Aapo Lettinen

Not really because it is very difficult to get silent 2perf camera purchased and even renting is very challenging. Additionally the size and weight difference compared to s16 is pretty huge. Overall I think the availability of cameras is the biggest limiting factor when considering 2perf. For s8 and regular8, they are economical if shooting the original 18fps and 16fps respectively. If shooting 24fps or 25fps it usually makes lots more sense to shoot 16mm. Though one could shoot 16mm at 16fps and make it lots cheaper than high quality 24fps s8. One factor is that the camera, lens and film stock does not need to be top quality on 16mm to get better result than top notch s8 footage. So one can use basic camera, basic lens, shoot short ends and cheap on scanning on 16 and that makes it more economical. If wanting up the quality, just update the stock first, then the lens, then the camera body if needed. And slightly higher quality scanning. On 8mm formats you are walking the knife edge of being acceptable or unusable, there is no headroom, no margin for error. Shooting with 0 error margin is painstakenly slow, potentially expensive and almost always the end result will suffer one way or another

Album covers art is by far the best application for AI tools so far I think. The default style of even the earliest tools was so similar that nobody would think a cover would be hand made if seeing one, they all looked AI anyway to begin with ?

Yes commercials and some part of music video materials could be the first utilizing AI generated scenes. Both have high tendency of trying to cut corners and still get "cool looking" end result so it is sure that they would at least try "cheaper" alternative to actually shooting stuff if they in any way could. For other uses, I think drama films and similar stuff "the filmmakers really care about and which tell of real life" will likely always be shot in real life. But for Marvel and Disney (Star Wars universe, live action versions of their animated films, etc) it is extremely likely that they will use AI as much as they can to get higher profits, faster completion. Their content is very similar to commercials/music video genre: just get lots of cool looking shots mashed together with some kind of basic "story", does not need to be super high quality as long as the audience keeps engaged enough to not abandon the product. Kind of like milk diluted with water... at some point people will notice and go away but before that limit it is just more profit with less effort :D

it is not necessary for cool gadgets to really work for actual real life shooting situations. They tend to be more of "collector items" and maybe used for one or two "test projects" before abandoned on the top shelf to collect dust. In best possible scenario they would see some semi-regular hobby use or even be used to shoot one flashback scene for a "real movie". but, well, yes. They don't really need to be super well working or extremely durable because typical users don't really use them that much anyway. So plastic and awkward would be totally fine ? . People mostly buy them because they look cool and the idea is nice and the features look killer on paper. After playing with it for couple of weeks they put it down and after a moment they forget why they wanted it in the first place and then it just collects dust for two years after being found again, played with for couple of days and put on the shelf again. It is fully possible and I truly hope so that there is some "real users" who would actually use this camera for serious filming. but they are rare and I think about 98% of the buyers are just like what I described, the ones who want to own cool stuff but may not have much use for it after all ?

Yes

mechanical and optical parts tend to last well if they are properly maintained, or in most cases if they are NOT improperly handled all the time and just treated with respect when using them, that is all they ask... in the case of used cameras one would rebuild the crystal sync modified one from best parts taken from multiple camera bodies to get it working optimally. not cheap but still much cheaper than a 5.5k new camera and cheaper and easier to service if needed because there is reasonably priced spare parts left from the build. anyway the video viewfinder can be useful when operating as long as one can see it clearly and focus properly. for "professional use" I am very sceptical. Maybe a single dream or flashback scene shot on it and the rest done with a proper camera. but shooting a whole movie with it would only make sense if - the budget is low enough so that the producers and financers don't think it is too large of an risk - one wants to prove a point (that a camera can be used to shoot a movie no matter what camera it is. and that a movie can be chosen for a camera if wanting to shoot with a certain camera) - one seeks marketing value from the Super8 origination as it is kind of interesting and people might watch it only for the format value - one really likes the Super8 look just all day everyday, or alternatively the story suits the super8 look really well. in practice, however: * One needs to choose the movie for the camera, not the other way around. So one chooses this interesting piece of gear and then makes the whole movie around the idea of forcing super8 format no matter how well it fits the original idea: one changes the movie if it does not fit the format and camera perfectly. Can be interesting but it is kind of similar than the "vimeography" projects where one wants to show off cool camera bodies and lenses and thus just shoots SOMETHING COOL LOOKING and stitches something watchable together from the collected material

another market are "cool gadgets collectors" who are interested in the video viewfinder system and new camera body designs. for them it is not necessary to have best reliability or features as long as the gadget looks super cool both on paper and on the shelf, if they will shoot one or two test rolls on it total it would already be a lot ? It is possible to get existing super8 cameras completely overhauled and with crystal sync modification installed for little over half of the price of the Kodak camera. If the Kodak camera is relatively silent, then it might be advantageous for short film use though. video viewfinder can be useful for some shooting scenarios but for real use it is not mandatory. But we'll see how people will actually use this camera and how it performs in the real world ?

