Dom Jaeger

Ditto

That's normal, just a pin engaging with one of the drag modules. If it's a second-hand head I'd check for backlash when changing direction, or slippage during a faster move. Test the full movement range for lumps, tight spots or scraping. Make sure the pan/tilt lock-offs are locking the head securely, and the drag selectors move through the range without sticking. Check the top plate slides back and forth freely when its lock is released. Check the threads on the pan handle and tie-down locks to make sure they're not worn down to a saw- tooth profile.

Yeah looks like film edge shavings rather than hair. I hope the zoom-out finally placated your client!

No need to double post, Stephen answered you perfectly with his usual succinct accuracy. For a 60-odd year old camera the condition is everything. Has it been regularly maintained? Has it done 3 million feet? Has someone who didn't know what they were doing fiddled with it? A maintained Arri II should be pretty stable at normal speeds, but to know just how steady your particular one is, you need to shoot a registration test.

I've made my own (primitive) steadicam rig similar to the one pictured for Regular 8 cameras using a rod-end as a gimbal, attached to an adjustable base plate. A curved length of flat aluminium rod with a brass weight on the end serves as the stabilizer. It works quite well for my purposes, but it can wear out my arm after a while. Another option is to use a steering wheel form weighted at the bottom, with the camera mounted within. I have yet to try that design, but I imagine using both arms would make it less work, and because with these lightweight systems your arm acts as the suspension, two arms might be more stable. As Will mentioned, you would generally need to run the camera remotely by cable. Some of the removeable handgrips for R8 cameras (such as the Nizo pistol grips) activate the camera by cable and are ideal, attached under the gimbal. The biggest issue is that you can't really use the viewfinder anymore, so you either point and hope for the best (which works surprisingly well actually) or rig up some kind of video assist. I tried a mobile phone camera taped over the eyepiece, which was fiddly, and only sort-of worked. If you have the know-how (and some spare cash) a small CCD in the viewfinder feeding to a mini-monitor would do the trick.

Yep.

I would have thought it would be easier just to look at the manual.. B) But yeah, the markings on the variable shutter (1/2 and 1) refer to the diaphragm adjustment required to maintain exposure. The first mark down from open is 1/2 - the shutter is a quarter closed so to maintain exposure the lens should be opened up 1/2 a stop. The next mark is 1 - the shutter is half closed, so the lens should be opened a full stop. Confusing? But wait, there's more! The table of exposure times in the H16 Reflex manual (actual times, not adjusted to compensate for the prism) has 1/65 sec for 24fps at full shutter - giving a shutter angle of 133 degrees. But it's 1/90 sec when the shutter is a quarter closed - a shutter angle of 96 degrees (instead of 100 degrees which is 3/4 of 133). And it gives 1/150 sec for a half closed shutter - giving a shutter angle of 58 degrees, which is nowhere near half of 133. The times given for other frame rates yield the same shutter angles. Simple maths would suggest the actual exposure times for a half closed shutter should be half that of an open shutter, but not according to the manual. 1/65 at full shutter becomes not 1/130 but 1/150 when half closed. I've never bothered to measure the shutter angles at the variable lock positions, but I know the mechanism itself has a bit of play in the gearing, so it's not particularly precise. It may be that the locked shutter angles are in fact slightly smaller than quarter and half closed, and the exposure times are all rounded off. Perhaps also Simon's theory is at work and as the mechanical shutter angle diminishes the actual angle becomes even smaller due to the the edge blur (though I imagine that would be somewhat dependent on the lens type and focal length). It's all fairly academic anyway, since the largest discrepancy, between the 1 stop (half closed) mark and the printed exposure times difference of about 1 and a third stops, is pretty minimal. But it's confusing nonetheless.

The footage counter (lower left on the control side) should automatically reset back to zero when the door is opened, and won't start counting again until the lid is closed. So unless it's defective (or you open the lid part way through a spool) it will always be reliable. The frame counter (top right) can be manually zeroed, but it's used to accurately count individual frames for stop motion or lap dissolves etc, not for judging when the film is out. The only time you need to rewind the film is for 'trick' photography like double exposures or in-camera lap dissolves. To do it you need to disengage the motor and use a rewind crank. You can store the camera partially wound up for short periods without any problem. If you won't be using it for months but still have unused film loaded, then you may as well shoot off the remainder (it's not like it will much with 100 ' spools) so you can then run down the spring. If every foot is precious just cut the film, process what's been exposed, store the (very) short end and then you can run down the spring.

