adam berk

not sure about toronto, but I got my EBM super16 from JK at jkcamera.com He's really a great guy to do business with and his work is superb. I'd recommend giving him a call. He's also been more than wiling to spend as much time as I need on the phone answering questions, etc.

what facility is this?

Please be patient with me on this one guys and girls... I'm looking for a camera portable enough to easily carry with me at all times, yet is capable of 24f/s, lightmeter inbuilt, compatible with 64t and the vision2 stocks w/o trouble, etc.... I've been looking at the canon 814 xl, but i've never seen one in person so I'm not sure exactly how big it is. I'd also like to find something with better than average (or as good as it can be) optics. Any quick recommendations? thanks so much, adam

It also depends on how you're finishing. For example... If I'm finishing a spot for TV, but working with HD material, in smoke* I will bring the full res HD clip back onto the SD master and do my move or zoom on that.

duallcamera.com they do an overhaul, upgrades, super16 conversion too i think i've had good experiences with them buying kit for my bolex

Just want to get an idea of what my cameras are worth if I were to want to move up to something better. If anyone wants to make an offer on either please do. Bolex EBM super16 kit: 1. EBM super16 2. Power Grip 3. 2x grip batteries (both brand new) 4. tobin sync 5. bolex bayonet to Nikon f-mount adapter (custom made) - you can use this without a c-mount adapter CP-16R kit: 1. camera 2. 400' mag pm me or email me @ adam at b-mp dot com

I was referring to a hard matted 1.85 Maybe this pictured is stretched a bit horizontally

anyone ever find out if the bolex pro could be converted to s16?

why in the world would one want to shoot 1.85 instead of 1.66 on 16mm??

From an SRII..... is this a super or regular 16 gate?

film night on discovery HD would be awesomness

I was unaware that the spirit was considered a noisy machine. Everything I've heard about the spirit w/s16 has been good, as in much less noise than tube based telecines like the c-reality. Is the arriscan used much for TVC/music videos? I was sort of under the impression that the arriscan is mostly a feature film driven device. Do you know of any USA facilities, other than EFILM that use Arriscan?

You're absolutely right. It completely depends on what you're filming. My point was mainly that I found it important, for myself, to shoot some tests at all the different camera speeds in order to get a feel for what each speed looked like for the type of stuff I normally film.

yeah, I would think most cine meters will give you readouts based on camera speed, so just make sure you adjust your meter to the proper speed

definitely wiill dooo

Twixtor is definitely one of the best optical flow based slowmo kits. I actually think that the optical flow slowmo that's inbuilt with Flame and Inferno is based on that code. You've definitely got one of the best tools there is for artificial slowmo. About losing image quality.... Optical flow slowmo doesn't really ruin "quality" but rather changes it. The way it works is the software looks at and tracks each pixel of the image over time, then creates new frames based on where it "thinks" each pixel "would" be if the shot were taken at a higher framerate. You can absolutely get fantastic results using a tool such as Twixtor or Kronos, but it really depends on the source material you are feeding it. Keep in mind that you are depending on the artificial intelligence of the software to figure out what is what in the picture, and how everything is moving. With all this said, due to the more grainy nature of 16, versus a formats like HD or 35, the software may have a more difficult time figuring out exactly how to calculate the new frames. Sometimes you can get weird morphing, etc.. that is very visible. But it can be cool sometimes too. Optical flow has been a great tool for me, as a flame/smoke artist working mainly on television commercials and music videos (if i'm lucky). Scripts are CONSTANTLY changed, all the way up to 5min before tapes are supposed to be going out the door. Ha, half the time producers will show up with no script at all. It's all great fun. Those jobs are usually pretty cool because things open up for me to get extra creative. So, the ability to create good looking slowmo in post is extremely valuable in these types of situations. Blah, blah, blah....I writing way too much here, but I guess the moral of the story is to shoot highspeed if you can, if not, don't depend on perfect looking slowmo created in post...it IS doable sometimes, but don't depend on it. And no matter what, it will never look quite as awesome as it would have if it were incamera.

are you sure? I'm almost positive that Bernie mentioned losing more light to the film and that it would have to be compensated for on the lightmeter.

One of the greatest things about film versus the very fine bunch of video flavors available now is the ability to shoot at higher framerates for slowmo easily. I realize there are quite a few superb slomo softwares available now, like shake's inbuilt optical flow retiming, kronos from The Foundry, etc..but nothing beats true high-speed cinematography. The only time I EVER resort to using a software slowmo solution is if it's an afterthought. I never actually shoot with plans for a software slowmo. No matter what, no matter how good your source material is for the purpose of slowing down in post, these softwares just won't quite reach the look of true in-camera slowmo without introducing strange artifacts, especially if you're not using a highend software and instead the inbuilt slowmo in avid or FCP, etc. Avid does have optical flow slowmo inbuilt now with the latest versions, but it is extremely slow and never looks good (in my experience). You should absolutely shoot at higher framerates on your camera, unless you're short on film or you don't have enough light. And in either of those two situations, I would first look at solving the problem so you CAN do a high framerate shot before considering doing a software slowmo. I would shoot some tests if I were you so see what each of the different framerates looks like. If you're on a spring bolex, I think the highest you can go is 64....which believe it or not, isn't really all that slow. Don't under or overestimate the camera speeds, go out and shoot some tests....it's worth more than the price of 100' of film.

I recently completed the supervision of the post for a music video shot Super16 on a bolex. The material was processed at Fotokem, then transfered to D5 HD on a Spirit. After offline editing, the D5 material was then conformed and graded on a smoke*. After the grading was completed, we immediately created H.264 (a flavor of mpeg4) web friendly HD quicktime files for client approval at a datarate well below half that of what is used for broadcast HD. We didn't use any fancy/expensive compression tools, just the normal $25 Quicktime Pro encoder. The compression had absolutely no trouble with the grain, even on Fuji 500 daylight that was under-exposed. Both we, and the client are extremely happy with the final product, and the choice made to shoot on super16. We couldn't be happier. The images are sharp, the colour fantastic, resolution superb. Long live super16.

just went ahead and bought one of these computar's for $14 on ebay. This should be interesting. I'm just hoping I got the right one... ha :P

is it worth the extra light lost from getting to the film?

I also noticed, immediately, that the EBM is much quieter than my previous rex5. I'm just missing that damn adjustable shutter.

so the 25mm switar 1.8 doesn't look so hot wide open? I just snagged myself a great deal on one. Should have it next week. I am trying to stick with nikon's in addition to the 16mm switar I have. I figured a 25mm switar would be a good stepping stone between the 16mm switar, and my 50mm equivalent nikon.

looking forward to seeing your tests

Does anyone know of, or could anyone quickly type out a list of the switar rx lenses that are OK for super16?