Aapo Lettinen

optical encoder could of course used but it may need regular cleaning to maintain working condition. It is much easier to attach to the axle (it may be possible to use mirror surfaces for reflecting the light so black-silver masking might even be enough. The silver part or the end of the same axle which has the bakelite end cap would probably be the easiest places to attach the optical encoder. Just beware that the oil and vaseline may mess up the readings every now and then so you need to regularly open it and clean it. With optical the duty cycle stuff and the frequency divisions are easier though because the slot count is not as limited. You may want to try different approaches if attempting this project ?

I had time to open one of my motors briefly. Is this the motor type you would want to adapt? I checked it and it seems that it would be easiest to try to build a magnetic hall type encoder assembly to that silvery part which is used to attach the bakelite gear in place. the part seems to be aluminium so it should work and that is the spot where there is most space available inside the housing. Making the magnetic assembly should be possible without disassembling everything. I would personally not want to use optical encoder for this because the system is placed inside the gear housing and there is vaseline and oil particles flying around which could smear the optical parts and it would thus need to be regularly cleaned to keep it in working condition. This is how much there is place for the encoder assembly: I would try to attach the magnets to that silver part which holds the black bakelite gear in place. The actual motor axle is another possible place for the encoder but it may be challenging to remove that gear first and there is still very little space. The silver part removed. I would try to do the magnetic encoder to that silver part which attaches black gear to the axle. Basic crystal sync logic, extremely simplified. The Hall sensor would read the magnetic encoder attached to the silvery aluminium part and the Hall sensor signal then amplified and converted to square wave. You would use a crystal oscillator to generate a reference frequency which is the same amount of pulses per second you will expect to get from the encoder ( if wanting 25fps camera speed and in this case you would want 50 pulses per second from the oscillator because you have two slot encoder) . The oscillator signal is square wave with similar duty cycle than the amplified encoder signal will be. The motor signal and the oscillator signal are compared against each other. The phase and frequency difference of the signals is calculated and used to make a control signal to adjust the motor speed controller. The motor speed controller generates a pulse width modulated signal which is amplified with cmos motor driver circuit and used to control the motor. I hope this helps a little. The actual circuit needs to be figured out by you if you will want to make a system like this. We will help of course if it's possible but nobody probably wants to make the whole circuit design and circuit board design and testing for you ( and it would NOT be DIY anymore if someone else would do all the hard work for you :) )

I have multiple crystal sync projects going on at the same time but I still should have time for one additional project this year :D I was thinking it could be usable to do a crystal sync motor modification for these old straight viewfinder Konvas models which use the older style rheostat motor. I could do the mod to my own camera first and then install it to other person's motors as well or just send the ready-to-install boards and parts so that the end user could install it by themselves. Would anyone be interested in this type of modification? These cameras are smaller than 1M and 2M models so they could find use in indie style shoots even when they don't have orientable finder like the 1M and 2M do. The camera bodies and motors are also more available than the 1M or 2M with a working original crystal motor which are relatively rare. So I think the mod would be useful in today's world. Schedule for the project would be TBA (if the project even will happen). Prices and specifications would also be need to figure out but I would assume it would be nice to have 4 or 5 crystal speeds and the price of the modification could be something around 500 + shipping or something like that. It should be possible to install most of the electronics inside the spring drive cavity to keep the modified system as streamlined as possible. Please let me know if you are interested :) I will finish the other projects in this Summer so after that it could be possible to concentrate on the Konvas motors if there is enough interest to make it viable :)

Actually assembling the system is maybe 0.1% of the work and all the rest is the design and testing work. Calculating and testing and building prototypes and making circuit board designs and reading datasheets and comparing parts options and so on. Basically if there is no available system which is already made for your camera and motor model, then someone needs to design one and adapt and test it. That is why I estimated it would take about 6 months of your time to build one should you want to do it by yourself. Because you will need to learn a lot and do multiple versions and test them all. You will also need additional tools which you may not have yet. So making a diy desing from scratch only for your own camera may not be practical if you only have one camera. If having many of them or doing a open source project for fun, then it could be practical. Friedemann has a type of system which could probably be used for your purposes but it would need adapting as well. Either you would need to do the adapting work or he has to do it and somehow make it worth the time and resources he has to put to the project. Personally I am developing the crystal systems for my own camera models and maybe for other cameras as well as long as there is at least five cameras of the same model which will be adapted and I will get all the developing costs back. Making small scale production of five to 20 pieces per design and charging for the boards and for installing them to get the costs back. Small runs because I figured out that the end users need lots of customisation and making one single design would not work because of this. And making zillions of different design and manufacturing the boards and custom mechanical parts takes lots and lots of time so one cannot do it for free :) I am making a crystal oscillator module at the moment which has traditional frequency dividers for five different speeds for a system which uses 10 slot optical encoder. As I said in the previous post, it is possible that you would for example use this module as a base of your system and then do the motor control electronics by yourself if you want. The module should be available in June, don't know about the cost but for hand assembled ones it could be something like 200+shipping or something like that. Though if you are really doing a diy design you could figure out the oscillator part by yourself as well, it is not the toughest part of the system so should be easy enough to do as long as you have a good oscilloscope available

