Aapo Lettinen

Due to the long delay for the CP16R controller because of the Russia - Ukraine war , I started to work on making it the FINAL DESIGN for the CP16R camera. in the current economic situation it does not make sense for me to do multiple intermediate versions of this design so I will make only one final design for this camera and scrap the rest of the plans including the internally installed design which was too difficult to user install and which thus did not make any sense to finish (shipping cameras back and forth seems to be a dealbreaker because it adds lots of shipping costs) This means huge changes to the design: - new delivery time: June or July 2022 - new price: 750 euros + shipping - built-in small OLED display which shows the film counters, battery voltage etc. and helps to setup the film end warnings etc. - includes shutter parking by default - phase correction possibility and electrical inching knob (can confirm when tested the new function with the camera) - user installable system. no need to ship the camera to me for the modification (I can install the system to the camera if needed for a small additional fee). The reason the crystal controller is built into a external box is to make it much simpler to install by the user and thus it is NOT possible to get a built-into-the-camera-body version of this controller (well it is but you would need to order 10 or more). If you have multiple camera bodies it is possible to order more camera body conversion kits than control boxes and swap the control box between the camera bodies if needed to for example use the same control box with 2 different camera bodies so the external box design makes it very economic if you have more than 1 camera body. -------------- Other features are like in the 1.0 version so the serial data output etc. features work like before.

Due to the long delay for the CP16R controller because of the Russia - Ukraine war , I started to work on making it the FINAL DESIGN for the CP16R camera. in the current economic situation it does not make sense for me to do multiple intermediate versions of this design so I will make only one final design for this camera and scrap the rest of the plans including the internally installed design which was too difficult to user install and which thus did not make any sense to finish (shipping cameras back and forth seems to be a dealbreaker because it adds lots of shipping costs) This means huge changes to the design: - new delivery time: June or July 2022 - new price: 750 euros + shipping - built-in small OLED display which shows the film counters, battery voltage etc. and helps to setup the film end warnings etc. - includes shutter parking by default - phase correction possibility and electrical inching knob (can confirm when tested the new function with the camera) - user installable system. no need to ship the camera to me for the modification (I can install the system to the camera if needed for a small additional fee). The reason the crystal controller is built into a external box is to make it much simpler to install by the user and thus it is NOT possible to get a built-into-the-camera-body version of this controller (well it is but you would need to order 10 or more). If you have multiple camera bodies it is possible to order more camera body conversion kits than control boxes and swap the control box between the camera bodies if needed to for example use the same control box with 2 different camera bodies so the external box design makes it very economic if you have more than 1 camera body. -------------- Other features are like in the 1.0 version so the serial data output etc. features work like before.

Hi! I would try to take a orientable finder from some other camera model and mount it on the top of the camera directly over the groundglass by taking the first prism away from the light path, then making a hole to the camera body to allow the finder to be mounted on top. Then it is a matter of getting the finder ergonomically positioned and getting a correct magnification for it to be used comfortably. It should be possible to use additional prisms to route the image if needed (for example the prisms you have removed from the original viewfinder optics, or basic prisms you can get from ebay or companies selling basic optical parts) and then just use something like a small electronics project aluminium housing permanently mounted to the camera to protect the assembly and to mount the viewfinder to it. It would be a good "rainy day" project for you if you have basic machining tools and can find a good orientable finder for the use (I would check if you can get a Konvas 1m finder working for the use as they are cheap and available. for example Angenieux finders should be possible to modify too I think). It is not worth it to bother camera technicians with a project like this (way too expensive and time consuming for the end result) but as a self made project it should work pretty OK

