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Dom Jaeger

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Everything posted by Dom Jaeger

  1. Well you could try removing the rexofader in case it's somehow jamming the winding arm. The rexofader needs a special winder to work properly, with a gear above the axle thread. Maybe someone fitted the rexofader without changing the winder.
  2. Hi Nick, yes a wide angle eyepiece should give you slightly more coverage. The viewfinder optics will still be centered for Standard though, so you may need to adjust the mirror prism in the viewfinder elbow - from memory if you remove the elbow cover plate you can sometimes reposition the prism a fraction. Make sure the wide angle eyepiece fits your viewfinder, ones for an SR3 or 435 have a different connection.
  3. You've got it the wrong way round, Richard. For TV shows and other fluff that's likely to be quickly forgotten, Alexa footage is perfect! But for the really important stuff like home movies of your kids, film is the only real option. ;)
  4. There are various ways of testing lens resolution, the most informative for me as a lens tech is projecting a graticule (like a slide of a test chart) back through the lens onto a wall or screen. The standard chart uses 200 line pairs per millimeter as the maximum resolution needed in the centre, with 50 line pair patterns at the edges. Virtually every cine lens I test, even ones 50 or 60 years old (if in good condition) will resolve this much at 2 stops down, modern lenses even wide open. For a S35mm cine frame of roughly 25mm width, this represents a minimum of about (50 x 25) 1250 line pairs of resolution to the edge. I'm certainly not an expert on things digital, but my understanding is that it takes at least 3 pixels to even begin to resolve a line pair (one black line next to one white line), which means virtually any decent 35mm cine lens should resolve at the very least the equivalent of 3.75K. Modern high end lenses could probably resolve 12K or more. But resolution is a complex thing - contrast, chromatic abberation (colour fringing), field curvature, flaring, etc all affect the perceived sharpness of an image, and will vary lens to lens. As Karl mentioned, either end of the aperture scale will introduce abberations that also reduce the perceived sharpness. Still, I'd say any good cine lens from the last 30 years or so would easily out-resolve a 4K sensor. With the advent of lower cost digital cameras entering the professional realm many lens manufacturers have sought to provide lenses that match the price/performance of these cameras. Often the trade-off (like the cameras) is less stringent tolerances and a reduction in build quality. The upside to lenses designed for sensors is that they are telecentric, meaning the light from the rear element emerges parallel, and hits the sensor perpendicularly. That was never a concern with film lenses. Most of the time it's not a problem, but occasionally a particular film lens with a certain digital camera combination does weird things. I imagine the Canon 4K lens announcement is mainly advertising hype, to justify the cost of having to tighten tolerances back to where professional cine lenses used to be, and actually make proper lenses for this industry.
  5. The Canon 8-64 is another very good 16mm zoom, which covers S16. The Zeiss 11-110 is the S16 version of their 10-100. The nicest I've come across though, is the Cooke 10.4-52 Varokinetal, a S16 version of the earlier 9-50. The Cooke 10-30 is another beauty, if you can find one.
  6. A movie like Cowboys and Aliens makes $175 million (so far) and it's deemed a turkey? Larry Crowne and Green Lantern both make back $20 million more than their budgets yet they're failures too? The only real flop among that list was Mars Needs Moms (though I agree there were some questionable choices made in some of the others). It's not like the opinions of critics matter here - Michael Bay's atrocities are never deemed failures. And some of the greatest movies in history were commercial disasters at the time. I thought the whole movie business was predicated on the assumption that most films will make a loss or barely scrape back their cost, but it's a numbers game, and as long as one or two give a good return the wheels can keep turning. Otherwise why would anyone bother making art-house or niche films that will never become blockbusters? I'm curious, does it make a big difference to producers if a movie gets critical acclaim but still posts a loss? Or would it be preferable to have made a film that got universally panned but made a small profit?
