Tim Carroll

:) Smile of painful self recognition. Thanks for the link Mitch. -Tim

I have to disagree with Fulgencio about the Bolex which the owner is claiming was converted to Super 16 by Bolex of Switzerland. That is a very old model and Bolex will not convert them. That camera was made back in the late fifties and is one of the very first reflex cameras Bolex put out. I would personally steer clear of that camera. If you are just looking for something to play around with, go with something in Super 8. The Bolex's on ebay are Regular 8mm or what was called Double 8. It is getting very tough to get film for those cameras. Kodak still sells Super 8mm film and places like Pro 8mm in California have a large selection of film speeds and types available for Super 8mm. If you want to go with 16mm, try to find a Bolex RX4 or RX5, or an SB, SBM, or EBM. All these will give you very high quality 16mm images, and all of them can be converted to Super 16mm by the Bolex factory, except maybe the RX4. You can also still get good quality lenses for these models of Bolex. Remember the old adage, you get what you pay for. An old 16mm camera and lenses that you pick up on ebay for a hundred bucks or so is not going to give you high quality images. The lenses will possibly have mold or fungus, and the mechanism will quite possibly be out of adjustment. If you do pick up one of those cameras, do some film tests before shooting anything you want to keep. Good luck, -Tim Carroll

Jules, Welcome to the forum. There are a whole lot of friendly folks here with a whole lot of knowledge. Take your time, read alot of threads, and enjoy. -Tim Carroll

Michael, Thanks for explaining that in such detail. I had a basic idea, but I was trying to figure out how to make it soft and hard at the same time, because when I use my eyes, you are right, the look is soft, even though the source is so tiny. -Tim

We are going to be shooting a short which takes place in an empty apartment, and about half of the piece will be a candle lit scene between two actors. This will be shot on 16mm and we originally planned to shoot the whole thing in Black & White on negative Plus X. Being that our film speed is 100, any suggestions on how to light this so it appears like candlelight, but we get enough light to expose the film? Our other option was possibly using the new Vision 2 500T, but are we going to have color issues with the candle light as opposed to just tungsten light. The film has two main parts, both shot in an empty city apartment here in Chicago. The first part is during the day, a barren, no curtains group of rooms with no furniture. It is supposed to look like it is lit only from the overcast daylight entering the rooms from the curtainless windows. The second half of the film is night, and we want it to look like it is only lit from a group of candles on the floor. We figure we could use an 85 for the daylight stuff if we go with the 500T, but we would really like to shoot it in B&W if we can figure out how to light it. Thanks for any and all assistance. -Tim

Go to www.2-pop.com. Then click on forums. Then scroll down to the FCP for Film forum. All your questions will be answered. -Tim Carroll Moderator 2-POP.com

Jason, You might also want to look at Andrew Alden's web site. It covers all things Bolex and he really is an expert. You can find him at the web address below. http://www.btinternet.com/~andrew.alden1/index.html Good Luck, -Tim

Jamie, Heard back from Andrew, his server is having problems. Here is another web address that will bring you to his site; http://www.btinternet.com/~andrew.alden1/index.html He really is an expert on all things Bolex and can help you get anything you should need. Very high quality equipment for sale as well. Good Luck, -Tim

I do believe it has to do with what speed you are running the camera at. I think the spring is good for a certain number of frames, not a particular length of time. -Tim

Andrew is definitely the dude when it comes to Bolex. Just went to his site and it's gone. I emailed him and hopefully will hear back. If I do, I will post here. If you want Super 16, and spring wound, you probably want a Rex 5, an SBM or an SB. All these are recommended for converting to Super 16. The older models are really not recommended for the conversion, but you can find anyone to convert just about anything, so there you go. Good luck, I think you will like the images you get from 16mm. -Tim

The Arriflex SB is not a natively crystal sync camera. You can get a crystal sync motor for it, but you need to make sure (if you need crystal sync) that the motor that comes with one you want to buy is a crystal sync motor. From my understanding, the more common motor on that camera is a variable speed motor which is not crystal sync. Not sure about the Arriflex S/GS, but I do believe it is the same as the SB as far as motors go. I am sure Mitch and some of the other folks here would know that. Also, an Arriflex SB is not the greatest choice for a sound sync camera, it is quite noisy. -Tim

