andrewbuchanan

Hello everyone, apologies for promotion of my own auction, but this is a part for serious camera dorks (like myself) and I thought someone here might appeciate it more than the standard ebayer. It allows Nikon mount lenses (with nikkor glass) to go on the front of the XL1 and XL2 cameras. Check it out at... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MESE:IT I've also got probably the nicest c-mount Angenieux 12-120mm lens you will ever see at... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MESE:IT both have very reasonable starting prices and no reserve.

Hey Adam, I'm shooting a low budget music video in March, if you have any time open... In all seriousness, you sound like the kind of person that a director would be proud to have on their set. I know these kind of shoots suck and I have done my share, but people to take notice and remember the crew members who go the extra distance out of love. Those are the guys who get the call backs... and the occasional "he hasn't done it before, but I've seen him work and he gives it all he has got" that's how you get ahead. Too bad about the date though, you'll get more when your the director/dp. Cheers.

Also, if you have a BNCR, PANA or PL IIC, you may want to remove the mount from the front of the camera. Because, when I did this I discovered (to my surprise) that the cover will not come off without first removing the mount. You don't want to get the cover halfway off only to find it jam against the mount. This is a good way to chip off a corner or otherwise damage your shutter. If you have any doubts... do this for safety.

I agree with Stephen... I just got some footage back on a super 16 project that I shot with the Peleng. I was very impressed with the quality of the image, but the lens was pretty tough to work with. It was very prone to flare, and wouldn't work with my matte box or filters - and FORGET pulling focus on it. However, I did shoot some stuff outside with a pola attached to the front and it was very clean and sharp absolutely no fall off in color or sharpness toward the edges - I guess tesing first would be the best idea. Les Bosher makes a PL version, and I bet it is very weel made and probably collimated corrrectly. With the price... who can resist?

Yeah, "big-ups" to Les Bosher, he did the S16 coversion on my Eclair added custom rods and a PL mount. Everything was beautifully machined, tight, and fit the aesthetics of the factory design. Top notch work.

Music videos bad??? I get to play A LOT more on music videos than anything else (besides commercials). Yes, the artists can be a pain, and the schedule sucks, and sometime you run too fast to get perfect stuff, but you also get a chance to try things that you would NEVER get to do on a movie. Why would anyone consider that to be the ass-end of filmmaking? I treat music videos the way car companies treat their racing teams. They are where I develope practices that work their way into my normal, practical, everyday filmmaking. AND I get paid. Why would that be the bad?

I suggest you do a search for krasnogorsk-3 or look through old posts on the forum. There is A LOT of info about this camera that has already been posted and people may not come back and post it again. I think it is a great deal for a great camera, it is not without its faults, but it is steal. Look through the old post and find out why.

Sean, I would love to hear more about this digital tach. It would be fun to see if my mech tach is in proper order. ... I want to be in the BL3 club...

*Switch.. don't know. *I have heard the 1000' mags (adapted from mitchells and other cameras, because I don't think Arri made one) are bad for the motor because they make it work too hard and really put a lot of pressure on the gears when it fires up (a older camera op. told me this and he worked with 2Cs for about 30 years). *Fixed shutter can be replaced but variable is expensive (check with visual products maybe?) *You could run faster than 50 fps, but with no registration pin the image probably will be unsteady (depends on each camera) the CP base/motor will take the 2C to 80fps, but you made need a new movement. Oh yeah, welcome to the 2C club! I love mine and think it was a great purchase.

Frank, Very nice stuff- congrats. I'd love to hear more about it (filters, lenses, camera, processing, etc.) if you'd care to indulge us.

Wow, beautiful looking frame. I want to see more. Please let us know where and how to see your film when the time comes. Did you shoot with any other lenses? How did they compare?

I was going to mention the squint factor too... I tried this once on a small project and I had so much light in the room that everybody looked like Clint Eastwood - which is not such a bad thing this year... but in general that much light can be pretty hard on the actors. If you chose to go with EXR inside, the 100 is 95% as nice as the 50 and gives you a little extra light to play with. Also, watch out for filters, because you'll lose some light with the 80 and even more if you drop a couple of additional filters in. That being said, 50 looks AMAZING indoors when all is lit properly.

Still having some trouble, I have them up soon.

As promised, here are a couple of stills from the "pulled" footage (or at least I think - I haven't posted shots here before, but I am trying). These are from miniDV unfortunately, as I do not have access to the digibeta at the moment. SO, there is more noise that the digibeta footage. I'm pretty happy with the results, but honestly - having looked at some of my other footage in 7274, they don't really look that much different. After reading the Kodak material, I thought the grain would look very different and the color would have a slightly strange cast - but it looks pretty normal (maybe slightly warmer than usual). The filters were Chocolate 1 and a straw 1 and a Warming Pola on the one with the 2 trucks. Will I intentionally pull-process again? Probably not. I don't really see any benefit on telecine stuff, but who knows what the future will bring. BUT for the moment, I'd say stick to straight processing, because there just isn't that much difference. By the way, the contrast corrected digibeta look A LOT better than these stills - I just wanted to show some straight material to anyone who was interested. Looks like Dave Mullen was right... again.

Just curious... the A-Cam comes with a fast, nice looking new Kinoptik c-mount 9mm lens. SO, they must be building new ones (and others), but I don't hear about them much or read about them anywhere. I also don't see new c-mount lenses for anything but CCTV cameras and - as we all know - these lenses are garbage. Why don't I hear anything about these new kinoptiks (at least not here in the US)? Are they bad? Are the French keeping them from us because of our president? Are they expensive? Maybe someone here has used one and would care to tell me about it...