If you only need 25fps then the easiest way is to purchase the 230volts operated 25fps sync original cameflex sync motor and use it with normal small 12v inverter. This gives you enough stability to shoot sync sound and is very simple to do because you can just use off the shelf inverter from any store. There is one of these motor on eBay at the moment I think. Adapting a cameflex motor should be possible. I haven't checked but I believe one could fit a optical encoder assembly inside. Maybe if removing the rheostat. It could be fitted inside the camera body as well. If you want to do your own system there is multiple options. One option is to adapt Friedemann's system he posted here earlier, it looked like a good option for this type of work. Another option would be to take part of some of my systems (for example I could do the crystal oscillator module for you with readily usable 250.00Hz output and you could do the control electronics by yourself). Or you could do everything diy design if you want.) The phase lock function and the motor control logic are the most challenging parts. You can do digital phase lock by using XOR gate circuit and some additional parts and it is also possible to do pwm motor control from scratch by using multi-kHz oscillator signal with rc network waveform shaping and operational amplifier circuit to change the duty cycle. Or you could use readily available motor controllers. Or use something like a 555 oscillator to do the motor signal. Microcontrollers can do pwm as well but most of the easy ones have only low speed pwm easily available, it works ok but creates additional noise. One option is to use simple Arduino speed control like my very first prototype. It was based on the pulseIn function. It just does not have precise enough speed stability so I abandoned the design and went for full phase locked true crystal sync instead. If you want to do the project all by yourself you should expect it taking about 6 months of your time. Might be faster if you adapt parts of available systems instead of doing everything from scratch

great, he seems to have some of the color neg available in 2x8mm in the US. http://www.toeppenfilm.com/ordernow.html there seems to be prices in usd. Maybe we could arrange an European order to get our own batch perforated and save shipping costs if it seems there is lots of interested persons?

Simon had an idea of fitting old Leicina 2x8mm cameras with custom made crystal sync electronics if my crystal sync projects will advance enough so that I could build the electronics part. We'll see how it goes but if there would be negative film available then it would make the camera project much easier

the main problem with the original 2.5k BMCC is the aliasing/moire it creates. That is the main reason I never purchased one and always used the 4K model even when the 2.5k was available. When you have lots and lots of textures and straight lines in the image the moire starts to matter... it would have destroyed pretty much all of my shots if I had used the 2.5k but the 4K model was fine for most uses. The 4K is totally OK for the money as long as you don't underexpose it and as long as your SSD's can hold up the speed without dropping frames. I had lots of drop frame issues with the Kingston drives I used when shooting DNG and thus I shot most of the stuff in Prores instead of CinemaDNG ( prores made sense storage wise as well and was much easier to use in post)

I sent email about this to Filmotec (ORWO), we'll see what they answer. I imagine it could be an issue if the stock already has perforations on it but we'll see. I checked the years old emails about the last conversation I had with them and the minimum order for perforating 35mm was smaller than I though it was so it COULD be possible to do Dual8 vision3 stocks in smaller batches I believe. But we'll see when they answer. I think the best approach could be to order the perforating in 400ft rolls and the seller or the end user respools it to camera spools. If the perforating is possible then I imagine the spooling would be easy for Filmotec but we'll see :) If re-perforating the stock is not possible, then it could be possible to slit larger film format to get unperforated Dual8. Probably this would need to be done to 65mm negative to get usable amount of stock out of it...

would the sync sound Leicina camera project help with the situation? how large of a customer base they would need to be interested in offering new stocks in the D8 format? the availability of stock is very critical for the D8 format I think. As I know the only easily available emulsion at the moment is the Fomapan b/w reversal. But maybe someone else could do the perforating work to standard 16mm color negative stock even if Kodak is not interested? could ORWO or FOMA do this type of work? I asked from ORWO about their perforating services a couple of years ago and the minimum orders were pretty reasonable sounding. I think it was couple of thousand euros minimum which would be pretty reasonable if one would get for example 7203 in Dual8 format, there would be lots of people purchasing it I'm sure ? I'm not sure if ORWO has perforating tools for D8 but at least the Foma has because they are doing their own D8 stock as well. The D8 color negative could be developed in standard 16mm lab machine in any lab. one could slit the film at home with one of those Lomo tools, even I have one of them even when I don't shoot D8 at the moment. So the perforating work is the only challenge there is. Maybe if the Leicina project materializes this year, then a batch of stock could be arranged as well to support the camera?