it should definitely be much easier if the director having animation background. Or when translating stuff from drawn end product to animated end product like manga-->anime translations where the manga is often used as a storyboard for the most important shots, the important stuff even being almost 1:1 compared to manga (partially benefits from the way the story is telled using the manga form which differs from the Western comic book storytelling style) most low budget indie directors have film-o-holic background which in most cases does not help much when trying to tell one's own stories instead of copying the existing work of others. this easily leads to the "single visual ideas" approach which is never good when trying to get the audience connect with the characters and story in any way. I see the "empty shell characters" being a huge problem in indie films but also in feature films and today's productions in general. Meaning that the characters are only needed in the production so that the visual ideas can be expressed and the characters are not fully developed or taken care of, being kind of 1-dimensional "cardboard cutouts" which don't feel like real human beings and which behave very irrationally and which are unable to connect emotionally with. This is very common in higher budget productions too and it seems to get much worse if the director has a ads/commercials background where characters are not as important as expressing single visual ideas and baked on emotions with very nice looking images (kind of a Vimeography approach to telling stories where one tries to forcefully connect multiple different nice looking visual ideas together by adding some kind of forced basic story to it afterwards)

did you check the bulb condition

most indie directors tend to want to start with a storyboard or shot list because the indie shorts are usually based around a single visual idea of a shot or scene and the characters are just "empty shells" walking throught the sets to justify the visual idea the director wants to present. They need to be constantly reminded to finish the script first to make the characters, scenes and dialogue work in the first place (to focus on the story instead of focusing on only the single shot visual idea the movie is centered on) to make the short work as a movie (after which nice visual ideas can be added if needed to sell it better) . Kind of like the recipe of making a superhero movie nowadays: take 10 gallons of rancid cream and bake the biggest most gorgeous looking cream cake there is! Everyone admits by the looks of it that it is indeed the biggest most delicious looking cake there is. Until someone tries to actually eat it and gets the diarrhea of their life because the VISUALS WERE NICE BUT THE SCRIPT AND CHARACTERS DID NOT WORK ? that is why I am allergic to storyboards and most superhero movies too ?

If the director doesn't need to ask if something is possible to do or not and can instead just plan it and expect it to happen automatically then there has to be lots of available resources to make it happen without the need to verify beforehand if it is even possible to do or not. Storyboarding works very well for some directors and projects but I think it is a great misunderstanding that it automatically works perfectly for all types of projects with all kind of budget range. A good example is shooting drama scenes with long handheld takes following characters on close range. That type of scenes are pretty impossible to plan correctly without the dp and operator. For low budget indie the typical storyboarding concept is that the director thinks he is just doing his own graphic novel / comic book before even finishing the script which magically translates to final film 1:1 without any alterations and the movie would magically just work perfectly as a movie after that. Even if the storyboard would work OK, I would still want to change stuff and add some minor extra shots so that the director has at least the minimum coverage and is not screwed when the original plan does not work in the edit and the original "graphic novel" needs to be changed a little to make the story work as a movie

What I mean is: lighting with LED lights does not always look like crap. But when it does, you simply don't have any time to correct it because you are already using the fastest lighting setups possible (allowed by using LED units) and the scheduling is made accordingly to expect that nothing needs to be time consumingly relit if the lighting does not work with the makeup or does not look great. LEDs are a pretty good alternative to fluorescent units and for the smaller HMI units. Their spectrum is much worse than on real tungsten lights and in most cases it really shows to some extent. Big HMI is not possible to replace with LED because you can't get such a small pointy super powerful source using a LED. but on the 0 to 1.2k range the LEDs are a very good alternative to HMI nowadays and make it much faster to setup stuff without compromising the spectrum much

I think it is mostly the combination of certain kind of makeup and the modern lighting styles which tend to necessitate using very fast lighting setups and maybe a bit harder lighting like seen in the examples. By my experience the lighting methods have changed A LOT in the last 10 years and currently most of the productions seem to be pretty limited in what they can do lighting wise, needing to rely on quick OK working solutions instead of finessing anything to perfection. The main reason being that the production dept says no to anything which takes more time than the fastest possible solution (in most low and mid range productions the fastest can be a battery powered led panel slightly diffused because it can move immediately to the position to provide "good enough" key light for the talent. For example a skypanel with a softbox and rolling :) )

