Aapo Lettinen

The cp16r is actually pretty ok camera and the mechanics are relatively easy to diy service if only have basic expectations about the end result. The issue with them is the original electronics which have started detoriating and need difficult repairs. By my opinion it is wisest to replace the old crystal electronics with newly designed ones to make it reliable. I designed a 1-speed crystal sync update electronics for this camera which I can still make even when was thinking of discontinuing it for low demand. Will finally need some gear ratio information about the 24fps geared camera to complete the software though, otherwise would refuse to sell... The Eclairs have more active community but they are more difficult and more expensive to repair. And diy repairing the npr may not be possible, it is unnecessarily complicated camera mechanically. I would not expect the quality from a diy serviced camera to meet streaming service expectations. Would need to go with a rental camera or professionally serviced arri or aaton

I think the biggest potential risk would be using recycled materials for set construction as they would very likely have something potentially harmful like mold spores and chemicals which were not yet forbidden decades ago. Almost all old building materials have something harmful in them. Solvents from drying paint and glue are not very healthy but they are often easy to spot from the smell

Did i understand correctly that the motor starts to run continuously immediately when power switched on and cannot be stopped? Dont know that motor but sometimes the power transistor controlling the motor or the transistors control circuit may go bust on a motor and that may "lock it on" continuously. Just a guess what it could be, can really be anythi g...but it it would be in power electronics then the possible fault could be easier to find and repair. Start from the motor drive side and try to look for anything faulty in the parts closest to the actual motor drive in the circuit

it depends on the exact year and workflow they had available and what kind of equipment they had. For example it took quite long before it was possible to output fullhd422 or 444 from a file based workstation and at first it was common to record back to intermediate film first. When it was possible to output 25fps in real time from a dpx workstation it was possible to record the stream to d6/hdcam/hdcamsr directly for mastering which is how some of the higher quality masters were done. Some productions used linear colour grading suite based on hdcam-type system and timed on that digitally, then managed it one way or another to film and video tape. film scanner can record at whatever speed the workstation can output but a video tape deck needs real time full speed to work correctly and if that was not available at some point then a tv master might have been record to film - scan to video style for a brief period before better equipment became available. that is time consuming and expensive though so no one in their right mind would want to do that if there is an option to output the digitally graded image directly to hdcam sr tape without intermediate film steps. So it kind of changed all the time to sum it up. when I was doing these things starting from 2013 it was common to grade in dpx if in lustre or from combination of dpx and prores or redcode raw files if in baselight or similar system. after the grade the stuff meant for DCP was often exported to dpx and converted in other software to jpeg2000 for dcp, the tv masters I think were made with only different colour space conversion and maybe brightness just very slightly lifted for tv viewing (brighter viewing environment) or just the colour space conversion. I think they outputted separate dpx with rec709 or if the grading system allowed, prores422 or 444. but the grade was essentially the same, sometimes only slightly brigher like couple of % but that was only done like 50% of the time because it was rarely needed at all. completely separate grade on different releases is because the movie is remastered and regraded at some point OR someone has screwed up the conversion along the line and the otherwise similar looking grade was ruined because someone screwed up. Prores workflows can easily have these slight accidental gamma shifts and changes if not being careful or being in haste and skipping steps but completely different looking colours are either screw up or intentional ? here in Northern Europe the budgets have always been relatively small and there was usually only budget for one proper grade, that is why they streamlined the workflow to get the additional(and lower paid) tv-masters as economically as possible. so no different tv grade and direct output from file based to tape it was unless someone paid extra for slightly brighter tv grade which was fully optional and in most cases not necessary at all for the viewing experience

As for why old stuff may look better than new one, budget is a big factor and hastiness the other. Cheap and fast and basic and Led definitely shows. Good modern camera just shows it even better

Here the blu rays were normally made from hdcam/hdcamsr or proreshq tv masters because they were already in correct colour space, sound mix and framerate converted to 25fps. This applied to all films including the imported foreign ones. The quality difference compared to separate workflow is close to 0 but one saves thousands on costs so everyone did it this way

