Dom Jaeger

I honestly don't know how you guys keep focus through a focus pull on these cameras with stills lenses, but if you do all I can say is ... respect.

I think companies like Arri, having made cameras for the motion picture industry since 1924, have a greater understanding of the need for predictability in their camera design than newer entrants like RED, who only sold their first cameras in 2007. I can order parts from Arri for a 30 year old film camera that will fit like a glove. That kind of attitude and support is reflected in their modern camera design. I should admit a partisan outlook though, since the rental house I work for supplies the D21 and Alexa but no REDs.

Within reason you're probably right. The camera designers would specify a particular oil to keep the bearings running wear-free for as long as possible, within a certain temperature range. The oil needed to be viscous enough to form a barrier between shaft and bushing and not leak out, but not so thick as to clog the mechanism. Different bearing tolerances and materials would require slightly different oils, but generally they were all variations on clock oil. Some old cameramen I've talked to say they used Singer Sewing Machine oil on their wind-ups for years without a problem. The article you linked to that mentions sperm whale oil is actually about a different camera, the much less refined Cine Kodak Eight. As previously pointed out, the article only states that the sperm oil was used in the sealed spring housing, not the exposed bearings. Sperm whale oil was a fantastic lubricant used for many years in precision mechanical devices, so I wouldn't rule it out though. It was widely used in car transmissions - apparently when they phased out its use in the 80's the transmission failure rate went through the roof until suitable synthetic replacements were found. The well known Nye oil used sperm whale oil, as did NASA for use in the sub-zero climate of space. There are internet rumours that the Hubble telescope still uses it, but I doubt that. Interestingly, Kodak, Fuji and Konica all hold current patents relating to image recording using whale oil. For most old wind-ups I'd probably say just use clock oil, or Bolex oil, but the Special was a different class of camera, aimed at professionals like doctors and engineers to use in their practice. It pioneered the interchangeable magazine idea later utilised by Arri with their SR cameras. It was heavy and solid enough to be used extensively during WWII, but much more refined than the Bell and Howells. Check out this promotional movie from 1933: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh8useNjroo The Special II refined the design even further. It's probably the most beautifully engineered wind-up camera ever made. But realistically, if you're going to the trouble of finding the proper oil, it would really need a complete overhaul, with new grease as well as oil. And finding out the original grease would be a whole new adventure!

Hi Rob, that looks like a nice job, well done. Do you know what tolerances the machine shop worked to? I'm guessing you don't have a depth gauge to check the FFD? It doesn't matter too much if it's a little out when you're using primes and focusing by eye (just throws the focus scale out and the lens may not reach infinity), but the mount flatness from edge to edge with respect to the gate is fairly critical, ideally within one or two hundredths of a mm. And of course the ground glass depth needs to be spot on. But if a test film shows an even and sharp focus you're OK. Are you planning on having the new front anodised? If you haven't already done so I would recommend painting the interior surface matte black to avoid any reflections. Regarding a IIC door, I believe the optics are a little better, but if fitted to a IIB it may cause a light leak. Where it mates with the turret block it is slightly larger (for this reason a IIB door won't fit on a IIC). You could probably fix that easily with some sort of felt seal though.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with a Bolex, so I'll start with the simplest explanation. The bottom lens port cover screws into the plate behind the turret, so if that cover is in place it will lock the turret. If you have removed that port cover, and released the pivoting lock that clamps onto the top right of the turret, it should be free to turn. If the S16 conversion locked the turret in place it was a very poor job and whoever did it should be banned from ever touching a camera again. You need to be able to swing the turret around to access and clean the prism.

Ah the Rolls Royce of 16mm wind-up cameras! By a strange coincidence I happen to have one of these exquisite creatures on my bench at the moment. A friend who is a retired cameraman brought his in to show me. It runs so quietly it could almost be a sound camera! The spring can transport about 40 ft on one wind, that's over a minute at 24 fps. And a little bell rings when the spring is about to stop. I have a copy of the repair manual that old timer cameras sells, but it is really only an exploded parts list with no service information at all. I also have a lovely spiral bound promotional booklet entitled "The Story of the World's Finest 16mm Movie Camera" that describes the original Special, but again there is no lubrication info. Unfortunately Kodak haven't really made quality movie cameras since the 60's, and the last Special II was manufactured in 1961, so I really doubt Kodak could help. I have emailed them out of curiosity but I'm not holding my breath. I'm interested because we also have a Special II in our museum that's in need of some love if I ever get the time. The Kodak service centre listed in the manual was the Apparatus Service Department, Rochester 4, New York. Perhaps Kodak's New York office has some of the old technical specs? Anyway, to attempt an answer, I haven't opened the camera but I would assume the bearings are steel in bronze sleevings, much like the Bolex. Bolex cameras use a light, white oil but I don't know the manufacturer. Any local Bolex techs would have some. Alternatively, contacting machine oil manufacturers with information about the bearing type, materials and application might yield some recommendations.

