Aapo Lettinen

I have some Konvases and the 1KCP model with the straight viewfinder fits closest the description but I don't think it is good for handheld shooting when handcranking, it would just wobble the camera uncontrollably to try to crank it. If shooting on a tripod or some kind of should support the hand cranking could work fine, but... the 1KCP body has a centrifugal speed stabilizer built in because it is originally meant to be used with a spring motor if electric motor is not available. One could set the centrifugal stabilizer to the wanted speed and hand crank at "relatively" stable speed with much smaller fluctuations in speed and much less "handcranked look". Personally I would just use every and all Konvas models with the electric motors and avoid the hand cranks at all costs in handheld style shooting scenarios. On tripod they may work in some situations but I don't think the cameras fit to handheld handcrank shooting scenarios very well and you will get disappointed by the bad ergonomics and difficult operating. Konvases with electric motors and 60m magazines work perfectly for street photography style shooting. they are small cameras and fast to operate. orientable finders of the 1M and 2M help with handheld ergonomics and are almost mandatory for low angles but you should be pretty OK even with the straight viewfinder older models if always shooting from eye level

My camera had the flywheel felt pads so worn out that the camera was rather noisy and made clinking sounds. the backup camera had better pads so I just swapped the entire flywheel because that was faster workaround and now the main camera is OK to shoot with... but has anyone found good replacement felt pads for these Cinema Products cameras and how much work it was to get them in place?

It looks like that I have ONE Acl 16-speed motor kit available for sale because haven't been able to reach one of the pre orderers for 4 months. The kit includes the motor with the better "German" motor drive, the 16-speed crystal controller and the necessary cables. Just like the kit in the images above but the motor drive is of the better "German" type. Price is 1200usd + shipping and available immediately. Contact me by DM if interested.

and there is of course the additional benefit that one can direct the most probable fault point to the easiest replaceable part if making that easiest replaced part the physically weakest one. Ideally the gears which mount to the axles would be durable metal and the "free-spinning" intermediate gear would be plastic or composite material. Then, if something is about to break, the easily replaceable plastic/composite gear loses teeth instead of the difficult to replace and expensive metal ones. If done right, one could make such a system so that the users can replace the broken intermediate gear by themselves very quickly (and have spare ones with them all the time because they are cheap) and the system would continue working in couple of minutes instead of needing a huge disassembly, possible special tools and lots of extra work and time which would ruin the whole project

Cheaper to manufacture and lower running noise are possible reasons. Additionally I would expect the composite gear to wear down more easily than the metal ones so it might save the metal gear from being replaced... Instead of changing both gears you would only change the composite one and the metal gear does not need to be replaced ever. Personally I think it is most probable that they just wanted to make it cheaper to manufacture. Krasnogorsks etc. cheaper cameras are full of these composite gears as well. On higher end ones like cp16r the composite gears are only used on specific spots to reduce running noise and the other gears are meral

Oh it is film vs digital again? It should not matter at all anymore in 2023 when we have so many great camera systems and formats and workflows available. Except, of course, that it is really boring to shoot with digital cameras. Takes all the "magic" away. Not fun to shoot anything then. Maybe it is why digital people try to find some meaning in all it by endlessly comparing their gear and nitpicking about their current gear being so obsolete that they can't shoot anything before getting more pixels and ten trillion iso sensitivity ?

