Dom Jaeger

Paul, Village has already closed. According to my sources the final straw was a large feature planned for 35mm that switched to digital at the last moment. It's an all too familiar story, everyone but the bean-counters wanted to shoot on film, the bean-counters won. So Deluxe in Sydney (with Digital Pictures as the post house) is the only local option left. Complete Post have apparently set up a processing deal with Park Road in NZ, otherwise Thailand have very good processing facilities. But basically shooting on film in Australia is a fast dwindling option. :(

You can still buy a lot of the jigs and tools from Bolex themselves (www.bolex.ch). I recently bought a H8 gate alignment jig from them, but certainly not all the jigs are necessary.

Very nice work Steve! It might be worth adding a caution to people who would like to copy you, that soldering directly on to batteries can be quite dangerous. There is a possibility that if overheated they can explode. Not a problem if the cells already have tabs attached. I got a new battery pack made up for a 4008 ZMII by a custom battery specialist, just gave dimensions and voltage/capacity requirements, cost me about $40 if I recall.

Yep. No that takes a sync pulse from the governed motor. Yeah sorry, just covering the bases. Like the IT help-lines that always first ask "is the computer plugged in to the wall?" :) If you can get hold of a multimeter you can quickly narrow down the possibilities. There's also a micro-switch near where your friend was working, which shuts off power when either the buckle switch is tripped or the sprocket roller carrier is open. You can override the switch by depressing the plunger on the door beneath the viewfinder tube (when the door is fitted), or with the door off by just pushing in the little lever that the plunger activates, located next to the run button inside the camera.

One more thought, and forgive me if it seems simplistic, but sometimes people who aren't familiar with the camera (or haven't removed the motor before) fit the motor back in without lining up the key on the motor with the slot in the sleeve.

Hi Daniel, one wire comes off there to supply 8V to the magazine contact, there's a second wire if the camera has a sync output. Yours looks OK. The motor gets 8V from the protruding spring contact next to the wires and ground through the camera body (there should be a polished area on the inside of the sleeve where the motor fits, just where the motor lock lever is). If you can get hold of a multimeter you can easily check whether you're getting 8V measured between the spring contact and the polished area of the motor sleeve, when the run lever is depressed. Could be the spring contact is not properly mating with the positive motor contact, or there's corrosion/dirt obstructing the ground contact with the motor body. First step of course is to check your battery voltage. Then plug your power cable into the battery and check the voltage at the plug in case the cable has a break.

Exactly, it's like having a 2.5cm macro extension tube on your C-mounts. A 50mm lens set to infinity wouldn't focus more than a foot away even stopped right down. You'd get a bit further with a really long telephoto, but basically this adapter is junk. To properly function the C-mount seat needs to be about 34.5mm inside the PL flange, which would make it very hard to reach in and adjust focus or iris scales on a lot of C-mounts, and more crucially would hit the mirror on most film cameras. I imagine the reason these clowns made their "adapter" only 8mm deep is to avoid any liability for smashed mirrors. The seller is happy to say it can be used on 16mm cameras, but when asked whether infinity focus is possible, cheerfully replies: "Could be, however I have not tested them myself." LIAR!

I wouldn't get too caught up in the technical aspects, or get lost planning your arsenal of optics, just get something reliable and start shooting. Polanski shot Rosemary's Baby with pretty much one prime lens.. Either of your camera choices will give great images if they're in good nick and set up correctly. The important thing IMHO is to buy from a reputable seller and/or have the camera and lenses checked over by a tech so you can then forget about equipment issues and just focus on what you're making.