With the varied quality of the K3... I wouldn't rule-out a bad meter. All you can do is make sure it is on, and make sure you have a good battery - if these two potential obstacles are not problems, then it must be the meter. Good luck.

True, true. I have a set of speed panchros too, the 75mm has a very, very slight yellowing to the glass. Perhaps it comes from age, perhaps it was always this way. When I rent a package and use my glass I set a peice of 100 IRE plastic/paper up and look through the lenses toward the paper... then I get the house's filters and balance out any differences. After doing this a couple of times, I have a good idea of what I need now ( filter wise).

My apologies... the Nizo I had that was loud was an 4056 not a 4080 as previously stated (it's been a while and I killed a lot of brain cells since then). Maybe it wasn't lubed properly, but it took fine pictures. I don't know, I guess what I think of as quiet comes from the larger format blimped cameras... but I stick by the statement that I've never heard any super-8 that was quiet enough to get a real mic (like a sennheiser 816) anywhere close to it without some serious sound padding. No matter what you get, I'd plan on getting a blimp/barney.

I thought the grain worked well. There were a couple of shots on the DVD that looked like the exposure was a little bit off and there was some noise, but overall I was very impressed considering it was an S16 movie. I wished I had seen it in on screen...

LOL. I've done the same thing. I even passed some EXR 50D K3 footage that was dumped to BetaSP off as 35mm shot on my Arri (shhhhhh!). It was with the stock lens too. I agree you don't have to pay $600 for a meter, and I guess knowing how to use a meter pretty well before I started with the K3 helped, but I still get good results for the old meter (the NCS adpater just allows you to use hearing aid batteries from the local battery shop. B&W Outside? I'd try the built-in meter.

I'd check with Les Bosher too. He makes a Nikon front for the Konvas 1M which is pretty similar to the Camflex.

Frank, Love the story about your K3... and glad to see someone with the balls to use it professionally. I disagree about the meter though. I have the NCS adapter in mine and it's SPOT ON with my Sekonic 508 Cine everytime. That is not to say it is up to use on a commercial, and you can't use a incidental/spot system to get that perfect exposure... but I think it is very good meter for many purposes. Especially for a student film, or a short that will be shot mainly in daylight, or some b-roll. Just make sure you're using a grey card and following the rules to get a proper reading. And at $25 for the adapter and $5 for some hearing aid batteries, it's about $600 less than a new meter of any salt.

I have never used the 6080, but I did have a 4080 for a while - and I regretfully inform you that it was not a quiet camera. In fact, I'd say it was one of the louder Super 8's I have owned. Don't get me wrong... it was a very nice camera. It had a pretty steady image and a very nice lens, but the db level was not a strong point. If I remember correctly, it was even louder than the Beaulieu 5006s I have now. I think the only difference between it and the 6080 were lens and speed options, so I doubt that the 6080 is any quieter. I don't know of any Super 8's that are quiet enough to use without blimping. My Nikon R8 is about as quiet as I have ever heard, but you can hear it running from 10 or 12 feet away with your ear... let alone a decent mic. I would consider making a blimp (which is where the Nizo 4080 or 6080 might be advantagous). Since these cameras are very square in shape (in tripod mode) you could cut a hole in the side of a small Pelican case or something and let the lens protrude. Then use the remote to turn the camera on and off... this would be a cheap was to rig for sound.

Fuji has a really cool DVD that they will send you for free that has some examples of stocks and shots that have been blown-up to 35mm - both digitally and print style. You can order from the cinematography web site. It also has filters and other info. It's a neat way to look at a lot of different stocks in 16 and 35. It was, for me, a good research DVD. Kodak may have something like this too, but I haven't seen it yet - maybe Mr. P could give us that info. I'd love to see one from Kodak, because that's the only stock I have ever used.

I'm very happy with my S16 NPR - and I'll take the Pepsi Challenge with any Aaton LTR 7 (most 54s) or Arri SR1 or SR2 any day for steadyness, flexibility, and quiet operation. I had mine punched out to Super 16, PL mounted, custom rods added, and completely rebuilt for about $7,000 less than a well mainatined SR or LTR. Why anyone would by a camera that costs 10 times as much and performs only as good as the Eclair is a mystery to me (sorry guys, it's the truth I've used 'em all). The camera has absolutely no problem shooting on sticks, shoulder, dolly, or jib. It's built like a tank - just get one in your hands and feel how solid it is compared to the others. If real world use is any yardstick, I just used it a b-camera on two camera music video shoot - the other camera was an SR3 Advanced. Same Zeiss speeds, same film stock, same everything else. I just saw the footage this morning, and because it was more mobile - some of my favorite shot came out of the Eclair. I paid less for the camera than the 1 day rental on the SR3A. This is the 3rd time this same thing has happened. It is not without it's kinks and problems. I agree the lack of a extension for the finder is a pain (I've looked for years). The Kinoptik finder SUCKS (get the Angenieux) - and even the Angenieux is dark. It's not a fancy camera that will impress high-end clients. And with out a handle of some sort (mine is a custom job) it is hard to handhold. But the BL, SR, and LTR which all cost significatly more have their own problems too. It's not that they are bad cameras, it's just the price to what you get ratio is way lower than the NPR or ACL. BL -expensive to covert to S16, lens choices are limited, PL conversions expensive SR1/SR2 - Stink to handhold, VERY EXPENSIVE to convert to PL or s16, cost 10x as much as an Eclair, are very limited with speeds unless they are the noisy and expensive SR2 HS. LTR - Expensive to repair, hard to find parts, expensive mags cost about 8x as much as an Eclair. If your going to bu something that is 30 years old, you can buy a more expensive camera, but you will not get a better one.