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WTB: Aaton Penelope 2 and 3 perf 35mm camera


Edith blazek

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4 hours ago, Dan Finlayson said:

What, in your estimation, is it's specialty purpose?

Lightweight shoulder, gimbal, Steadicam, vehicle work is what it's really designed for. 

Why wouldn't you use it as an 'A' camera? 

1) No registration pins. This isn't a huge problem, but the "industry standard" A cameras, all have registration pins. 
2) Doesn't over crank much at all, so you're not using it for any ramping or high speed shots. 
3) 400ft mags do limit run time and on bigger shows, they like to run 1000 footers all the time. 
4) Support is very limited, there are very few people who know the camera well enough. 

By the way, these are very similar issues to the entire Aaton fleet. I'm not discounting one camera really. It's why the 416 is worth WAY more than an XTR Prod. Both move film. Both create identical images. It's just the 416 is more supported. 

I personally love the Penelope, I think it's a perfect camera in many ways. It's a HUGE step above what was on the market at the time, completely mind blowing tech. I mean the thing has a floating gate for gosh sakes, who the F does that! Brilliantly designed camera and had film stuck around, I bet the Penelope would have dominated had they entered into the studio camera business. I always think to myself, what could have been, had they just kept film going for a while longer. 

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On 10/30/2022 at 10:36 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

I was the First AC on the very first US production with the Penelope back in 2009 with Hoyte on THE FIGHTER. The A camera operator, Geoff Haley and I were extremely unimpressed with the camera. For its size, it was very heavy. The viewing system was dark as was the video tap. There was very little  real estate on the camera body for us to attach the needed accessories to turn it into a “Hollywood feature film” camera. The other drawback was the co-axial magazines. We were a steadicam movie. Unless the steadicam operator had the control box that allows for re-balancing while rolling, like Geoff had, you would quickly be out of balance side to side during a take. Speaking about the camera’s balance, we had to hang an on board monitor off of the back of the camera in order to achieve better balance when hand held.  Finally, we were surprised that the camera was not that quiet when compared to other silent film camera choices. I’m sure that there is a market for this camera (somewhere) but it’s not a good choice for narrative filmmaking. 
 

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Edited by Gregory Irwin
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4 hours ago, Gregory Irwin said:

I was the First AC on the very first US production with the Penelope back in 2009 with Hoyte on THE FIGHTER. The A camera operator, Geoff Haley and I were extremely unimpressed with the camera. For its size, it was very heavy. The viewing system was dark as was the video tap. There was very little  real estate on the camera body for us to attach the needed accessories to turn it into a “Hollywood feature film” camera. The other drawback was the co-axial magazines. We were a steadicam movie. Unless the steadicam operator had the control box that allows for re-balancing while rolling, like Geoff had, you would quickly be out of balance side to side during a take. Speaking about the camera’s balance, we had to hang an on board monitor off of the back of the camera in order to achieve better balance when hand held.  Finally, we were surprised that the camera was not that quiet when compared to other silent film camera choices. I’m sure that there is a market for this camera (somewhere) but it’s not a good choice for narrative filmmaking.

 

Yea, those are some the other issues. Thanks for taking the time to comment on them. 

I'm kinda shocked you guys had issues with brightness on tap, I've never seen that before. I wonder if you guys were just running in very dark situations? If you're pushing 500 a stop or two, yea the tap even with max gain, won't be good enough when running. 

The Steadicam issue is also kinda funny, I had no problems on shorter takes. But yea, if you're running the entire roll, as an operator, you need to compensate as you're shooting. The 35III that I've run Steadicam on a lot, has the same issues. 

I also find it funny you guys had loudness issues. Every Penelope I've worked on, has been dead quiet. Actually insane how quiet they are for something so small and light. Again, sometimes people don't know how to set them up properly. You have to properly shim the movement in order to get it quiet. Sometimes the shims that work on certain film (pitch control) don't work on other film. Like we do a lot of testing with Fuji perfs because we got a lot of free film, but Kodak perfs are slightly different and setting a camera up for Fuji perfs, can make it loud with Kodak unless there is enough range in the pitch adjustment. 

The balance is kinda funny because the supply roll is up front in the mag. The 35III does the opposite and I think it balances slightly better. 

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5 hours ago, Isaac said:

Right so its in the ballpark of an LT, but of course people run 1000ft mags on the LT if they need to go for 10 minutes without a mag change.

The Penelope can't run 4 perf, so no anamorphic shooting. 

So you're really comparing 15 min 3 perf and 22 min 2 perf on 1000ft mags. 

5 hours ago, Isaac said:

Weirdly, the penelope in 2-perf gets 10 minutes out of a 400ft ?

Less than 9 min, but ok. 

Very few people who are shooting on commercial jobs, are doing 2 perf. Where it's true, some people take the leap, the majority still shoot 3 perf and 4 perf for dozens of reasons. The only "benefit" of 2 perf is cost, but there are many detractors. 

5 hours ago, Isaac said:

(And swaps mags instantly anyway.)

Yes! 100% great benefit of the Penelope. However, still need to re-load those mags. It's not like an Arricam where you can have some random Joe load them, the Penelope mags need a specialist and finding a Penelope kit with more than 3 mags, is also very difficult. Arricam mags seem to grow on trees out here. My friends Arricam has 12 mags in the kit. 

I mean the Penelope is still the camera I'd shoot with, but on commercial shoots it's a stretch. 

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13 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, those are some the other issues. Thanks for taking the time to comment on them. 

I'm kinda shocked you guys had issues with brightness on tap, I've never seen that before. I wonder if you guys were just running in very dark situations? If you're pushing 500 a stop or two, yea the tap even with max gain, won't be good enough when running. 
 

Yes Tyler, we were very low light and the tap had no way to expose for the levels.

The Steadicam issue is also kinda funny, I had no problems on shorter takes. But yea, if you're running the entire roll, as an operator, you need to compensate as you're shooting. The 35III that I've run Steadicam on a lot, has the same issues

We we’re running very long takes in 2 perf.  

I also find it funny you guys had loudness issues. Every Penelope I've worked on, has been dead quiet. Actually insane how quiet they are for something so small and light. Again, sometimes people don't know how to set them up properly. You have to properly shim the movement in order to get it quiet. Sometimes the shims that work on certain film (pitch control) don't work on other film. Like we do a lot of testing with Fuji perfs because we got a lot of free film, but Kodak perfs are slightly different and setting a camera up for Fuji perfs, can make it loud with Kodak unless there is enough range in the pitch adjustment. 
 

We had noise issues due to the 2 perf along with the Fuji film stock.  Aaton was unable to adjust for these at that time  

The balance is kinda funny because the supply roll is up front in the mag. The 35III does the opposite and I think it balances slightly better. 
 

The balance issue was due to the heavier Zeiss Master Primes with filtration hanging off of the front.

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Hello all,

The Aaton Penelope we have available has certainly raised a lot of eyebrows and has spawned so much interest.
The price has now been lowered to $69,000 with a 3 month warranty on labor and parts (where available). The camera is in good working condition in Europe and has been well maintained by former Aaton techs.
Here is a link to the posting on our site: https://fjsinternational.com/cameras/aaton-penelope-35mm-camera-package-extremely-rare-2-perf-3-perf/

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