By my experience, the method of directors storyboarding the whole project beforehand without the dp works pretty well for short projects with unlimited budget if the director is extremely experienced. But for indie productions with limited resources it tends to be a really crappy and frustrating working method so I tend to advice against it until the script is the final version and it is possible to discuss about the logistics and budget and available gear etc before storyboarding anything at all. Then we can do the storyboarding together or the director can draw the boards if he wants and I will provide input and visual ideas when needed to be able to correct bad ideas before it is too late. An inexperienced director making his own plans without the dp and other hods does not usually work and in most cases almost all the director's plans have needed to be scrapped because they were impossible for the time and budget and in some cases too dangerous to shoot. For example a low budget music video where the director had made plans what shots he wants to the final video (about 60 shots) and I immediately said that we only had time and budget to shoot about 20 of them if we were lucky ? Then we had to make new plans on set to make it work at all. So directors making their own plans without feedback may work well if they are very experienced and have unlimited budget and they know all the technology very well and are willing to think about crew and actors safety beforehand, knowing rigging methods and all that. But most productions are not like that and then the auteur directors thinking they are the only ones capable of planning anything are just messing things up and will need to accept help later to make the movie shootable in the first place

At the moment the lead time for the Konvas 15epss v1.2 controllers is about 2.5 to 3 months. Some of the components are challenging to get and relatively expensive which is why I can't stock them at the moment but need to order one at a time. Especially the casing and the cheeseplate are an issue as well as some of the connectors and switches. I recommend contacting me early on if planning on purchasing this product so that it is possible to get it on time for your projects :) the Konvas controllers are very time consuming to build and it is likely that I will discontinue the product line sometime next year, possibly replacing them with something simpler which can still be used with the same motors with minor modifications. The current plan is to build at least 5 and a maximum of 10 pieces of the version v1.2 controllers before discontinuing the current product version. So if you are interested in this product, please let me know this year if wanting to order one as I will most likely discontinue the product line at some point in 2023

Due to the possible war in Europe between Russia and Ukraine, I will need to postpone the CP16R external controller for about 2 months. This is partially due to the current economical instability and partially due to the influences to the supply chains and prices and to the availability of parts and materials. I should receive the circuit board blanks in about one week and will start to assembly the prototype then. You can still send me orders in the meantime and I will try to raise more interest by getting the prototype up and running this month. As said this system can be user installed so it is possible to order one and install it to the camera by yourself if needed (takes about half a day to do and you need about 50usd worth of measuring equipment to do that). The new delivery time for the final system is in late April / mid May 2022. Please let me know if wanting to order one for your camera ?

Due to the possible war in Europe between Russia and Ukraine, I will need to postpone the CP16R external controller for about 2 months. This is partially due to the current economical instability and partially due to the influences to the supply chains and prices and to the availability of parts and materials. I should receive the circuit board blanks in about one week and will start to assembly the prototype then. You can still send me orders in the meantime and I will try to raise more interest by getting the prototype up and running this month. As said this system can be user installed so it is possible to order one and install it to the camera by yourself if needed (takes about half a day to do and you need about 50usd worth of measuring equipment to do that). The new delivery time for the final system is in late April / mid May 2022. Please let me know if wanting to order one for your camera ?

Perfect! I will finish the prototype in the following weeks and we can discuss then by DM about the details. I am targeting on installing these systems in the cameras in mid March and it should be possible to ship your user installable kit then. I will install the system in couple of cameras first to verify that it is easy and reliable to install, shooting the tutorials at the same time. and can ship user installable kits right after that ?

did you took a sample of the rolls to see that the film looked to be alright? I purchased some old Soviet era stock some years ago and it had been stored in very warm conditions so that the film emulsion had melt and the whole roll was glued by the gelatine to a solid block like a disc of solid plastic. I was not able to tear a single feet of film out of it. The boxes were nice looking though and I saved them ? I have heard lots of persons shooting on old Soviet stocks without much of an issue so probably I was just unlucky. But just a warning that this emulsion melting can sometimes happen if film is stored incorrectly and thus it is a good idea to take a sample of each roll in the darkroom to see that the film layers are not sticked together or anything serious

