Dom Jaeger

Hi Bill, is the lens an early standard mount whose mount rotates inside the camera lens port? The focus ring is solidly connected to the protruding rear of the mount on those lenses, so that the whole outer bit rotates while the internal part with the key slot remains held by the key inside the camera port. With those lenses it was recommended to lightly lubricate the mount to facilitate the rotation. Of course there could be other reasons it feels stiff - contamination inside the camera port, a burr or out-of-round bump on the lens mount, damage to the groove at the very rear of the lens mount, or damage to the spring arms that lock in to that groove and hold the lens in. Or the lubrication of the lens internal helical thread could be dried up and gummy. If it's a standard mount lens that doesn't rotate inside the camera lens port, then the stiffness will be due to internal lens lubrication.

In theory they should intercut fine, though you might notice if the zoom is used wide open, and older zooms can vary. Coating damage, potentially re-coated elements, yellowing due to age, shiny iris blades, internal haze etc could all contribute to colour or contrast shifts. As always, shooting a test will give you a better indication than generalisations from the internet. B) But if the zoom is in good condition it should be fine.

They came in both C-mount and Bolex bayonet mount. I haven't tried an M43 adapter on them, but I doubt a C-mount to M43 one would fit, the lens throat is too large. I'm not sure a Bolex bayonet to M43 adapter would work either (or if they even exist). Besides that, they were designed for reflex Bolexes, (which may or may not be an issue at wide apertures), and they have a 2 blade diamond-shaped aperture, which is not everyone's cup of tea in terms of the out-of-focus character.

Looks like the camera is intermittently only pulling down one perf instead of two. Presumably not a loading error like an incorrect loop size unless the same error was made on every mag. What does the rental house say?

Hi Michael, Have you read this history of Cooke lenses: http://www.fdtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Cooke-Book-2013-FDTimes.pdf Lots of interesting info. According to that, Series I Speed Panchros came out in the 30s, cover a smaller image circle than Ser II and III, are f1.8 rather than f2, and are uncoated. Ser II came out in 45, and we're redesigned by Gordon Cook to cover a larger frame, Ser III from 54 are only the 18 and 25 mm. I haven't used or projected Ser I Panchros, but I imagine they would look similar to the later series, just with less contrast and more flare and they're probably not quite as well corrected. You'd also find the mount options a bit obscure, Newman Sinclair or early Mitchell (plate) or Debrie sort of mounts.

On late models with the declutch button, it's meant to be a feature, but Super 8 cartridges aren't really capable of being rewound much. The older Standard 8 format is much better suited to in-camera effects like double exposures because it uses spools, and lots of cameras have rewind facility. Or use something like a 16 mm Bolex.

Try this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/251393083950?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=107 It's a little confusing because most Standard mount lenses will fit a camera with Arri Bayonet mount (Arri designed the newer B mount to still accept older lenses), but it usually doesn't work that way with adapters.

There are plenty of matte boxes with 360 degree rotating 4x4 stages, but they tend to be noisy and not designed to be smoothly or continuously rotated. The RotaPola filter holders Greg linked to seem more like what you're after in that you can hook a follow focus or motor up to the turn wheel and they rotate pretty quietly, you'd just need to source circular filters to fit in them.

The only real way to increase the depth of field is to stop the lens down. To make a fixed-focus lens like the 10mm Angenieux focus closer you need to move it away from the film plane a bit. Re-setting the lens back-focus as Jean-Louis suggested is easy enough for a lens technician, but another solution that doesn't interfere with the hyperfocal factory setting is to cut a washer-shaped shim out of some thin plastic sheet to a size that just fits over the lens mount threads and fit it before screwing the lens on. The thicker the shim the closer the lens will focus (and the more out-of-focus infinity will become). One or two tenths of a mm are enough to shift the fixed plane of focus substantially closer on a lens of this focal length. By simply removing the shim the lens returns to normal. For fixed-focus wide angles like this shimming the lens out (or adjusting the back-focus by other means) is a better solution than using close focus diopters.

Somewhere in the world there's a kid envious of your sneakers, it's all relative isn't it. Most of the issues we talk about here are first world problems. As far as I know they've always had this policy. They're just nitwits I reckon.