Hi Charles, the Arricam groundglasses are similar but won't fit. You could probably buy a Moviecam S35 groundglass through Arri (who own Moviecam), but it won't be cheap. Best bet might be to see if any other rental houses might offload an extra one they might have. Or look into the possibility of a company like Shurco remarking the standard groundglass that (presumably) came with the camera. I'm somewhat amazed that the rental house you bought it from didn't have any Super 35 groundgasses. Flipping the mount and doing a depth check shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. If you were to rent some PL lenses the rental house would very likely do it for free. I noticed a Compact kit that recently went on ebay for about 4 grand.. crazy times.

The idea has been around for years, never really took off since you also needed a modified projector or scanning device and were limited to 8mm reversal stocks (unless you had 16mm neg re-perfed). So you saved money on the amount of film used, compared with simply cropping S16 for example, but had other limitations and expenses. It's recently been revived by a forum poster here, who calls it UltraPan8. See for example: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=52967

This is the sort of thing the electronics tech I work with builds for people all the time. You can check out his website at synccine.com

Well it was high 30s (Celcius) a week or two ago, now barely cracking 20. Had hail yesterday. Typical Melbourne, you never know whether to leave the house in your togs or your raincoat. Good luck with the viewfinder.

It can happen that a PL mount is manufactured out of tolerance, the flange wings are too thick and it won't lock onto a camera. The wing thickness should be between 1.90 and 2.00 mm thick. But if the lens isn't seating properly it will throw the focus out. It will be worse at the wide end, where back focus is more critical. The discrepancy you described would occur if the lens was sitting more than half a mm forward of the flange. So I'd say the combination of mount not locking and focus not reaching infinity suggests something is fouling before the lens is properly seated. Maybe internally like a baffle or the groundglass holder. Maybe externally like the lens barrel hitting the sloping front of the camera. Maybe the locating pin is too tight. Check everything carefully and see if you can't work it out. The other possibility is that the circular edge of the lens cavity in the camera mount is not bevelled enough, and/or the mating part of the lens mount - the corner where the flange wings meet the rear lip - is rounded or not properly undercut.

If you remove the 8 set screws you can slide the barrel out a bit, which disengages the prism gearing. Rotate the barrel and re-engage it at the correct level, might take a few goes. When it's right, do up the screws. Make sure they line up with the holes within. If the screws are painted in, use a bit of acetone to loosen them, you don't want to strip the allen heads. By the way, it's part of the forum rules to use your correct name. Keeps everyone honest and polite (in theory B) ).

Hi Jean-Louis, the Optex 2x extender for Bayonet mount has an optic that hits the rear of the 12-240 so it's no good. I tested a Zeiss Mutar 2X (Bayo mount for 10-100) and it fits the 12-240, with no vignetting through the range. You lose I think 2 stops, and wide open doesn't look so great, so realistically you're looking at a min of about T11! But it works.

Birth of a Nation - just to watch cinematic grammar being invented. (And a gob-smacking example of how entrenched racism was at the time.) The Third Man - for its inventive take on noir lighting Wages of Fear -how to film tension, certainly rivals anything by Hitchcock Badlands - less overt cinematography than later Mallick films but just as effective in creating a mood Andrei Rublev - from the sublime to the base and back again Bladerunner - sci-fi and noir, a match made in heaven Baraka - just a feast for the eyes Diving Bell and the Butterfly - utterly immersive Children of Men - somewhat groundbreaking I thought Public Enemies - a great example of how even gifted professionals can completely screw up :blink:

One solution would be 2 semi-circle brackets that screw together with a support rod coming off one. Needs to be fitted to a non-rotating part of the zoom, like the zoom index ring. Measure the diameter and have a machine shop make one up. The support rod would also need to be custom machined to the right length, depending on the lens support you use. Arri lens supports have a couple of mm of height adjustment, from memory it's something like 94mm from centre of lens port to support. The other alternative is to find a ready-made bracket appropriate to your lens support that is slightly larger in diameter than the fixing point of your lens (index ring or whatever) and use a spacer ring, rubber strip or camera tape to get a snug fit. It's worth spending some time getting it right, a heavy zoom incorrectly supported can distort a camera lens mount and throw out the flange depth. When a zoom is properly supported the mount locking ring should lock and unlock smoothly.