the CP16 mount quickly fitted on the Meteor 5-1 using aluminium foil tape and hot glue, with the rear element glued in place with superglue to keep it on the lens when the locking ring of it was removed. It seems to be working correctly with the camera so I can say this is a possible lens alternative for the CP16R on low budget shoots. As said in the previous posts, the rear element comes very very close to the viewfinder optics and one needs to take the locking ring of the rear element off to get the lens seated correctly. The rear element assembly needs to be glued in place with superglue to keep it on the lens. But when the original CP16R lenses are pretty much non-existent nowadays and the cheapest possible Arri mount Angenieux zoom combo would cost something from 700usd upwards, this Meteor mashup is pretty affordable, being maybe 120usd if you get the CP16 mount from somewhere. Even if having to purchase the mount separately (like a Arri S to CP16 adapter used here) it would still be under 200usd and you can always get better lenses later when having more budget ? the main goal is to get to shoot with the camera no matter how weird the rig looks like, right? even a hot glued setup like this would allow it. For camera collectors it would be better to just wait 10 years to maybe get lucky to see some very expensive original lens for the CP16 ?

the oscilloscope is used to verify that the speed sensor installed to the motor is working correctly. it is possible to install it without the oscilloscope but if the sensor needs to be fine tuned it is good to have the oscilloscope to verify that the adjustment is not "on the edge of working correctly" which might give false speed readings in some situations. The cheapest dso138 Chinese oscilloscope would work which costs something like 30 bucks so the price of the tool would not be a problem. My Konvas15epss controller has a user calibratable sensor preamplifier built inside the motor handle, it has a small green LED light which can be used to verify that the sensor is properly adjusted and thus no oscilloscope is needed. I did not include a led light system in the CP16R controller because the blinking led light in the motor compartment would risk exposing the actual film too and the optical encoder system is a bit different to calibrate. It is possible though that I may figure something out to make the calibrating easier

The plans for the CP16R updates are as follows: 1. I will wait until getting at least 5 of the external box controllers v1.0 (the design in the previous post) sold and installed to cameras before proceeding any further. If selling only one or two, then the v1.0 external controller will be the final design for the CP16R and no future updates will be designed. The current price for the v1.0 external controller is 500usd+shipping and it may go up sometime later this year depending on the cost of parts and workflow. I calculated that the "real price" of the v1.0 controller is around 650usd + shipping so it is probable that the price will rise to 650usd after about April 2022. The v1.0 controller can be user installed if needed. 2. If I get at least 5 of the v1.0 external controllers sold, then I may make a updated v2.0 version of the external box controller with a graphical oled display, shutter parking, unlimited framerate options, phase correction, better electric inching, etc. advanced features. This v2.0 version will only happen if I get enough of the v1.0 version sold so that I can gain enough resources for the development work. The estimated price for the v2.0 external controller is about 1000usd + shipping and it can be user installed if needed. If the user's camera already has the v1.0 controller installed, it is very simple to update the camera internals to support the v2.0 controller. 3. If everything goes well and I get enough v2.0 controllers sold, I can gain enough resources to make a internally installed modification for the CP16R. It will have all the features of the v2.0 controller but it will have both audible and visual film end warnings (leds in the viewfinder) and it will be much more compact because installed fully inside the camera. Oled display with graphical user interface, unlimited framerate possibilities, phase correction, etc etc. Price range of the update is estimated to be from 1200 to 1500usd + shipping and it cannot be user installed, the camera needs to be sent to me for modification. If there will only be a limited amount of interest towards the CP16R updates, then the final design will be the v1.0 so that I can save resources for developing other crystal controllers for other camera models. If the v1.0 CP16R controller sells well, then I can develop additional more advanced controllers for the CP16R. This is in part to make sure that I don't waste resources and will have at least SOMETHING available for the CP16R, meaning that I will be able to write the user manuals too, shoot and edit video tutorials for the controller and be able to spend the additional time to make it possible to user install the v1.0 system if needed (including making lots of additional tutorials and more extensive manuals). The v1.0 external box controller is available for order for the CP16R and the current lower price for the controllers in the first batch is 500usd + shipping (in the future they would cost more, probably around 650usd a piece + shipping). Delivery of the first batch orders is possible in March or April depending on the availability of parts and how many orders I can get collected to streamline the assembly of the controllers .

