Tyler Purcell

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.

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!

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.

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.

Sure, but now the damn thing is bigger than an Alexa Mini! What's the point?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And ya don't get the sound either! Nobody is gonna buy it.

Ah true! I mean Netflix has done three thus far.

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.

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.

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.

Well yea, you "made" a lens lol Lenses made for motion picture cameras, won't have these issues.

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.

Most super 8 cameras have built in filters and perhaps one of them fell apart? That would be my guess.

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.

Yes, from watching the BTS footage, looks like quite a bit was shot on an Alexa.

FYI; I'm referencing streaming, not Pro Res final delivery. Pro Res HQ for 2k vs 4k will have compensatory bandwidth for the frame size. .h264/.h265 will not. So where it's true, if you're going to theatrical DCP, none of this is an issue. The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people are going to "self" distribute their production. They will need to do the final compression and delivery. Which is the framework of my discussion. Yes, 2k is entirely dead. Nobody is finishing in 2k anymore. That ended in around 2019? Sure, some lower-end productions will do visual effects shots in 2k due to time/cost. The vast majority of theatrical shows, even streaming, will be 100% 4k today. I work with VFX houses quite a bit and they do a few cool tricks within the composites where they can output 4k, but have multiple resolution sources within the composite to save considerable time. Once they got that process down, from that time on, it's been nearly entirely 4k for the top shows.

2k is a dead format, been dead for around a decade now. Where it's true, the Alexa 35 is still only a 4k camera, that is the lowest acceptable delivery resolution today for many reasons. 1) Bandwidth (bit rate) is king. A 1080p (2K) distribution, will have WAY less bandwidth than a UHD (4K) distribution. You always want to distribute in 4k because the more bandwidth the better it will look. The difference between 4:2:0 (standard home streaming) 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 on someone's home TV is unnoticeable in 4k, but in 1080p, eh you can see if it you have some hard color lines between the red and blue channel. 2) Future proofing your production is critical. Delivering in 12 bit 4:4:4 4k (Pro Res 4444 or XQ) is the only real way to deal with this. 3) Most distributors will want the production to have a minimal of 4k acquisition. This isn't a Netflix BS standard, it's just the way things go. I had a film rejected by QC recently because we had some scenes shot in 2k within a 4k finished film. We had to fight with the distributor. Where it's not "necessary" for distribution, most people will request it. I generally try to shoot digitally in 6k or 8k so that when you deliver in 4k, you've got a full 444 sample and if you shoot raw, 12 bit finish is at your fingertips. That's really the way things are done in the modern world, even with motion picture film. Everyone scans at much higher res and down samples to 4k.

How many of those are single perf?