Aapo Lettinen

I understood he does not have a camera yet but is considering different options and the film stock availability is one of the main aspects when choosing between 16 and 35. I recommended a Konvas 1KCP or 1M for him on the other thread but that absolutely necessitates the camera be serviced first. Film cameras in general need servicing before use and Russian film cameras ABSOLUTELY need it because the eBay cameras are often stored badly and have not been used in years

I am intending to do a lock system which can be used to lock the rec button down when you want. Keeping it pressed while cranking at the same time is just too impractical. I believe people would want to keep the spring drive possibility so taking the button system completely away may not be the best option. Metal lever is easier to attach to the camera. I am intending to use ball bearings in the lever handle to make it easier to use and reduce the noise. It is possible to hand crank it without any of these additions but the modifications make it much easier. If someone would want, I could do a digital FPS meter and footage counter for additional price

I opened my Krasnogorsk2 to take some measurements. The electric motor would be fully possible but it is a bit expensive to make compared to the price of the camera body. A good estimate for a fully working K3 which has stabilized electric motor and S16 gate installed and which includes the shipping and the kit zoom lens, everything in good working order and serviced: About 800 USD total which includes the price of the camera body and lens. Minimum order couple of cameras and some of the money paid upfront so that I could hunt suitable camera packages from eBay and get the needed extra tools and parts. BUT. BUT. When taking measurements I came up with much simpler and much more interesting modification for Krasnogorsk cameras. I don't have a K3 here but I could relatively easily make my Krasnogorsk2 HAND CRANKED and it is still possible to control the TOP SPEED of the hand cranking with the speed selector. This still requires full disassembling of the camera and a custom part or two but it is much easier to make. Estimated price for this type of upgrade: 200 USD plus the price of the camera body. Minimum order one camera. Let me know if you are interested in one of these systems. The hand crank is pretty neat feature and I am going to mod my own K2 camera to use it right away.

one of the things is that it may be pretty challenging to get the most used films speeds in short ends or clearance. The 50D is the easiest to get. I like the 250D the most but it is more rare nowadays. 500T is almost never found as clearance/short end, it is immediately purchased away if even a single roll surfaces. The 50D is pretty good film to shoot with Konvas type cameras though. No need to use much ND filters and it tends to be cheaper than other clearance stuff. Maybe you could collect a larger order and then purchase from overseas? I previously purchased my clearance film from Frame24 (link ) but I would try some US seller too. Maybe Tyler or someone else can recommend a US based seller of 35mm short ends?

One of the options is to shoot b/w stills film on 100ft bulk rolls if you are doing MOS stuff. If using a camera with enough tolerances (like the Konvas cameras I use for this type of stuff) they work great even when the perforations are KS. Another option is to shoot print film or sound negative film. That can be pretty affordable even when the film is purchased new. I have done some experiments with Agfa ST9 and it works very well with the Konvases. I think I paid something around 250-300 for a 2000' roll. Something like that. I am developing it by myself too. Haven't scanned yet because I want to test my new DIY scanner with it to make the whole process by myself but from the stills it is performing great. Is there any film supplier in Australia anymore which could sell short ends? One of the options would be to import the stuff or pool around to collect a larger order which is shared with multiple persons. I used to purchase the short ends from Frame24 from GB but after the brexit it is no longer an option so I will probably transfer to shooting exclusively b/w on 35mm and doing colour work in 16mm

I like to do reflecting surfaces by applying shiny aluminium tape to one side of a styrofoam or a kapa board. I use the type of insulating tape which is real smooth aluminium with glue added on it. there is also the mylar based aluminium tapes but the real aluminium foil tape has been more handy in my projects and it does not deteriorate in light like the plastic based "aluminium tapes". dull aluminium foil can be glued to various surfaces, it can be a bit harder than using a tape. Or there is different reflective materials available which can be used.

Mother Earth throwing a small random 'snake flu' towards us just to test how it would work and it suddenly closes whole countries and ruins the world economy. Pretty interesting effect I think... hope it won't become a regular phenomenon. We can thank bats for cooking up this disease too ?