it has a bit "harsh" color rendition especially on blues and yellows (not as bad as the original Red One has but something similar style I think). and the fixed pattern noise makes it pretty unusable at over 400ISO gain or otherwise underexposed. The fan also makes a little bit of noise though it hasn't been a problem for me. They are pretty affordable now so they could be very useful for lower end stuff if you already have suitable EF lenses for it and can live without high frame rates, a bit lower dynamic range than more modern cameras, and the need to use external batteries to be able to shoot anything serious with it. The Pocket4k could be very useful option as well if you already have the lenses or have possibility to get affordable lenses for it.

OR there may be enough space inside the box to add your own separate regulator just for the XLR. depending on how much current you are going to draw from it.

that would be one good possibility, will have to look it next month when I have more time :) I will need the basic logic IC:s and the oscillators for other purposes as well so it makes sense to make some of the prototypes with them

Learning to use binary counters (right side chip) and decade counters (left side chip) by running the Attiny85 as an oscillator (center microchip). I will probably use these simple logic circuits on the first "real crystal" setups where the oscillator frequency is divided in stages to get the desired reference speed for 12.5fps, 25fps and 50fps. When doing harder-to-divide frame rates like 24.00fps I will probably use programmable counters to get the reference close enough to the target (1/1000fps or so would be nice) . That will be later. I will do the 25fps version first because it is just so much simpler to do. So a single speed prototype first and then can add speeds to it later. This work is for the "B"-style system.

I think it would be much easier to transfer the negative. Even professional scanners have lots of trouble handling the contrast of reversal film and the results from mid range machines lack all the quality of the reversal which one sees if the image is seen in projector. Colour grading is pretty easy to do but one will get much better in it the more one does it. The good colorists have done it daily for 20 years or more so they have incredible amount of experience and that's why they are so much better in it than the average edit guy. A beginner starts to see usable results in couple of weeks and it gets better and better all the time, you should start learning Resolve to get better in it :) A single 100ft roll would be couple of thousand frames and you would probably first run the raw settings in single batch to them in a program most practical to you. Then you could do a prores file out of them and edit and grade that. Working with long raw stills sequences is PITA and programs like Resolve don't like them at all so it would be easiest to get the basic raw adjustments done and then convert to a video format which can be edited and finished more easily. A diy scanner would be mostly a mechanical device with just a little bit of electronics to drive the camera's image capture and film transport. Some kind of sensor which triggers the shutter via the camera's standard remote connector. The biggest problem when doing these is that one needs machining tools because the axles and some of the rollers need to be custom made. I am doing this type of project by myself at the moment but it is not sure if a DIY scanner would be a suitable solution for you unless you are actually interested in the scanning part and manufacturing mechanical stuff and not just want to shoot and edit material. For me the motivation is that I want to be able to do the whole process by myself from start to finish so that it is much easier to shoot camera tests and documentary shorts. Developing and transferring a single 100ft b/w roll in pro lab would be prohibitively expensive compared to developing and transferring it by yourself. It is also much quicker, a couple of hours compared to couple of days. I am also interested in doing mechanical stuff and have the tools needed so it is much more for me than just shooting and editing material.

Overseas scanning is an option but always try to get the film developed near you so that you are only shipping developed stock overseas. That way no one can ruin you footage with x-ray scans and heat and such. Dust is much easier to handle in DIY scanning than excessively contrasty image like the one Ektachrome produces. I would advise making some kind of positive pressure filter system for the DIY scanner instead of trying to handle the more contrasty stock with it. Some kind of blower system which first filters the air and then directs the filtered air to the scanner enclosure so that the air flows outwards from it and no dust can dust get inside. I am currently making a prototype DIY scanner for 35mm, it uses still camera as a pickup and transfers the films slowly through at about 1fps or a little lower speed. This is for doing film test scans for 100ft rolls and the color negative I will still send for proper scanning if it is longer rolls