I can make a batch of the 1-speed CP16 crystal sync kits in the Summer if there is someone needing them. I need to know in June2023 if anyone would need these kits and they need to be fully paid for beforehand so that I can reserve all the materials for them and the final kits will be shipped in August. Price is 400usd + shipping for a single kit and 700usd +shipping for two kits. I have a possibility to make external 12-speed crystal generators too if someone would need more crystal speeds with the 1-speed kit. A simple 12-speed generator like this is typically a little over 200usd depending on how many similar devices will be assembled in the batch and what kind of casing it has. Same thing than with the 1-speed kit, the 12-speed generators need to be ordered in June2023 latest and fully paid for beforehand. Shipping in August like with the other gear. It is possible to order the separate footage counter boards too. I have couple of them assembled but haven't written the firmware yet so will need to know in May2023 if you need internal footage counters for the CP16R. They need to be fully paid for in early June so that I can ship in August so let me know early on if needing a internal footage counter board for the CP16R. Let me know if wanting to order a 1-speed kit for your camera or any of these accessories. Will need to know in June latest and preferably contact me early on if interested in these

MOTOR SOLD NOW. If someone needs a similar motor like this, I still have possibility to assemble one or two of them in July2023 and can deliver them in August2023. After that, no more motors of this type will be made. They need to be fully paid for in early June2023 for it being possible to reserve one for you and assemble it. DM me if interested. Price for the remaining two motors still possible to order for August delivery: 1000usd+shipping with the "Chinese" motor drive, 1200usd + shipping with the "German" motor drive. As mentioned, they need to be fully paid for in the start of June for me to be able to assemble them in the Summer. The time limit for order+payment is pretty strict and it may not be possible to make anything later if missing out the June deadline so if someone is still wanting one, please DM me to discuss about details

MOTOR SOLD. It is still possible to make one or two of them in July2023 which can be delivered in August2023. Need to be fully paid for in May/June23 so that I can reserve one for you and start assembling it. DM me if interested

Personally I think this kind of diy projects are not cost effective and take way too much time and resources compared to purchasing a readily made solution made by someone else, even if the readily made solution is really expensive. Additionally the features will inevitably be lacking as well. But as a hobby project it should be ok if the main goal is mainly about wanting to find out how things work instead of wanting to use them for real projects and needing to get them work right away. Otherwise all the time and money is used on the diy build instead of making anything useful end result with it. Personally I can say that I would have been much happier if just using the money for shooting short films instead of trying to make self designed camera accessories. But that is just one pov and hobbies are hobbies, they don't need to be explained :) Just wanted to mention this because people often think that diy is "cheaper" which it most often is not and that the diy is "better" which most often is not the case... So there has to be some other reason why diy approach is used. One could say that "they will sell the final devices to others to cover the costs and time" but that does not work either. For example I haven't got my money back or other reasonable compensation from ANY camera gear project I have made so far. For about 80 projects in a row that is pretty devastating and discouraging and tells that pretty much no one needs nor wants to purchase this gear... So either as a hobby project no hours and expense counted, OR just purchase a readily made device and go shooting film instead :)

I have a spare Krasnogorsk1 or Krasnogorsk2 spring motor which I could sell. Don't know if it fits to the K3 but often this kind of parts stay similar through camera versions because making new part designs is impractical and costly unless it is absolutely mandatory

I haven't tested it yet so you will have to test it by your own with the LTR camera to figure out how it works (and take the risk if something goes wrong). Be extra careful with connections because the connector has power output pins too so there is higher potential of damaging stuff. The start-stop pin control was described somewhere either in the manual or in some forum posts I think. Normally that kind of controls work by a floating pin which is shorted to the gnd either through a resistor or directly but don't remember what I read on the LTR

Hi! I haven't had possibility to test it yet and I decided not to build the 45-speed controller just yet because there were no one seriously interested in it and it was a bit too expensive to manufacture. Maybe making a slightly different product as a kickstarter project but it really needs to be pre ordered and fully pre paid to be possible to make in the first place, can't afford to throw 5k into a project if it's not guaranteed to get at least some of it back and the firmware is really difficult on the 45 speed design so frankly speaking don't have time to write it either before the Summer ? --- I don't see any reason why the frequency input of the LTR would not work so probably it is fine I believe. Should work fine as a hobby project if you have experience making precise frequency generators and have lots of spare time

Static electricity can cause pretty similar very short and random flashy streaks which come from one side of the roll and are blue-ish, very localized and relatively small and defined. There is other possibilities too but because the flashes are very short and visually very similar than the ones I have got from static discharge it is possible that at least part of them were caused by static. Did you spool the film by yourself and if so, did you use some kind of gloves when doing that, possibly even touching the moving film roll to for example add tension to it? one of the easiest ways to get tons of static to the film is to use rubber gloves, for example nitrile gloves when winding the film to spool. Other possibilities too to get enough static to damage the film like this but rubber gloves are especially bad for starters...