Actually I was just thinking that it might be easier to just take the film transport parts out of the K3 and make a new camera body (if one could make many of them at the same time) so that there would be the needed room for the video tap and motor + controller and the possibility to use different type of lens mount. Maybe I will try it with my Krasnogorsk2 sometime, I hate the magazine system anyway so could as well tear it apart and try to make something new out of it ?

the main problem with the K3 motor modification would be that it takes lots of work to disassemble the camera enough to get even started with installing a motor there. I am estimating (without prior experience modifying them this way but knowing approximately what would have to be done to it to possibly make it work) that it could take about 1.5 to 2 days with normal work hours to do the modification. So it would probably cost couple of hundred bucks to do in every case unless the modification would be user installed and the end user would not count the work hours. The parts are not expensive, the work costs about 90% of it... With larger cameras like the CP cameras it should be much easier to do, especially because there is more room and the motor and encoder assemblies are already there so most of the mechanical parts are already ready and no need to make and install new gears etc. Would still take time to do but makes a bit more sense than modifying a cheaper camera like the Krasnogorsk. The advantage of the K3 is that it has OK quality affordable lenses and it is relatively small and lightweight. But the question is, would anyone buy the crystal modified one if it costs for example 600 bucks with the basic zoom? Possibly S16 gate but N16 viewfinder optics. The Arduinos are great for motor modifications but I am already taking next steps in hardware design after only developing the motor controller for couple of months. Will probably need to experiment soldering SMD microcontrollers and then start to miniaturise the boards... there is very little parts in Arduinos (they are basically just the power regulator parts + oscillator and the easier way to manage multiple output pins of the small microcontroller package) so it makes sense to do the whole board by yourself later on. Helps to make it low profile and a bit smaller. Arduinos work great though when there is enough room to install them and the IDE is pretty handy (at the moment I am using it because the programming language was easiest to learn so that I could get "straight to business" with it. Will probably need to migrate the programs later to make them more efficient but we'll see) The crystal K3 would be pretty neat though, maybe I'll look it sometime as a experiment :)

in the images the first prism reflects the image from the light sensor window upwards and then directs it towards camera top. Another prism is glued to the front cover of the camera to reflect this image through a hole I drilled to the cover. The video tap can be installed outside the camera body and it shoots the image through the hole on the cover.

Theoretical question. If a crystal sync motor would be developed for Krasnogorsk 3 camera, how much the modification could cost to still make it viable option? I may have possibility to do this type of modifications this year if there would be enough demand and I will get my crystal sync electronics working reliably with these cameras. By my opinion, only the K3 would be usable for these modifications, the magazine system of the K1 and K2 is too unreliable and awkward to be used for these I think. Personally I would recommend keeping the original bayonet lenses of the camera, they are pretty good for the price. If you already have all the PL lenses then a PL modification could be doable but otherwise it does not make much sense I think. Some years ago I did a experimental viewfinder prism adaptation to my Krasnogorsk2 to enable it using a video tap via beamsplitter so that one could use the optical finder at the same time. I never had suitable small video camera to use as a tap so I did not develop it to a working system but the camera still has the beamsplitter installed. Might give you great ideas how to do the modification if you decide to attempt it ? Original camera viewfinder optics with the lightmeter sensor attached to the side: Modified viewfinder optics with the light sensor removed and a angle prism attached to its place. The prism had to be glued in place and it need to be done very precisely to avoid bubbles and poor image quality. I think I took the prism from Krasnogors1 viewfinder optics(the angle prism shown in the upper image in the right-lower corner) but can't remember for sure because it's over 10 years I did this

we could write the whole drone's firmware too if overengineering is needed ? that would take more than 5 mins and would be totally unnecessary but could be a fun project to make ? So yes, use the readily available easy to use solutions if you just want to shoot stuff and not bother with building your own gear for fun ? if some special features would be needed, then doing your own could be useful. A diy oriented person could want to use the Arduino route just for the sake of experimenting ?

Konvas cameras have pretty OK reflex finders. I would recommend either the straigh-viewfinder side latch 1-KCP model which has rheostat motor, OR the orientable finder Konvas 1M with one of the crystal sync motors. I am recommending the models which have OCT18 lens mount because the lenses are more affordable and easier to service than the OCT19 mount ones and these camera models are also the most popular. Just take into account that eBay cameras may be old and been stored in some Russian seller's garage for 30 years (one of my Konvases had small rocks inside when I got it) so full CLA is necessary before you can use the camera. My youtube channel has great tutorial for loading the camera. There is lots of slightly different versions of the Konvases, if you want to purchase one please ask first in the "Russian Gear" forum section and link the auctions so that we can check if the gear pieces seem to be compatible. I should be able to modify the old Rheostat Konvas motor to crystal sync later this year if that kind of option interests you. I am shooting regularly with these cameras so developing this type of modification would be easy for me. There is a small disclaimer that the older straight viewfinder model has the possibility to attach a hand crank and a spring drive (the spring is so rare that I only see them sold every couple of years even when checking ebay daily for them) . This means that there is more gears in the camera body than in the later 1M model. More gears mean more noise. But the straight finder models are very affordable and easy to obtain so it could make sense to choose one of them. Probably your lenses will cost more than the camera body even when the lenses are cheap. I use 7.2v airsoft batteries for powering the camera, don't bother with old silver or lead batteries originally used with these cameras

