Tyler Purcell

Hey Lucas, I noticed you had one of our taps on that, I haven't heard anything from ya. If that camera came from us (I don't have a record of your name in my system) we may have tightened the viewfinder because most of the time they are very loose. Make sure the little silver locking mechanism is loose and then pull it down. It should move fine with one or two moves. Please feel free to call me anytime 818-521-9508

If you want a base model, something really cheap to start with, I can throw a package together for you. It won't be good, but it will be something. I have a bunch of bodies and magazines that I need to move on from. DM me if you're interested.

Yep, it's not complicated at all. The main issue we've noticed is that the higher end cameras, hold crystal much better. Not just with a mechanical advantage, but also with the electronics. Being able to hold crystal speed for an entire roll of film is extremely rare outside of the top cameras on the market. So sure, getting a movement to turn over = easy. Getting ok crystal, also not difficult. Getting something comparable to the very tight high quality of a modern camera, not easy. The other problem of course is that the top cameras like the Arri 675, Arricam, 435, 535A and Moviecam SLMKII, are all individual motor driven similar to the Penelope. So to fix those cameras, you're having to develop something far more complex. I really prefer the single motor cameras, they are WAY easier to deal with.

Yea, this was a lesson I learned in the mid 90's as a teenager working in the repair business. It's better to always go after the higher end market, than the lower end market.

But capacitors are easy to replace, piece of cake. We have boxes of new capacitors and replace them like water. The board failures we see are not related to capacitors. The film cameras and digital cameras are low voltage. Electrolytic's generally fail when they aren't used for extremely long periods of time or are close to their maximum voltage capacity. You don't really get those issues with working cameras. Arri used eprom's (or whatever device that stores the program) which had a 15 year shelf life. This is why the 435's are having the same issues all over the world. The FPGA is not being programmed properly. The funny thing is, I have a 235 here right now with a programming error as well, but it DOES work fine. I think that's because it's a single motor design, where the 435 is a multi-motor design. Most of the modern cameras use FPGA's, but the later generation 16mm Arri and Aaton cameras have socked EPROM's. So they're way easier to pull the program off. I actually have a stash of EPROM's for the Aaton cameras. I don't believe this issue transcends generations, I think it was a EPROM problem with the 435 base and 435 ES models only. The Advanced models don't seem to have this issue.

I couldn't ever talk a client into it.

Well sure, I mean I'm not talking about something sitting for 50 years, I'm talking about 2 - 5 years or so.

Yes, if you want to risk damaging a good board to de-solder the eprom, then you're right. The problem is it's risky. I don't know anyone willing to make that risk yet... maybe in the future, but not now. I for sure wouldn't attempt potentially damaging a working camera.

NICE! I love me some analog films about analog subjects! 🙂

No contest, Lasergraphics is excellent, there is no way of getting close to the quality of their built-in stabilization. We use Resolve to do it, but that's only because it does it at more than real time speed and generates the client deliverable output at the same time. But it doesn't work well.

The entire planet is heading for a global recession that we haven't seen since the last Great Depression. The cost of doing business and developing new product has increased by roughly 200% in the last 2 years alone, up around 3x prior to covid. Inflation even in Asian countries is extremely high since covid. Then you add the huge memory costs, lithography machine time, even the cost of oil to make plastics, everything today is grossly expensive. Thus, companies need to make decisions on what to release, what will actually sell and what won't. This is why everyone has pumped the breaks on new products, not just with cameras, but also computer tech. Even Apple who owns a vested interest in TSMC, can't get the machine time to make their new M5 chips and orders are 17 weeks behind right now. I wouldn't blame the digital world at all, there are already millions of fantastic cameras on the market. If anything, it means the value of cameras will stay pretty flat because there will simply be less ones available. As a side note, one of the most popular Arri film cameras, the 435 has eprom issues that are not resolvable. Arri used eprom's that are designed to last 15 years. So we are seeing (industry wide) failures that we've never seen before, where the FPGA's aren't holding programming properly. This can't be fixed easily, as the code would need to be pulled from the soldered on eprom's and then put into new eprom's and then soldered back on again. So sure, one could argue these cameras are 30 years old and that potentially no digital cinema camera will last THAT long. However, there are no new commercial film cameras in mass production, so going off on digital as if what's happening to the tech is positive, is kind of infuriating. We're a few short years away from not even being able to afford the film FOR our cameras at the current rate of global inflation. Forget about keeping them working. At least with a digital camera, I can always just buy a new body, leave it in the box for years until I need it. Media is easy to deal with as well. Manufacturers are coming online early 2027 to fix the storage and eventually ram issues.

I mean to be fair, Arri's best cameras weren't even available for purchase, I don't know if you knew that. The Alexa 65 and Alexa 265 are both "rental house only" cameras. So they aren't exactly making cameras for anyone, they were ONLY making cameras for the top people in the industry. Last time I checked, it's an industry that's dying so fast, two of the last three major studio's just got bought out to be shut down. So I wouldn't say anything has stopped, Arri's business model was singularly focused on the very top of the business, no other camera company has done that with modern digital cinema.

Awesome! I will for sure be using this. Can only do vertical right? No horizontal workflow yet?

They're kinda tricky to buy and run, lots of setup cost and you need a backup for spares if you intend on using it. The thing is, Arri has a pretty closed and antique ecosystem. So unless you're already very skilled in maintaining them, you have to rely on somewhat on a current or former Arri tech to get it setup initially which is very expensive. In fact, the cost of the machine these days used, is probably not much more than the cost of initial setup and getting it working in the environment.

Lovely, great job! I love short shorts!