Patrick Cooper

I know there are some dumb thieves around. However, I'm really curious if anyone has ever heard of a Panavision movie camera being auctioned on eBay?

I am pondering possible formats to transfer 16mm neg to in relation to quality and budget constraints - and I am on an extremely low budget! Someone has mentioned before the idea of telecining film to digital betacam and then letting a video conversion company transfer the digibeta footage to minidv for convenience of editing at home. Evidently, this also eliminates the cost of hiring out digibeta editing equipment. I'm not an expert on these things but I would assume that there would be some loss in quality when going from digibeta to minidv. I do note that some people comment that colours on digibeta footage are nicer than on DV for example. However, what I would like to know in particular is if telecining to digibeta and then transferring to minidv will produce better quality results than simply telecining directly to minidv? In other words - if the final editing tape format is going to be minidv, is it worth telecining to digibeta initially for the master copy?

Yes, I am using a different cable release to the one that was used originally with the K3. Though that older cable release is long gone. If the current cable release I am using is too short, then that is certainly odd. For this is the same cable release that I use successfully on my Koni Omega medium format 6x7 camera. And this 6x7 camera requires a cable release with a fairly long 'throw'.

I'm experiencing great difficulty using a cable release with my Krasnogorsk 3. I'm referring to the cable release socket in the shutter button at the front of the camera, not the single frame socket at the back of the camera. When I first bought this camera, it worked perfectly fine with a cable release. Then there was a period of neglect in which i didnt use the K3 for at least two years. Now, that I am using it again, I find that when I screw a cable release into the shutter button and press the cable release, the shutter button partially pops out and the camera doesn't run. Though it runs fine when I push the shutter button with my finger. Has anyone else experienced this with their K3?

Couldn't you grab a super 8 camera and film some of this footage yourself?

If you don't mind shooting reversal film, Ektachrome 100D should give you a contrasty, saturated look.

Thankyou for the the information, Olex. Much appreciated! That is interesting that you mentioned that the 16SX can run at 64fps - though do you need a special accessory motor for that?

Ive become quite interested in the Kinor SP16, mainly due to the multiple running speeds. However, there is very little information about this camera on the internet. I've heard good thing about the popular Kinor SX-2M and it seems highly regarded. I'm wondering if the 16SP is as reliable as the SX-2M. I do know that the 16SP does not have a registration pin, though I wonder how steady the footage is when running at 64fps. Of course the Bolex H16 and my Canon 1014E super 8 do not have registration pins either though they still produce remarkably steady footage at high speeds. Then again, I have heard of some 16mm cameras producing jittery footage at high speeds. Additionally, does the SP16 have a mirror shutter? I find that my Krasnogorsk 3 has a better viewfinder than the Bolex H16 and it's easier to focus....perhaps the K3 utilises better ground glass. For those who are experienced with the SP16, how would you say ease of viewfinder focussing compares with a Bolex and a K3? Also, does the SP16 have a different bayonet lens mount to the SX-2M? If so, how steady is this mount compared to something like an Arriflex bayonet mount? Finally, what are the qaulity of the optics like on the SP16 lenses, particularly the 10mm prime lens?

Turn around times being erratic, eh? I'm still waiting for my latest Tri-X to come back. By the way, this Tri-X and the last Tri-X film I had developed by them are at least 15 years out of date. The previous one turned out mostly fine. So I'm guessing the current one should should be just as good.

When presenting a grey scale or grey card to the lens, how many seconds of film do you usually roll on it?

Use an ND filter as well.

"In the old days, there was a nice Switar 10mm lens for the camera." A 10mm Switar lens with a bayonet mount? Excellent! That was exactly what I was after. If ever I put a 16mm camera in an underwater housing to go scuba diving, with, I think I might select a Bolex SBM. I know many people use the earlier C mount BolexH16 models in underwater housings. However, with me, there is that worry that I could accidentally unscrew the lens when turning the aperture ring or focus ring when using a C mount lens. There is always that chance and it would be incredibly frustrating if that occurred in an underwater housing 15 feet below the surface. By the way, does the EBM use the same bayonet mount as the SBM?