Yes the Sept would be smaller, but it only took 5m of film, enough for about 16 seconds at 16 fps. It was more like a stills camera with extra features (the DSLR of its day? :P ). Amazing little beastie though, with all those functions in one tiny package. I'd love to play with one. As to the music in Ivens' Regen, there were quite a few versions on youtube. I picked one that had a better quality image and I thought the music suited it, but I doubt it's the original soundtrack. I remember reading that the original complete version of the film (with music) was lost, but that someone had recut it with the same music.

We have a museum of old cine cameras in our foyer and while going through some of the exhibits that are in storage I came upon this little beauty... For some reason I hadn't noticed it before but it is a Zeiss Ikon Kinamo N25, one of the very first hand-held 35mm cine cameras, dating from 1926. It was designed by the brilliant Emanuel Goldberg and the first spring-driven model (under the Ica-Kinamo badge) was released in 1923, the same year Bell and Howell's 16mm Filmo hit the market. Their 35mm spring-driven camera, the Eyemo, was still two years away. Like the Filmo, the Kinamo was aimed at the amateur market, but it failed to achieve the same success. The interchangeable lens is a 40mm f2.7 Tessar by Carl Zeiss Jena. It has a focus lever with a marker that is visible in the large viewfinder (with a matching focus scale on the right side of the viewing window) to allow accurate in-shot focusing. I found reference to a 180mm telephoto that was also available, and there were probably others. The viewfinder window lens can be removed, presumably each lens had its own window. The camera cracks open down the middle to allow the small magazine to be exchanged. It accepts 75' of film (compared to 100' in the Eyemo) which would be enough for 75 seconds at the governed 16 fps speed. The Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens used this camera for many of his experimental short films from the 20's and 30's. I think this one in particular is really beautiful, and shows how a small handheld camera could liberate filmmakers of the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPD2C0K38jY Curiously, we inherited this camera from the son of another Dutch experimental filmmaker, J.C. Mol, who was also in Indonesia at the same time as Ivens. Mol may well have owned his own Kinamo, but the possibility that Ivens gave him one of his cameras, which eventually ended up in a Melbourne rental house museum, is quite intriguing.

Hi Christine, I'm not familiar with that particular camera, but generally with spring-driven cameras the single frame exposure time is not greatly changed by the speed settings, and remains close to the exposure of the slowest speed. In the space of a single frame the spring needs to overcome the mechanism's inertia, and the governor doesn't get a chance to really regulate the speed. So I'd guess your camera would have an exposure time of around 1/25 to 1/30 sec in single frame mode. But it can depend on the state of the camera's mechanism. You might want to do some testing to be safe. PS I love that it's your great grandfather's camera, that makes it a pretty special project. Good luck!

Hi David, That's really quite well done. I studied painting in my youth (and still like to paint) so I'm biased and can't help thinking that a knowledge of painting is indispensable to cinematographers. Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and many others have all influenced the greats. You must have spent some time honing your skills in colour mixing and tonal control to be able to create that work, not to mention wrestling with the challenge of composition. Could I ask you two questions? Do you have any painters that have influenced or inspired you in your cinematography? Given the subject of your painting, and remembering an older thread in which you admitted to being a fan of sci-fi, are you hankering to shoot a sci-fi film? (The Astronaut Farmer doesn't count, even if it had a rocket :P )

Yes, if you swap your first-born for the Arri unit by the time you need to replace it you'll have a whole brood of grandchildren to choose from.. Simply put, if you want professional results you need to use professional gear. The cheapest route is usually renting it from a rental house. You presumably won't be buying a set of Compact Primes, so rent the follow focus when you rent the lenses. You'll get to know what works for you and down the track, if you want to buy your own, you'll have a better grasp of what to invest in. Alternatively, if you just want something to use with stills lenses that aren't designed for cinematography, it probably doesn't matter which follow focus you use.

The flange focal depth or distance is measured from the camera mount/rear of the lens mount flange to the film plane.

You can also read the 435 Quick Guide at sites like: http://www.panavision.asia/uploads/PDFs/Manuals-Arri/435_Quick_Guide.pdf It might help to familiarise yourself with the loading and threading instructions and then get your hands on the real thing at the rental house.

I find it curious you should favour one but not the other, Frank. After all the whole sustainability movement is really just a larger attempt to get us all to "recycle our sets". Carbon footprints are simply one way of measuring our waste. At any rate, as Dominic Case tried to outline in the thread title, this isn't a question of whether you or I believe in global warming. Already there are very big budget films that have shown interest in mapping and offsetting their carbon footprints, and the trend is likely to continue. At the moment it's driven by investors or a high profile activist star, in the future it may well be governments. The question is whether digital capture technologies, at present gaining ascendency due mainly to cost savings, might lose that advantage if a true carbon price were assigned to them.