FIRST FINISHED 2-SPEED CRYSTAL MOTOR IN ACTION. explaining the basic features and how it is used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXR6ep1cC1o

Finishing the first motors now. the first couple of ones are already sold but I can make more in couple of weeks. just send me a DM here or on FB or IG

old SR electronics may break up too every now and then. I would probably get the SR3 because it is newer model so the electronics are not that old yet, just around 30 years or so and not 50 or 60 ? Mechanically the old cameras tend to be fine if they have been taken care for in the past. Electronics are just, they never last forever and are not even meant to. Electronic components age and eventually fail no matter what you do... well made ones and well kept ones will last longer but not forever. Electronics are MEANT TO BE replaced in regular intervals, at least couple of dozen years or so but normally sooner. It is just the current situation of film cameras being low demand collectibles that has lead to people trying to struggle with aging antique electronics which can fail anytime. It is not about the quality or design of the original product, it is just that they were never meant to be used for that long in the first place and people just try to manage with them even a day longer just to save on the costs of replacing everything with something completely new which would on the other hand last 15 years without issues. it is like never changing the oil in your car... you may be able to drive with it for very long time before it fails but eventually it WILL fail you and then you will finally have to get it serviced OR buy another car which still has original factory oil inside ?

there has been talk of the difficult servicing of original Aaton electronics and in general it makes more sense to replace all electronics in a device with completely new ones if there is enough aging and malfunctioning involved. everything electrical breaks up eventually, it just takes longer if it has been well made back then instead of being general consumer junk like cheaper 8mm cameras might be. So the idea is to replace EVERYTHING electrical including the motor drive itself. Makes no sense to save some part of the old system because it creates potential compatibility issues and that old original part would be the exact part breaking up next which is just asking for problems. Mechanics are too expensive to redesign and replace so camera mechanics need to be kept as is. Of course one could buy a new LTR if the old one breaks but how long the new one might manage before generating issues too? and it would still have the old boring features (only one built-in crystal speed of either 24 or 25 , no display, etc)

I can make new control electronics to the LTR sometime but someone has to donate me a mechanically working LTR body for free, I wont rip my own working camera apart to take dimensioms from it ? I just need a extra camera body, I have mags and other stuff here. Final update electronics would cost about from 3k to 4k per camera + installation work and would have better features than the original ones, making it closer to xtr prod in electronic features. Takes from 1 to 2 years to complete

Artistic struggle might be the correct term... but that is supposed to mean only the mental struggle to create new art out of thin air. People often take it like the artistic suffering is supposed to be physical torture instead, especially in the film industry where most of the struggles are real world physical issues anyway. Making life physically more tolerable leads to better art even if the greedy indie producers try to convince otherwise :D

I think nowadays that suffering does not lead to higher/better artistic value and is completely separate from normal artistic processes. Dedication and good resources, on the other hand, often DO lead to better artistic result and thus it is favorable if those can be arranged somehow to ease the process ? Doing creative things as one's main job is mainly just frustrating whereas doing them as hobbies can be arranged to be both fun and more rewarding. Another thing is that 99.9% of people working in film industry / other entertainment are mainly handling logistics and technical stuff and have absolutely no creative control over the end result. leading them just doing a "normal job", just less paid and more uncertain than some other person in some other industry would do.

Tested the software and circuit boards of the 2-speed motor now and they work perfectly. One update: the motor can be switched between 24/48fps and 25/50fps modes by the user by installing or removing a jumper inside. Just open the front panel by removing 4 screws, jumper on or off, front panel back on. So no need to send it back to me for this kind of fps base change, I decided to add the jumper method so that it is easier for me to finish them and it adds security to the end user that they can make this change by themself if in some rare cases need to do it ? COUPLE OF DAYS LEFT TO LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS 2-SPEED CRYSTAL MOTOR MODEL FOR THE ACL. Making a special version for ACL requires making different casings with mirrored controls and mirrored front panels, so I will only make them available if they are really needed.

