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Is this a Bolex Body or a clone?


Al Debruin

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It could be then an early version of Nicholas' great UltraPan8 system.   I don't know how the layout of the camera's  interior would differ from Pan-16.  You may have to delve deeper inside to find out.  Pan-16 would of course have lower running costs, but would I  think present a slight problem of precise cutting of inividual frames unless done with a scan.

There were so many mods done to 16mm and 8mm cameras during the 1960s etc.  Supervision (yes that's right !) was another. A normal 16mm camera with vertical gate-masking, to allow double-run and splitting later.  Camera tipped on its side.  Again, nice images (same ratio as Vistavision) at low cost. The Widescreen enthusiasts modified their projectors to give very bright and sharp images.  I have yet to see a Supervision half-16 camera.

Edited by Doug Palmer
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Thanks for the pictures and some of your measurements.

The discussions or confusion regarding anamorphic compressions are misleading and misdirected. Your camera mod and others reflect engineering attempts to dispense with the anamorphic system and instead utilize standard spherical lens similar to the 2-perf 35mm Techniscope gate concept later popularized by Sergio Leone. Essentially a flat gate. Also fundamental to PAN-8 2.4 or UP8 2.8 engineering is the identical shared perforation dimensions of R16 and R8mm film stock. R8mm film stock is derived from 16mm stock.  Which led to these camera mods sharing interchangeable H8 and H16 parts. UP8 R8 2.8 or UP8 DS8 3.1 cameras are essentially H16 bodies, 10/13x viewfinders, apertures  with H8 or Jakko DS8 transport inserts with UP8 2.8 or 3.1 machined gates with 8mm or S8 pulldown and 8mm/S8 sprockets with a half-frame 16mm differential. There are 80x UP8 R8 2.8 or UP8 DS8 3.1 frames per foot compared to "full height" 16mm frames per foot.  Which essentially doubles the runtime of 100ft rolls of R8mm film stock to 5+ minutes, i.e . https://filmphotographystore.com/collections/movie-film/double-8

Your camera is not a Stuart Warriner engineered Pan-16 camera as per my detailed post here with a scanned example of actual K25 Pan-16 scanned footage, i.e. 

Pan-16 employed single perf 16mm film stock with a complicated 2-step 8mm pulldown to expose 2x 1:2.4 Techniscope type frames per 1 perf 16mm frame. Essentially stacked. Brilliant execution. Almost impossible to reverse engineer. Stuart's engineering notes are non-existent.  

Your measured gate has an aspect ratio of 2.78 which matches our Bolex UltraPan 8 aspect ratio. But predates it significantly. I suspect your Bolex was machined originally for 1:2.4 Pan-8 gate then widened to it's final 1:2.78. And potentially employs 8mm pulldown exposing the 16mm width of unslit 16mm wide 8mm film. This camera mod predates Super 8 (1964/65). It could be an UK Widescreen Association orphan. 

If you send me your email I can send you a PDF copy of Professor Guy Edmond's academic papers detailing the UK Widescreen Associations multiple small format engineering projects. 

"Amateur widescreen; or, some forgotten skirmishes in the battle
of the gauges"
Edmonds, Guy.

Film History: An International Journal, Volume 19, Number 4,
2007, pp. 401-413 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press

Your camera is of historical value and worth resurrecting. 

Edited by Nicholas Kovats
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Thank you Nicholas, very interesting info, I had the feeling there was something unusual about the camera.

So essentially any modern day Double 8“ film should work, something like the film sold at the link below?

https://filmphotographystore.com/collections/movie-film/double-8

What has occurred to me is with the advent of digital and most film being scanned to digital for post the significant hurdle of needing a compatible projector to view the resulting footage has been removed. Once in the digital realm the footage can easily be adjusted to the correct speed and whatever else needs doing. Which means this camera is still a viable option, that's assuming the Double 8 film I linked to above is compatible or if not suitable film is still available.

 

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Your welcome. 

That is correct regarding 100ft or 25ft rolls of 16mm wide Double 8 film stock as per the link I posted. Count the teeth on your sprockets. It's hard to tell definitely from your photographs but there appears to be 8. Which would mean that it is a 16mm sprocket that works in conjunction with the 8mm pulldown. Eight millimeter sprockets have 16 perf teeth. 

 

Edited by Nicholas Kovats
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/26/2023 at 4:54 AM, Nicholas Kovats said:

Your welcome. 

That is correct regarding 100ft or 25ft rolls of 16mm wide Double 8 film stock as per the link I posted. Count the teeth on your sprockets. It's hard to tell definitely from your photographs but there appears to be 8. Which would mean that it is a 16mm sprocket that works in conjunction with the 8mm pulldown. Eight millimeter sprockets have 16 perf teeth. 

 

I just got a gap to count the teeth and there are indeed 8 teeth on the prockets.

So if I'm understanding this right they use something in the order of an H16 body with C-mount lens mount for full coverage, change the gates to the 8mm pulldown height and the mechanism is a combination of H16 16mm sprockets with adjusted gearing and an H8 pulldown mechanism?

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21 minutes ago, Simon Wyss said:

The combination is an H-8 with an H-16 front. The sprocket drums are identical.

Thanks Simon, if you don't mind me asking approximately which parts would be H-8 and which H-16?

Edited by Al Debruin
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From what I can deduce the body and lens mount is H-16 for the larger C-lenses to get full coverage of the wider film and the mechanical stuff, the sprockets/pulldown mechanism is H-8 but with an H-16 sized shutter fitted.

Does that sound about right?

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Yeah, if I had to build that camera, I’d take an H-8 and replace the front by an H-16 one. The aperture plate would be a 16-mm. without the support ridge in the center. Then add a mask for this wide-frame format.

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