Dom Jaeger

I recall very much enjoying the interviews from Mark Lewis's 1988 cult classic "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History". Not in terms of the lighting, but the individual settings (often exteriors), which beautifully complimented each subject's quirky uniqueness. I'd also second Errol Morris. His interviews are just about always visually interesting, but for a documentary that revolves around a single interview, I found "Fog of War" riveting.

Hi Matthias, what effect are you hoping to achieve? Have you thought about how to translate those sorts of still images into moving pictures? As Martin said, exposing cine film as it is being transported just results in smears of light. Even if you masked the gate down to a slit, you would just get very fast exposures of the same slitted field of view smeared across the frame. People have experimented with setting the shutter slightly out of synch, which results in a viewable image with the highlights streaking vertically. What might be interesting, and closer to the effect of the photos you referred to, is to use a camera with a variable shutter, set to a very narrow angle, and film at a slow frame rate. The narrow shutter angle would work like a slit passing across the film, and at slow filming speeds any subject motion would cause deformations. Played back at normal speed, of course, everything would be sped up, and very jerky, and the individual frame deformations would probably all blur together into an unwatchable mess.. but hey this is art right? B)

Meopta were a Czech company, one of the East Block's main photographics manufacturers, especially for enlargers and medium format cameras. In the movie world they mostly made projectors and 8mm cameras, but also the odd 16mm camera model. As someone else here posted, they were kind of an East Block version of the American camera maker Keystone, with products aimed firmly at the amateur market. The company still exists, but now focuses on where the real money is: military optics. I've only had a chance to assess their 8mm lenses - they're actually surprisingly good. Not up to Kern or Taylor Hobson quality, but certainly not rubbish. The cameras are pretty average, though. The 16A might be fun to play around with, but it's certainly no good for any serious project. Being electric, you'll get longer takes than a wind-up, but you're still limited to 100 foot spools, and the mechanically governed speed won't be reliable. Old electric motors (especially in amateur cameras) are also more prone to failure than mechanical spring motors. And the viewfinder is shocking. It ran off (I believe) 6V rechargeable batteries in the handle - I'm not sure what replacements will fit. Some manuals (in Czech) are available here: http://www.meoptahistory.com/download/Admira-16-A1-Electric---CZ-pdf-3922.pdf http://www.meoptahistory.com/download/Admira-16-A-Electric---CZ-pdf-2370.pdf One of them has depth of field tables for the Openar 20mm. For anyone interested, Meopta made the coolest range of 8mm movie cameras ever, the Adastra series, but they only reached prototype stage. Quite odd, as all their other designs were boring and boxy. http://www.meoptahistory.com/?id=313

If the thieves were clueless, here's hoping they don't log on to Cinematography.com for some advice.. No offence Tom, but I don't think that post was helpful.

No, you'll be cropping the frame height to get 16x9 anyway. As long as the width is the same, a slight difference in the original frame height is irrelevant.

Aside from ebay or cine equipment dealers like Visual Products, you could try established rental houses. Many of them are probably interested in selling off old 16mm accessories. You could also call up local film schools and see where they source film equipment parts and service, if they still use film cameras. (I work for a rental house that services most of Australia's film school cine gear.) Arri themselves still sell some SR parts and accessories, but they're far from cheap.. :blink:

Fair enough David, I certainly won't question your experiental observations. As I said, the comment came from a lens manufacturer, so I gave it some weight. But I have no idea what tests they did to arrive at that figure, or the circumstances involved (stock, printing, projection etc). Perhaps it is a theoretical upper limit that gives them a standard to work above, but in the real world it never comes close to being reached.

You might be thinking of the D-20, which was a kind of prototype. For some reason the D-21 was taken up much more enthusiastically in Europe than the States. With the unprecedented demand for Alexas, Arri has now turned all it's focus on to that camera. An optical V/F Alexa model is still on the cards, I believe.

That's still pretty debatable. Speaking with a senior exec from Angenieux recently, he mentioned that their film lenses are designed to surpass the equivalent of 10 to 12K resolution, their estimate of the upper limits of 35mm cine film. Their digital lenses, by contrast, are designed to only resolve about half that. That's partly why they are cheaper. An exact figure for film is difficult to determine - the random grain structure means that when successive frames are superimposed, the perceived resolution is far greater than that of a single frame. But I do agree, there will come a time (probably not far off) when the qualitative differences are negligible, and the choice will simply be a subjective preference. At that point unfortunately I don't think film manufacture will last much longer. What really needs to be addressed in the next few years is the issue of archiving.