Tested the software and circuit boards now and they work perfectly. One update: the motor can be switched between 24/48fps and 25/50fps modes by the user by installing or removing a jumper inside. Just open the front panel by removing 4 screws, jumper on or off, front panel back on. So no need to send it back to me for this kind of fps base change, I decided to add the jumper method so that it is easier for me to finish them and it adds security to the end user that they can make this change by themself if in some rare cases need to do it ?

I am pretty sure I could earn better as a bus/cab driver than working in the film industry ? might be more stressful even in here (can't imagine what it would be to drive a bus or cab in the States) but the difference between uncertain higher hour rate freelance and lower paid stable paycheck "normal job" may not be that large after all. Depending on how much you have to pay taxes and so on. I am actually in the middle of engineering studies and not boring at all! Creative work is creative work, it matters surprisingly little how you channel it. You can write books or make music or shoot short films or paint or whatever. build something out of Legos or clay or whatnot. It does not have to be something obsessively single-minded like "if I can't carve holes after holes to this concrete wall with a toothpick I will die instantly" , one can channel it to whatever seems the most interesting topic at the moment ? At the moment I like to draw front panels and circuit boards in cad, often adding some extra finishing just to make them look nicer, adding a nice looking logo and gold plating and black finish on a circuit board no one else sees but me... in a way, it is kind of super functional graphic designing but there is some freedom of adding stuff purely for artistic value too ?

one challenge with the film industry is that it sucks the life and soul out of everything it can... and if wanting to be really successful one often has to gamble everything (all normal social life like family and friends, your own health, basic human needs like sleep, food and shelter, etc) to get forward, still not guaranteed it works on the first try. The difficulty is that it is not entirely about talent+skills and body of work, contacts and reels and stuff. There is a signifiant "luck component" involved which throws people around and no one knows what will happen. It can be something as absurd as that you just resembling one of their friends and they remembering you purely for that reason (true story, led to couple of years of work) or some social media algorithm acting weirdly and happening to show some posting from a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a.... I mean, it is important to make the whole journey fun, or meaningful, or at least tolerable. There is lots of uncertainty and no one knows really where you will end up but it is so much easier to bear if you just try to make it a good run instead of daydreaming about the ultimate end result 200M+ Hollywood films and treat all the smaller steps in between as "garbage" which needs to be got out of the way to get forward ? One other thing is that the film industry is really harsh for everyone around you. they will support you the best they can but it is just so hard to watch if someone is away from home all day everyday, comes back absolutely exhausted if at all (you can't survive without sleep. have learnt the hard way that if you have to choose, always choose sleep, no matter how thirsty you are, how hungry you are...) , in the worst case is additionally in bad mood because the shooting day was garbage and can't debrief with collagues, instead vomiting it on family members who waited you home for 20+ hours... Another reason why the whole journey should be tolerable too, not just the end result! Your loved ones deserve better, try to make it up to them the best you can by being around when it is not absolutely mandatory to be out there filming stuff ? film industry is a giant leech, it will gladly take every last drop of blood you can squeeze out if you just let it do that ? ---- I call the super-industry-oriented people "shadow people" because they seem to live and breathe the film community stuff, they only have film industry collagues and "friends" (not really friends, just "better collagues" they get drunk with and watch movies with on free time, sometime even date with briefly before finding out that it is just logistically impossible to arrange when they both travel all the time and are never home at the same time), they use all their spare time on indie projects, live in some clogged tiny apartment which is not a real home, just a place to sleep in during gigs and to store stuff. they don't sleep well, they travel all the time, see their family only in Christmas and in funerals (if they happen to be in the country). they are usually single (because no partner would tolerate them being away for 250 to 300 days a year minimum) and have no kids (or if they have, they rarely see them if ever). Some kind of medication probably eventually needed to keep it all together. At some point they end up in a car crash, maybe surviving and possibly downshifting a little, maybe not. If not, they will probably get a "Worked very hard" engraved on their headstone and no one will remember their archievements after couple of years (well, because they really had no real friends, just lots of collagues who already moved forward after the "brilliant resource" was lost. Their relatives or family might remember them faintly but mainly about that they were never around, only working on something super important, something which was really going to be a breakthough, hopefully) ? I mean, don't lose your gip on real life no matter where you end up in your career, no matter how busy you are, no matter how much the industry seems to need your last spark of energy and final second of free time. Family is always more important, real friends are always more important. Collagues come and go just like job positions and projects, they are ultimately exchangeable resources, rarely becoming real true friends, just better collagues