  7. Exactly. 14.4 Ah would last you a very long time, enough for dozens and dozens of mags. Those belts use lead acid cells and weigh around 5kg (11 lbs), which would get you fit but might not be necessary. You don't really need more than what you can shoot in a day. The belt can be recharged overnight. An 8.6 Ah belt weighs 3.6kg (8 lbs) and will give you 7 hours of run time (nearly 40 mags worth), which would usually be more than enough. Depends what your schedule is of course. Also if you're running accessories like a split or mini-monitor out of the camera you'll draw more current and reduce the run time, in which case a higher capacity might be handy. Just something to think about. Gotta look after your knees! B)
  8. Hi Robin, just thought you should know, the Switar (and any other lens marked RX) is designed to compensate for the optical aberrations introduced by the prism, but not the light loss. The iris markings relate to the lens alone. You should calculate your exposure the same for every lens.
  9. There's no such thing as a service free camera, particularly when they are high-precision mechanical ones. Have you ever heard of a service free car or a service free aeroplane? Both Arri and Moviecam movements don't require constant oiling like some Panavision ones, perhaps that's what you've heard called service free. But they still need periodic maintenance by highly trained technicians, especially if they are being worked a lot, or used in harsh environments where sand, dust or salt can contaminate them. That's one of the reasons why generally only rental houses with their own service departments have owned these sorts of cameras. To answer your questions, the Moviecam would be less reliable than the Arri, simply because no camera is as reliable as an Arri. B) Also sound cameras are inherently more complicated and require more tuning because they have the added criteria of needing to be quiet. But if something needs fixing on either one, it won't be cheap. Easy to operate? Sure, on both you just press the run button! Maybe read the manual first though. In some ways it's like you're asking: I want to go for a drive. Which car should I buy, a Formula One or a Rally car? Why don't you rent one that's appropriate for your project and give it a test drive?
  10. Because it's directly in front of the lens, those kinds of faders have very blurred edges, but they would still create a diminishing circle. The darkening would appear to come in from the sides because it's a rectangular frame and the circle is so diffused. The more a lens is stopped down, and closer the focus setting, the more the circular edge would be defined. I have a version for a 50's 8mm camera that is larger and fits in a matte box. It can sit a little further away from the front of the lens and is quite effective if the lens is stopped down a bit.
  11. 12V or 13.2V should be fine. The upper limit is 18V, so even a fully charged 14.4V battery would probably be OK, but given the age of the camera, it's maybe best to avoid pushing it. With film the camera should draw about 1.2 amps, so a relatively small battery capacity of 1.8 Amp-hours (Ah) will give you about 1.5 hours of normal run-time, enough for eight 400' mags. The original on-board batteries were only 1.2 Ah, these days I recell film school batteries with 1.8 Ah cells. You can make your own choice depending on cost, weight and run-time. If you want more run time you either need more batteries or higher capacity cells. Cheapest option for you is probably off the shelf 12V power packs which you can carry in a back-pack. You just need a power supply cable with a female 4 pin XLR plug at the end. The 4 pin XLR power socket at the back of the camera is wired pin 1: neg, pin 4: +12V. There may be an on-board battery adapter fitted to the XLR socket, it's easily removed by undoing the locking screw.
  12. The trick with setting back focus on a zoom is to start at the long end, and get the focus sharp. Then zoom to the wide end and adjust back-focus (or in your case the camera flange depth) until it's sharp. Then go back to the long end and fine tune the focus. Depending on how much the flange depth was changed, it may only need a tiny readjustment of the lens focusing barrel. Then go back to the wide end and fine tune the camera flange depth if necessary. The zoom should now hold focus through the zoom range. Do the adjustment with the lens at T2.9 focused at 6 or 8 feet, double check it at infinity.
  13. Not just the destruction of cinema. Personally I think Rupert Murdoch has done more to generally degrade humanity than almost anyone in history. Much more subtle than the usual suspects, but just as effective. I just hope he and his empire are exposed and overthrown as quickly as possible, for all our sakes. And if you think I'm being extreme, look into it.
  14. Hi George, I agree with Jean-Louis - every base I've seen is attached by the 2 screws mentioned and easily removed. Never seen one like that though. The provision for fitting rails suggests it's a late after-market version. The quality would suggest it was made by professionals - maybe Panavision? It looks like the whole kit was refurbished at some time, the serial number is probably on the front beneath the new paint.