yes the whole Super8 genre is a bit weird and by my opinion mostly economical for "home movie emulation" type of content and scenes. Of course the highest end cameras can make really good looking images but most often it costs almost the same to shoot the same stuff on 16mm if having suitable camera around. And very expensive super8 camera negates the perceived price difference even more... one could buy an working Aaton or Arri or two or three working Eclairs with the price of that kind of super8 camera so the main advantage of it would be size and weight and low weight and fast loading of the film stock needed for the shoot which can be handly when travelling or shooting weddings and such. Actually the main market for the camera might be wedding photography type of content. explains a lot and the price is not that bad for such use. Of course one could make short films with it too but I don't believe that is the main market of it because it makes more sense to shoot short films on 16mm (whereas the wedding stuff is absolutely mandatory to get specifically on super8 for nostalgic value. same reason why Polaroids were revived and are incredibly popular for wedding use)

I think the biggest difference is the filtration needed to get the T-stop to suitable level for filming, the colours about right and especially how much this affects the practical use of the stock in the planned shooting situations. Generally speaking it is often wise to take as slow speed stock as possible because this makes filtration much faster and easier and you can see the viewfinder image much better. For daylight outdoor use the 250D or 500T for example are often too high speed and it makes using them more difficult and slower which affects the shoot. The often used argument is that one always wants to match grain level for the entire film. But most often it is much more practical to just match grain levels within a scene and allow more freedom between scenes to be able to handle the shoot more practically by for example being able to shoot desert daylight scenes on 50D instead of trying to manage the entire shoot with only 500T (which was needed for low light night scenes) and then try to manage in the super bright desert daylight shoot with huge amounts of ND, a 85 filter and without being able to see the viewfinder image correctly ? As others said, the Vision stocks are made to match as closely as possible and it should not be an issue to use two different stocks to manage the shoot more practically and economically

would it work to just precision machine the round corners out of the original gate edges? could be easier if machining needs to be done anyway?

what controller do you mean? most cameras don't have any original external controllers and there is pretty much none available used either. the LTR has only one built in crystal sync speed (either 24 or 25fps) which on some cameras is changeable between 24 and 25 and other cameras (like mine) is permanently set to either one. All the other speeds on LTR are generated with a simple RC oscillator and are typically off by about half an fps or so. Originally I developed this controller because aftermarket or used ones are not available and I needed crystal sync 24.00fps with the camera. But I just used a bit more effort on the design and made a device which can output from 1 to 50fps crystal speeds in 1fps increments with the 23.976, 29.976 and 33.333fps included. The 33.333fps is especially helpful as that is the most used MOS framerate for slow motion effect on feature and tv-series productions. So this controller is meant to expand the features of the LTR camera so that it can be used better for serious filmmaking on indie shorts and features. Additionally it is lot more affordable than original Aaton accessories as well, this device costs 300usd + shipping and if using it with direct connection of wires to the 9-pin connector on the camera like I do, you don't need anything else to run the camera with it. A piece of velcro is recommended though so that you can attach the device to the camera or onboard battery

Assembled two final devices today. will keep one for tests, the other piece is for sale. Will make more sometime later if having time or there is demand for them

Daniil Nevskiy does 2-perf conversions to Eyemos. That could be very useful for low budget stuff I think

Some kind of old synchronous motor. You can run it from single phase 220v by connecting one of the motor phases with capacitor. Pretty simple modification but can be very dangerous if done wrong so let a certified electrician do the job. Things like small industrial/agriculture fans, laundry machines etc. use similar kind of capacitor arrangement and any electrician familiar with those can do the modification for you. Cameflexes never had brushless motors, they are 40's/50's cameras and brushless technology was not available for cameras back then

You may want to experiment with vertical led tubes to figure out what kind of reflections you would want on the glass and from which directions to bring out its shape. then you can use something larger to make the final lighting setup if led tubes are not enough to do the actual job as tubes may be too thin to get wide enough reflection (they are often great supplements though if you need a thinner reflection from the surface to for example bring out the edge etc). as others said, lighting glass and metal is all about reflecting large bright surfaces from it to bring out its shape. Adding just small specular sources does not help, no matter how much light you pump on it... you could use 100kW of light and at most it would just show more dust and fingerprints and the shape of the object still staying a mystery ?

by my experience, one often has most problems with Soviet 16mm lenses as they have weird back parts geometry easily hitting stuff inside Western cameras for the Western cameras made assuming that the lenses would have more compact rear mechanics. for example the Lomo 10-100 is just barely possible to fit to the Aaton LTR if you mount it really slowly and carefully, there is just like half a millimeter or quarter millimeter of room even if it is perfectly aligned in the adapter. Other lenses like 16SP and Krasnogorsk lenses often don't fit at all and are practically only compatible with the camera they are made for. Soviet cameras were made for cheap so of course they wanted to use simpler optical and mechanical designs, thus often making the lenses more "camera-specific" and less compact . Most Western lenses usually have more "slender, conical style" back parts whereas the Soviet ones are more commonly "just large bulky cylinder" type. On most Western lenses it should usually be relatively easy to figure out from photos if a lens might potentially cause issues or not. On higher end lenses and especially on 35mm format ones the most common issue is the lens body not clearing the viewfinder assembly well enough, for example Ultra Primes come very very close to the viewfinder though should still be usable if carefully mounted.