Slowly adapting my motor control code to AtTiny85 microcontroller. The code needs to be rewritten completely but these small controllers are useful in small systems. This current prototype uses a slot type optical sensor and a small test motor with a quickly made encoder made out of tape. It uses the "A" type code so it measures the frequency and compares the frequency numbers. Seems to work pretty great already and the multi slot encoder enhances the stability a lot. Output circuit updated to mosfet btw. Programming the Attiny85's using Arduino Uno as a programmer. These fingernail sized Attiny processors are quite handy for prototypes and will probably use them in the final boards as well

the cost of the leftover roll is insignificant for a movie production, but the TIME COSTS A LOT to shoot it. So it is cheaper to just cut the roll from the middle instead of using lots of time to shoot the rest of it. It is much cheaper to even throw it away than to shoot it. It is just a bonus for them is someone pays even SOMETHING for the short ends so that they don't need to go to waste. Big productions like to use full rolls as often as possible so they would not use the short ends much by themselves

they are cutting the film so that only the amount that they shot is sent to the lab. The unexposed film is put back in the film can and either used later OR sold to a broker as a short end. That is exactly how short ends are made in the first place and that is why they are much cheaper than factory sealed film. They are leftovers from film productions when they only shot part of the roll and then did not need the rest. Recan is a film which is put into the magazine and threaded but was not needed so it was put back in the can again. So it is ALMOST full roll but was opened and the first couple of feet were exposed. Clearance film is factory sealed full cans which were bought for a production and stored properly and never opened, then sold back to the broker when the shooting was done. So they are leftovers which are just stored by the production but not used at all. One can get factory new film cheaper by purchasing these so I recommend clearance as the first option when considering film stock for indie productions

it depends on the scanner. some of them can do optical cropping and some of them crop on the sensor or need to be cropped in post. You would generally want a optical zoom capable system to be able to crop to the Regular16 frame efficiently because most of the sensor cropping systems are setup for S16 so you would lose more resolution than what you calculated from the dimensions. Regular 16 is generally fine when cropped to 16:9 frame especially if the lenses are good and you are shooting slow film like the 50D. I shoot most of my stuff with similar settings and cropping the end result to 2:1 ratio. S16 becomes very important if you are shooting 2.39:1 image and intending to use it for cinema release. That would mean lots of cropping + magnification if doing similar framing with regular16. The resolving power of the regular16 does not quite match the UHD format but the audience won't complain so it is more of a logistical question I think. If the UHD is your delivery resolution then it makes sense to stick with that. Upscaling is not that big of a deal if you end up with less than UHD resolution after cropping. You just need to get it scaled up right to get to the desired resolution. Upscaling is used all the time with for example all the Alexa originated material and it works fine so no reason to abandon a workflow just because the resolution numbers don't seem to match at first ?

One of the aspects is that the Konvases which use OCT18 mount have pretty good and affordable lenses even when the available focal lengths are limited. Lenses are generally the most expensive part of the package so this really matters when choosing a camera. I purchased most of my cameras when the prices were lower, most of them cost from 100 to 200 bucks for a camera body and couple of mags in unknown condition. One lens could be bought for a minimum of about 100 bucks and the most expensive prime was about 300 I think. A Foton zoom was something like 400-500 bucks or so. The prices are now higher but they are still an affordable option. The film is another issue though. But I don't think the availability of short ends would stop you especially if you are intending to mostly shoot 50D. (I personally shoot lots of 100ft B/W bulk stills film rolls and they are available everywhere) .As you can see on the Frame24 page there is lots of clearance 50D available which is in good and known condition in unopened cans. It may be a slight issue for you that when using the smaller Konvas magazines you always need to spool down the film in darkroom to get it to proper sized loads to use. There is 400ft mags for newer models like the 1M but most of the mags are 200ft and if you want to use the larger sized normal cores with adapters then the newer 200ft mags can only use about 150ft loads or so. Spooling down is not an issue if you do multiple rolls at a time in the darkroom and then store them later for use when keeping your "film stockpile" in the original unopened cans to save space in the fridge. A full Konvas package with the desired mags, reasonably CLA:d and with batteries and maybe two lenses and shipping could be got with the 1K budget I think. The CLA and additional shippings will be about 400 of that 1K price I think so almost half of it. One could probably get a reasonably quality 35mm sound capable rental package with basic lenses for two-three days with that price if getting a great deal and choosing the timing right. So it is pretty subjective and depends on what you want to do with the camera. Rental cameras make sense for narrative work but generally not for documentary style MOS stuff where you have less footage to shoot per day and you would like lots of different setups and locations which are not near the rental house