I think I will re-evaluate the Leicina project in August or September if it is still financially possible to do or not. I don't want to throw working camera bodies away so I will probably do some kind of arts installation out of them if it does not seem viable to convert them to crystal sync and having no other use for them ? At the moment I am mostly working on external box crystal sync controller designs which are more practical for me to manufacture and which are more standardized so that I can share developing costs between different designs, enabling me to design these systems in the first place. I cut the funding from all the built-into-the-camera systems for now including this Leicina project and will only resume working on it if the external box designs will be successful enough to get enough resources from them to continue with the Leicina. Have to, in a way, prove that it makes any financial sense to design these systems in the first place because the numbers don't look good at the moment (investing over 5000 euros and getting 600 euros back so far) and have to focus on stuff which has even the slightest change of getting my own money back from the projects. But will resume on the Leicina project in August or September to see if it makes any sense to continue it or not ?

the current version of the controller is setup either for the 24fps camera drive gear OR the 25fps drive gear. So you have to know which gear you have in the camera before ordering a controller for self installation because the gear type setting cannot be changed afterwards easily and you would need to send the box back to me if the setting needs to be changed (it needs hardware and software changes inside the controller box and this cannot be done by the user or a normal service technician. It is possible for me to change boxes afterwars to another setting if needed but this would cost something because I need to take the control box apart and load new software to it + make some changes by soldering to change the gear type setting)

it is theoretically possible to install the controller to the camera by yourself but it is not a simple "plug and play" type of solution. It is not difficult to do but it takes at least half a day to get it up and working with the camera. Basically I would provide all the needed materials for the update and then you would need to remove the original electronics from the camera body and install all the new connectors and speed sensor to it and route the power from the onboard battery connector to the new electronics. The parts would be the same that I use but you would need a affordable oscilloscope to be able to tune the system correctly. The price for this type of user installable system would be the same (500usd + shipping) but you would save on the shipping costs because not needing to ship the camera body back and forth. of course I would make a good video tutorial how to install the system ?

THIS IS THE MOCKUP OF THE FINAL USER INTERFACE LAYOUT OF THE CP16R EXTERNAL CONTROLLER. I moved the start-stop switch to different position and added the footage counter selector which controls the film end warning and counters. One resets the film end warning by moving the selector to "0" position and then choosing the new roll length for the next magazine. There is a 9-pin D connector which outputs display data in 9600baud serial data form so that the user can easily make a external display to show the most important information and the film counters. Making one's own display is very easy and affordable, I will provide the instructions and the Arduino code for the purpose so no code writing is needed, just some basic parts and uploading the readily made code into the user's Arduino to get the display running ? I can, of course, make suitable displays too if needed but it will be more expensive (from about 100usd) than the users making the displays by themselves (a diy display costs from about 15usd upwards) PLEASE LET ME KNOW IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS IF YOU ARE INTERESTED ABOUT ORDERING THIS UPDATE TO YOUR CP16R CAMERA. Some of the components are relatively expensive and have long-ish factory lead times and I am not able to stock a large batch of them unless there is actual orders to fulfill. So I will need to know ASAP how many cameras there will be scheduled for the conversion so that it is possible to arrange all the needed materials and components for the conversions on time.

THIS IS THE MOCKUP OF THE FINAL USER INTERFACE LAYOUT OF THE CP16R EXTERNAL CONTROLLER. I moved the start-stop switch to different position and added the footage counter selector which controls the film end warning and counters. One resets the film end warning by moving the selector to "0" position and then choosing the new roll length for the next magazine. There is a 9-pin D connector which outputs display data in 9600baud serial data form so that the user can easily make a external display to show the most important information and the film counters. Making one's own display is very easy and affordable, I will provide the instructions and the Arduino code for the purpose so no code writing is needed, just some basic parts and uploading the readily made code into the user's Arduino to get the display running ? I can, of course, make suitable displays too if needed but it will be more expensive (from about 100usd) than the users making the displays by themselves (a diy display costs from about 15usd upwards)

the same reason why the overexposure on film when the camera speeds up and slows down + stops is always white but the edge exposure of the daylight spools and general sideways light leaks are always red or reddish orange. any kind of light coming from the sideways to the film edge massively overexposes the red layer first before getting any change to hit any other layers