chuck colburn

Zachary, I've found that most anything can be built (for a price) but what I want to warn you on here is about Xenon lamps. These are very high pressure bulbs and are capable of exploding at any given time, particularly when they are hot. Read up on it if you don't already know. Ask a local projectionst and he will (hopefully) show you the protection gear he wears when changing a bulb out. Be carefull. Chuck

Do you have an Arriflex 16s? Look at it....it's made out of glass.

Thanks Adam, If you can't trust a DP to have an eye, who can you! Chuck

I realize the trailer is compressed for net viewing, but I swear I saw scan lines and artifacts that should'nt been visiable even in that format. I would have to talk to someone who saw it first hand before I go to see it.

Hi Nathan, I just looked over you web site. Very nice! It warms the heart of this crusty old cine tech. to see that lovely equipment. Don't EVER get rid of those Super Baltars, there is nothing quite like the look they make out there. Speaking of hilarious.... love the Bolex in the Mitchell blimp! Chuck

Hi Nathan, Yeah it does read kinda goofy doesn't it ? But I was being dead serious. This was taught to me by Jimmy Beaumonte who was a camera tech, machienist and person extrodinar. He was the man who took a VistaVision movement and adapted it to run with Arri 35mm magazines which resulted in the camera George Lucas used for all the opticals in Star Wars. We called it the Empireflex! Sure you can quote me. lol Chuck

Timothy, You sound like a sincere and polite young man, you'll never make it in the industry with that attitude. LOL Only kidding. Since your located in the "Valley" perhaps you should contact Panavision. They use to have an apprentice program of some sort and it would be a good way to meet people from the camera department. Good luck. Chuck

How we use to do it was to remove the gate, make sure it was clean ( used "Never Dull" cotton polish wadding to polish the aperture and pressure plate) then put a little "Nose Grease" on each. Take about three feet of fresh film and put the gate on one end and hold it vertically give it a little shake and the gate should slide down the film on it's own weight about a foot to a foot and a half. You can use the wadding to polish the German silver film trough that runs along the bottom of the inside of the camera too. If this "precision" test works out you should be fine for HS running.

Hi M. Buick, I think you should get one! And on the plus side they are getting cheaper all the time as video improves. (See Red user site for proof of this) Only kidding Reddites. I want one too. Chuck

Well as Frank Zappa once said; "Brown shoes don't make it"

Nick, That's good because I want the ebony one. I can see it now dangling from my fingers when I don my Victorian garb. lol Chuck

Try http://www.whitehouseaudiovisual.com/04multi_camera.html

IMHO the sexiest And most handsome 16 ever built is the Arri 16s. It sits in hand like a young firm (insert body part of choice) you know what.

I ran the tech. operations for five years at the University of Childish Little A**holes and I agree with James Steven Beverly. Fast Phils sounds like the school I would recommend! lol

Ah... depth of field is an optical function not a format one.

RT, What did they say needed to be replaced on your camera? Chuck

RT, Make sure it isn't the projector you were using to view the footage. After that check the claw for slop, particuarly where it enters the perf. for pulldown. Also make sure the mag. clutches aren't to tight. Chuck

Yeah you need to mount the camera on a flat base. If you already have the camera and the blimp you can find flat bases on ebay. Some times they come with a crystal sync motor if you don't already have one.

Hello Zachary, An extender that is made to work with a given lens mount to a given camera (Nikon to Nikon etc.) is not being used to increase the circle of coverage but is being used to increase the focal length of the taking lens by a given factor (sorry about all the givens!) such as 2x, 1.6x etc. So an Angenieux 25-250 with their 1.6x extender mounted to it becomes a 40-400mm lens but still only covers the 35mm format. What was happening when we took the optics of still or cine extender to blow the image up from 16mm to 35mm coverage was that we were changing the physical spacing of the extender from the taking lens untill the magnification factor was enough to cover the larger film format. This is why they required a new housing to be fabricated to hold the extender optical group. This also caused the "T" stop to be appx. T-9 on the 12-240/24-480 conversion. The lower power extenders (1.4x and 1.6x) required such large spacings that we ran into curveture of field problems. This is why I said we used an optical bench so that we could see the circle coverage and keep it as small as possible for the required aspect ratio (full, 1:85, 1:66 etc.). Just as a sidebar, when we were fitting lenses to the Showscan CP-65mm camera, the commercial extender optics I tried with the Cooke 20-60 and 25-250 zooms were not up to the standards we required. And these were the best of the best ( Zeiss Mutars etc.). We ended up having a custom unit designed for are use. Chuck

Are these lenses used with the same camea body all the time?

That 12-240 will end up being a bit slow, (around T-9). Mayby this lens might serve you better. http://cgi.ebay.com/Angenieux-15-150mm-f1-...VQQcmdZViewItem

Converters are optical attachments that mount on the front of a given lens, they do not increase the circle of coverage of a lens. Extenders mount between the lens and the camera and with the proper configuration can enlarge the image enough to cover 35. We use to do a lot of them back in the sixties and seventies. You need an optical bench to hold the lens, extender optics and a ground glass to figure out the physical spacing of the componets and the design and fabricate a housing to tie it all togeather to the lens and what ever type of lens mount it is you are going to use. 2x extender = appx. 2 stop loss 1.4 or 1.6 around 1 stop loss

Nope, just not true. Look at any 3D camera mounting rig out there. It's what we used for the CP-65mm 3-D camera set up. Both camera lenses were set to the same f stop for a given shot. Which means each camera was seeing fifty percent of the incoming light. If you don't believe me, ask Max Penner at Paradisefx.com or Steve Hines at his 3-D site. Both of them are masters in the field.

A clear glass mounted at 45 degrees becomes a 50/50 mirror.

Optically speaking I would suggest you use a piece of water white float glass as opposed to standard plate (window glass) and use as thin of a piece as possible. A quick test that you can do to see how flat the piece of glass that you have is to hold it more or less parallel to a flourescent fixture in a ceiling and look at the edges of the fixture. Any diviations in flatness of the glass will show up as a wavy reflection of the fixture. You can use this test on lens filters also. So far as movement of the actors head you should be able to see this in the reflex viewfinder of the camera.