Kevin Powell

I have owned this system for 10 years and used it only a handful of times. It’s perfectly kept and makes beautiful, rock steady widescreen images. I’m a professional and take care of my gear. Clearing out space in my studio and she needs a good home. Lots of pics at the link below the description. I can be contacted here on the forum or through my site at the link. Thanks for looking! (U16 Modification & Laserbrighten by Bernie O’doherty) - Ultra16 Eclair NPR Body - Angenieux orientable viewfinder - Laserbrighten ground glass with 1.85:1 aspect guide markings - 2 Magazines - 2 Motors/Cradles • Variable speed crystal motor 12-15-20-24-30-40 fps • Second motor for parts or repair - Canon c-mount 12-120mm f2.8 macro Fluorite lens - with uv filter & rubber lens hood - Arri to CA-1 Bronze lens adapter - 15mm iris rods with mount - Formatt 4x4 MatteBox with 15mm iris rod mount - one static and one rotating stage - IndiSystem Follow Focus and accessories - Sekonic L-398A light meter and accessories - Eclair hard cases - Lens port caps - Gate cap - 5 daylight spools with cases & various cores $2500 + Shipping More pics here: http://kevinpowellstudio.com/eclair-npr-u16/

I'm heading out on my own and spreading the word with some new reels. DP reel to come soon, this is some of my motion design work. Thanks for looking! http://www.thebasementlab.com

CBS just released behind-the-scenes featurettes of their new shows for the upcoming fall season. I had the privilege of shooting the behind-the-scenes footage and interviews for this piece. Kramer Morgenthau was the show DP and James Mangold directed. Pretty great experience. It takes place in the 1960's and looks to be a departure from the usual CBS stuff. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIJSII0LwSY

I had my NPR Perfectone motor rebuilt with variable crystal controls by these guys(Optical Electro). Oddly enough, sounds like you're having the same troubles I had. I disassembled my motor as far as I felt comfortable and wiggled everything around and turned the shaft by hand while applying power and got it to start working. I have since applied a bit of 3 in 1 oil to the motor shaft and it purrs along smoothly now. I wasn't impressed with Optical Electro's work or customer service. Check out my original thread on the subject below. Hope this helps. http://www.3inone.com/ Here's my original thread: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=52556

The issue with coming up to sync speed doesn't appear to be directly realated to when the motor is mounted on the camera, but i'll have to test that more specifically when I get back to my studio tonight. She was all cleaned and lubed up just before I stored it, but that does make sense that over the course of the past year those lubricants may have stiffened up. From what I can see, the solder points all look good, but I suppose it's hard to tell without actually testing each of them properly with current. I'm liking your theory of hardened grease and lubricant... that seems to be a most likely cause. I have been running the motor mounted on the camera with a magazine periodically to see if I can "break-in" the lubricant and all the moving parts a bit more before I have to actually roll film through it. Once she's "warmed up" a bit, it definitely reaches sync speed in half the time... a second or two versus five to ten seconds. -KP

Hi Ian. Some good info there - thanks for sharing. No "green" connectors in my motor. Once the controller box is removed from the top of the motor, it's pretty much just a circuit board. I definitely notice that the more I play with the motor...turning it on and letting it run for a bit, increases the response time. If I let it sit overnight and hit the power, it's response isn't as fast to get up to sync speed a if it's warmed up. Again, not sure why. Anyway, taking it apart and wiggling things around seemed to get it going! I'd love to have a Tobin motor - they seem hard to come by though :( -KP

Disassembled the power connector and switch - meter reading was a full12v at the connector and the switch simultaneously. I removed both end caps, applied power, and just wiggled the motor around inside the casing... It fired right up. I'm not sure what I did to make it work... But at least it's worth something other than a paperweight for the moment.

The shaft turns smoothly by hand. I'm hoping it's only a simple connection problem. Seems strange though that the sync light is receiving power but the motor itself isn't. I suppose that means that the problem is after the controller box in the circuit possibly. Besides the complexity of the controller circuit board/box, I imagine the motor itself is as simple as any other 12v motor I've dealt with.

Hi John, thanks for the reply. That makes sense to check there. I'll pull it apart this evening and see if I can troubleshoot the connector and switch. It seems so weird to me that it was working perfectly before storage, and now isn't working at all. I have two of these motors, the other has never worked though. I have never been able to track down any good info or schematics for these motors... I'm not 100% sure I know whats going on inside there... especially the crystal controller box. Does anyone know if there is special maintenance that I should be doing? Maybe lubrication of the motor/shaft, etc? My first reaction is to be a bit upset after what I paid Optical Electro to add the speed controls and "rebuild" my motor, only to now have a non-reliable paperweight. -KP

About two years ago, I had my perfectone motor rebuilt with variable speed crystal control at Optical Electro House(not the most pleasant folks). Bernie O overhauled my NPR, laserbrightened my gg, and converted to U16(Bernie is awesome). I ran one 400'roll through the camera, processed and transferred it with beautiful results. I then stored the camera. Now I need it for a project and for some reason, when I apply power to my motor, the sync light illuminates and my motor is dead. No response at all. Just sits there with the sync light on and doesn't run. I'm using a brand new 12v 5ah battery and my multimeter says it's outputting proper current. Anyone have an idea what could be wrong? Any help appreciated! -KP

Thanks Steve. That definitely points me in the right direction. I'm digging into the problem tomorrow and I'll follow up with my progress. It's my first Beaulieu and I'm definitely impressed with it's design both inside and out. I have an Eclair NPR as well - something about the French cameras I like I guess - I keep ending up buying them.

