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Nicholas Kovats

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    Cinematographer
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    Shoot film! facebook.com/UltraPan8WidescreenFilm

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  1. NASA utilized upwards of 50 x high speed 16mm, 35mm, 65mm and 70mm cameras surrounding the gantry. All pin-registered. Some cameras such as the Photo-Sonics Actionmaster 500 16mm HS camera had simple "metadata" exposed to the right of the frame, e.g. time in seconds, date, camera #, etc. They had upwards of 10x huge Photo-Sonics 70mm-10A high speed cameras. Most of the cameras were predominately Photo-Sonics. Some encased at the base with quartz portals. I have two of the Photo-Sonics Actionmaster 500 16mm HS cameras with one utilized by NFL films. I had both converted to 3 or 4 pin XLR power connectors utilized with 8x cell LiPO 29.6V. It can peak at 11 to 15 amps on startup. One was converted to a PL mount. Uses 2-perf 16mm film stock with twin registration pin and pulldown. Exceedingly sharp frame line. This was a quick registration test shot at 24fps with E100D, i.e. https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/612179757 This was a quick document of UK filmmaker Cherry Kino testing our initial "prototype" with the camera tied to a huge power source consisting of batteries and huge ceramic capacitors in a milk crate. Fun times. https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/222611616 My original intent was too utilize them predominately as rock steady MOS 24fps in conjunction with the internal digital crystal sync (PLL). Amazing tech circa 1969 - 1971 regarding this PAM 500 16mm. Multiple Photo-Sonic 16mm and 35mm camera shutters can be synced which David Fincher utilized to great effect in The Fight Club (35mm). Nolan utilized Photo-Sonics 35mm cams at their maximum 360fps in Inception. Photo-Sonics even built a very rare 1000 fps 16mm camera with 8 rego pin/pulldown transport. The president of the company admitted to an fps war with either Locam or Redlake. These cameras are incredible "intermittent" transport systems not the faster but lower resolution prism transport systems which utilized frame blending. Intermittent is king for maximum frame sharpness.
  2. There is not much left from the original design including the pin registered transport. Apparently standard rinky dink pulldown claw. Would be interesting who actually manufactures the camera. Did they upgrade the sd video processor to actual 1080p output? Or are they upscaling the original 480p SD spec? Will it use the same audio file system as the Logmar? Many questions. It would be beneficial if 3rd parties improved the crappy plastic S8 "co-axial" cartridge. With a darkroom loader in conjunction with a new machined or carbon fiber cartridge. I suspect the social media "influencers" will drive a hefty percentage of the initial modest run. This could get weird regarding eco-system and accessories. Think pink Barbie collectors edition. Or maybe not. I can see Nolan and Spielberg buying one in support of the effort. But not Deakin. It may trigger cheap Eastern copies with the associated cheaper labour and associated massive supply chain. Maybe not. This is a fun and wacky world whereby proud owners of $25 dollar crappy Super 8 cameras straddle one side and the digital boxes with 500 lbs of attached accessories crowd on the other.
  3. Did you read the preceding posts? I and others go into great detail with scanned examples regarding the current Bolex UltraPan8 2.8 R8 system that utilizes Regular 8 film stock.
  4. I was about to post the same link. The Bolex went up over 6 years ago. Shot on a 100ft roll of V3 50D. Beautifully exposed considering they were drone/gimbal nerds. Ethereal how the Bolex rises into the air filming the dreamy 16mm impending storm in the desert.
  5. Contact Robert Ditto at robertmdittoprofessional@gmail.com. He maybe able to assist. He has Clive Tobin's schematics.
  6. I would agree with both suggestions. Originate in 16mm or shoot 8 perf VistaVision 35mm stills. Super 8 is such a tiny frame. Grain free is a rigid digital ideal. Organic chemistry wants to be grainy with character. Embrace Super 8's limitations relative to the larger film formats. Or don't. But sometimes it works when the tiny Super 8 medium embraces the subject. I shot the following with S8 V50D in mostly overhead sun. The brightest part of the day which optimizes the neg IF you seek "sharpness". At times I didn't. No supplemental lighting was used. All handheld. Carefully. Good glass. The natural wrap of the sun's parallel's rays is a godsend for the small format filmmaker. Beaulieu 6008Pro w/ Angeniuex 6-70mm. Scanned to 4k DPX (10 or 12 bit?) and uploaded as such to Vimeo. One can set the Vimeo player for 4K playback. My ex-partner (VFX pre/post manager) "adjusted" colors in Sony Vegas 13. Subtly. She actually manipulated the mathematical hex values of the color space. Delicately. It was the only time my film scan color space has been "treated" as such. The opening shot is a slow track into a 8 perf 35mm b/w negative.
  7. Have you tested new lighter SmallRig VB99 mini V Mount Battery 3580 with your setup? I assume they would also be regulated by the plate to output the required 12V. https://smallrig.com/SmallRig-VB99-mini-V-Mount-Battery-3580.html
  8. Well done! Nice clean setup. I don't have my Bolex in front of me. I was not aware of screws set in the back below the viewfinder.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Can you possibly take a close-up photo of the gate from the front of the camera? While backlighting it with a diffused light source? This appears to be a modified H8 camera that crops the 2-perf 16mm wide 8mm film stock. It may be related to to historical camera engineering projects by the famous UK Widescreen Association. Can you count the number of teeth on one of the sprockets? Is the aperture (film gate opening) 8mm or 16mm wide? This is an example of a modified Bolex H8/H16mm camera that exposes the 16mm width of 8mm film stock with a 1:2.8 aspect ratio., i.e.
  12. Jean-Louise is a proponent of the 10,000 hour rule. "You've probably heard of the 10,000 hour rule, which was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's blockbuster book “Outliers.” As Gladwell tells it, the rule goes like this: it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials, like playing the violin or getting as good as Bill Gates ." TJ apprenticed under Jean-Louis.
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