A quick google shows a number of productions that have attempted to map their carbon footprints. Recent big budget films such as Syriana and 2012 used outside consultants to measure the entire production's emissions and attempted to offset them using carbon credits, biofuels and recycling. The Matrix series managed to recycle 97.5% of their sets, re-using the materials to build housing for low income families in Mexico. Other productions that tracked their emissions include the Australian films My Year Without Sex and Love The Beast. As just one example, this company specialises in assisting film and television productions become carbon neutral: http://www.greenproductionguide.com/ Others are less specific, but have worked with film productions: http://www.beyondneutral.com/ Some of these consultants may have done studies comparing film to digital. From the articles I read, the assumption generally seems to be that digital technologies are cleaner, because they don't use film, chemicals and water to produce an image. It may be too complex to include the rate of equipment redundancy in the equation, as it is spread out over different manufacturers and products, and today's digital camera does not have a specific use-by-date. Another problem is that compared with the travel, food, set construction and lighting contributions of most large productions, the camera and recording medium is only a small portion of the total footprint. However if a truly accurate value could be assigned to the carbon cost of digital capture - cameras, HD monitors, hard drives and other recording devices, all with significantly shorter life spans than film cameras - the cost of offsetting those emissions might conceivably be more than the extra cost of using film. I vaguely recall a recent newspaper article that reported on the surprise findings of a study comparing the old paper-trail office with the modern computer-based variant. The modern office had a far larger carbon footprint, due to the constant power requirements and rapid turnover of computer hardware.

Basically you're being asked to make a silk purse for the clients from a sow's ear of a system. On a lighter note: Nice term. Makes me wonder though...are PL mounts Catholic? Nikon mounts Shinto? PV would have to be Amish... :D

I think calling film obsolete is premature, to say the least. Nothing is obsolete until there are no practical reasons to keep using it, and clearly there are still advantages to shooting film. My hope is that in the future film will remain a niche market for those wishing to capture images using the more direct method. Exposing film is a completely different process to digital acquisition and the effect just cannot be properly replicated digitally, no matter how clever the algorithms. Adding grain in post just ain't the same. B) Unfortunately we need the film stock manufacturers to agree, and continue supporting that niche. It seems madness to me to throw out a technology that has served exceedingly well for 100+ years at the urgings of bean counters and a money hungry PR machine when the technology has yet to be matched, and the replacement is years away from being a stable and future-proof standard. In 100 years no one will be digging up old Red drives and recovering lost masterworks. Hell they won't be doing it in 10 years. By all means use digital alternatives if it suits the budget or the look, but don't cry film is dead just because digital is cheaper. And I must say, relying on the wisdom of the 'market' after recent global financial events doesn't sound so great - by that reckoning the US car industry (among many others) is also obsolete. As an aside, I was wondering if anyone had done a study on the different carbon footprints of image capture technologies. While the hard-copy nature of film and all the associated processing chemicals would seem to favour digital, the increased power requirements and incredibly short-term redundancies in the digital world must surely tip the balance back to film. Might not seem an issue now, but if ever a true carbon price gets added to the film industry's tools... B)

Hi Isaac, given your recent postings, and even as a general rule, when you buy a 2nd hand camera (or lens) it's a good idea to get it checked by a technician. A quick evaluation shouldn't cost too much, will identify any issues and give you piece of mind when you use it. I don't know where you're located but sending your Bolex to someone like Jean-Louis Seguin in Montreal, who posts here regularly and really knows his stuff, would be a good investment. I'm not trying to drum up work for anyone, just offering advice I think most experienced film people would agree with. The side release mechanically displaces a stop to allow the spring drive to run, either continuously or for a single frame. It's possible the stop is deformed, or the I/T lever has been fiddled with and the stop mechanism is now not seated properly or the release itself is catching somehow. It's also possible the spring ran out mid turn and and the stop got caught. Given that it came good after you wound the spring the last scenario is likely, maybe combined with a deformed stop. Does it normally run well? Does the I/T lever work ok? Forcing something that's jammed is never a good idea. Disengaging the spring motor and manually turning the mechanism with a rewind lever/hand crank (with the release engaged) often frees up a jammed camera. If it happens regularly though definitely send it to a tech.

Hi Brian, judging from the beautiful little stop motion short you posted here recently I think you've got initiative and talent to spare. Keep working, keep dreaming and you'll continue to make beautiful things. Even if you never get to achieve all your lofty goals you won't be able to say you didn't try, and you'll have a back catalogue of great stuff to be proud of. Sorry if that sounds a little like a Hallmark card... :rolleyes:

Yeah great film, those chase scenes through the snow are incredible, as is the score. Nice work I thought from the female lead Ida Lupino too, at the time in transition from acting to directing, who actually took over directing briefly when Nick Ray fell ill, apparently. Ray seems to have had a fascination with out of control protagonists - a year or so earlier he directed 'In a Lonely Place', giving Bogart probably his greatest role (imho) as a writer doomed by his violent tendencies. Even darker than 'On Dangerous Ground', it's a truly brilliant film, highly recommended to anyone who has yet had the pleasure.