I would rather take clipped and crushed image than needing to have my hand on volume button all the time when watching and still not hearing a good enough mix to complete understand what the characters are talking about. One could shoot the movie on umatic and still have better end result than the current stuff where the soundtrack is crushed and inaudible even when the picture is gorgeus

I find it very funny that distributors are furious about staying inside "written in stone" picture standards with no possibility for any kind of artistic expression in term of how things clip or crush, but inaudible dialogue mix and horribly loud music with almost unusably low foley+atmos+dialogue is somehow magically OK and allowed as an artistic method even if it makes it impossible to watch the end product without the viewer self adjusting the volume continuously up and down to be able to follow the program

I had some extra casings and thus decided just to move on with the pre-production version and start assembling them. A batch of 5 will be completed in the following weeks and are available for order now. Price is 300usd a piece + shipping. There has been very little interest so far and thus it is likely that I will not make a "more refined" version of this simple controller and this white "pre-production version" will be all what is available for now. I will finish the batch of 5 and will then wait for them being sold out before planning anything else for the LTR.

You can easily emulate a saturation roll off on any video footage in post but most fanboys like to use off the shelf luts and think cameras have very "fixed" look for not trying out stuff by themselves

Originally it came from how the saturation rolls off in highlights. Remember that alexa came out in times when it was normal for video cameras to have very saturated highlights just below the clipping point so alexa was much closer to how colour film handles saturation. They really dont look like film but saying it looking like film helps to sell it to producers who seek production value

It looks like I will have exactly ONE extra 12-speed kit available in late November. The rest of the motors are either already sold or are otherwise reserved. The total batch size is 5 pieces of these 12-speed kits, after which I will discontinue the ACL motor v1.0 motor unit and the controller line. I am planning on making some other kind of motor for the ACL next year if getting enough funding for the project. Will redesign stuff and use different parts for it. It will be more expensive as well if it is possible to make and will take long to finish. Just wanted to mention that there is this delay of at least half a year, maybe more during which nothing is available for the ACL

Actually the edge of the mirror is so close to the opening shutter angle when the mirror is on the right side that it is easily possible for it to shadow the gate especially if the taking lens has certain characteristics which have potential enhancing the effect (large back element etc.) UNMODIFIED N16 CAMERA, MIRROR ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE CAMERA: THE SAME UNMODIFIED N16 CAMERA, the mirror position referenced to the moment where the shutter edge is on the center of the gate. See how much closer the mirror is to the gate edge when the mirror is on the camera right side: COMPARED TO MIRROR ON THE CAMERA LEFT (operator) SIDE:

nothing wrong with the motors either because the flicker is not caused by them. Converting the camera body to S16 which often requires changing the mirror movement path and/or shutter angle and alters the centering of the optical axis would cause changes to how the camera flickers because the mirror swing axis - optical centerline relationship, angular velocities and shutter clearance would all be changed at the same time. this would mean that some S16 conversions would flicker more and some less. Don't know if it can be made completely flicker free but some people never complain about ACL flicker so I belive it can be made low enough level that people don't notice it anymore. But as said it would require large mechanical changes to the camera body itself

No, I was talking about full shot frame on the film negative. Every other frame had couple of % more exposure on the wavefor monitor. I checked my camera again and now I see exactly what the issue is about. It is definitely the mirror and only the mirror. The issue is that the pivot point of the mirror swing axis is not perfectly centered on the centerline of the optical axis and gate. When observing it very carefully, you can see that the swing axis is actually a tiny bit on the operator side of the gate (camera's left side). You can see this by checking where the mirror edge is located when the shutter is opening and closing: when the mirror is on the operator side, there is lots more room between the gate edge and the mirror edge, whereas when mirror is on the camera's right side, the mirror just barely tries to clear the gate edge when shutter is starting to open and can even shadow it a little bit if the taking lens would have certain output geometry of the light rays to enhance the effect. The asymmetrically centered swing axis means that the angular velocity of the mirror is lower when the shutter starts to open when the mirror is on the camera right side compared to the camera left side. This kind of variation in the mirror speed could cause even larger exposure variation between the adjacent frames and I am surprised that is is as small of a variation as it is. So it is a design fault or design feature depending on how one wants to see it. The asymmetrical mirror swing axis helps to make the camera narower which makes it more compact and helps weight distribution too (when operating on the right shoulder like most people do, there is more of the camera's mass on the operator side so that it does not "twist" the camera as much and makes operating a little easier. I think though that the only reason why they made it asymmetrical is getting the camera body physically smaller. But it had this downside that the exposure is not exactly the same on adjacent frames and one can see it in certain conditions and lens choices may make the issue worse. But it is clearly a design feature, there is nothing wrong with the camera. Mirror timing may be a little off of course to make it even worse but you can't remove the effect completely unless recentering the whole thing and machining the camera body to enable recentered mirror system to fit there