Patrick Neary

Hi- An 18mm nikon is going to give you essentially the same FOV as any other 18mm. Nikon also made a very nice and sharp 15mm rectilinear lens, and I don't think the rear element would bump into your pellicle.

Forde is defunct, as I understand it- Alpha Cine "absorbed" them and they are doing Super-8 souping.

Hi- I'm finding that a dslr works just fine for what you're talking about. Some people will throw a fit about this, but it works great for me. In fact it's fast replacing my meters and becoming a critical tool in my kit.

Hi- It's not just high-speed- there are piles of neat old cameras (maybe antique is a better description!) that require 2-perf. Mitchells, Cine-Kodaks, older Bolexes and Filmos, it's a long list.

:)

Hi- Does anybody really know what the current state of double perf 16mm is? Is anyone able to still get it from kodak (or anywhere else) without a large special order?

Thanks again Stephen! I realize these inquiries are probably more suited to a collector or historian...:) Also thanks for the suggestion Olex, I've seen the gray Konvas with the side-crank, it looks very intriguing and I may have to try out one of those too! (did they ever make 400' mags for that model?)

aha- well, while I have you captive, I'm also wondering about the mags- I've got this traid-adapted eyemo with a back that takes Mitchell mags, but the mag that came with it has a 2" pulley, although it looks like a Mitchell-made piece, not aftermarket. (you can see a pic of it waaaay down the list in "classifieds") when I tried to run the camera with a standard mag (3" pulley) of course it takes up too slowly and the film piles up in the feed side. Did Mitchell ever make mags with 2" pulleys for some reason, or is this completely a Traid modification? And there are separate mags for the Standard vs the NC (and BNC) if I understand correctly, so which does the GC take? sorry for the barrage!

thank you Stephen! So I take it the gear box/crank contraption is necessary and you can't just stick any old coffee-grinder handle in there and crank away the same way you could with an 2709 or eyemo?

A question for the Mitchell-maniacs here- Are the NC and GC models as easily set up for hand-cranking as the standard? Looking at the side of a standard, there's a hole (almost dead center) specifically for a hand-crank- do these other models have that as well? And are hand cranks impossible to find? Do most folks (you know, the legions of hand-crankers out there) just fashion their own handle? thanks-

Hi- There really isn't a magic fix for the HVX in low light, it's just an incredibly noisy camera. raising the coring helps to mitigate that only a little.

Hi I'm trying to find a 2" Take-Up pulley for a 35mm Mitchell Mag, to replace the standard 3" one already on there- Anyone have one? Would happily buy outright or trade for the 3" pulley I don't need... thanks!

Hi- The big problem with replacing the bolex shutter with a mirrored one is that the image would be reflected straight back out the lens. Not very useful. :)

The other thing many don't consider with equipment ownership is that when the camera goes down on set for whatever reason, all eyes will immediately turn to you. It's one more bit of pressure you may not want.

Hi- Not sure what you mean by zeroing out those cameras- you can reset to factory defaults via the menus.

congrats x2! I'd love to hear how you liked working with the genesis, any problems or surprises specific to that camera?

Hi Try cleaning it first with regular white vinegar- it should fizz and make it easy to clean off!

All I know is you'd be able to spot the DPs who were smoking doobies before the shoot, 'cause all their footage would come back over-exposed :) (there are probably other reasons this meter never caught on too...but I'd sure love to march around on set with one someday!)

Hi- Figuring out the asa is very simple- just doubling or halving, so you start with 200, cut 2 stops with your nd and you're down to 50. One stop nd and you'd set your meter to 100. If you're asking about visual differences compared to 50D stock, then there'd be a noticeable difference in grain with the 50D. Because 50D is a slower, sharper stock, much less grain. Lenses tend to perform better if they aren't stopped down to 16 or 22, and NDs are also useful in opening up your stop for that as well.

Here's the lightmeter I'll be using on my next shoot: http://www.vintagephoto.tv/monner.shtml

Although I wonder how much of that is because of the process of going back to a film print for exhibition. I saw Superman (the Genesis one) digitally projected, and sure enough, plastic skin- but the previews, most of which had been shot on film, scanned, and now were being digitally projected, looked great. They kept the very organic nature of the stocks they shot on, color was great, but lost all of the crappy elements of film-print projection, the dirt, scratches, jumpiness, etc.

Hi Michael- Sorry if I'm popping in here way late, but I'm curious how you account for the age and wear of the cameras and especially lenses in your testing. I absolutely don't want to sound critical of your efforts, but it seems kind of like testing cars that are 25 years old; some might have 250,000 hard-livin' miles on them some may have sat in a garage. EDIT: oof, I must be the world's laziest poster. I see now early in the thread where you mention refurbing your cameras before testing....even the car analogy...

That seems like the best solution all around- Pascal Baes' night work (well the few pieces I saw) looked to all be in very well-lit areas. The other thing about exposure times is considering what you want your talent to do- You could never get that hovering effect (without strobes at least) with 45 second exposure times!

Hi again- Pushing is just leaving the film in the developing bath longer to help raise the exposure on your negative. I'm not sure I understand when you say you're at 5.6 or 8 to get more background detail, it seems to me you'd be losing all of your backgrounds (into blackness) irised down that much in such dark surroundings. Another thought- since you're essentially working in a stills environment (single framing it) you can use little battery-powered camera strobes to light your subjects and backgrounds pretty effectively, they're very powerful compared to standard continuous lighting.

Good God, you need to find a brighter street corner! (a fast lens would help too) With 500 asa you should be able to shoot 24fps (1/50) on any "normal" night city street and get a decent exposure. 45 seconds just sounds crazy long.