16 camera.  But it's very smooth, polished metal, so...   

Finally, the focusing screen was painted with something on the outside in such a way as to create a wider-looking translucent area for framing.  Does it really match the image area of the film?  Looks too wide to me.  Is the cross centered to the new center of the widened gate?  I don't see how.  It looks more like a helpful guide than a proper critical framing screen.  But I did all those lens and framing tests with this camera too, so whenever I finish up that 400' roll of film and get it processed, maybe I'll be able to answer those questions better.

Duncan

 

[Boris Belay]

Hi Duncan, Sorry, I have not been on this site for a while so I missed your original posting.  Nice camera, especially with its Aaton motor, but I'm pretty sure it's not a factory S-16 camera, and nearly sure it's a Van Diemen job.  I had a factory S-16 NPR (now sold) and it was different in several respects (no N-16/S-16 option, for instance), and it definitely had a factory S-16 ground glass, while yours has a ground glass that looks a lot like the one I had on a Van Diemen Aaton S-16 conversion.

Van Diemen made very nice conversions, so it's really not a big difference, but I had to rectify that for the record.  I think I have pictures of that camera somewhere, so I will post them.

[Duncan Brown]

On 1/29/2023 at 12:17 PM, Boris Belay said:

Hi Duncan, Sorry, I have not been on this site for a while so I missed your original posting.  Nice camera, especially with its Aaton motor, but I'm pretty sure it's not a factory S-16 camera, and nearly sure it's a Van Diemen job.  I had a factory S-16 NPR (now sold) and it was different in several respects (no N-16/S-16 option, for instance), and it definitely had a factory S-16 ground glass, while yours has a ground glass that looks a lot like the one I had on a Van Diemen Aaton S-16 conversion.

Van Diemen made very nice conversions, so it's really not a big difference, but I had to rectify that for the record.  I think I have pictures of that camera somewhere, so I will post them.

Well it would certainly make sense for it to be their conversion, since they did the PL mount.  But wow that's above and beyond, the level they would have had to disassemble it just to make those engravings is more work than some of the camera conversions I've seen out there.

So did Eclair's S16 NPRs not have the feature where you could switch between standard and super 16?  I'd love to see pictures of an actual factory S16 NPR...

Duncan

[Boris Belay]

Hi again, here are some pix of my (former) factory S-16 NPR (serial 3252, so quite a late one).

First the film gate.  You can tell it's a factory job.

[Boris Belay]

The lens mount (usual CA + C version), which you can barely notice has been off-centered to match the gate.

And the ground glass.

[Boris Belay]

Another picture from the inside, when I was servicing the camera : the film plate with gate.

[Boris Belay]

And finally, the front housing, with its offset lens opening.

Everything ese about the camera is pretty much standard NPR, including the motor (not an Aaton Alcan like yours).  It even had the early Kinoptik viewfinder.  

It came with one magazine that had been converted too, but as far as I remember, it was mostly the main roller on the take-up side. I did not take pictures, unfortunately.

I sold the camera to a person in Brussels about a year and a half ago, who used it on a shoot in Greece with good results.  I think he may want to sell it back, in case somebody is interested.

Obviously, this is a Super-16 only camera, since the centering is fixed.  The ground glass has 4/3 markings, but the lens is centered for S-16 (not a problem for most lenses).

Of course, Eclair did try to make a Standard 16/Super-16 switchable camera, the Panoram, but it never went beyond the prototype stage...

 

[Duncan Brown]

1 hour ago, Boris Belay said:

Obviously, this is a Super-16 only camera, since the centering is fixed.  The ground glass has 4/3 markings, but the lens is centered for S-16 (not a problem for most lenses).

Yes, that ground glass is done the way you would have to do it for a permanently converted camera - if you were shooting regular 4:3, it would be offset to one side like that (and zoom lenses would be ill-advised if you planned to zoom them during a shot.)  Which explains why my camera ground glass has the 4:3 centered within S16 markings - you'd be expected to switch the lens centering if you were shooting regular 16.

Interesting, the various things people did with these cameras over the years!  And thanks so much for the factory S16 NPR photos - as far as I have found, those are now the only ones on the internet!

I'm still impressed with the lengths Van Diemen went to on that conversion - the legends precisely engraved, the area past the gate relieved on both sides, etc.  I'm guessing it was done after Eclair had stopped producing the NPR?  Or else you'd think they would have "borrowed" that idea for 16/S16 conversion on the fly.

Duncan