Dom Jaeger

Hi Claudio, again all I can say is they are all good, as good as S16 zooms got, so it comes down to the condition of each individual lens and which one might best suit the kind of work you want to do. 8mm is quite a lot wider than 11mm, so if you need wide coverage the 8-64 (or 7-63) would be better, and a minimum focus under 2 ft can be very handy sometimes, inside cars etc. If you are covering sports or doing something that needs a bigger range and longer focal lengths the 11-165 would be more useful. The Zeiss is very sharp, a little faster and would intercut well with Superspeed primes for example, but it breathes a lot and doesn't go very wide or particularly long. It can go macro though. Choose the compromise that suits your requirements.

They're both very good, which is preferable would depend on whether you needed a wider zoom or one that went more telephoto. By the way, I've personally only ever come across Canon 11.5-138 (12x) and 11-165 (15x) zooms, never an 11.5-165 (which works out as 14.3478..x). Some googling brings up references to an 11.5-165 but I think these could just be a typo that got re-posted again and again - the internet creating its own version of reality. If you had to be picky, the 11-165 breathes a lot more and does lose a little contrast at the long end, but it's a 15x zoom compared to an 8x like the 8-64. Minimum focus on the 11-165 is a bit over 3 ft while the 8-64 goes under 2 ft.

The focal length itself won't tell you anything about the size of the image circle, nor will the diameter of the optics. While these factors may play a role in the design relative to the format coverage you can't use them as an indicator of what that coverage might be. The only real way of knowing is to test the lens on a camera or test projector, or rely on lists of S16 compatible lenses. This list (and the accompanying information) by Jorge Diaz-Amador is reliable: http://www.cinematechnic.com/resources/optics_for_super-16.html

Pulling apart a Cooke S4i.

Way over-priced these days for what it is, but the Panasonic 16:9 conversion lens AG-LA7200 is a 1.33x anamorphic front that can be adapted for small zooms, originally made for Panasonic cams like the DVX100. Not great optically, but will give some anamorphic flare and realistically you're not going to find a "true anamorphic" zoom in B4 mount.

S8 zooms like this have a front focusing group which can be completely unscrewed by taking off the focus ring and stop ring beneath, the thread is a multi start helical, mark everything to be able to reassemble properly. Behind the focus group are 2 zoom groups that are moved by a cam barrel. Motorised zooms like on the Bolex 350 have a zoom motor attached and drive via an adjustable clutch, can be hard to turn by hand sometimes. Screws to disassemble the camera are hidden under leatherette and decals. Good luck!

Nikon DX is an APS-C size format, approximately 24x16 mm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_DX_format Canon 5D is full frame, 36x24 mm sensor. Most if not all DX lenses will vignette on a 5D. As far as I'm aware there is no Nikon DX 50mm, just FX.

Hi James, it should be easy to wind the film through. Try again in case you've somehow fed the film in wrong, sprocket teeth not mating with perfs, otherwise it's possible the feed sprocket has a film chip or something clogging the channel. Make sure the feed spindle lock is flipped down and not rubbing on the door. The drive gear should turn freely with no film loaded, if it's stiff without film there could be a problem with the belt.

G'day Joshua, that would be the auto-exposure iris aperture, a single odd-shaped leaf swings behind it to close the aperture down.

Good grief it must be the Ayn Rand appreciation hour. "All hail the successful high earners, who don't accept failure as an option, who don't whine about unfairness, who nobly fund the state while the welfare bludgers suck on them like leaches." In truth the vastly wealthy find ways to minimise their tax burden and often contribute less than your average citizen. But don't let that get in the way of a good story. And of course anyone who attempts to bring up issues of income disparity or fairness in wealth distribution or makes the vaguest mention of caring for those less fortunate is obviously either a commie, a bleeding heart or a dismal failure consumed with envy. What's wrong with pointing out when something isn't fair? Where would we be if no-one ever stood up against unfairness? Gandhi, King, Mandela, all whiners complaining about how unfair things were. Someone should've told them to just shut up and get used to it, cause life's unfair. Oh wait, they did, but we don't remember those people. I think this issue deserves more than smug condescension or trite dismissal. Obviously blaming producers is as simplistic as labelling all poor people lazy, or all rich people greedy. It's a complex problem that extends across other "arts" industries, and ultimately becomes political and philosophical - how we value human labour, how we commodify ourselves - which is why ideological mindsets butt in, almost like an unthinking reflex, defensive and mocking. But in a very broad sense we need to work out this sort of question. Quite aside from the morality or ethics, growing inequity in wealth distribution leads to unhealthy and ultimately unstable societies, and in a post-GFC world unless we are complete fools it should now be obvious that unfettered capitalism is toxic and dangerous.

