Patrick Cooper

It will pass over sooner rather than later if enough people do 'bunker down' / isolate.

Ah yes I remember watching "Edge Of Darkness" back in the 80s with my Dad. Very well made and intriguing.

A very good observation and nice analogy. An exception to this would be the Wonder Woman TV series. I could watch Lynda Carter doing her thing over and over again.

Todd, ah thankyou. I didn't realise there were ready-made solutions. That's going to save me from making a frame finder! Webster yes, I have heard of this rack over device before. Sounds very useful for close up work with a non reflex Bolex.

Oh yea I wish there were more people out there like us! I used to shoot more cine film a number of years ago and I'm thinking about getting back into it with low budget equipment. I did have a K3 before that was very reliable until it died one day and wouldn't run anymore.

50mm for the time being. Though I do have a very nice Canon FD 50mm already! There was a 50mm C mount lens on eBay going for over $1000 though that was an f0.95. Though I came across another 50mm with a more modest maximum aperture selling for around $800. Not what I'd call inexpensive. Actually, a 150mm would be nice to have too at some point. I guess it would make more sense to use a cine lens for 150mm focal length (rather than an SLR lens) as generally, one would use that kind of focal length for far away / distant subjects where infinity focus may be needed.

Some time after this is all over, I think it's inevitable that someone will make a movie about this pandemic and the global hardships it has caused.

I note that some of the non reflex Bolexes have an Octameter which provides viewing fields for 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 63mm, 75mm, 100mm and 150mm lenses. Though what if say you mounted a 10mm lens? How could you compose accurately with such a short focal length lens? I suppose you could make some kind of external frame finder. Hope there might be resources somewhere with suggestions on how large to make the frame to match the field of view and dealing with parallax. Shining light through the gate with the wide angle lens attached might give some kind of guide. I'm open to ideas and suggestions. Many, many years ago, my father made an underwater housing for a Yashica camera which he used successfully while scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. This camera was not an SLR. It may have been a rangefinder perhaps. He made a frame finder for the housing which appeared to work quite well - judging by the underwater slides that were exposed with that camera. Overall, the compositions were pretty good so he must have been doing something right. I wish I could ask him how he worked out the dimensions and placement of the frame finder but he's not around anymore.

Leanne thankyou. I had forgotten about Bolexcollector.com. I used to browse through that site years ago.

Sounds like an ND filter could come in handy too - forcing you to shoot at larger apertures.

I'm wondering which non reflex models of the Bolex H16 can accept single perf film without modification? Also, are there any identifying features that these particular models have to make them easier to recognise? I'm finding that so many of the Bolexes look the same to me. Additionally, could anyone provide some more information about the critical focusing screen and the critical gate focuser. I'm guessing that only some models would have these features.

Ive looked at more C mount lenses on eBay. Some of the prices are quite reasonable. However, I finding that the longer focal lengths are insanely expensive. If I bought a set of lenses, I'd be paying just about as much for a Bolex H16 with reflex viewfinder. I think I'm tempted more and more to get a non reflex Bolex or another 16mm C mount camera and use my SLR lenses with an adapter. Sure I may not be able to focus on infinity but a lot of the subject matter I plan on filming won't be all that far away.

Webster, that's an awesome looking Bell and Howell camera. That one looks like it's had a pretty rough life too. I like the camo artwork! I'm sure you could have a lot of fun running this thing at 128fps. Yea wildlife on the run would look amazing at that frame rate. I once saw some film footage on The Leyland Brothers (old Australian TV series) of a kangaroo hopping along parallel to the camera in the outback. It was probably shot at about 64fps or 70fps. It looked really dreamy.

With the adapters that I use to mount old SLR lenses to my digital M4/3 cameras, the aperture blades remain in a fixed position at whatever f stop setting I select. In other words - they don't open and close by themselves. It's completely 100% manual. And I prefer it this way because there's no tiny variations in exposure or anything like that. So I can happily use these old film lenses to shoot digital video and time lapse and not worry about flicker. And the same should apply when adapting these lenses to a motion picture film camera. By the way, I once came across a Bell and Howell Filmo 16mm camera at a camera market a number of years ago. Gosh, this one looked like it had been through a war zone. Like it had been through hell. It was battered and pretty rough. Would have been interesting to know it's life history. Thanks for the offer. I'll see what else comes up over here but I think these things might be a little rare over here. I'm not even sure if they run the camera markets in my state anymore. I'll have to check once the pandemic begins to subside.

Thanks for the lens suggestions. Yea I notice Angenieux lenses lenses seem to be a popular choice on 16mm C mount cameras. And I'm sure Schneider lenses would be really nice considering that they also have a good reputation with their large format lenses on 4 x 5 view cameras etc. Actually, there's a youtube vid shot with a Beaulieu super 8 camera and the footage is beautifully sharp. Some of the best super 8 Ive seen. Can't recall though whether the lens that exposed that super 8 footage was a Schneider or an Angenieux (would have been one or the other.) Ah yes and I had forgot about Cooke lenses - they seem to have a good reputation too. Out of curiosity, I guess it would be easier to use 35mm still format lenses on a Bolex H16? I have seen a few youtube videos where this has been done and the footage is great. I'm guessing that the design of the turret on a Bolex doesn't interfere with the adapters.