for example modifying the "blink led light" code which is the first one you start with when starting with Arduinos. For example modifying like this so that the solenoid switches on for 15 seconds and then off for 60 second and then repeats.

if you want to do everything in very simple way it is easy to make a solenoid system which presses the run button. the solenoid would be attached to a simple timing circuit so you could activate the system on takeoff and then it starts filming when the time delay has elapsed, for example it can wait one minute and then start filming. It would also be possible to set multiple delays so that it for example waits one minute, films for 15 seconds, stops and waits for one minute and again films 15 seconds. if you want to attempt something like this it is easy to make, you can use readily available delay circuits or do one by yourself with for example Arduino (takes about 3 minutes to write the program by yourself without prior experience)

you could easily attach a separate radio control to the camera with servo driving the "Run" button on the camera. If the gimbal control has free servo channels then one of them could be used. a wireless video tap could be attached as well. I am not very familiar with current drone offerings but everything which could fly the Ronin MX sized gimbal should work with the 8mm cameras I think. Not particularly cheap but it may be possible to get a used one nowadays when most of the drone persons seem to do the smaller work with Inspire2 +X7 combo and only save the larger drones for Reds and Alexa Minis and such so that the lower mid range older models may be available in the used market

the viewfinder optics tend to be the most challenging part of the S16 conversion. I personally switched to 35mm because of this but I'm currently drifting back to 16mm because of wanting to do more sound work instead of silent stuff I use the 35mm cameras for. Using stills lenses has the disadvantage of being very limited with focal lengths. Instead I would recommend finding a great vintage S16mm capable lens or two and deciding the camera based on the models where those lenses could fit. C-mount is the most versatile but it is a pretty annoying mount if wanting to do "more serious stuff" with focus pulls and heavier lenses. About the price point, I think you could get some kind of S16 capable camera with that money but if wanting a great quality camera AND great quality conversion, then maybe not. Lens mounts tend to be pretty easy to change and adapt as long as the mount diameter and ffd are suitable. The Krasnogorsk front part is pretty simple design and one could probably manufacture a new one pretty easily though I don't know if it makes any sense on such a low priced camera

Thanks ? I'll keep all you updated about my motor projects. At the moment I am making circuit board manufacturing tests and refining the design. Will probably replace some resistor with SMD counterparts and so on ? If you are interested in film scanning related projects, please let me know ? A easy-to-use Super8 scanner which could be ordered as a parts kit could be very useful I think and your control board design could be very easily adapted to it. Some film transport parts would need to be custom manufactured but I think there might be enough demand for this type of system to make it possible.

Looks like a nice design! that type of projects work great as open source. For camera motors there tends to be so many different systems out there that it may not be practical to develop open source gear for them it seem (especially because the potential users seem to specifically ask for a shop-installed ready to use product and are not interested in products which they could install by themselves) . For something like a 8mm film scanner or similar project the open source would work great and a project like that could be a great opportunity for collaboration I think :) Your speed control design seems to have pretty different approach to motor speed stabilisation than my current designs, especially the current based torque management logic. I investigated the current measurement approach briefly just a while ago but decided to do things other way. Maybe the current measurement logic could be added to the models as a supplementary feature, need to check it later. I have hardware for it available but chose to take different design route earlier :)