  15. It was all downhill after Tom Baker anyway, the yanks couldn't possibly degrade the franchise further. Maybe a Doctor with an American accent might even be fun. We had to endure Mad Max getting a dubbed twang back in the 80's.. it's only fair you get your turn.
  16. Hi Marty, Not sure if this addresses you're interest in exotic systems, but you sparked a response in me nonetheless. I'm only a recent convert to small formats and their history. Professionally I service 35mm and 16mm cameras and lenses but in the last couple of years I've been collecting, servicing and filming with old Standard 8 cameras. I love their build quality and design variety, and I find that the small format accentuates the beautiful qualities of film - I'm constantly amazed by how a tiny rectangle of processed reversal can be projected 6 feet wide and still look so good. I think there's a wealth of cultural history contained in the home movies of past generations. I recently bought a Bolex D8L Standard 8 camera from an old couple who insisted I also take the boxes of films and sound tape that the owner, 10 years deceased, had left in their care. I've been going through them slowly, and amidst the family outings and neighbour's new baby there are some wonderful records of my city of Melbourne in the 60's and some beautifully idiosynchratic stop motion "fillers" designed (I imagine) to keep the audience from getting bored. Unfortunately I don't have the equipment to play the magnetic tape sound recordings that accompanied the visuals. There was a Bolex Synchroniser amidst the stuff the old couple gave me, but I haven't worked out what sound system or projector might utilise it. But it strikes me how much time and effort went into some of these home movies. Titles, fade-ins, double exposures, stop-motion - all done in-camera.
  17. Exactly. If you need synch sound go with the Moviecam Compact. It's a reliable, versatile, relatively modern studio camera. Arri were so impressed with the design they bought the company and based the Arricam on it. The 35-3 is a MOS camera from the 80's, precursor to the 435. Very steady, great for high speed, but loud as a lawnmower. Two very different beasts.
  18. I imagine Psycho must have caused the audiences of the time to emit copious squeals of terror, likewise some other early horrors that even now have their unnerving moments, like Nosferatu, Freaks or Les Diaboliques. It would also be interesting to have been at the first screening of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, which so revolted audiences that it destroyed his career.
  19. As well as the corner fall-off, flares and zoom tracking that David mentioned, any pin cushioning or barrel distortion will also be more pronounced on one side if the lens is off-centre, as will any lens deficiency that gets worse towards the edges such as chromatic or spherical aberration (typically exhibited when a lens is wide open). Many older lenses only just cover the Super 35 frame, so if they are not centred they may actually vignette on one side. Using a ground glass that does not match the lens port position simply means your frames lines will be off. The bridge plate needs to be recentred because the rails support accessories such as matte boxes and lens supports that need to be centred to the lens.
  20. Yes, film can be expensive and low quality transfers can look pretty bad. I also agree that practicing on digital cameras can be a much cheaper way of learning the basics. But I would argue that the native quality of film in terms of colour space, latitude and movement capture still surpasses all but the highest quality digital cameras, and if you have an artistic sensibility that appreciates random brush strokes above ordered pixels, film grain will always be more beautiful. There's also the discipline that 'precious' film engenders, the process (which any artist knows is half the art) and the simple joy of using a precision, mechanical device that purrs in your hands - all of which should not be underestimated, however much the dull voices of mass consumer bean counting modernity might protest. But yes, it's a road less travelled these days.
  21. Hi Wouter, Other people have given you good advice about film stocks, processing and such, I thought I might tell you a bit more about the camera itself. The K100 was the last high quality cine camera Kodak manufactured, in a royal lineage that stretches back to the very first 16mm camera ever made, the Cine-Kodak (model A) from 1923. The K100 came out in 1956, by which time sound on film was available, utilising the space where the second row of perforations used to be, so all K100s will have single perf sprocket rollers and be able to use either single or double perf film. It takes 100 ft rolls of 16mm film, on daylight spools. The spools are designed so you can load the camera in low light without fogging the film, but if you can get hold of some old or exposed film it's good to practice loading the camera so you are familiar with how it threads. The viewfinder looks through the smaller viewing lenses on the turret (which rotate into position as you rotate the taking lens in front of the film), so it's not reflex. This means that the viewfinder will show you the the field of view, but not whether it's in focus. So you need to measure or estimate the distance to your subject and set the lens focus scale correspondingly. It's more critical at closer distances and wider apertures. It's worth checking that the viewing lens matches the taking lens, sometimes they can get swapped around! You also need to set the lens aperture by using a light meter, or if you don't have a meter you can use a digital still camera set to the same ASA or ISO as your film stock. The shutter speed is roughly twice a fraction of the frame rate, so if you're shooting at 24 fps calculate for 1/50 sec, at 16 fps it's 1/35 sec and so on. The spring motor runs for a long time, longer than most other wind-up cameras including Bolexes, but it's still worth remembering to give it a wind before each take. Nothing worse than the spring running out in the middle of a perfect moment. It takes a little more preparation than you may be used to using more modern cameras, but the results will be worth it. It's a really nice camera, I hope you have fun using it.