I would suggest the jammed iris needs to be looked at by a lens technician. It might be a simple mechanical bind in the aperture ring or actuating lever, but more likely the iris itself has cocked somehow and if forced it could damage the iris blades. Rebuilding a cocked iris is quite a tricky operation. The stiff focus could be the back of the focus ring binding against the front of the adapter, or if it's the type of lens where the mount rotates inside the adapter (I'm not that familiar with OCT 18 lenses) it could be too tight a fit. Hard to say without seeing it.

Sounds perfect. The mechanism that limits the motor's run duration lets it spin slightly under 8 rotations, so yeah it's probably closer to 660 frames.

Yes, I was going to mention that one. Though I didn't realise WWI trench warfare comedy was actually a genre! 'Joyeux Noel' was another recent WWI movie that deserves a mention. Australians have a particular fascination with WWI - apart from Peter Weir's classic 'Gallipoli' there have been several other Oz films or mini-series set in the trenches including the recent feature 'Under Hill 60'. We've probably covered WWI more than WWII. Marching off to the far side of the earth to be cannon fodder for the British Empire is a great source of pride for many Australians, and our most sacred holiday is Anzac Day, commemorating a disastrous WWI defeat on the shores of Turkey. I suppose it was the first time we got to express ourselves on the world stage since we'd become a federated nation in 1901. We mocked the class-ridden Brits and refused to salute their officers, but went over the trench wall into the machine-guns anyway, and a strange sort of national identity myth was born. We also have a disproportionate number of horse movies - 'Pharlap', 'Man From Snowy River', 'Silver Stallion', 'The Cup' etc - so I imagine a WWI horse movie should do quite well down here. :P

24 clicks is normal. The clicks relate to the amount of film transported - 28 frames per click or 7 feet per 10 clicks. The clicks are caused by 3 protrusions spaced around the circumference of the spring motor, which rotates 8 times before coming to a stop. At 24 fps you'll get a click each 1 1/6 seconds. Kinda weird, but that's just how the gearing is. So a full wind of the spring motor should transport around 670 frames, a bit under 17 feet. At 24 fps you should get about 28 seconds. If it's less, the camera is probably running a little fast.

How about a Techniscope Arri 2C? Reflex, 2-perf pull-down, motorised and about as far from plastic as you can get. B) The rental house I work for has one sitting in a cupboard waiting for me to overhaul it, but the demand for rental film cameras in Australia is virtually non-existent these days, so it's well down the priority list unfortunately. There are plenty of other cameras that have been converted to 2-perf since the original 60s Techniscope era (local camera engineer Bruce McNaughton has done a few), but a 2-perf 2C would probably be the most affordable, if ever one pops up for sale. In the US I imagine you could rent older 2-perf cameras for peanuts these days.

With a variable speed motor you go off the tachometer at the back of the camera. Adjust the rheostat at the base of the motor until the tacho reads the fps speed you want. The numbers on the motor are for reference only. A 'governor-controlled' motor is a different thing - that would be a constant speed motor which self-regulates it's speed to 24 or 25 fps only.

The fogging just before the end of a shot would suggest a light leak in the take-up side - maybe the door is bent or wasn't latched properly. It's unlikely to be the footage counter window, the slot for the indicator only leads into the gap between the platines (the inner plates that the spindles are mounted on), so unless there's a hole in the take-up platine you shouldn't get a leak from there. I'm not sure about the mid-shot fogging. Looks like there was strong side-light, maybe it hit at an angle that accentuated the door leak? #4 could well be a loop problem, especially if it was the first night and your AC was inexperienced. The camera wouldn't have sounded right, but perhaps the ambient noise masked it and being the first night you weren't quite sure how it should sound?

The Mitchell base locks in with a key, so it's very secure, but you need to level the head using the tripod legs. A ball lets you easily set the level, but it can slip if the head is on high tension. The lock-off threads for the head needs to be clean and not worn down to a saw-tooth profile, otherwise it binds before properly tightening. A dry lubricant like G-N paste on the lock-off threads and sliding surface between the handle and cup also helps to get a secure lock.