Gregg MacPherson

There may be some "rule(s) of thumb" to get by with. Meanwhile Kodak is a useful read. http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/tib/tib5202.shtml

Those few posts, with Tim's explanation, solve a problem that's been around for a while. Seems well worth it to me

I heard we have string stretched across the pacific with a tin can at either end to shift our data. Could be giving trouble.

I just had a look under My Settings and I don't have a Display Name option in that menue.

There are a lot of people who auction their camera on eBay starting at $1, no reserve, or some low value with a one week window. So the price gets set by the number of buyers who notice it in that week. This may not be a good idea when the number of buyers is small. There are also some issues that should affect price but may not be. Buyer needs the service history and needs a good idea of when the camera will next need a CLA. Buyers should be aggressively asking on those issues. Also, not all S16 conversions are including the same things. For example, a lot of cheaper conversions don't have a proper S16 ground glass. For Shurco to grind of the old markings and etch S16 markings is $300-400 once your tech gives them the GG.

Hey Steven, You will need to remove the Arri S adapter. Have you fitted and removed these adapters before? The stainless steel ring at the rear is threaded onto the edge of the camera's TS flange, which has the c mount. You should be able to apply quite a lot of torque with your fingers without damaging anything, anticlockwise to undo. If you can't do it, do you have a camera technician you can see?

I have trouble with that. There isn't much time allowed. I normally write in Notepad then paste it in the reply box. When I do edit I sometimes find the full editor option easier. Another problem I have is that the curser seems to want to keep me in the quotation area.

Sorry I forgot to add the price for the Tiffen 4x5.65 85ND set. $400.

Tiffen 85ND set 4x5.65, used, good condition, can't see any defects. The pouches are maybe a non standard size, measuring 165mmx135mm inside (85, 85N.3, 85N.6, 85N.9) Also have some spare filters that are well used, cheap but still usefull. Can see these on eBay, link to my other listings from here. http://www.ebay.com/itm/151107387435?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_428wt_1177 4x4 Wratten 85ND set of four glass filters. $80 Construction is like Tiffen, but they have a thin metal edging. No pouches. Condition: 85......Good. 85N.3.....Some delamination at the edges. You can see the delamination when you hold the filter up to the light at an acute angle. Otherwise you can't see it. 85N.6....Has a crack right in the corner, not in the picture area. Has a tiny dark spot.. 85N.9....Some delamination in the corners outside the picture area. Frost set 4x4 Frost 0, 1, 2, set of 3 filters, plastic, resin. $25 Don't know what brand these are. I think they are what some call "white frost". European or American made.To style or enhance the mood. Gives a subtle flare around highlights and slightly reduces contrast. Not much effect on sharpness.Showing signs of use but still very useful.. The # 1 has a tiny scratch in the picture area and a couple of light scuffs that I don't think will show. No pouches. 4x4 Harrison & Harrison diffusion set of five: #1/2, 1, 1-1/2, 2, 2-1/2. $90 With box. Well used but still very useful. Condition: # 1/2....Has a light one inch scratch in the lower corner. This shouldn't show in the picture area. # 1 ......No visible flaws. # 1-1/2 ..Has a couple of tiny specs. Should not show in the picture. # 2 ...Has an inconsistent diffusion pattern. There is a noticably heavy area in the centre. Probably not usable for generic, naturalistic images. # 2-1/2 ...Has some very light, small scratches. Should not affect photography. Comes in the original wooden box. Series 9 Round Drop In Filter Set, 3 filters and filter holder. $30 Series 9 Round Drop In Filter Set. 3 filters All series 9, in good condition.. 85, 85N.3 Skylight 1A, (UV), Comes in a four place fold up pouch. Includes a series 9 filter drop in holder with a 72mm rear thread diameter to fit the Angenieux 12-120 and Angenieux15-150. There are round rubber sunshades that screw onto this filter holder (Think it's 86mm thread). Used but good condition. No defects. Cheers, Gregg