We shot some comparison tests with the Alexa and the D-21. Outside of available light scenarios the D-21 came closest to matching a filmic look. The Alexa is certainly more sensitive and has a slightly wider latitude, but it was never designed as a feature film camera. It isn't so much a "successor" as a camera aimed at a different market. The D-21 is a heavy, studio camera with an optical viewfinder and a mechanical shutter that needs to be treated like a slow film stock (well, 200 ISO). Properly lit, it has better colour rendition, higher resolution and more cinematic motion capture. And the 4x3 sensor is better suited for anamorphic lenses. That said, Alexa is amazingly good for much less outlay, a perfect fit for TV work.

Let's see.. burning ants together with a magnifying glass, getting squished in a punk mosh pit, eating kebabs at the end of Ramadan, finding treasure while sifting through a rubbish tip, or from my own history (they say you should write what you know) driving through a lightning storm in the middle of the Simpson desert. All romantic possibilities. :rolleyes: Of course cliches can work too, but it takes a sure hand to lift them out of mundanity. The opening 4 minute love story from Pixar's "Up" is probably the best example of that I can think of at the moment:

Welcome to the world of camera modification! :D Take it apart again and put it back together carefully - chances are you clamped something or something's not fitting properly. If that doesn't work, take it to a technician. Your video is next to useless.

They stopped making 16mm magazine cartridges years ago, but some companies reload new stock into old magazines: http://www.alangordon.com/s_filmcam16_mags.html or re-sellers (sometimes at discount rates): http://www.javaphoto.com/filmpage.html You're a bit limited in stock choice because the magazines require double perforated film. They're also only 50 feet capacity, which even stretched out by filming at 16 frames per second will only give you 2 minutes. I don't know for sure, but it's a good bet the camera takes standard C-mount lenses - they screw in with a 1 inch diameter thread. Plenty on ebay, though they're often wildly overpriced. It's often far cheaper to buy an old camera with a lens attached. Keystone mostly made fairly low quality cameras, aimed at the cheap end of the amateur market. It's likely your camera's spring motor will slow down as it runs down, among other possible issues. (Though it might also run perfectly - I'm constantly amazed by how well some of these old spring-driven machines still work..) But considering the cost of film, processing and transfer (several times what your camera cost just for 50 feet), it might be wiser to spend a little more on a much better quality camera, like a Bolex H16, Bell & Howell Filmo 70 or Cine-Kodak K-100. Or even a Krasnogorsk K3. Still pretty cheap 16mm wind-ups and very retro-cool B) but using 100 ft spools and much more likely to give a good result.

Hi Gregg, the counterbalance mechanism has two pairs of springs, arranged either side of the tilt axis. Play in the system will usually cause a free spot as you go through the level position, as compression moves from one set of springs to the other. So if you're getting a lag at different tilt positions it's unlikely to be the counterbalance, as you intuited. Sometimes it can be something as simple as play in the pan handle, or a loose rosette. Or the whole head is rocking at the pan bearing (which you said yours was doing). But if you think it's something more, my suspicion would still be the tilt drag system. Without spending a bit of time examining it (probably more than a case of beer will buy B) ), detecting where the play is could be tricky. Your cheapest option is probably to get Gary to do a proper service, or just live with it.

James, the footage counter is on the back of the mag - there are actually 2 counters, one telling you how much film is left, the other telling you how much has been exposed. It works due to the spring-loaded wire levers inside the mag cavities that rest against the film. The Pro is unusual in that it has one for the feed side and also one for the take-up. When loading and unloading you just push them to the edge and they lock behind a stud. Perhaps when you loaded they were already secured at the edge, and you didn't notice them. They need to be unlatched once the film is loaded. (There's also a footage counter on the top of the camera, but that works off the camera movement.) To remove the mag you turn the ring above the mag port til it locks in position. Hold the mag while you do this or it'll fall off. The film needs to have been run all the way through the camera into the take-up cavity of the mag. Then yes, turn the little star lock to undo the mag door. The take-up side lock has felt on it to identify it in the change bag. The film core should just lift off the spindle, though there is some friction keeping it in place. Did you fit a core to the take-up spindle before loading and threading, or was one already fitted? Unless you have money to burn it's generally a very good idea to practice with a dummy roll of old film before shooting with fresh stock. You can also keep all the doors open and see exactly what the camera's doing (or possibly not doing). Good luck!

