Zachary Vex

In a word, no. The amount of information stored in a modern emulsion film frame is dramatically higher than any electronic sensor can match, and will be for some time to come. Perhaps forever. Film can be scanned for years to come as scanning quality improves, but if you shoot on one of the limited electronic devices today, your original data will be limited to that soon-to-be obsolete format FOREVER.

Thanks so much. That's the one I remembered seeing.

I must be wording my question improperly. Does anyone know of a camera service shop which specializes in putting Nikon mounts on Eyemos? I believe I read about such a shop in Canada that was mentioned in this forum, but I haven't successfully found that post.

Any suggestions for a service shop that could help me get my Eyemo's focus problem sorted out?

I did a recent test with an Eyemo that I purchased on Ebay which had been modified with a Nikon mount, and was horrified to discover that when set to infinity, the focus was on trees about 50 feet away and infinity was completely out of focus. Any suggestions for where I should send this camera to be examined and modified?

And of course there is the Velvia look, which I adore. I think Fuji's still making it.

I have a Peleng 8mm f3.5 that wasn't too expensive and it's designed to be fisheye. It produces a circular result (mostly) in a standard SLR 355m frame but of course it covers a full S16 frame, while retaining a pretty fishy look. They're sold regularly on eBay for $300 with a Nikon mount, if you can use that.

One disadvantage, I'd imagine, would be the loss of your ability to under-sling that camera if you did the top-handle assist.

On Thursday I had a chance to look at the present lineup of Arri cameras and lenses and spoke at length with two representatives at an open house at Cinequipt, Minneapolis. Cinequipt/Lighthouse is the main resource filmmakers use in this area... They provided an enormous roasted pig (with an apple in its mouth) and everybody and their mother's uncle from the film business were at this get-together. What I found most remarkable was the Super 35mm Ultraprime 8mm rectilinear lens, which is damned straight at the edges of the frame. They presented one with a viewer that was pretty dang amazing, but obviously with such a wide lens on such a large format one has to compose carefully to avoid the grotesque stretching of faces and other body parts at the edges of the frame. The 416 Plus has a spectacular viewfinder (I'm so jealous... I have to press my eye very hard into my LTR-7's eyepiece to see the whole super 16mm frame). The amount of view around the actual framed area is enormous, like a sport finder. As a result, it has the appearance of being much brighter than any viewfinder I've ever looked through. That camera comes with dedicated sockets coming from a radio receiver for the motorized focus-pull gear drives (as well as aperture and zoom) and I had a blast playing with the modular remote control, which is very ergonomic and easy to program... they taught me in less than one minute how to use almost every feature. It comes in two configurations, one with just two controllers (focus being the main knob with white flange) at around $16K (he was guessing) and also as a $24K three-control device (the third control is added by disassembling the sandwitch of control modules that are clicked together in a very simple fashion and snapping in the third.) The controls are ergonomic in two ways... there's only one knob (for focus) which you turn with your right hand, your left hand being slipped through a handle much like that of a camcorder with your left thumb on top of the control pack, which has a pressure-sensitive knob for one gear motor that's like a single-axis joystick, and a mixing-console style fader that your left thumb can also slide up and down, or you can use your right hand very easily to slide this as well. with this configuration you don't have to look at the thing at all to control different rings on the lenses... every single control interface feels and operates very differently from the others. There are a couple of buttons to establish limits and rate of turn as well. It's absolutely genius with its little 3 inch rubber antenna. It seems pretty hard (no rubberized edges or corners that I recall) so dropping it on concrete is probably a very bad idea.

The article says Chediak is a devotee of Cooke S4 primes but decided to use Arri lenses for the S16 portions of the film because they had just introduced the 6mm, 8mm and 12mm wide-angle lenses.

I realize this is an old topic, but for those of you using Nikkor/Nikon lenses (even the zooms with 77mm filters and about 90mm O.D.) there is an inexpensive approach to setting up a follow-focus system: http://indifocus.com/indifocus.html The site isn't very clear about what you get with the indiFOCUSgear system, but I spoke with the owner, Tim, and he said it comes with the friction wheel (if you don't need to mount a gear), a gear with 6 screws (improvement over the 4 set screws shown on the site's version), and the rack-mount focus pull device. Everything he sells is very reasonably priced! You can get every single accessory you'll need plus the focus pull device and gear for under $500. Extra focus gears are only $22, and he'll even bore out larger ones for you if you have some kind of huge lens that needs an opening larger than 90mm! I'm pretty amazed by what he's doing... he's also starting a line of tracks and dollies that use 1-1/2 inch conduit or PVC to make inexpensive dolly moves, where you can package up all of your track hardware for a 10 ft run in a small 10 lb box and discard the pipe if you need to travel light. That will be coming out later this year. One more detail he revealed to me... a very unique jib arm that uses PVC pipe as well. That's also coming out later this year. He has working prototypes of these systems.