For curiosity's sake, I had a look at prices for a 75mm Switar on eBay and that was way over what I wanted to spend. Haven't checked out other C mount lens prices lately. Though I actually have in the distant past and got the impression that prices had gone up in recent years - largely due to demand from people adapting them to digital cameras. A large attraction of using 35mm format lenses was to reduce costs and get to use my own set of nice lenses when I need longer focal lengths. Yes of course if I wanted a wide angle, I'd have to use a dedicated C mount lens but I was thinking that the 35mm format lenses would save me from having to buy longer lenses (accepting the limitations of course like lack of infinity focus.) By the way, Ive seen some nice looking footage shot with Minolta lenses adapted to a Bolex H16. A Bolex could be another option. I remember years ago (before eBay was around) when you could pick up a non-reflex Bolex H16 for really cheap - around $200. I regret not getting one back then. And there was a huge gap in price between the non-reflex and reflex models. With the few glances Ive had on eBay recently, I see that prices for non-reflex Bolexes have gone up. And in some cases, there's not much of price gap between the non-reflex and reflex models on that infamous auction site. I do admit though that it would be really cool to use one of the later model Bell & Howell Filmos like a DL or DR etc. I always thought it would be fun to use a movie camera with a turret. Yea definitely worth considering if I could get some quality C mount lenses at affordable prices. Other than Switar non-RX lenses, would there be any other C mount lenses that you'd recommend for quality optics?

Things are getting really serious in Europe. Thousands of medical staff in Italy have been infected with the virus from the patients they were treating in the hospitals, despite their best efforts to protect themselves. Out of those cases, 37 doctors have died. In Spain, there were 738 deaths in one day. They've started using an ice rink as a morgue.

My 35mm format lenses are pretty light weight. I do have a 50mm f1.4 which is a bit on the heavy side. I hope I can use my 50mm f1.8 which is ultra light but unfortunately, I can't use all aperture settings with a Canon FD to M4/3 adapter. No such issues with the FD lenses with the older style mount like the 50mm f1.4. It would great to use something like an Angenieux 12 - 120mm with reflex finder but perhaps that might be too ambitious on a Bolex non reflex. Darn. Just when I thought I'd found the ideal camera. There's always something. Out of curiosity, how much would such a conversion cost roughly? I guess that would involve removing one set of sprockets and polishing the worked-on area.

I don't think I'd mind masks as long as I can get approximate fields of view for my 24mm and 50mm lenses.

Ive been reading that a person's blood type could possibly determine what kind of effect the Coronavirus could have on them. It seems likely that people with blood type O may only experience mild symptoms or no symptoms whereas those with blood type A may experience more severe symptoms. By the way, Prince Charles has the Coronavirus and seems to be faring well.

Just to clarify, I have already tried out 16mm - in the 2000s. The K3 was my first 16mm camera back then. I ran a few films through it (mix of b & w, colour reversal and colour neg.) It was very reliable for a number of years until it died. I am now considering getting back into 16mm. So now I'm thinking about getting a second 16mm camera. And this time around, it probably won't be a K3. Yea the Canon Scoopic is tempting.

Philip, thanks for the recommendation for the 70E for using adapted lenses. I was looking forward to using a turret camera though I see that may not work out with my plans. I do notice some people have used 35mm still lenses with adaptors on Bolex H16s though I guess those cameras employ a different design with their turrets. Would the 70E have matching viewfinder objectives for 25mm and 50mm lenses? I do plan on mounting a Canon FD 24mm and Canon FD 50mm lens with a C mount to FD adapter. I was also curious if the 70E runs at 64fps? I did read that some Filmo models only have a top speed of 32fps. And I'm assuming that a lot of the Filmo models can use single perf and double perf film.

From what I have observed here locally in Australia, movies seem to have more elaborate sets ups for camera positions and movements compared to television. When I was an extra on the film Hey Hey It's Esther Blueberger, I saw these guys on set spending a good amount of time putting scaffolding together to construct a tower on which to place the camera and an operator to film a group of dancers from an aerial perspective. And of course you have other movies with crane shots and all kinds of elaborate tracking shots with cameras soaring through the air high above a city or harbour etc. As an extra on the McLeods Daughters TV show, I saw more simple setups for their cameras. Like a tracking shot on a set of rails on the ground. And I heard from one the show's camera operators that there have been occasions when they mounted a Bolex to a motorbike.

I regularly use vintage lenses on my M4/3 cameras with adapters for stills and video. Also good for shooting time lapse since the aperture blades stay in a fixed position unlike modern lenses which open and close for each individual shot (increasing the chance of flicker.) Though I'm half regretting getting the Takumar 300mm f4. It has huge amounts of chromatic aberration. Extreme CA. I have tried but I cannot get rid of all of it in Raw processing software for stills. And I don't know any way of removing it in video.

I know that the Off Topic sub-forum is often used to discuss matters related to the film industry and media activities in general but this news story from Germany is alarming. Apparently, a 15 year old teenage girl stabbed her three year old brother 28 times with a knife. Not only that but she 'painted' a message on the wall with her brother's blood. The bloody message was intended for her mother who was not at home at the time of the murder. According to the article, the ex boyfriend of the mother claims that the daughter was jealous of her little brother. I find it hard to fathom that this behaviour was caused by sibling jealousy. https://au.yahoo.com/news/teen-girl-charged-with-murdering-brother-3-and-writing-in-his-blood-012848108.html