UHD / 4k is actually pretty useful for youtube videos and I think you should just calculate the higher costs to the quote by default. The client will pay the costs anyway so it differs a lot from personal projects. Hard drives are relatively cheap nowadays and the main difference will be that it may take longer to edit the higher resolution project which may affect schedules... that may matter in that kind of business where the videos need to be delivered quickly and regularly to keep the channel up and running. 1080p 50Mbps long gop was pretty fine 10 years ago but I don't see any commercial use for a format like that nowadays though it could still be usable for web videos. I used to handle a lot of C300 mk1 material shot in 1080/25p 50Mbps and it was pretty OK 8 years ago but definitely had visible compression which caused some issues every now and then. If the material amount is a serious issue for you I would probably try to shoot the higher quality uhd/4k intra 410Mbps for anything which benefits from the higher quality like intros, product shots etc and use the 1080p as a last resort storage saving option if needing to shoot tons of material for an episode like shooting 20 hours of footage quickly reality style etc. If you only shoot an hour or two of footage a day then using the better 4k format is a no brainer and 1080p not needed by my opinion

It should be easily possible to use C-mount lenses on a D-mount camera with an adapter but finding such an adapter seems to be extremely difficult and I don't want to go through the hassle and expense of getting one custom made. It is weird nothing seems to be available for sale because this kind of adapter is very useful with 8mm cameras. The idea is to use C-mount lenses on a double8 camera for longer focal lengths and cover the wide angles with normal d-mount lenses so that I can avoid purchasing double lens sets for longer focal lengths and can make extreme telephoto shots with the 8mm cameras of very long telephoto focal lengths which are not available in d-mount. I remember seeing pictures of such adapters on old hobby camera books but cannot find anything available for sale right now. If you know some place selling them, can you link it here?

Still for sale. If you want to purchase this item but have any questions or want to negotiate the price (possible if you for example make a video review about the system), please let me know ?

looks like the takeup friction adjustment has issues. Likely too little friction causing it not having enough torque to spin the takeup spool. Assuming, of course, that nothing is obstructing the takeup spool... try to adjust the friction until getting it to takeup properly. it may be a good idea to test with a dummy roll that it can takeup the full 100ft of film without issues

Yes something which is simple enough and common enough that there is possible to repair it if needed and would be even marginally possible to manufacture at least some new parts if absolutely necessary. For example, the BL is "simple enough" design that it might still make sense to develop new electronics for it if not possible to get replacement boards. Would be very costly but would still make sense because the camera body design and board placement and limited original features. I am sure I could use some of my designs as a base for bl electronics to speed up the design so that it could be made for reasonable price if having like 10 cameras or more to update. With something like arricam or penelope, would be absolutely insane to try to make any new electronics for it and the camera body would be effectively impossible to repair if original boards not available. Could cost hundreds of thousands to do and take years to make anything useful for it

At some point there were 2perf modified Kinor 35N 's. I think Aranda film and someone else made those conversions

hanging (clean!) black molton on the side wall of the pool and covering the bottom with it is pretty common way to control the spill in underwater pool stuff and to hide the background. Then backlighting with something punchy and can arrange a little bit of fill if needed. then crushing shadows in grading to make the background molton surface to fall into complete darkness without any detail visible even on a too bright monitor. I think, because the pool is so shallow, that you could maybe use even LED tubes, for example Titan or Helios tubes, with the waterproof pouches for fill light to make it easier to manage the fill. Be extra careful with set safety and have dedicated safety divers for both you and the actor. And of course, tie down everything mains powered above the surface like hmi's, monitors etc. so that they can't fall into the pool

