Sir Alvin Ekarma

So I exploded my U16 CP-16 in last fall when I fumbled the wiring of my DIY battery and went poking around to get it fixed. Paul Hillman and Visual Products always came up in posts, but I wasn't 100 % on that since the posts were all super old. Well, I rang up Visual Products and Paul is still there fixing up CP-16s as of this post. It took awhile since there's a backlog of more current product repairs, but he finally got around to it this past month and it's coming back all alive and stuff. So if you end up like me and your CP-16 needs some repair work, Paul and Visual Products can do it and are most likely people the only folks who can, but they are super nice and the repair cost was incredibly reasonable. Bear in mind there's going to be wait but if you were like me and ready to part it out on Ebay, it'll be worth it.

So I had some 16mm film sitting in my freezer and wanted to use it soon, so I had my lab do some density tests. Now usually the tech guy is there to interpret the numbers and tell me how much to adjust, but he wasn't there and I'm in a fix. I looked up the spec sheets, but I can't figure it out. I know this is lame, but can somebody tell me what the numbers mean or point me to an online resource? Here's what I have: 200T/7213, R. 18/ G. 57/ B. 89/ ND 41 500T/7219, R. 20/ G.59/B.92/ND 43 Again, thanks in advance

The CP-16 is the reflex, but it's also the bowtie shutter. I've been trying to track down the guy at Visual Products who does the tweak to get rid of the possible blurring problem, but no luck. I talked to Whitehouse AV and they said you'll get it if you're shooting wide open in a back lit situation, so I should be okay if I avoid that. Re: M42 adapters for CP-16. Yes, that was a nice surprise since M42s are as common as salt and cost about as much.. As for c-mounts, I don't think so.

Hey there- I did have the conversion, but life has gotten in the way so I haven't had the time to do any tests or film scans. I've been trying to put together some kind of test shoot that is more than just charts and people posing, but I think I'm just going to buckle under in a few months and just shoot charts and people posing. And as for the viewfinder, that was a problem that did end up getting fixed by Duall, so there's that. And because I obviously have mental issues, I got an upgraded U16 CP-16 camera that was just too cheap to pass up: $300 for a complete package plus a 6mm wide angle and free shipping. I ended up selling off my old scoopic and the CP-16's zoom and viewfinder that paid for the cost of the camera plus getting a CP-16 to M42 slr adapter, and an orientable viewfinder. The only thing I've sprung out of pocket is a russian meteor zoom in m42 that I'm hoping to get tweaked/collimated to work with camera. If it doesn't work, I've got a set of SLR primes that can work. I am crazy like a fox. Hope that helps -- SA1!

You bet. I got the hat and everything from Burger King. I got it for messin' up the Hamburglar in the Sandwich Wars of '75.

So I got my camera tests back and the 10mm Angenieux plus diopter didn't do so hot. I didn't do a comparison with/ without (and I should have, my bad-- I had a lot lenses to test and I'm a budget) but with the diopter on the lens and at all the f-stops I tried (16, 5.6, 2.8), it was soft and since it's a fixed focus there's not much you can do with it. As I said, eyeballing it, it looked fine in the viewfinder, but it totally didn't resolve on film, plus the 10mm cinegon I tried it against totally destroyed it. I have one more set of tests to do and I'll give it another whirl without the diopter, but I'll probably put it up on the Ebay pretty soon.

As I need to finish up my camera tests, I decided to just throw together the DIY eyepiece to wrap things up before I send it off. Here are some pix and directions FYI for anybody who needs it. It's dirt cheap (the correction lens will set you back $10-$15) and it works. So you need a bottle cap from a liter of soda, an SLR correction lens in the flavor of your choice (mine is +2.0), and an optional pair of swim goggles. Re: the correction lens-- make sure it's big enough for the eyepiece (most are) and it should be circular with a rubberized metal frame, and one side should have a thread. Dremel out the the inside ridges of the bottle cap and then cut a hole in the cap roughly the diameter of the the threaded side of the correction lens. Stick in the lens and slip over the viewfinder. You're done. However, you'll want an eye cup so take the swim goggles, cut one free and the then dremel out the front. Glue in the bottle cap once you've figured out how you want things arranged and putty up any exposed holes. Now you're really done. Here just some pix as some examples. Note that I haven't finished mine totally when I took the pix. http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o310/cashfl/6202014-011a_zpsf8b4f7ac.jpg http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o310/cashfl/6202014-010a_zpseea50f2b.jpg

Umm, back pedaling here. I would delete what I just posted if I could. Turns out the R16 diopter had shifted. I placed it back down and it's funky again. I'll be sending this off to the overhaul people sooner rather than later.

Update: Okay, I figured this out and what I ended up doing was just using my left eye instead of my right and it looks fine. That was simple. I don't know if that was an obvious solution but then again hind sight is 20/20 (or in my case 20/300). However, this was after I bought a couple of SLR correction lens (+1, +2) because I also found out that if I was was so inclined (or if both my eyes were terrible) you can dremel out the bottle cap from a liter of soda and sandwich the diopter between the viewfinder and slide the whole thing over the viewfinder. So this also works and I may keep one of these lenses since my DIY video tap was having problems focusing on the R16.

@G. Irwin I'm a complicated man that nobody understands but my woman.

Oh well. I do have a Cinegon I can use in a jam. I have a turret-style beaulieu now and the cinegon doesn't give clearance to my arri-s style matte box, thus the Angeneiux. I can figure out what works best after I shake it down. Thanx for the info :)

Film.

I'm doing some lens tests soon and I have a question: can close-up lenses be used to increase the DOF of the angenieux at a wide aperture? According to some threads here, five feet away is as close as you can get with the lens wide open and I wanted to see if throwing something on would negate that. I know the lens thread on the angenieux is barely there so I'd have to tape it all together, but has anybody tried this?

Update: so that diopter thing didn't pan out. It worked sorta but the field of view was too tight and it was difficult to make out the corners. Anway, I've started to think that it is my eyes since I've played around with it since then, i can dial iin the viewfinder fine with my eyeglasses if don't place my eye directly on the viewfinder. Still that's not exactly ideal still so I'm going to see if I can find some more viewfinder diopters that are in the USA that have a larger diameter than the viewfinder since that's what did the trick with the right angle viewfinder gadget..

Good to know I'm not hallucinating this problem. I'm going to have some friends and relatives (who have better eyesight than I do) look through my rig and see if they have the same problem. If so, there's a bigger problem here and if not, I'm guilty of crummy eye sight. Anyway, here's the ebay link. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Diopter-lens-for-viewfinder-Zenit-Olympus-cameras-/160533957774?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item256091cc8e or do a search for "diopter lens vewfinder Zenit". There are other similar gadgets about that are of a more recent vintage but they seemed to be aimed at DSLRs, while this was straight-up made for SLRs and specfically to address diopter issues and also has some pretty serious glass it sounds like. The seller has the same item under two different prices for some reason, One is $9.50 and the other is $12.50, but with shipping it's all around $20. the part that clips to the viewfinder is the same approximate dimensions as the r16 viewfinder (26mm) plus round so it should be a flush fit. Be warned that it's coming from the Ukraine so get your order in before the place goes full Bosnia.