There is a very dodgy seller on ebay (and now with an online store) selling $99 adapters to use C-mount lenses on PL mount cameras, a complete rip-off since the C-mount lens will seat very far out from where it needs to be and only focus a few inches away. The seller pretends not to know if infinity focus is possible, claiming he hasn't checked every lens/camera combination. Don't be sucked in by this ploy, no C-mount to PL adapter will work, the difference in flange depth is too great. Even if you found an adapter that held a C-mount at its correct flange depth (about 35mm inside the PL flange) you wouldn't be able to reach the focus or iris rings, and with reflex film cameras there is a spinning mirror in the way. This adapter: http://www.calkovsky.com/c-mount-to-pl-mount-lens-adapter/ which may or may not be the one I'm referring to, will avoid hitting a reflex mirror, but seats the lens roughly 3cm further out from the film plane than it needs to be. Fine if all you want to do is film insects.

Zeiss primes in 'B mount' would most likely be Arri bayonet mount, easy enough to check with the rental house. Some people lazily call the B4 mount used on 2/3" video cameras a 'B mount', and there are some Zeiss lenses like digiprimes in that mount.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely try some of those ideas.

I've done a quick comparison of how various 35mm cine lenses render out-of-focus blur, quite fascinating if you're a lens geek like me. :) http://cinetinker.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/comparing-lenses-blur-characteristics.html I tried to include lenses from roughly each decade since the 1930s, by Ross of London, Meyer Gorlitz, Schneider Kreuznach, Bausch & Lomb (Super Baltars), Taylor Hobson (Cooke Speed Panchros), Cooke (S4s) and Zeiss (Super Speeds and Ultra Primes), with focal lengths as close to 32 or 35 as possible. I'd like to add some more frame grabs when I get time, and at least attempt to explain some of the variations. So it's a work in progress. Any suggestions or feedback welcome!

I wouldn't recommend an EL for sound recording, if that's a requisite. I've managed a fleet of rental SRs (mainly SR3s) for 8 years, as well as serviced numerous film school SRs, they're incredibly durable. For an owner-operator who might only use their camera sporadically - excepting exposure to fine dust or sand or corrosive environments like beaches, or a poor storage environment - they should only need a service check every few years and a major CLA maybe once every 5 or 6 years. That would be a strip down and fresh lubrication of the movement and drive chain and checking for wear in those parts, as well as service to the mags and possibly recelling the on-board batteries. Arri lubricants are extremely long lasting, so if a camera wasn't used for a few years and stored well you could extend that further. If the camera was working fairly constantly you would want to have it checked more frequently, with a major service every 3 or 4 years. I imagine you could probably work an SR3 moderately for many years without a CLA before you'd notice any issues (mainly noise and unsteadiness), but by then you would have introduced more wear and replacement costs than if it had been regularly serviced. The magazines tend to require more regular attention than the camera, particularly the feed and take-up tensions. If the camera has been exposed to excessive dust, sand, salt spray or sea water it should be immediately serviced.

You want your Beetle to look like a Cadillac. This is why 35mm adapters (also called Depth Of Field adapters) like those made by P+S or Letus were all the rage a few years back. They allow 35mm lenses to project an image onto an oscillating ground glass which your small sensor video camera then films, giving you the larger format's shallower depth of field. Pretty much obsoleted when DSLR video capability arrived.

This device allows you to sync photo flash devices to Alexa's exposure phase: http://www.bluecinesystems.com/sync/en/index.html

I'd say it needs to be looked at by an electronics technician (ideally one familiar with 80's era circuits), could be a faulty transistor, short circuit somewhere, maybe just a broken wire, who knows? If you had corrosion in the speed pot it could have got in somewhere else. Only info I've got is a price list from 1984 which tells me it cost $2200 back in the day. If you have no luck locally, try contacting Glenn at synccine.com who does electronic repairs for us and can usually fix just about anything cine related.

You don't mention where you are, but different countries have different suppliers. I can get any quantity of any Fischer connector (including 4 pin) through Soanar here in Australia. The Fischer website has a list of suppliers worldwide: http://www.fischerconnectors.com/htm/Contact-us-Maps.asp 4 pin Fischers are used in other Denz products, Canatrans transmitters, Arri IVS sockets and probably more, so not that rare in the film industry. I've got a bunch in my spares inventory. Without knowing the pin-outs from Denz you might have trouble wiring the eyecup plug though. If Denz don't reply you could try contacting some after-market sellers like Gecko-Cam or Pure 4C in Germany, who would also be capable of making you a cable.

