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Tyler Purcell

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Everything posted by Tyler Purcell

  1. Exactly, you get it. So how can you call something "awesome" when you know for close to the same money you can get 2x the quality?
  2. Currently I own and have shot with: Beaulieu 2006 Beaulieu 4008 Beaulieu 6008 Elmo 240S-XL Elmo 1012S-XL Yashica Electro 600 The images are very similar on all of them, tho the Elmo 1012S-XL is probably the one I'd keep if I sold the rest. Heck if I know! I currently sport: Elmo ST-160 Elmo ST-1200HD Bolex 18-5 Bolex SM-8 My main projector is the ST-1200HD, which I've refurbished, so she runs great. I think it's critical to separate personal preference with reality. There are some very cool aesthetic aspects of the format, but that has no relevance to the quality. There were some benefits to Kodachrome when shooting and projecting, but Ektachrome is meh and ya can't project negative obviously. Also, there is really no cost benefit to Super 8 anymore. 16mm price per minute at 24fps is damn close to the same if you scan. It's only when you project, when you see a bit of savings on Super 8, especially at 18fps. Lots of people are getting into older formats like VHS/BETA/Hi-8 and such. They love shooting and have a lot of joy. Good for them honestly, I have fixed many a deck and camera for them. I for one, couldn't wait to move up to 16mm as a kid. I couldn't wait to stop shooting SD analog video. I went through HD so fast and onto 4k before you could even blink an eye. Today, nearly everything I shoot is 4k - 8k, I even scan and finish my 16mm films at 4k and distribute them 4k as well. So it really depends on what you're after. The aesthetic aspects or the images inside the format. I'm all about the image, I don't really care about the aesthetics. The tactile nature of the format, doesn't translate to your audience very well. So if you're doing it for yourself and nobody else, that's a totally different thing than what a filmmaker is thinking about. That's kind of my point. Filmmakers give two shits about aesthetics, it's all about the image and why would they blow $5499 on a camera that gives them the same image as any of the cameras I mentioned above.
  3. Exactly and everyone is so focused on "today" but film prices are going to skyrocket in the next two or three years. People are going to be selling their cameras like crazy, trying to get back their investment as they can't afford to shoot film anymore. Kodak is going to weed us consumers out of the business shortly. It's far better to just make film for the pro's who can afford it.
  4. By comparing the final files to 16mm and 35mm? It's impossible to get a crisp image because the system uses a plastic pressure plate. So flange distance constantly varies. The bigger cameras like the Beaulieu series with C mount lenses, they struggle to maintain flange distance. Every lens is collimated slightly different and the mounts are not locked to the gate at all, so as the cameras get older, the lens mount itself slowly starts to move away from the gate. It doesn't take long to have the flange distance off. The film is poorly made as well, the perforation pulses and even though the registration is based on the side rail, that too changes dramatically camera to camera. There is a spring loaded side rail which is designed to hold the film and that wears, so the lateral registration falls apart over time. The cameras don't run at any consistent speed, so many have flickering issues. The automatic ISO controls don't work on modern stock well, so you're running manual exposure always. The lenses on the build in lensed cameras are poor, even tho there are some "fast" lenses, it's all a joke because there is a beam splitter in the way, so they're never THAT fast. Plus the built in focus aids, never work right. There is no actual ground glass. Even in the fancy mirror shutter Beaulieu's, have poor viewfinders. I never got that, it makes no sense. So no, they really never made any good cameras, even the ones which appear to be better, they're really all just crap. Don't get me started about the projectors, whooo eeeee such junk. Nobody ever really tried to make the format any good. Logmar did with their first iteration which pulled the film out of the cartridge and ran it around a sprocket drive and actual gate with pressure plate and hard C mount. It worked, but it's very expensive and it's not the best design sadly. The images out of the Logmar, scanned properly and with good glass, look ok. So we know it's not necessarily the film of course, it's just the cartridge, camera and projector tech which fails the format.
  5. I have owned quite a few super 16 zooms in recent years. I really like the Canon lenses, but they have issues when run wide open. The Zeiss zoom's are pretty good wide open, they don't get instant soft and distorted like the Canon's do. The angenieux's have similar issues when wide open. So I use the Zeiss 12-120 (optex) quite a bit and it's a 2.4 but it's solid at 2.4. Then when I need something longer, I have a few Canon's to choose from with longer ranges, but only really good outdoors in bright light, stopped down to 5.6 or more. I've found they seem to be pretty good when stopped down. Then I augment with primes when I need speed. There appear to be 3 types of Zeiss zooms. MKI, 2 and 3. I think the MK3 was the shift to super 16, it seems to be the case, it has a totally different housing and is the proper 11-110. I have shot with one, it was a better lens than my MK1 Optex, but maybe not worth the money? In my view, if the optics are good, you shouldn't need to upgrade really. Canon has the best lineup. They have 4 options and all of them are pretty widely available. 7-63, 8-64, 11,5-165 are the main lenses. They did make an 11,5-180 as well. I have owned the three first ones and enjoyed my time with them. I prefer longer lenses if I'm shooting with a zoom, so the wider ones I dumped and I now have a Canon 11-160 with a built-in 2X extender that I recently started using. Rare lens, but works well if you can deal with it's issues. If you want some samples, feel free to hit me up!
  6. I don't "think" it automatically results in bad images, I know. BIG difference. To the rest of your question, why do you care? I shoot a lot of super 8, but I'm ok accepting it's a shit format.
  7. You're saying the resulting images of the Super 8 camera is a "good" thing? The ONLY point of super 8's existence is small, light cameras that are very portable. Once you take those aspects away, there is no point. So if that's the case, might as well shoot with an Alexa mini and simply make it look like super 8 later. At least you'll have a good working image.