I have a lot of spare ACL parts that I am listing on eBay, or will soon list on eBay. Let me know if you want to buy direct from me, or ask any questions, either on the forum or my email is viz(at)xtra.co.nz Detailed technical questions may be interesting on the Eclair sub-forum. Just seach eBay for Eclair ACL under cameras and photo, then see my other listings. Item value, US$ Anatomical handgrip, standard, with connector and switch. $ 190 Anatomical handgrip, Looks like the normal one but mounts direct to the body without the electronic side module. $ 120 Rod base and rods Identical to Les B set, but no sticker. $ 165 Kinoptik VF, good working condition, clean image. $ 375 Angenieux fully orrientable viewfinder $ 330 Motor, heavy duty, multi speed MIMUL. Cood working condition, some chips off paint. $ 350 Color video assist (AZSpectrum with hirose power cable. $ 495 B&W video assist (AZSpectrum) , with hirose power cable, excellent, being serviced now by by AZSpec. $ 580 Top handle $ 60 PL adapter $ 230 Arri S adapter $ 145 A couple more items I haven't decided about yet. I may have a S16 ACL II camera body, with electronic base only, for sale. I have two spare bodies and need to sell one. One is by Arranda and one is by Visual Products. This would be much cheaper than having your own camera converted. Also I may have one or two S16 400' mags. Some filters I'm putting in a separate post to the cine marketplace Cheers, Gregg

I have a lot of spare ACL parts that I am listing on eBay, or will soon list on eBay. Let me know if you want to buy direct from me, or ask any questions, either on the forum or my email is viz(at)xtra.co.nz I will leave a detailed list in the Cine Marketplace forum.

David, What tripod head do you have there?

I bumped into The Bridge on the internet so have been following that. It has some interesting characters and better than normal confidence in being able to observe them. Favourite is the almost retired old cheif detective. Also have seen Low Winter Sun. Very cool looking and a great show for the actors but spoiled by the poor american accents by the UK born leads. In all though, TV feels a bit un-brainy and morbid. And now that Walt has clearly become a very bad and ruthless guy I don't enjoy Breaking Bad anymore. Also, if you've seen the last episode, the cinematography is breaking bad.

I don't really want to force a debate about it either. But these two things are not equivalent, or things which we could choose as alternatives based on such apparently objective criteria as cost, practicalitry or (less objectively) "aesthetics"....... I think it is of a similar order to the issue about replacement of food, or eventually our bodies, with new versions that are genetically engineered. As or when this happens it will be assumed as inevitable change, by some progress. With this one innocent word, (progress) we mask a genuinely ugly tendency as a simple, practical, inevitability. If we can't tell the difference between the value of an image on film vs an image on a digital sensor, does the cinema still have meaning? Have we just leaped forward to some new thing, where what was once the cinema, is now something else. And all is OK. Money is made. People are excited about the technological possibilities. The new becomes..... Then one day we are walking in a museum and we see a glass plate photograph. It will be like a kick in the guts. An instantaneous recognition of something, someone, another time and place. But given with such certainty. And we may wonder, why do the digital images in the new cinema lack this. Alternately, walking in the museum, noticing the glass plate photographs, one might feel some affinity with simulations one had recently seen. But there is a dull ache. The instantaneous recognition of the "real", the "fact" of the photograph, the moment of experience that almost occurred, but did not occur. Because or nervous system, our style of seeing was de-natured, conditioned to something else, something less. So what was once considered an indication of the real, something priceless, became as if something remembered from a dream, an abstract connection that one could not quite make. But this thing that one hungered for in the museum, was something we already owned. The idea that anyone or anything would take it away or obscure it is obscene. But this obscene trend is an historic inevitability. We are loosing our natural ability to make direct connection with the universe around us, and the ability to better understand it in the abstract through photography - film in the cinema.

Carl, Lots of interesting things. I started writing a respons to your previous post and was called away. Now speed reading this above. Perhaps I can write something in my sleep. I had one thought.... The impression that the photons make upon the emulsion in the camera is not an encodement. It is a literal impression. I call it factual, trying ti give a sense of its' realness. It is palpable evidence, resulting from direct connection with the thing being photographed. This literal impression is factual as soon as the frame is exposed. All that chemical processing does is render it visible again to the eye.