Perhaps RED stops are different to normal ones? :P At any rate isn't dynamic range somewhat subjective and dependent, like depth of field? I notice that the always sober people at Arri describe Alexa's DR as "well over 13 stops" rather than quoting an extreme figure that may be theoretically correct but in practice unusable. I agree. As interesting as it is to postulate on the possible technology used, making any kind of judgement at the moment is like trying to review a film after only having watched 5 seconds of the overblown trailer on youtube through your dial-up modem. And I've promised myself never to be unwittingly sucked into visiting reduser again. Reading that thread felt like stumbling into the compound of a cult, with Jannard as some sort of L. Ron Hubbard figure surrounded by kneeling acolytes all gushing and weeping... :blink: creepy indeed

If the scratch is just on the rear element housing it only needs a touch of matte black paint. I wouldn't use a sharpie as the ink actually has a purplish sheen to it, not so good for anti-reflection. The only other issue is if the rear housing looks to have been hit hard enough to have caused any distortion. Unless the damage is willful (I once had an assistant scratch a number into a mag door because he "couldn't find the camera tape") we usually wear the cost of minor cosmetic damage. Sometimes I need to spend time checking gear if it looks to have been hit hard, which we charge for. Some rental houses might be more precious with their gear, I don't know. High end cine lenses are precision instruments though, even if they're sturdily constructed. You haven't said how much the rental house is charging, it might not be much. They should be able to explain to you the work required.

Any creative endeavour requires practical processes, a painter uses brushstrokes, a musician strums an instrument, a chef stirs a pot etc. But behind each practical step is a decision, one choice among many options. What determines that choice is not merely how does 'a' get to 'b', but less tangible things like mood, nuance, rhythm and style. These things are not simply practical responses to a problem, they require what would generally be referred to as an artistic sensibility. They require using a part of the mind that is abstract and poetic. It's the difference between a house painter using finely honed skills to perfectly render a wall, and a portrait painter using equally honed skills but adding a depth of feeling to the work to elicit an emotional response, to communicate. One is an artisan, the other an artist. Within the sphere of filmmaking there are some films as bland as monotone walls and others that burn a hole in your soul. The attitude embodied in your quote would only ever produce the former. You seem to have a problem with the term "artist" as if it is an arrogance to claim such an aspiration. Perhaps you've watched too many pretentious art house films. Talentless people who try too hard to be deep or "arty" or intellectual can be bores, I agree, but it's nonetheless a valid pursuit. There's no arrogance in trying to be creative and thoughtful. Far better than a grey world of only "practical outcomes". I found this Kubrick quote which I think sums up his approach well: "A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." Now this is classic metaphorical thinking, about as far removed from the plodding practical realism of a "manufacturing industry" as you can get. Kubrick didn't start with this idea and then use a "practical hands on approach" to translate it into a film, the idea informs every decision made during the process of creation.

Hi Isaac, For future reference there is a forum specifically for Bolex on this site where posts like this belong. To answer your question: it's best to avoid anything metal scraping against the pressure plate surface. When you lift the right side pin and swing out the pressure plate it should swing out far enough to clear the gate rail. Check that nothing is jamming as you do this. There are two spacer screws connecting the pressure plate to the swing arm, a short one on the left and long one on the right, with a spring in between. It's unlikely, but check that the left side spacer screw has not come loose, allowing the pressure plate to extend further towards the gate. As far as wear goes, I wouldn't worry about it. Under normal conditions the pressure plate surface will last for years.

The RED shoot that Herzog is referring to was probably shot a few months before the film's premiere at Venice in Sep 2009 (imdb). But before any more RED owners feel the need to leap to its defence at the mere suggestion that it may not be the perfect vehicle for motion picture capture, perhaps they should read the article. Like many people of genius, Herzog is a particularly idiosyncratic director, with unorthodox approaches to filmmaking that nonetheless work for him. He never shoots coverage, never does reshoots, and despises the 'video village' (according to the article). He also never uses storyboards, and once had his entire cast hypnotised. Not liking RED is probably the least controversial statement he makes. I particularly like his reading list for aspiring filmmakers: " I recommend four books for people who want to learn filmmaking in a rogue way, with a different spirit: Virgil's Georgics, Icelandic poetry from the 12th century, Hemingway's The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, and The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who was a footman in the army of Cortés that conquered the Aztecs. He wrote an incredibly detailed account that is really storytelling at its best." Not too surprising really that he doesn't buy into a product with lots of hype but no history.