Yes, could have been. It was the rehoused first zooms that were made in the UK, so a company like TLS makes sense. The Pro Primes and later zooms were apparently made in Japan, according to Mitch Gross on an old REDuser thread. Funny to read some of those threads now, people were claiming the RED Pro primes were better than Zeiss Ultra Primes, even giving Master Primes a run for their money! Four years later and you can pick up a RED Prime on ebay for less than a 30 year old Zeiss Super Speed!

This is a cinematography forum, not a used lens price guide. Put it on ebay and see what it gets. If you want some information about the lens itself - it's rather old and slow, and not very common. 20x zooms from that era weren't the best, so I wouldn't expect great image quality. Looks like it has a reflex prism that will divert some light, but it's missing the actual 'dog-leg' viewing optics. Can't see the mount, but if it doesn't have a common mount like C-mount attached it's virtually a door-stop. If it has fungus or any other issues with the glass it's definitely a door-stop. If you can ascertain that it covers Super 16 it might be worth slightly more.

The early 18-50 and 50-150 zooms were clearly re-housed stills lenses, maybe Tamron or Sigma, later zooms and primes were built from the ground up, but no idea who supplied the glass. That would be a military secret. Some lenses have "Made in UK" engraved on them, leading some people to speculate that Cooke may have been involved, but I've been reassured by Cooke themselves they had naught to do with 'em. Don't get me wrong, for the price the primes aren't that bad, just rather bland, with sparse focus markings and prone to develop focus play. Classic "designed by computers" lenses, with nice MTF scores but nobody seems to like the actual look of them. The 18-50 zoom I wouldn't recommend at all, but even later zooms that are mechanically better have issues - for example every 18-85 I've seen gets soft right in the middle of the zoom range, and develops shocking focus play over time. Again, for the price you could probably live with such faults, but it's the lack of service support that really makes me down on them, particularly if you're far-flung like we are here in Oz.

I've been servicing and repairing RED zooms and primes for years now. If nothing needs replacing it all goes smoothly, but whenever I send an email to RED requesting parts, I always get the same response saying they don't sell parts and that the lens needs to be sent halfway around the world to a RED repair facility to be worked on by a RED technician. Needless to say, most clients don't want to spend excessive time and money sending their budget lenses across 20 time zones just to have a nylon follower replaced when it's something that can be very easily done right here. I end up manufacturing the part myself and telling anyone who cares to listen to NEVER BUY A RED LENS! Maybe it wouldn't be as much of an issue if their lenses didn't develop nasty faults so readily. Every other lens manufacturer I deal with is happy to supply parts and information. RED seems to think their lenses are a military secret or something. Bizarre behaviour. Anyway, I was curious about other people's experiences getting their RED lenses serviced. Does anyone actually buy lenses from RED anymore? Does anyone even use them, except as a last resort, or if they come for free?

I know this is not a new phenomenon, but I think there's more to this than just the question of quality. I don't mind that there are cheap versions of other products, what I find reprehensible is copying another company's intellectual property right down to the colour scheme and name plate. At Broadcast Asia this year there was an outfit flogging copies of O'Connor 2575 heads, Arri FF-4s and all sorts of other accessories that were indistinguishable from the originals, even down to being called 2575s and FF-4s. To my mind, this is ethically like someone stealing your reel, putting it up on their website and competing with you for jobs at a quarter of your own rate. You can either buy into this sort of behaviour, "on the assumption that it's probably going to be usable", until it's your own livelihood being undermined, or you can make an ethical stand.

They'd be stupid to make something that doesn't actually put out a light, but.. the paint could smoke when it heats up, the thing could give off a stench, the door might not latch properly, the fresnel glass might crack easily, the glass colour temp might vary, the focus knob might be really stiff, it might be very susceptible to rust, the switch might give out early, the yoke lock threads might start binding so you can't lock it off properly, etcetera. All conjecture on my part, although based on experience with other knock-offs, and some of those faults are in the customer reviews. However you will save a couple of hundred bucks in the short term, and long term you'll probably help put the original manufacturer whose designs have been stolen out of business. But who needs quality objects any more?

