René

Yes, that's what I'm doing to my K3. I friend of mine owns a hardware store and he's going to widen my gate. I'll let you know how it works out.

Have a look at these sites: 16mm Links Filmshooting forum (mostly super8, but that shouldn't matter too much) Ron Dexter Getting a crystal synch motorized camera is definately a big advantage when shooting music videos, but there are other options. See this and this site. I'm not too familiar with many camera's. Check ebay and remember that brands like Arriflex and Eclair are usually very good. The Canon Scoopic and the Krasnogorsk-3 are also very cheap models that may be good enough for what you need (non-synch and only accept 100ft loads). You do. The cropping takes place after the film has been transferred to video. So when you letterbox a portion of the frame, you lose those pixels. When played on a widescreen tv, the image has to be magnified a lot more to fill the screen. This makes things a lot grainier and less sharp. Super16 uses more of the film's surface, so it doesn't have to be cropped a lot to get to the widescreen aspect ratio. This usually does increasy the quality significantly, even on tv. But then again, it might not be a problem for you. Hope this helps, René.

My conversion was done very accurately. The machine can do it with a precision of 1/10th of a mm. But the zooming problem occurs because the centre of the image formed by the lens is not in the centre of the groundglass/filmgate. Therefor zooming won't be straight. This is because only one side of the gate is widened. You might be able to do an ultra-16 conversion, which widens the gate on both sides, leaving the centre where it was, but I think it's not as common and you'd have to check with you transfer house whether they can handle it. As for using both an anamorphic lens and Super16, It's not done very often I think, beacuse an anamorphic lens usually softens the image quite a bit. And using Super16 can get you to 1.85 with very little cropping. I've actually had the same plan of using them both, but I found a lot of info in this topic at filmshooting.com. Please correct me if any of this information is incorrect, beacause I'm also just learning this stuff. Hope this helps, René.

Yes, I also think converting it to S16 would be a better option. You nearly have the 1.85 ratio and you get a lot of extra image area and thus better picture quality. You don't have to spend the full 250 dollar if you just want your gate widened. I had mine done for free by a friend who works at a hardware store and I'm sure you could work out a nice deal with your local store. Just make shure it's done accurately. René.

Hi Micah, I've been looking for the same thing. It seems that m42 anamorphic lenses are very rare to come across and so are 77mm adapters. I think Iscorama-54 has a 77m thread (see this page), but I've not been able to find one. Have you considered just converting to S16. That's what I'm doing. Good luck and let me know if you find something. René.

Also, it depends what software you use to do the keying. Usually, standard keying options in Avid/After Effects etc. might not be what you need for the job. I suggest you try te get a copy of Ultimatte. I've found it to be able to cope with almost impossible situations. René.

I was wondering wether the k-3 compensates exposure for speedchanges, or will my footage fade to darker when I turn up the speeddial while filming? Thanks, René.

Yes it was shot on a K-3. I found this clip at Reel Trading. It's a company that offers K-3 upgrades. They list this clip as an example in their FAQ section. I feel that clip looks a bit too "clean" to me, more like video, but the compression for the web might have to do with that, or it could be because some shots are pretty brightly exposed. I'm not sure. I especially like the look of the first shot of clip 3. René.

Actually, I've only done sound tests so far. I recorded my voice and the K-3 noise with my video camera and then tried to remove the noise in post. You can hear the original file here and the final version here. (This was an extreme situation, with the K3 next to the microphone, so the final result is more distorted than what you'd usually get.) I'm in the same situation as you are. I've only shot on super8 before and I'm thinking of buying some vision stocks from filmemporium.com. Does anyone know if they sell short ends in 100ft loads? I'm also trying to find as much K-3 footage as I can, which is hard. Here's what I've come up with so far: Clip 1 Clip 2 - You might have to rename this file to .avi Clip 3 Clip 4 - Shows it can be a pain for timelapse Clip 5 - Not very useful Clip 6 - Not very useful either Clip 7 - As posted here before If someone has more footage, I'd be very interested to see it. René.

I got my K-3 a couple of days ago and I must say it's more noisy than I'd hoped. Fortunately I'm planning a short that doesn't have much dialog in it. I don't think it's possible to make it quiet enough to go unnoticed in an interior dialog shot. But I've been doing some tests in removing the noise in post. I have had some good results with Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro). It can do a great job in removing the noise. Only if it's really loud, your dialog my sound a bit distorted, but when using a setup where the camera isn't too close to the microphone, I think the results can be amazing. I could post some test sound footage if someone is interested. René.

I think I will do some extensive tesing with the stock lens for now. I know many people have been surpised at how well their results have turned out and I'm sure the sharpness and color will be good enough for me, since I've only worked on s8 before. It's just that I was hoping to be able to shoot at a little wider angle. Well, I suppose that would make more sense, but it's not possible with my budget. I'm doing this project with three friends. We're in a absurd theatre group and we perform throughout the country. We also project films in our shows. We could not afford this project just with our own budget, but fortunately the city of The Hague offers funding up to 700 euro to young people who come up with a artistic plan. We can now barely make it to shoot negative with this setup. Maybe I can get a cheap better lens on it, but renting an Arri here in Holland is extremely expensive.

Thank you. I just saw in anpther topic that it isn't possible to mount a c-mount lens to a m42 body, beacuase of the distance to the body. Those Takumar lenses seem to be a very good option indeed. The only problem is that I would like to get a wider lens than the K-3's stock lens. Those seem hard to find, but I'll keep an eye out on ebay. Thanks a lot.

Today I received my Krasnogorsk-3 camera from Ukraine. I've been shooting a lot of super8 on my Beaulieu 5008s and decided to give 16mm a try. Me and a few friends are preparing a 16mm short. We've managed to get funding and a couple of professional actors have agreed to cooperate for free. I'm trying to make the film look as good as possible and unfortunately, the K-3's stock lens is ok, but it's not sufficient for what I intend to shoot. My 5008s 7-69mm Schneider zoomlens seems to be perfect for the job. But is it possible to mount my c-mount lens to my m42 pentax-screwmount camera? Are these convertors available and if so, will focusing to infinity be possible? Any suggestions are very welcome. Thanks, René.