you have to be able to constantly set aside some money so that you will eventually have the possibility to choose what gigs you want to do, choosing the ones which will get you forward in your career instead of just scraping together anything you could to pay the bills. Generally it would be good to have something like 2 years salary worth of savings + rich parents before starting a film career but few people have that possibility so the next best thing is to always choose the best paying gigs no matter what they are so that you can save some money for later use. They can help in other ways too because the important contacts and reputation often come from these well-paid gigs too as long as you seek for mainly technical work instead of purely artistic one. When having enough financial security you have the possibility to advance to more artistic job positions which are more uncertain at first and possibly paid less at first. You can manage with the less paid & more uncertain stuff for some time when paying the rest of the bills with your savings and hopefully the artistic stuff will catch on after a while and you will earn more than ever ? So I would at first concentrate on the best paying gigs, no matter what they are as long as it is legal ? you can do side projects if having time but try to concentrate on getting lots of good contacts and financial security at first

Hi you all! I am finishing a simple 2-speed crystal motor in February which is meant to be more "multi-purpose" than my previous motors which were very camera specific. The goal was to create something relatively affordable which could work pretty OK with different type of cameras and has all the controls integrated to the motor so that the user just needs to figure out how to attach the 5mm output axle to the camera and how to mount the motor to the camera so that it stays in place. It is basically a spin-off of my Eclair ACL motor unit but mirrored, with larger body and integrated 2-speed electronics and is meant to be mounted on the camera's right side. The current customer is going to mount it to a Krasnogorsk camera by making a custom axle modification and 3D printed connection parts for the camera, I am only supplying the crystal motor unit. Likely we will hear more about the Krasnogorsk project later on... I will make couple of these basic 2-speed "universal" motors if anyone else wants to order one. I will post photos when having the final front panel and switches in place, should receive the circuit boards next week and the software is already finished. --- Some specs: - has one crystal speed and other crystal speed which is exactly double the first speed. So it has either 24fps and 48fps, OR 25fps and 50fps, OR some other speed and double that speed. I can change the speed settings here just before shipping but it is always one speed and exactly double that speed, NOT possible to select two entirely different speeds on the same device - from 18v to 20v operating voltage. typically something like 19v is pretty fine for it. use a higher voltage battery and simple Chinese step-down converter to get the correct voltage for it if needed - variable "wild" speed with potentiometer which adjusts the motor power directly - adjustable top power limit for the variable speed, to roughly limit the top camera speed in variable mode - locking "run" switch to run the motor continuously - momentary "run" button which can be used to shoot short takes to save film, the motor runs as long as the button is held down - power-in connector which has two wires for external run switch. the motor runs as long as the wires are connected together so one can install momentary or locking switches there - for extra fee and waiting time it is possible to get a custom made dual motor axle with manual inching knob. the normal motor has a small screwdriver slot on the end of the motor axle which can be used for inching or you can try to inch with the variable speed using short pushes on the run switch - rotation direction can be changed by removing/reattaching a jumper inside the controller. this should be possible to do using forceps via the ventilation slot but opening the panel is not difficult either and likely will only have to do this once if ever. if you already know the required direction I will change it for you before shipping - the device is typically suitable for 16mm cameras where the motor is mounted on the camera right side and the camera runs relatively smoothly. Typically a 1:1 drive axle on the camera is needed (one motor revolution means one frame of film shot) but I can alter the framerate settings of the device to allow different gear ratio as long as the exact ratio is know. so for example belt drive could work if the ratio of the gears is known. - the motor is 26w and typically not powerful enough to run 35mm cameras. might be possible with small like 100ft rolls but no guarantee it would work. No guarantee for it to work perfectly with every 16mm camera either but on most cameras it should be pretty well working - it is not suitable for cameras where the motor is mounted on the back of the camera (arri16s , etc) because the end result would be extremely awkward and cumbersome. You are allowed to make crazy tests though if you want, it might still work for your application and would at least be entertaining ? - not suitable for cameras where the motor is mounted on the left (operator) side, it would mean the controls being on the underside of the motor and all the text upside down which would make it a very surreal experience to try use it. so does not work with the Eclair ACL, I have different motors for that camera model. ORDERING: Just send me a DM here or on FB or Insta. I will make couple of these motors depending on how much I have leftover parts from the ACL motor projects, there is limited supply but I will try to reserve as much parts as I can for these motors if possible. PRICE: the price outside EU is 700usd + shipping without custom motor axle (so having only the screwdriver slot for inching). 830 USD with the custom axle and manual inching knob for easy inching. Payment via PayPal. For private EU customers I need to add 24% VAT but the motor can be paid with wire transfer in Euros to save costs and shipping costs are lower so the price works out to be on about the same level. I will make a single batch of these to use the leftover parts from the ACL motor project. There is no other batch planned, I might make something different later for multi-purpose use but not guaranteed and will take a long time to finish. This device is available now so it is a rare chance to get a universal-style crystal motor for your camera modification project for relatively affordable price and good support ?