I'm much more familiar with Arris, so probably biased, but I think you'd be better off with an Arri S16 SR2 or SR3 (or as others have recommended an XTR). A-Minimas are lovely cameras, but generally not ideal as an A-cam. The archives here have some good info on this, see for example: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=18366 These days even SR3 kits can be had for within your budget. Another option is to buy the glass and rent the camera, which might be a better long term investment. With S16 sized digital sensor cameras becoming available good S16 lenses should hold (or even increase) in value more than film cameras will. Or as Adrian mentioned (depending on the duration of your shoots and how organised you are) it might be worth looking into renting a full production kit including lenses, grip and accessories - the advantage being that you won't need to pay more to have your gear checked and potentially serviced after buying it, and if there are any issues the rental house can simply supply a replacement. When you calculate your budget, it's worth noting that the cost of buying high-end film gear doesn't end with the purchase, you also need to factor in the added expenses of testing, possible repairs and ongoing maintenance (as well as schedule disruptions when something stops working properly). It's the reason most serious productions rent their gear rather than buying. You can negotiate substantial discounts for long term hire, particularly with film-based equipment these days. Try Cameraquip (where I work), Lemac or Panavision. Or (as a final option) you could find a DOP who already owns a S16 camera and hire them and their camera to shoot your project.

I transferred some video footage to Double 8 Ektachrome recently by simply shooting it off an iMac screen. (Thanks to Richard Tuohy of Nanolab for the tip.) Didn't get any flicker, but if the footage is high contrast or changes from say bright exteriors to dim interiors it can be very hard to get correct exposure. Turning down the screen brightness or contrast helps, but at normal speed you then need a very fast lens. I used an f0.9 Kern Switar and it was still a touch underexposed at times. Since the original video was only under a minute I filmed it about 4 times at different exposures and selected the best exposure scene by scene, then spliced it together.

Corrosion and film cameras are a bad combination. Unless it's dirt cheap and you really want the challenge of cleaning it up (with the likelihood of corrosion affecting electronic reliability, fungus in the optics etc) I'd avoid this one. I've seen pretty clean 16BL kits go for as little as $500 lately, far more serviceable SRs for $1000, or even S16 PL mount SR2s and 3s for $2000 - 2500. It's a buyer's market, you don't have to settle for rusty, untested cameras. I'm pretty sure the only place in Australia anymore that is willing and able to service older Arriflex models is the Melbourne branch of Cameraquip (meaning me). Deakin Uni's film dept used to have a few 16 BLs which they occasionally brought in for repair, but they may have sold them by now. Parts for these cameras are scarce, and the blimp can make working on the lenses a pain (especially if they're corroded in). It's the Arriflex model I'd least recommend. You're in Melbourne right? If you're interested in 16mm cameras, you're welcome to come into Cameraquip and get familiar with some working models we have (Sts, BLs, SRs, Bolexes etc). I'd be happy to show you around.

The focal lengths don't change by using the lens on a different format, it's still 20-100 no matter what camera you mount it on. Som Berthiot made 17-85 zooms for 16mm, perhaps this lens is a variation on that with a focal length extender added to increase the image circle, much like (for example) Zeiss 10-100 16mm zooms were converted to 11-110 for Super 16. It may have originally been a conversion for use with 1" video tube cameras which require a larger image circle than Super 16. At any rate it's now 20-100. A grub screw in the focus ring is the most likely way the focus was locked off, look for one that is in a different position than the screws holding the focus ring on to the inner barrel, which will be uniformly spaced around. Otherwise you may need to remove the focus ring (by undoing those uniformly spaced grub screws) and look underneath to see if it's been locked off internally. If you do that, mark the position of the outer focus ring relative to the inner threaded barrel it attaches to so you don't lose the distance settings. You might need to tweak the position later by checking infinity on a reflex camera at the 100mm end.

In terms of current developments this Arri prototype looks interesting: http://www.arri.de/about_arri/press/english/english_single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1279&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7581&cHash=f5fedf50585ddcd337cb839b93cdb94b

Simon, I found some time today to disassemble and measure the early Arriflex 35 we have in our museum. Serial number 700 makes it (I believe) the 200th Arriflex made. I found no imperial dimensions whatsoever (apart from the standard 3/16 mounting thread in the base). Many of the actual cast dimensions are neither precisely metric nor imperial, but then the form is often curved or sloping. Of the unmachined dimensions that were metric: width of door measured from raised light seal: 90.0mm bore diameter for viewfinder tube: 24.0mm outer diameter of turret casting: 112.0mm outer diameter of cast hood base: 120.0mm Some other dimensions: turret shaft dia: 8.0mm main drive shaft dia: 6.0mm claw eccentric cam shaft dia: 4.0mm mirror shutter bearing housing diameter: 20.0mm distance between rear side cover screw centres: 52.0mm flange depth: 52.0mm (obviously!) etc The movement patent by Howell you refer to resembles the later cardiod cam design, not implemented by Arri until the 50s. The first movement was a very simple eccentric with a cam underneath that shifted the long claw arm pivot back and forth. No dwelling at the bottom of the pulldown to increase steadiness, no rigid claw frame: A picture of the simple but effective gear chain, accessed by removing the side cover (held by only 4 screws and the inching knob): And the front turret cavity: I'm no expert in casting technology but the rough unmachined areas look more like they were sand cast than die cast. I have more pictures if you're interested in a specific area. I personally can't see any resemblance to a Bell & Howell 2709, or any other B & H camera.