Mitch knows the Eclairs much better than I do. I know the Bolex's quite well, having had a number of rather frustrating experiences with them. They are a really nice camera for what they are, which is to say, they are not a "pro" level camera, and to shoot sync sound with one can be a real series of challenges. There is also an excellent book out that would be well worth purchasing before you buy a camera. You can get it from Visual Products and it is titled: The 16mm Camera Book, second edition, by Douglas Underdahl. It will give you alot of good information to help you reach a decision. Visual Products also has a number of Eclair cameras for sale and they have all been overhauled and serviced, so should give you no trouble. You can see their web site here: http://www.visualproducts.com/ Hope that helps, -Tim

Kodak is trying to create interest in their new Vision 2 Super 16 film stock by giving some away in a drawing they are sponsoring. You can find out more about it at this web address: http://www.kodak.com/go/IGIMTAF -Tim PS: How does one go about getting these "Cinematographer Test Rolls" I have read about on this forum?

The Bolex is pretty noisy. And good barneys are harder to come by for the EL compared to the EBM. If you are seriously planning on doing sync sound, you will save yourself many headaches by going with the Eclair. -Tim

Mitch, Boy, that's humbling. I am the moderator (more like traffic cop) of the forum for that site. I should have know that was there. Oops. Thanks for the heads up. -Tim

Mitch, How exactly is that going to work. Are you going to be slapping a big hard drive on the back of the camera? I mean, those cards for still cameras hold next to nothing when you look at the video data size. Will folks be bringing three or four hard drives to each shoot, instead of tape? -Tim

Phil, Okay, before you go off on a tangent, I was talking about pro-sumer equipment. Now maybe you are in a totally different tax bracket than I am, but I would be hard pressed to describe a $22,000 DSR-570 as a pro-sumer camera. I assumed the original poster was also talking about pro-sumer equipment because he was talking about cameras in the $2000-$4000 range. The point I was trying to make is if you take any digital camera in that price range, within a year or two, it is worth next to nothing. Where as the Eclair or some of the others mentioned here will hold far more of their value for years to come. And I believe holding value has something to do with being "worth" such and such. That being said, I would still take 16mm film with it's DOF and latitude and look over a DSR-570, which I don't know, does it even shoot in 24P. I am not talking about the equipment we use regularly for the non narrative film work we do that pays the bills. For the narrative filmmaking we are doing, which is about one or two productions per year, I would much rather shoot on film, even with it's higher original costs, because if(which is a big if) we create what we have envisioned, it is worth more to the market having been originated on film than having been originated on DV, whether that be the DVX-100 or the DSR-570. -Tim

Another thing to keep in mind is how quickly pro-sumer DV equipment becomes obsolete. Talk to the thousands of folks who bought brand new DVX-100's last summer before the DVX-100A was anounced. Ask them what there three or four thousand dollar investment is worth today. We have used a Canon XL1S for two years now, and we were very lucky that it paid for itself in the first twelve months, because it's value now is pretty much nil. We will keep using that camera for every job where we can till it don't work no more because we would get nothing selling it. And all those DVX-100A's will drop rapidly just as soon as Canon or JVC or Sony anounces their new 24P camera. Heck, the DVX-100 was only sold for twelve months before the New and Improved version hit the market. Our Arri SR1 has been around for over twenty years and it will still create as beautiful of an image as a brand new SR3, which goes for tens of thousands of dollars more than what we invested in the SR1. -Tim

Rob, thanks for the reply but I think you misread my post. I am not using the lens that came with the camera, the autofocus lens, I am using the Canon 14x manual focus lens. There is no autofocus. It is an older lens, one from the Canon Pro line that they converted to work with the XL1. -Tim

Had the weirdest experience last night on a shoot. Using a Canon XL1S with a Canon 14x manual focus lens, camera locked down on a tripod, back focus set. Was at the telephoto end of the zoom range, focused on an actress on stage. Did fine focus, everything was cool. We are filming along (or videoing along I guess) and I started noticing the lens going slightly in and out of focus. No one was touching the camera or lens and the actress was not moving back and forth. It was really strange and the first time I have ever noticed that. Anyone have an idea what was causing that? Thanks, -Tim