It's pretty straight forward, much like unloading any co-axial mag (without a collapsible core): open the take-up door, secure the footage counter lever out of the way and lift the film on its core out of the mag (in a change bag or dark room obviously). If you managed to figure out how to load, thread and shoot with the thing, unloading it should be a cinch! Is there a particular aspect you're unsure of?

Did you try flipping the lever at top left to "motor" and seeing if it runs?

Kinda sums up the whole digital camera dilemma really.. Some of the terms mentioned refer to concepts that will remain viable, but right now it seems that until there is a stable, future-proof and reliable system in place (like film is/was) virtually everyone trying to work professionally with this stuff is required to learn a new menu/recording medium/workflow/postpath every few months. I guess revolutions are inherently messy, but I'm looking forward to the time when a marginal improvement doesn't require a complete overhaul. You should write that book anyway Phil - get it out quick and I'm sure people will be willing to buy the revised edition 6 months later. B)

Looking at your photos again, one reason it may not be running is that the spring motor has been disengaged. You need to flip the lever on the top left of the control side to 'motor'.

That's a very early model Bolex, probably late 30's, as it doesn't have a frame counter. It might well be an H8 (for double 8 film) - easiest way to check is the lens mounts will be D mount (5/8" diameter) not C mount (1"). Or unscrew and remove the pressure plate and see if the gate aperture is only half the width of the gate.

Depends how much goo got carried through the gate.. how dirty were the gate rails after filming? Anything get caught in the gate aperture? Any emulsion dust as a result of scratching? Chances are your footage is fine. It's just something to be aware of - air the mag before use, take care loading, check the gate regularly, listen out for scraping sounds.

I'm not sure exactly how the Aaton version works, but both Arri and Bolex (for the Pro) have a mechanism where the eyecup requires pressure to open an aperture in the eyepiece. Once you remove your eye the aperture closes. Regular cleaning? :) I would hope that every professional film camera gate is "virtually scratch-free"!

I've found with some older SR mags that over time the rubberised paint on the platines (the inner surfaces) and the inside of the doors can become sticky. Humidity and bad storage conditions can make it worse. If the film is loosely wound and cones on the core or the guide roller is not in position the film can rub against these surfaces and pick up residue. That can then cause issues as the film passes through the gate. Make sure you clean the gate regularly, as that sticky stuff could build up in there. Maybe also clean the guide rollers. If you can have the feed and take-up tensions checked that would help. I haven't found a solution other than stripping and repainting them, which is more time than the mags are worth. It sometimes helps to leave the mag somewhere warm and dry with the doors open, and let it air.

Unless it's for a contact print a S16 ground glass with 1.33 markings is all you need, the framed area can be extracted in post. Most established rental houses would have such a ground glass, perhaps as a combo with 1.66 or 1.78. There are ways of marking an SR ground glass yourself using non-residue contact adhesive, but it's fiddly and may not be accurate. If a print is needed, the best option is to re-centre the mount to Standard and use a Standard 16 ground glass with 1.33 markings. Some early Super 16 SRs had fixed mounts, but most are dual - you simply remove the mount and turn it 180 degrees (and move the locating pin back to top right). It's a good idea to have the flange depth and flatness checked afterwards, though. If a print is needed, but converting the camera back to Standard is impractical, it is possible to keep the camera in Super but frame with a Standard 16 1.33 ground glass. The only issue is that the lenses will not be centred to the image area - wide angle distortions will be offset and zooms will track off to one side.

The SR pressure plate needs to float to allow it to mate exactly with the camera gate when a mag is attached, but the spring pressure behind the pressure plate is quite precisely set. The top of the plate should exert around 200 gram-force or 2 Newtons, the bottom half that (100 gram-force). Also important is the centre plate pressure (a separate spring), which should exert 10-15 gf. If these pressure values are off, the film may not be guided properly through the gate, causing possible steadiness issues, focus breathing or scratching. It sounds like the large spring that controls the entire pressure plate force (top and bottom values) might be slack. It's an easy adjustment for a tech with proper tools, but if your footage is coming out OK maybe not an urgent repair. If you have other mags, I'd use them for critical footage.