Assembling the first circuit board test prototype. This is the "A" model design but I will alter it a bit and will make it smaller. It is much easier to test the prototypes when they are firmly soldered down and no loose breadboard contacts anymore. This is for the Kinor16CX-2M camera. All the functionality is there: the voltage regulator, the two trimmers, dual inputs for motor speed metering, pwm output for power transistors driving the motor, parts for attaching the rotary selector for 6 individual speeds, and a output for i2c lcd display. During the tests this new prototype is going the live in the "magical black box" to make the testing easier. Maybe I could even take this version out later and shoot something with the camera :) Attaching the parts and making wire connections. Figuring out the layout when nothing is permanently attached yet. The back side of the board with some of the parts installed Soldering the parts in place one connection at a time. Very time consuming process. Work in progress. I will cut the excess wire after the soldering to finish the connection and to make room to solder the nearby connections. I will add parts and wires when I get more room by cutting the excesses out. Finished prototype board without the Arduino. I use rubber gloves when soldering to reduce lead exposure. Arduino installed. It is possible to make the board lower profile by installing the Arduino and the voltage regulator differently but that is not critical at this stage. Other angle of the finished board. The prototype will live inside this "Black Box" for now. The next version will be a bit smaller though this version is already about 80 x 90mm which is close to the design specs. There is a little bit of excess on the board so making it smaller would be very easy. I won't cut this board smaller because the bakelite resin is pretty fragile. The final boards will be fiberglass which is very tough and does not shatter. The next version will probably already be on standard fiberglass board and made with the normal etching techniques. These proto boards are handy when making this type of design experiments because they are pre-drilled which saves lots of work. ----------- I will post results later when testing the new code versions with this hardware version. If it works well, then I could maybe already shoot something with this external box system :)

as far as I know the SR3 uses the same controllers than Arri 535. some kind of digital protocol it is but no idea about the specifics because can't find any documentation. A controller for SR1 or SR2 would be much much simpler and easier to make, I believe the old speed controller is basically a potentiometer with some additional parts. If I would own an Arri camera I would probably make a Arduino based replacement right away. It could probably even be possible to use my crystal sync control driving a SR1 or 2 externally if it would listen the shutter signals and use simple analog means by controlling the motor speed. This would enable more stabilised speed presets to the old SR cameras so could be handy

In the absolutely worst case scenario one could try to reverse engineer the data signal transferred between the camera and the CCU1 controller and then try to emulate it with completely other type of hardware. Of course one would need both the working camera and the working controller for this. One would hijack the data lines between them and spy what kind of signal goes back and forth when a button is pressed or a setting changed. This would be EXTREMELY time consuming though and my experience and resources would not be enough for that type of project. I would expect it taking about 1 to 2 years working full-time to make something useful if the whole control protocol would first need to be reverse engineered and then completely new software and hardware built from scratch. Maybe if someone would order 1000 control boxes or more, then it would be possible. OR one could open the CCU1 and write down the exact circuit design and get a copy of the firmware out of it so it can be examined and studied. Would still be enormous amount of work. I hope that Arri has even something available ?

I asked Arri about the protocol, we'll see what they answer ?

replied to the other thread. For SR1 and SR2 this should be relatively easy but I have understood the SR3 uses some kind of control protocol between the camera and the speed box like CCU1. Without knowing everything about this protocol it is difficult to say how much work there would be to develop this kind of accessory for the camera. I suspect it would be too time consuming and expensive to develop this kind of accessory unless the protocol is very simple (that is rarely the case) . I sent a request to Arri if they want to share the details of the control protocol so that I could see if it could be done with reasonable time and resources

Hi! I don't own any SR3's so it might be pretty challenging for me to test it. Do you mean something which has similar style options than the Arri CCU-1 but is easy to adjust the speed with knob like the old style Arri Speed Control like this one? https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-NOS-ARRI-SPEED-CONTROLLER-for-ARRIFLEX-IIC-2C-35MM-MOVIE-CAMERA-/292606125158 For SR1 and SR2 this should be easy if having one of those old varispeed controllers available to take measurements from. But to me it looks like the SR3 uses some kind of unknown control protocol between the camera and the speed unit... without knowing exactly how the protocol works it would be impossible to create this type of accessories. So it is not impossible but it might be too much work to do... I would need to contact Arri to ask for the protocol details and then drive back and forth to the rental house when testing the prototypes. It depends on the protocol how much actual coding work there is, some of them are relatively easy like basic Lanc and dmx. Some are not, like the EOS lens control for example. It might be better to contact a company which already has experience developing SR3 accessories, they might know the protocol used and would need much less work to get a working system available. Here in Finland the Elokuvakonepaja has lots of experience developing custom accessories for Arri cameras, they might have some ideas how this type of accessory can be done