It looks like I was able to answer my own question... "THX-1138," in American Cinematographer (Los Angeles), October 1971. Also, "George Lucas: Past, Present, and Future," interview with Ron Magid, in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), February 1997.

Was the American Cinematographer article published way back in '70 when the film was released, or more recently?

I own a Cameflex 2-perf camera and I've been curious about the quality of 2-perf, so I purchased the George Lucas Director's Cut of THX 1138. The digital transfer is quite good, but I noticed some artifacts that indicate (by my experience) a flying-spot rather than digital scan. Does anyone know exactly how this particular version of the film was digitized? The grain level is very low, very acceptable. Is this because of the Technicolor process? Would new Kodak stocks give this same level of low grain, or even better?

Hi Mr. Tobin, I looked at my battery box and found I had wired it based on the schematic, with 4 D-cells in parallel to form the 1.5V filament voltage, and a 12V lantern battery to provide proper voltage to the exciter lamp. The only thing faulty was my memory of how it was wired. 8^)

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. As it turns out, he didn't pull back the release far enough to open up the sprockets. The bottom one opened, but the top one doesn't fully open until the second click. It's true, the release on the thing requires quite a strong pull to get it open... much more force than you'd think a camera would need applied, but then again, it's a piece of military hardware! Anyway, he was moderately embarrassed, but the weather was terrible for shooting today anyway so nothing was lost.

Mine has the Nikon mount as well. I'll call him with the suggestions that it may be rogue perfs in the way keeping the sprocket from engaging fully. Damn, I was going to send along canned air, but only sent a squeeze blower. I hate that canned air (when the solvent/liquid squirts out it can cause damage) but there's times when it really could come in handy, like at the top of a tall fire tower where you can only haul things up via a pulley system.

I got mine solely for the purpose of creating those "Movietone" type movies that Saturday Night Live made famous, complete with the terrible edits that caused the sound to drop out suddenly or inserted meaningless dialogue for a second. The texture of 16mm audio is also very classic... I love it as much as vinyl. Makes a project sound instantly ancient.

I sent my Eyemo and Revolution intervalometer out with a friend (a popular grip in town) to a remote fire tower in Wisconsin where he's working this week, and although he's loaded it many times before, this time he's having a problem getting the upper feed sprocket to engage the film. He's tried it with some old neg I had and despite having it properly threaded and getting the cover to fit (indicating that the pressure plate release has been re-engaged properly) the film stops moving after 2 frames have fed, and the upper loop is lost. The upper sprocket is turning, he says, but from what he can see, the perfs are not engaged onto the sprocket. When the pressure plate release is engaged, he says that both sprockets seem to move the same distance to get into place for operation. it's all very confusing... when I examine a second Eyemo here, it seems impossible that he is having this problem. Anyone ever experience anything like this? I wish I could transport myself to Northern Wisconsin for a few minutes to look at it for myself.

All I'd need for this project is a 100' daylight load, if they sell it that way. My Eyemo's NCS intervalometer could deliver 45 seconds (scientists get bored too) over a period of many days of mold movement using that small load. I doubt I'd be able to get any film manufacturer to deliver 100' if they're on the verge of cutting that product off completely.

CCTV lenses are usually labeled with 1/3 indicating the chip size, which is quite small. These lenses have very limited coverage. There is another designation, CS, which I believe (but I'm not certain) indicates an alternate (shorter) distance to the chip than standard C. Visually, comparing a CCTV camera's mount to my Bolex, it looks like the distance to film on the Bolex is about 1/2" and the distance to chip on the CCTV is about 1/4". I would guess that CS lenses designed for CCTV cameras will simply not focus properly on movie cameras. When you see a lens with no glass, you can be sure it's useless for film.

Ahh, perfect timing, as usual. :blink: I haven't found any clear indication that any other brand is making infrared film either.

If you're not getting flicker when you project your non-sync footage, the flicker is not on the film. It should transfer perfectly, but whether or not it will sync to sound is another issue.

I have one of those Auricons, a Cine-Voice CM-72, that I picked up at a swap meet a few years ago for next to nothing. It has a vacuum-tube amplifier which sits in a wooden battery box that provides 90V for the B+ plate voltage and 6V for the heaters and exciter lamp. The 45V batteries aren't available anymore, but there's just enough room to put 10 nine-volt batteries strung up in series inside, which is a mod I've done to experiment with the unit. The camera has a sync motor that connects to 110VAC, but for field use it came with a vibrator unit (very noisy!) that I discarded because 110VAC inverters are so inexpensive and quiet. Recently the amplifier stopped working... thanks Charlie, for that link! I've been looking for information about the tube amplifier.

I'm finding mixed results when searching for infrared cinefilm. A friend of mine who is researching wheat mold would like me to set up an inervalometer to track the mold's daily rhythms over a week or so but doesn't want visible light to be involved. I told him he might have to set up something digital, but I'm not familiar with what might work.