I think they filmed quite a lot with the xtr prod in Antarctica, for example this https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428803/ They said in the making of that it needs to be adapted a little for very very cold temps (I think they changed the mag belt to different type and of course changed different lubrication to bearings) but should work perfect. the temps they were shooting were probably something like -40°C so around 0°C should be no issue. consult the service technician so that they can prepare the camera correctly for the freezing temperatures. I remember hearing that spring wound Bolexes were common on polar expeditions because not needing electricity and being extremely reliable and relatively compact. Something like that as a backup could be useful, batteries tend to be a huge issue in cold temps. The ACL is very compact and relatively lightweight, especially because you can use tiny c-mount lenses with it. The motors may not be super reliable anymore though and you would likely need a backup body if wanting to go with the Eclair. If budget is no issue then a higher end camera would be more useful like Tyler said. Eclairs are really more of an budget option for uses where the camera can't cost more than about 4k or 5k and if one can pay for example 10k or more, then Aatons and Arris are usually better. I think you will want, if in any way possible, a camera with the movement heater or heated barney if shooting in cold for extended periods and the heated eyepiece is a must too so everything points towards either Aaton or Arri which are meant to be used in that kind of shooting situations. A spring wound camera would be the lightest hands down because not needing to transport and charge batteries (especially charging is very difficult to do without lots of extra weight) so if there would be no sync sound at all, then I would likely use a spring wound camera (or three) as the main camera if needing to haul everything with me without help

I have one 16-speed crystal sync motor for sale. It is my own design finished in December2022. There is a forum thread about the development of this system if interested about the history of it ? Features: * 16 speed presets of which 2 can be user adjusted in 1/1000fps increments to ANY speed within the range * possible to input additional external speed signal easily if the specs are just proper (from 4v to 5v square wave with 50% duty cycle and frequency 4 times the desired framerate). I can sell additional speed generator boards for this or you can use other source * possible to use external start-stop switches along the switch on the control panel * the control box is connected to the motor unit via a short cable so that you can mount the control unit to the most ergonomic position for each shooting situation (for example on top of the camera, over the lens, etc.) * works with the Eclair ACL camera from 6fps to 79.999fps range. Speeds over 50fps are less stable so a range of 8fps to 50fps is recommended * the motor is powerful enough to drive the 400ft magazine if the camera is in proper condition * the motor is entirely external, does NOT use any of the original ACL electronics and power is directly connected to the motor * 1.3" OLED display with footage counter, battery voltage meter etc features * Take Limiter feature : the maximum length of a single take can be set, after which length the motor stops automatically. Very useful when shooting tests etc material * works with 18 - 20v battery voltage. I will include a simple step down power converter so that you can use for example a 24v battery with the system * counters and other settings can be saved to internal memory and are stored during power loss * you need only the 4 small original screws and the rubber axle connection piece from the original motor assembly * because this motor system does not use any of the original camera electronics, it allows you to remove the original base from the camera entirely if you want to make a nice new baseplate for the camera or other modifications no possible to make to the original ACL system because of the base electronics restricting them * easy to install, should take less than an hour This kit is completely new and unused though can have small imperfections on paint surface due to manufacturing process. Limited 1 year warranty (covers repairs but not shipping costs) Price is 1000usd + shipping costs. Tutorial videos of the system, you can see pretty well how it is used and what kind of features it has: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXvIUtmF3Oxt-8MDaWHjujVEbsXGwwlxi https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXvIUtmF3OxscrBK24Ij_x2TzSjNCIzhW

Longer tutorials of how to use the motor system: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXvIUtmF3Oxt-8MDaWHjujVEbsXGwwlxi

Short tutorials how to change the settings from the menu: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXvIUtmF3OxscrBK24Ij_x2TzSjNCIzhW