Aha! Right you are Simon, bit hard to see the indicator on mine.. but what an obtuse lacing pattern! The feed and take-up overlap on the same side of the sprocket drum, 2 film thicknesses. Strange, but I guess it makes more sense than how I had it laced :P

Another nice camera dissection, Simon, thanks. (Thanks for the original post pictures too, Steve.) The slightly raised pins in the gate are an interesting solution to controlling lateral weave, never seen it in another camera. Not sure why they didn't just go with lateral spring guides like so many other successful 16mm camera designs. The pressure plate on my Special has 6 wear marks where the pins are. I think it would still stabilise single-perf film, the perfs ride over the pins during transport (never actually engaging, the pin diameter is only as large as the perf width, not height), and the camera is single perf capable (ie the sprockets have only one set of teeth). During exposure the perfs do not sit over the pins. One thing to note about Cine Kodak Specials is that there is no sprocket between the gate and take-up, meaning the take-up tension plays a much greater role in image steadiness. If the take-up spindle is jerky or takes too much force to slip, the film will be pulled in the gate. Also makes a nasty clacking noise.

A mag modified for S16 has just had the rollers (and sometimes the film guides) altered a little so they don't scratch the film in the expanded S16 area during transport. Perfectly fine for Standard 16.

Yep!

Also worth noting that on a Bolex that has a reflex prism the Kowas won't perform optimally when used at wide apertures (around T2.8 and below), mainly a case of the prism introducing negative spherical aberration. As the other thread you posted in mentioned, the best lens options for reflex Bolexes are Rx Switar primes, designed to optically compensate for the prism. Stupidly expensive these days unfortunately, especially the Macro-Switars. For a good explanation of the prism effect see: http://www.city-net.com/~fodder/bolex/truth.html

You can find PL to Bolex bayonet adapters, but they're not cheap. These guys, for example, have one for £275: http://www.filmcamerakit.com/html/bolex_bayonet_zoom_lenses.htm I assume the Eclair the lenses came off was converted to PL mount, since originally the NPR came with C and Cameflex bayonet (CA) mounts. From what I've seen of the Kowa primes they're pretty nice, comparable to 16mm Zeiss Super Speeds. The ones you're looking at all cover S16. There's also a 9mm which doesn't quite cover.

Yes, it depends on the lens, they all have different focus barrel throws. Even within a highly standardised series like say Zeiss Ultra Primes, manufactured to extremely tight tolerances, there may be slight variations in the total length of the focus scale throw (ie from infinity to minimum) between lenses of the same focal length. So each Zeiss focus ring is engraved with a focal length and a code - GG or HH etc - that identifies the length of throw and has been matched to the lens. Other high-end manufacturers hand-engrave each focus scale individually. One of the problems with cheap cine lenses is that they use generic focus scales that sometimes don't match up. In terms of the spacing between distance marks within a focus scale, it's a type of logarithmic progression. To be perfectly accurate you'd need to include nodal points and back-focus distance in the formula, but an approximate version is x = f² ÷ D where f is the focal length, D is the distance to the object, and x is the distance the lens needs to be racked out from its infinity position to focus on the object. Depending on how much rotation of the focus ring causes how much focus travel (which is a function of the mechanics, be it helical thread or cam), you could work out some sort of relationship between degrees of rotation and focus distance, but it won't be linear.

Variable shutters can also create in-camera fades and dissolves, be set to angles such as 172.8 or 144 to deal with 50 Hz flicker or filming NTSC monitors, and come in very handy for ramping when you don't want to change the depth of field with an iris pull (often done with a 435 but also possible to do with with a Bolex and several hands B) ). With slow motion a reduced shutter angle can give more clarity without necessarily introducing strobing. I'm not quite sure what you're asking, you want a 16mm camera with a variable shutter that opens to at least 180 degrees (1/48 at 24fps)? The afore-mentioned Cine Kodak Special opens to 170 degrees, which is close, otherwise the Pathe Webo is 180 degrees fully open. Both cheapish old wind-ups with variable sector shutters. Some rarer or more expensive candidates would be a Mitchell 16, Maurer 16 (both of which I believe open to 235 degrees!), Kinor-16 1M, Eclair NPR or Cameflex, Aaton XTR prod or Xtera, Arri SR3 or 416.