if you have lots of extra cameras it might be an option to overhaul them and sell to local film students, would help keeping film shooting alive in the area and might attract lab infrastructure later on if enough people would be shooting film. If you are interested in buying only the electric motor parts, I can look for what I have in storage, I think there were parts for a total of three motors. I rarely shoot with the Kiev anyway and only use the spring motor at the moment so could sell the electric motors though they are not fully working as-is and will need some repairs or alternatively could be easier to just convert to "wild" motors with chinese pwm control board one could get from ebay or aliexpress for couple of bucks

it never hurts to have even more spare parts ? for the original motors it could be useful to just convert them to "wild" motors with a simple Chinese pwm speed adjustment board, would be easy conversion one could do by oneself. my 2-speed universal crystal motor (couple of them available in late February/early March, price around 700usd) could probably be used with the Kiev though the user would need to make the mounting parts by oneself to attach the motor to the camera and to connect the axle to it some way. the existing motor contacts on the camera could be used to control the start/stop of the motor. real crystal sync may be a bit overkill with the Kievs but at least it would be possible to arrange ?

I know there's people in Australia still shooting 16mm as I have sent couple of my ACL and CP16R motors there. Probably could be more if there would be better lab infrastructure on the continent but if enough affordable cameras and small productions could be got in, maybe few small labs could be possible to arrange?

Still couple of days left to get the 50-speed LTR crystal generator for the reduced January sale price! The price will go back to 300usd a piece in February.

one thing with tungsten stocks in daylight is that the dynamic range will suffer a lot if shooting them without in-camera 85 filter. without optical filtration you will overexpose the blue layer which reduces the dynamic range even if you compensate for it. Shooting for blue look is of course possible, then compensation not needed. generally I prefer 250D for all uses which don't specifically need high speed tungsten balanced stock and which require more speed than 50D offers. The 250D tolerates longer storage (super important if making documentary style material or if shooting irregularly and / if shooting clearance/short end stock) and if shooting daylight balanced anyway the difference is quite small compared to 500T because the 500T needs either in-camera or post filtering to get correct balance and thus it is closer to like 320 ISO in speed when shooting in daylight which is not worth the extra effort most of the time unless really shooting at night and even the smallest speed difference matters. Pushing is another reason why 500T might be useful but with today's easy-to-manage led lighting it is less important in most shooting situations

I have some spare Kiev16UE 's if someone needs them for restoration or spare parts. to save shipping costs I would preferably sell the whole box including couple of camera bodies, a spring motor and couple of electric motors, i think there was two camera bags too