Robert, I went to your website and downloaded the information. Looks very interesting. What type of prices are we talking about? Could not find price information on your site. Maybe I just missed it. Thanks, -Tim

Our experience last summer with shooting a 16mm film taught us alot. And the biggest lesson was "don't shoot with equipment that is not up for the job". We shot with a Bolex EBM and after months of trying to fix all the problems with the footage, etc. we barely have a finished short that is usable. Shooting even a short on film can cost at least a few thousand dollars with film purchases, processing, telecine, etc. Not to mention the time and talent of everyone involved in the production. We learned our lesson. We sold everything Bolex we had, and even my prized motorcycle, to scrape up the money to get an Arri SR1, and had Arri overhaul the camera. So now when we shoot our next production in a few months, we will know that the equipment will not let us down. If you ask me, buy or rent the better equipment. Unlike shooting video, when you are shooting film, many times you will not know that there was a problem until days or weeks later when you get the film processed and telecined. Good luck. -Tim

Mitch, Thanks for the input, what color temp meter do you have? I can see some stuff, but I know my eye is not that good yet. Also, when it comes to color balancing for tungsten film, then I am really at a loss. I can see the orange of tungsten lights and the sick green of flourescent, and even some of the blue and purple in certain halogens, but knowing how to balance any of that to a tungsten film stock is not something that I feel I could do looking through color gels. -Tim PS: Also doing some reading about color meters and it seems that the meter tells you what gels to put over your different lights to get them all the same color, to match the color temp of your film stock. Is that usually how you do it? For some reason I thought the color meter would tell you what filter to use in your matte box, in front of your lens to get the right color on the exposed film.

How can we do this without purchasing a color meter? We have shot many different flavors of DV and always used the manual white balance to obtain accurate color. We have been shooting 16mm Black and White and never had to worry about the color temperature. We are now embarking on a 16mm color film project and are very concerned with getting the color right. It looks like we will be shooting with Kodak Vision II, tungstan balanced, but we will be using a variety of lights. Some Lowel Pros, some chinese lanterns with varying bulbs, some natural light. I understand the different color temperatures for different bulbs and for nature, but besides getting in the rough ballpark, is there a way to figure filteration more accurately than purchasing a color meter like the Minolta, which is about a thousand dollars. Thanks for any and all input. -Tim

Hi A.J. Boy, I have a love/hate relationship with that camera. We used one last year for a short we shot. Mechanically it is like a Swiss watch. Electronically it is like a 1968 MG. If you get one with good electronics, you will be fine. We unfortunately did not get one with good electronics and getting them fixed is a nightmare, and can be very expensive. There are all kinds of issues with the crystal sync as well. Sometimes the Tobin Crystal Sync works better than the one that Bolex makes and some people swear they do not. We had an intermittant shutter bounce problem with ours, and it was going to be a few thousand dollars to get it fixed, so we bailed on it. If you get one that has no electronic problems, and no shutter bounce, and a Bolex or Tobin Crystal Sync that you can test with the camera and everything is fine, you should be in good shape. Now alot of people will also tell you that the Bolex EBM can only be used as an MOS camera, no sync sound recording. And that is true to a point. But, if you really want to use the camera for sound recording, there is a guy in California that makes a very good barney for the camera and magazine for $200. After you record your sync sound, if you have a Macintosh computer, you can use a program made by the company Bias, called SoundSoap, and it does a fairly good job of removing the camera noise of a Bolex EBM. The Switar lenses for the camera are very good. Do be aware that there is only one lens that Bolex sells that can be converted to Super 16 throughout it's whole zoom range. The newer 12-100mm lens, you can see it on the Bolex web site. The older Bolex lenses will only work in Super 16 above 26mm. The focal lengths below that will vingette. So the very common 16-100mm POE lens for the EBM can only be used from 26mm-100mm. Also make sure the 400 ft magazines that you would be getting with the camera have been converted to Super 16. Otherwise you will be getting film scratching problems. That's about it from what I remember using ours last summer. If you get a good one, you will be able to do some good things with it. Good Luck, -Tim