In the interests of science I found a Canon 7.6-168 HDTV zoom (the poetically named HJ22ex7.6B) that was lying around here and threw it up on my projector using a makeshift mount. The image actually had very little CA, but a great deal of halation at f1.8, which went away at about f4. Once stopped down, it's a nice, sharp image all through the range. The image circle covers S16 from about 50mm up, or the whole range (15.2 - 336mm) with the doubler on. I'd be curious to try it with a B4 to PL optical adapter, since I imagine some of the halation is due to the 3 chip design. Not $4800 curious however. This lens retails for over 30K, so I don't think it would meet Phil's "under 10K second-hand" hopes.

Why? Given they are mostly made for 2/3" 3 chip cameras you'll just get vignetting and horrible chromatic aberrations, unless you use an expensive optical adapter that will lose you nearly a stop. You'd need a separate power supply and cable if you wanted to use the zoom servo, and optically they're rarely as good as primes or even older cine zooms. Seems like a pointless exercise unless I'm missing something?

I forgot to mention a very important step - if you take off the spring motor housing, make sure the spring is fully wound down first!

Hi Jorge, it's most likely the spring belt, which you should be able to see connecting to the take-up spindle: If it's broken or stretched, you need to remove the spring motor housing to replace it. Victors are very simple, just 4 screws hold that housing on - 2 at the front just behind the turret (you need to unscrew the little reflex viewing eyepiece to be able to undo one screw), and 2 at the back just in front of the leather strap bracket screws. Then the whole side unit comes off. Undo the screw holding the brass take-up drive gear and you can remove the belt: I don't know where you'd find a new spring belt really, your best chance is probably to ask someone on ebay who sells projector belts if they have a spring belt with an unstretched diameter of about 30mm. Someone who repairs Bolexes would be able to service a Victor if you want to spend money getting it spruced up. After all that advice though, I actually wouldn't recommend a Victor camera for filming. First off you'll need to find double-perfed film because the drive sprocket has teeth on the opposite side to the pull-down claw. Secondly, the gate design on Victors is terrible, almost guaranteed to produce unsteady footage. And thirdly they are not as reliable as something like a Bolex or a Filmo, and might easily break down once you start using them. I don't think it's worth wasting film stock unless you really like the idea of using such an ancient machine. (The camera itself won't give you a vintage look, if that's what you're hoping, that's all in the film stock and lenses and processing. These days you can pick up much newer 16mm camera bodies for peanuts.

You're welcome Frederic. You might find that another sample has slightly more or less shift, consumer grade lenses can exhibit quite some variation in build tolerances and quality. Read for example: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/10/notes-on-lens-and-camera-variation

Image shift is a problem I come across pretty regularly when servicing lenses. When a lens is focussed, the focus group (or sometimes the whole optical block) is mechanically moved along the optical axis. If there is play in the focussing mechanism that allows the elements to slightly cock or shift sideways, it can introduce some amount of image shift. Whether you notice it or not depends on a combination of the light-bending power of the elements and the severity of the play. It tends to occur when you change the direction of focus, and is also (obviously) more noticeable in a locked-off shot than a hand-held one. I don't know that particular zoom, but stills lenses often have this issue in some form or other, since it's not a technical requirement for still photography that the image stays perfectly stable as you focus. However if the shift is excessive then it may be due to a loose focus cam follower screw, a loose element, damage or wear. If you can access another example of that lens to test you could determine if it's normal behaviour or not. Or someone more familiar with the lens might chime in.

If you can't find a cheapish used one (maybe try older rental houses) contact Shurco Tool Company, who may still make one for you.

I have heard this from older cameramen about Arri SR1 and 2 transfers. Before the gate was re-designed for the SR3 Advanced, lateral weave in SRs was controlled by side rails that held the film steady at the top and bottom of the gate, but not at the gate aperture itself. Because (so I've been told) the film that is at the core of a roll can get a bit distorted and wavy along the edges, when it passes through an SR1 or 2 gate it can laterally weave at the point where the image is exposed, even though it's held steady above and below it. Once wound onto a take-up core, the same distortion might cause further unsteadiness in the telecine/scan at the other end of the footage. Maybe someone else can explain exactly why film gets a bit distorted at the very inner layers of a roll. I guess it's something to do with the tighter coil and being connected to both the core and the heavy outer layers. Maybe it only happened with certain older stocks?

Softness at the wide end of a zoom is very commonly due to the lens back-focus needing callibration (or a back-focus error introduced by an adapter). 8-64s are not normally unusably soft. Should be a simple job for a lens technician. But a 6.6-66 would be a very nice upgrade.