It's fine to clean the rear element if it needs it. Usually it's protected by a cap or hidden inside the camera mount so it shouldn't need much cleaning (unless like me you work for a rental house that rents to film students who inexplicably like to leave fingerprints on rear elements especially.. no offence to students intended :) ). It is a more important surface than the front so the less you clean it the better, but Pancro should be safe to use. Some lens rear elements have a black paint edge border that stronger cleaning agents can remove, or smear across the glass. To be safe I always clean from the centre to the edge in a single direction spiral.

BL-3 mags are compatible with a BL-4 or 4s, it's BL-1 and 2 mags that aren't unless they've been modified. You will need an eyepiece, whether you use an an extension finder or not. I'd recommend getting a camera that is complete, if it's missing the eyepiece who knows what else is missing.

Whoops, meant OCT19 :) Not entirely sure though, I'm familiar with OCT19 Lomo anamorphics, not so much their sphericals. But whatever the mount was it's missing! I'll measure the ID of an OCT 19 lens mount when I'm at work on monday. 55mm sounds about right. If you know the serial number/identification code of the lens a Russian lens expert like Olex could probably tell you exactly what mount it had, and maybe source the missing parts: https://sites.google.com/site/olexserviceskonvas/home/prime-lenses-1

If lens cleaner doesn't remove the marks it's not worth persisting. Slight coating stains won't affect the image in any perceivable way. The important things to clean off are stuff like fingerprints, spittle or sea-spray, which can etch into the coating if left there for too long.

It's missing the mount, and the focussing rear section. Probably had an OCT 18 mount originally.

The image in your viewfinder is a reflection off a spinning mirror behind the lens. If the image is going foggy then clear it's probably because the mirror surface has some damage. It's actually polished aluminium rather than a proper mirror, and attempts to clean it can easily cause damage that reduce its reflectance. If you unscrew the lens you can inspect the mirror surface. The other possibility is that the mirror isn't spinning flatly, so the image to the viewfinder will go in and out of focus (and seem to vibrate) as the mirror spins. The expense of fixing either of those problems really isn't worth it for a hundred dollar camera. The black specks will be in the viewfinder optics or on the groundglass, not the lens. They won't show up on the film itself. You can't really see how dirty the lens might be through the viewfinder. Excessive dust or fungus in the lens will just reduce the image clarity and contrast. If you unscrew the lens and hold it up to a light you can check how clean it is.

Hi Evan, do you have any electrical training? Are you working under the supervision of someone experienced with HMI heads and ballasts? They are not the sort of thing you just 'tear into'. When I worked for Panavision I used to assist an experienced electronics tech repair HMI gear - it is seriously dangerous stuff. If you're fishing around the innards of a ballast, even unplugged, and touch the wrong bit the discharge can throw you across the room. The striking voltage can be in the tens of thousands of volts, lamps can explode, not to mention the compromised safety of the crew who uses the gear after you've been 'repairing' it. Seriously, stay away from HMI equipment if you don't know what you're doing, or aren't under the close supervision of someone very experienced.

Yes, it should be fine, I've used that combination of adapters without a problem. As long as the adapters are properly made. If you want to rely on the focus distance scales of the lenses you'll want to get their back-focus checked when mounted to your camera, as each adapter will add a little more potential variation to that critical distance.

For me the Steampunk aesthetic really got defined by the early Caro and Jeunet films, particularly City of Lost Children. But if we're looking at progenitors, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has to get a mention. More recently a great example was The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, a short film by Anthony Lucas. There was another short film I saw years ago about a photo booth that was actually operated from within by a man, who had all his photographic equipment squished in there with him - cameras, developing trays etc all on brass pulleys and pinions - and he'd push the finished print out through the slot and watch the reaction of his subject through a peep hole. Things get complicated when someone gets murdered inside his booth.. Damned if I can remember the title, but that was a classic Steampunk tale.