I recently purchased a Beaulieu S2008 that is in near mint condition, exception being - someone has modified the camera to take an external power supply via a 5pin DIN connector(Standard MIDI connector). I made a 4.8volt NiMH battery pack and wired up the 5 pin DIN cable to provide power for the camera, bypassing the 2.4volts needed for the reglomatic auto iris motor(I removed the auto iris motor, so it's not needed). The camera operates flawlessly most of the time. However, sometimes after releasing the trigger, the camera will not run at all. I leave the room in frustration and return a couple hours later, hit the trigger, and the camera purrs like a kitten again. I tested the battery pack, the contacts in the 5 pin DIN plug, the cable, as well as the contacts inside the battery compartment and everything checks out. With the side of the camera removed, I can see the motor trying to rotate when power is applied. And, if i use a small screwdriver and rotate the motor shaft slightly, there is an audible "click" and then the motor purrs beautifully. Is this a shutter parking circuit issue? Does the 2008 even have such a circuit? It seems as though the motor is not always returning to the proper spot upon releasing the trigger. My solution thus far has been to remove the side panel, rotate the motor shaft with the screwdriver until I hear the "click"... Not the best solution to the problem and pretty much makes using the camera a crap shoot. It seems like this should be an easy fix - Anyone have experience with this?

Seems like I've read on the boards of a couple other folks talking about developing an U16 gate for their systems - Check this thread : http://tinyurl.com/clrcne I talked a lot with Bernie while he was working on my NPR and a little tidbit that I learned is that it's really easy to go U16 and then go S16 later down the road(at least on an NPR)... Essentially, you'll just be exposing more NEG and using the portion of it you want in Telecine... Correct GG markings would be key! I'm not sure about why you'd want to go from S16 to U16... unless you just wanted to experiment. You already have a wide frame that's pretty much supported by every lab and telecine. If I remember the numbers correctly, the U16 mod is about a third of the cost of going S16 on an NPR... So for me, it was kind of a no-brainer to go U16 since I knew of at least one lab and one transfer facility that supported it and I didn't have thousands of dollars to spend... Bernie also mentioned to me that he's been doing more and more U16 mods - that can only be a good thing and will hopefully cause more labs and transfer facilities to consider supporting the format. I've seen lots of negative comments about U16 on these boards... and I have a hard time understanding how anyone can argue against something that is affordable and keeps people shooting film. I was able to convert my 30 plus yr old 16mm camera to shoot a wide frame for very little money. As for the Laserbrighten process - I decided to go for it and I'm glad I did. My viewfinder is twice as bright as it used to be and makes critical focusing much easier. Pretty sure there are four screws holding the GG in place on an NPR. I'm fairly technically inclined, but still think I'd be nervous removing my GG myself. But it may not be that hard - I haven't tried. Give Bernie a call and ask for his advice, he's a super nice guy.

Thanks Daniel. I shot 400' of fresh Kodak 250D 7205 and a 100' shortend that had been sitting in my fridge for 2 years(Also 250D). My next tests are most likely going to be with a slower daylight stock and I'm very interested in trying the fuji stocks and some reversal. I shot with several different lenses... A Canon 12-120 macro zoom, a 10mm Canon prime, a 13mm Canon prime, and a 25mm Yvar prime. The stuff in the car is with the 10mm - and I was really impressed at how well that little lens performs - I paid a hundred bucks for it! All of these lenses are in c-mount too. I'd love to add a PL mount - but I can pick up these Canon c-mount lenses very cheap, and they make very nice images. Maybe a PL down the road with a nice, expensive, set of primes... $$$ The footage by the bridge and some of the stuff on the mountain was grossly overexposed - by about 4 stops over in some of those shots... amazing testament to how far you can go with film exposure and still produce pretty images. I've shot lots of video and there's no way I would have ended up with anything usable at 4 stops over! I shipped my exposed neg to Cinelicous and they sent it to Alpha Cine for me. Not a single scratch that I can see anywhere in the footage between the perfs. Reasonably priced as well when scheduling telecine with Cinelicious. Ultimately, I'm very happy with the results from Cinelicious and Alpha Cine - It's def now my U16 workflow.