  22. Hi Rob, weren't you looking for this a year ago? Any Arri branch should definitely sell it (I got some last year through Arri Sydney), though you'll never need the 100g minimum size tin - 1 or 2g should do you. I would recommend asking the closest Arri service department, or any nearby rental house that still deals in film cameras, for a small amount. It's the same grease used in many older Arriflex movements (Isoflex LDS 18/05). They would also most probably have the Chronosynth 1/8 oil as well. I could sell you some but I'm sure you can get it from somewhere closer than the antipodes. B)
  23. At a guess I'd say the film wasn't flat in the gate - it's noticeably softer on one side. Which could be the cartridge, or something in the gate.
  24. Given it has a constant exposure speed of 1/100 sec I imagine it uses the same spring shutter as in their other cameras, and the crank simply advances the film, cocks the shutter and releases with each turn. If that's the case the frame rate would be limited by the fact that it's hard to wind faster than 5 turns/sec, coupled with the resistive friction of the mechanism. No doubt someone will try to attach a drill to the thing and end up with bits of plastic and shredded film everywhere. :P It's a bit like a return to the very beginnings of amateur cine cameras - the Debrie Sept from the early 20's was a hand-cranked 35mm stills camera that took 15 feet of film and could shoot short movies. Only better built of course. It also had provision for a light bulb to be fitted in order to project the footage, which could be an option for the next Kino-Lomo model.. For anyone interested in a real hand-crankable 35mm cine camera that's affordable, these turn up on ebay every now and then for a few hundred bucks or so, take 80 feet and use interchangeable Zeiss lenses: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Zeiss-Ikon-Ica-Kinamo-N25-Movie-Camera-1920s-Carl-Zeiss-lens-/250917321315?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6bd67a63#ht_500wt_1118 Just make sure it comes with the loadable internal magazine. The lenses are 90 years old, but I guarantee they're better than a Holga lens! And with an occasional service (quite simple to do), the camera should easily last for another century. I just used mine, got it up to about 30 fps, and it worked beautifully.
  25. Probably because they made pretty fast lenses in long focal lengths, and savvy ebay sellers realise there's a whole swag of digital shooters out there just begging to get fleeced while looking for an ultra shallow depth of field vintage lens edge in order to stand out. :) I've been hunting around for old D and C mount lenses to test out and I noticed the prices on 1930s era Dr Rudolph Meyer Kino-Plasmats were just astronomical - one nitwit in Hong Kong is asking $13,000 for one! Check it out: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Dr-Rudolph-Hugo-Meyer-Kino-Plasmat-1-3-8-inch-f-1-5-35mm-f1-5-modified-Leica-M-/280700919441?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item415b141e91#ht_9350wt_870 They pop up regularly so I don't think they're that rare, but they were quite a sensation back in the day because an aperture of f1.5 was unheard of. So when an old cameraman I know dug one out of his basement for me (in quite good condition) I was curious to throw it up on projection. Needless to say, it looked a bit like a 60s lens with less contrast and more abberations. Fun to play around with maybe, but certainly not worth hundreds, let alone thousands. I'm not saying vintage lenses can't produce beautiful images, but the idea that ancient optics might have some secret recipe that will unleash masterpieces and so be worth paying a fortune for is a fallacy. The whole point of using older glass should be that it's affordable!
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