I will need to order them from Russia or Ukraine too and will need to pay tax and customs for them. Nothing special there. Shipping is faster but not much other difference. Much easier than to order something from the US and costs the same or sometimes is even cheaper. They are not a replacement for Moviecams, they are a replacement for Eyemo, Arri2c and Cameflex type of MOS cameras. Compared to Eyemo you have the benefit of reflex finder and bigger rolls and quick change mags at the same price point. Compared to Arri2c the Konvas cameras are cheaper and have orientable finders on some models and the lenses are MUCH cheaper. Compared to Cameflex the Konvas cameras can be made much smaller and more lightweight and a bit cheaper and the lenses are much cheaper than original Kinoptik unless you have a NikonF mount conversion in you Cameflex. The OP will probably never get much revenue back from the camera system anyway and I understood he is mostly going to shoot MOS single rolls every now and then so there is not much use to spend close to 10K to get a Moviecam package. A 2C or a Cameflex could be useful for him as I mentioned before. Costs a bit more than the Konvas in full working condition and he would have more issues getting affordable lenses especially for the 2C. The direct Russian replacement for Moviecam cameras are the Kinor35N and 35C which roughly compare to Moviecam SuperAmerica (copied from it. Slight differences. The N model is newer). These cameras need KS to BH conversion before they are useful in real shoots. The Konvases DO NOT need any conversions, just CLA and any film can be used with them (I regularly shoot both KS and BH film with them and both work fine).

tape needs to be pretty close to the ground glass but you don't necessarily need to tape ON the ground glass if there is for example a frame over it which holds it in place... then you can apply the tape on the frame so that it stays just a mm or so from the GG but does not touch it (which would leave glue residue and marks to the glass). I use taping on all my own cameras to get approximate framelines on the finder. most of them have translucent tape so that it is possible to see the extra area, it is just dimmer and a bit blurred out

Some updated design specs for "System A". - I am planning to make the board much smaller by replacing some of the parts with SMD components. There is a good possibility that I will use plain processors instead of using the Arduino Micro board. The normal "old school" Atmega328PU with external crystal and regulator is still smaller than the Arduino Micro board. The main thing though is to try to keep the height of the board minimal. - planned size of the "A" board is about 50mm x 60mm x 12mm. We'll see how it goes. I want to keep the possibility to hand assemble the boards at this stage which restricts the minimum size of the smd parts which can be used. The speed selector and the display are of course external and not counted in the dimensions. - the much smaller size for example means that it could be possible for Simon to fit the full "A" system inside the 8mm camera if he wants. We'll see how it goes. The smaller "C" design will be cheaper though because not having display etc. - user replaceable parts are pretty challenging to do when the board gets smaller. This "A" design is close to half of the original size I planned. It is easier to install to the camera but if there is problems with it, it is easier to replace the whole board than start to swap components. Most users would replace it anyway instead of trying to troubleshoot and replace parts. I will try to make the replacement process as easy as possible in case it has to be done by the user. Other stuff: - It will take some time to get the "Real Crystal Sync" models working. I will need a good oscilloscope because my Chinese cheap-o oscilloscope is BS and does not work correctly. So I will need to collect some money to be able to continue the "B" and "C" designs. The Coronavirus also causes some delays because it takes more time to get components from suppliers. Planned timeline of the project: - "A"-system finished and available in late May - Systems "B" and "C" finished probably in June or July

Yes the Russian cameras may need a bit more involvement in the beginnning. But they are pretty good when they are in proper condition. The advantage of them is that you can get 4 or 5 or 6 of them for the price of a single Western MOS camera so it is possible to actually have a spare camera if needed. Or in the case of my proposition of hauling a set together for Patrick, I would hunt down two camera bodies and use the other for spare parts to get the other working very well. Then keeping the scavenged one as a payment and send the working one to Patrick. If both of them would had bad magazines, then I could swap them to my own mags which are working well and would repair the bad ones later for my own uses. I would be able to film test it to some extent because I am regularly shooting b/w 35mm by myself and could just use the camera on those shoots instead using my own one. It may be needed to be able to open the camera and mags every now and then for cleaning and lubrication. But that is easy to do, not actual rocket science. And it is needed with every camera. The movements are hard as I said. I don't have the tools or expertise to repair them if there is anything wrong with them... only person I know who repairs and adjusts them is Olex in East Ukraine. Shipping the cameras back and forth is expensive so it would be more practical to just get a camera body with working movement to start with. But all of them have had the movement working so far so in all the ebay cameras I have purchased so bad movements seem to be quite rare. And I would buy two anyways so one of them would be fine at least. One of the nice options could be the Cameflex. With luck and patience it could be possible to get the 16mm parts for it too. Just saw one on eBay for something like 650 or 700. Personally I mostly shoot N16 with my own cameras and I can borrow S16 Aaton from a friend if needed. It is most important that you have SOME KIND of camera which shoots the format. If shooting 50D the cropping may not even be that big of a deal. I regularly shoot N16 cropped to 2:1 and most of it is fine