  8. Sure, but now the damn thing is bigger than an Alexa Mini! What's the point?
  9. Accept, this isn't what Super 8 looks like for 99.5% of people. Most super 8 looks like complete junk. All of my recent super 8 stuff runs through Phoenix before even being edited. I run the raw files through because they're useless without it. A lot of times I have to wet gate FRESH FILM FROM THE LAB because it's so damn dirty, it's unusable in my opinion. I've tried many labs, same results. It's just the way the format is.
  10. You can't even see the display outside in the sun. You can't tell if it's in focus. I guess you could add a high NIT external display? But now you've got a camera bigger than a Red Komodo. What's the point? I to this day, have no idea how anyone shoots outside in the sun with a monitor, even on digital cameras. I sure as heck can't.
  11. Correct, it does not share the pin registered movement. I don't think you CAN run a pin registered movement with a standard cartridge pressure plate. I believe they are still using the same mirrored shutter design, which is why they're limited to 38fps. It's amazing to me, the Beaulieu design is so simple, it works so damn well, that nobody bothered copying it? That's what I'd use if I made a new camera.
  12. The prototype appeared to be 480p, tho it could have been the display being crap. It looked worse than my Aaton XTR for sure and that's 480p 24.
  13. Biggest issue is the SD video tap with low-brightness display. It looks the same as the prototype in that regard. I'm dismayed they build this thing and didn't address that particular issue. If it was an HD tap with 1500 nit display and focus assist, I'd be all for the price. Without those features, I'm not sure how one is going to determine focus.
  14. Kodak did make a vision 4 stock, it was either 800 or 1000 ISO (not sure as it was tested at a wide range of ISO's) and when they determined it not to be any better than 19' pushed a stop, they basically bailed on the project and the lead person who developed vision from the very inception, left Kodak, along with "nearly" all of the motion picture division upper management. Kodak has been actively changing the formula for the last few years, not necessarily for quality purposes, but perhaps vendors not making certain chemicals anymore. Needless to say, I doubt we will see any new color negative stock, ever. ORWO is not a competitor and never will be. Fuji is out of the business entirely and has been since 2012. All the other "up and comers" are reversal stocks and will never touch the motion picture market. So Kodak can be complacent. They can sit on their laurels and continue status quo forever. The fact they brought back Ektachrome, was an unexpected leap, even for them. However, the reversal market, is kinda of different than the negative market. So I think they felt it was worth having another option and processing 100D as negative, does lead to some pretty cool results that don't look like negative. It's clear, Kodak was testing cross processing when they developed the stock and realized that's how professionals would use it. I have a hunch, Kodak will make a single specialized stock next, doubtful it will have anything to do with vision. It'll take a Christopher Nolan, who now wants to make James Bond films, to create a 1960's looking stock, for Kodak to start developing something new. I have a feeling with how powerful he's become in the world of motion picture, that they're already working on something new, but it's super hush hush. There are A LOT of hush hush things happening in the world of film right now, so we'll see! I know one thing tho... Kodak is going to do another price hike in 2024. So if you wanna buy film, do so before Jan 1st. They usually don't go up on the new year, but from what I've been warned, it's gonna shortly there after.
  15. Na, I think the business is pretty good right now. What I've been seeing is a steady flow of cameras coming in. Even though my focus is on French cameras (Aaton/Eclair), I'm absolutely willing to take SR's and Moviecams for basic stuff. I don't have the parts inventory to replace things, but most of the time they're just gummed up and need disassembly/re-assembly, pretty easy to do. I haven't been advertising our service business because up until now, I've been mainly working for someone else doing service. I literally just moved that whole business to our workshop with a brand new workbench and now I have all of the service tools for every Aaton camera made. I also have the largest parts inventory for LTR/XTR cameras in the US. We are also manufacturing new parts, mostly gaskets and seals, but we will be moving to metal in December with a lathe. I think that'll open up a few more doors for us and hopefully we can start manufacturing spares for wear parts we don't have access to. So maybe next year we'll start advertising and see how it goes. I'm ready to make this a real business, but it's going to take time and money, something we are finally starting to put in.
  16. And ya don't get the sound either! Nobody is gonna buy it.
  17. Ah got ya, I've never seen a lens protrude to far into the camera that it won't work. Very odd. I'd like to see pictures of what part doesn't fit. I wonder if it's simply the lens mount being a tiny bit smaller inner dimension for some reason. Some cameras like the Arri SR3 have a slightly larger inner dimension than the Aaton cameras or some of the converted SR's from B to PL.
  18. Yea, that's what I had guessed. Prieto is a great guy and very talented, he knows the best places to use the formats. Honestly, if I were doing such a big movie, I'd probably do the same thing. In your conversation, did you by any chance ask why they didn't make any prints? Seems like such a 70mm release to me. I wonder if they just didn't bother due to cost since the film itself was so costly.
  19. I'd have to see it, we do Aaton repair in the US. Hit me up info@narrowgaugefilms.com and we can discuss what's up.
  20. Well yea, you "made" a lens lol Lenses made for motion picture cameras, won't have these issues.
  21. Well, considering 35mm film cameras mirror shutter angle is narrower than 16mm shutter angle, I think you'd not have any problems with lenses from any format really.
  22. Most super 8 cameras have built in filters and perhaps one of them fell apart? That would be my guess.
  23. Yea friend of mine showed me a video on his phone, dismayed it was nearly all Alexa BTS footage, asking why it was shot on the Alexa when it says 35mm. I had to explain to him that they use Alexa for night scenes a lot these days. I have no idea what video he was watching sadly, been on a shoot for a month.
  24. Yes, from watching the BTS footage, looks like quite a bit was shot on an Alexa.
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