Ive recently become intrigued by the Bolex SBM camera with the bayonet lens mount and I'm trying to find a list of compatible lenses for it. Ive searched on Google with no luck. There's quite a bit of information online about the SBM but virtually nothing about the lenses that fit it's bayonet mount. I do get the impression that mostly zoom lenses were designed for this camera but are there any prime lenses available as well, particularly wide angles?

"The fact is that every year there are more Imax theaters then the year before and there is a market for it." The IMAX cinema in my home city of Adelaide, South Australia has closed down. It simply couldn't sustain itself with the number of patrons that were attending. I knew it was a bad sign when they started selling off their merchandise (t-shirts, videos etc) really cheap and stopped selling merchandise altogether. Then later the inevitable happened and the whole cinema closed down. Actually, I have heard that another IMAX cinema in another part of Australia has also closed down....can't recall which state.

I am wondering if anybody here has an instructional manual for the Eumig Nautica. I need to know the specific minimum focussing distance when the PMA wide angle adapter is attached underwater with a good amount of light. I think this was about 0.2 or 0.5 meters but I can't recall exactly. Additionally, I need to know the minimum focussing distance of this camera when it is in the macro mode underwater (with the PMA removed and the dial in the down position.) I am in the midst of writing an article and any knowledge of these specific details would be greatly appreciated.

Reflex Bolexes use a beam splitter so naturally they would steal a little of the incoming light. All I know is that it is a very small amount - possibly 1/2 or 1/3 of a stop - but I'm not sure how much exactly. I have spoken with an expert on Bolexes and apparently there is a light meter that is designed to be used specifically with Bolex reflex models and even compensates for the light loss. I'm not sure of the name of this meter though.

Overall, the quality of their processing has been quite good - for both super 8 and 16mm. For 16mm, Ive had one Tri-X film and one Ektachrome 7240 film developed by them. And Ive also seen well over 40 Tri-X and Plus-X super 8 films screened at the Adelaide Fringe festival which were all developed by Film Plus. Though it would be nice if they spliced some film leader to the films they process.

I agree that there's been too much criticism of the 17 - 69mm stock lens. As most of us know, K3 camera bodies can vary in reliability due to quality control issues at the factory - ie you could get a good camera or a bad camera. The same sort of inconsistencies are probably true of the stock lens as well - you could get a good sample or a bad sample. My K3's 17-69mm lens gives reasonably sharp and crisp images but not stunningly sharp like a Zeiss. I would say it's a good decent lens but not a great lens. Certainly not a bad lens by any means.

Well?

Scott, that is hilarious. That actually reminds me of a slightly similar incident which occured a few years ago. I had my Canon 1014E super 8 camera mounted to a tripod near a carpark. I was a doing time lapse study of the movement of shadows on a building across the road. A car was about to exit the carpark and pulled up beside me. The driver was an old man was asked me in a very concerned voice: "Is that a speed camera?" He sounded quite worried.

I notice quite a few snowboarding and extreme sports films are shot with Arriflexes. That choice of camera for such an application is interesting considering the relatively slow shutter speed of an Arriflex - 1/48th of a second. I would think that a faster shutter speed like 1/60th or 1/66th of a second as utilised by a Bolex would be more suitable for filming sports.

"...and the image will probably be softer because of the lens." Although Switar lenses would not be in the same league as modern professional motion picture lenses, I don't think it's right to associate Switars with soft imagery. I have an old documentary at home called 'The World You Never See' where a few segments have been shot with a Bolex with Switar lenses and these images are extremely sharp. Though I would imagine that modern pro lenses would probably be superior at rendering very fine detail.

I mounted a 400mm lens to my K3 and then mounted a 600mm mirror lens with a 2x teleconverter (which works out to 1200mm) to my Canon AE1 and compared the angle of view of each camera / lens combination. I ignored the horizontal framing and noted only the vertical height of the viewfinder image in each camera, lining up objects on a kitchen wall. I found that the angle of view from both cameras was about the same with these lens set ups. I bought the K3 mainly for filming wildlife so I'm happy in this regard.

What exactly is a framing chart and how does this benefit a telecine session?

As has been discussed many times, a 64T film cartridge placed in a super 8 camera that reads only 40 and 160 asa film would default to the 40asa setting, overexposing the footage by two thirds of a stop. I was wondering if one was to load a 100D cartridge into a 40 / 160 camera, what asa setting would the camera default to? Would this be 160 or would I be wrong?