Is this a joke? We are led to imagine a very long ribbon of acetate with an emulsion of silver bromide stuck to the front of the cellulose acetate (with sprocket holes). I think the idea of pixels with randomized size and position, or "pixels" that can somehow manifest structure of that sort, different for each frame......is actually quite a reasonable and obvious aspiration. But modern sensors are headed towards just smaller and smaller pixels. A very different direction. A sensor with randomized pixels that vibrated (the whole sensor) like the Aaton might be an achievable approximation with current technology. Photons, more densely laden with information than one can imagine, drape themselves onto a unit of silver compound. The image is attempting to make a direct impact upon the emulsion. At least at that point we have what seems to me an astonishing photographic "fact". Compared to that, a sensor has each pixel averaging a photon count. The photons, given the information they must convey from the subject, seem enormously sophisticated, but are reduced to a trickle of zeros and ones. Then that information requires effectively a simulation to make it approximate to the look of film emulsion. Photography, with a film emulsion, seems an enormously sophisticated thing. The digital sensor in comparison seems quite brutal and crude, and this fact won't change with more pixels. If you could (and maybe it already happens) from the sensor output, simulate an image that one could not distinguish from film, why would you do it? Because it's new and exciting, because history demands it, because this is now normal. I think cinema contains two things that are oddly opposite to each other but which somehow synergize very well. On one hand there is what I called the photographic fact. Images of the physical world impacted upon a medium in literal fashion. On the other hand, everything including the technological means of realization can be a fiction, smoke and mirrors to create an experience. Digital images have no problem enabling the second part, but they aren't capable of the first part. They are not even attempting to do it. Historically, we are discarding the real for a simulation. It really sux. Oh well, just venting or riffing I guess.

The debate about rules for cinematography just came up on the BMCuser forum. It began with someone complaining about an overwhelming tendency for people to want to break or ignore rules, or to be ignorant of them. A highlight for me was the offering by Mr Tuning Fork (as I named him), post #43 http://www.bmcuser.com/showthread.php?4987-Why-do-so-many-filmmakers-advocate-breaking-the-rules-of-filmmaking/page5V For those too busy, or who normally have others do their reading for them, this taster....... Mr Tuning Fork (static) "...Noone should be able to tell anyone else that the dreams they have whilst sleeping are somehow less potent or worthy because a particular view, image or narrative broke any particular "rule". ..... We would do well to remember that film has evolved as a technological solution for bringing our dreams and ideas into the open...." Gregg MacPherson (me) "....It may seem that rules are broken, but it may just be evidence that someone is in play (playfully exploring) functional principals within more expanded boundaries. ..." I think Mr Tuning Fork would enjoy Nicholas' style vs story topic. I must remember to invite him.

Maybe it doesn't have a mark. I don't know NPR. ACLs don't. The common symbol for the focal plane that may be marked on a camera for the focus puller is a circle with a vertical line through it. But if the camera doesn't have one, just set up your own. It's only for very short distances (macro) that the small error you may make setting up your reference mark will be significant.

Hey Giray, Is that just for measuring focus distance? The gate is the focal plane, and for your tape measure just find or make a place on the camera body, top handle, wherever you can that is in plane with the gate. Hook your tape onto that. Don't know NPR but all cameras are the same in this respect, aren't they? Or was this about something else. Cheers, Gregg.

Hey David, Is it just cost that has you looking at C mount primes? Like I think others are saying, the Switars can actually be quite sharp. But the barrel is really small if you need to pull focus and C mount is no good if you are swapping out lenses quickly or checking the gate a lot. Cooke Kinetals (Tyler Hobson) may be a way. Very sharp but less contrasty than Zeiss super speeds. Designed for standard 16, but I think only the 9mm vignetts, the 12.5mm may cover, maybe Dom could confilm or qualify that. Problem with these is that the lens mount itself rotates in the camera port, you have a light smear of vaseline etc in the port. The lens mounts are normally Arri S and there are quite a few that sell on eBay, unfortunately the sets are normally broken up to sell. I think maybe the prices are rising a bit. We may hear some complaints on the forums about how to get vaseline off one's BMPC sensor (smiling). MK I Zeiss super speeds are the next option up. Always seem to be Arri B mount, sometimes sold with focus gears that have been added. I have seen these sell for around the USD500 mark, but normally people set higher prices on eBay and wait. They do often sell as sets. Bargains are always possible. Park Rd Post here in NZ, still with a lot of the old National Film Unit gear, are selling off a lot of old stuff right now. They had, maybe still have, a lot of old lenses they were selling. The start bids are low. Selling on eBay and Trademe (NZ). Maybe one can bid from outside NZ. Park Rd Post on eBay. For example this sweet Cannon zoom, which I think will cover S16 from 8mm, sold for $406. You can use this to link to other gear they sell. http://www.ebay.com/itm/171080007605?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_248wt_1207 Park Rd Post on Trademe. For example this Cooke Kinetal prime sold for NZ$160, about USD128 http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=618775707 I think I just emailed you testerday that I have another (cheaper) TS/PL adapter I am selling ($230). I also have a TS/Arri S adapter for sale ($150) If one relaxed the sharpness requirement a little, then the old Scneiders are actually quite beautiful (I thought). And maybe one could use standard 16. A nice chance to go fully film through post. Cheers, Gregg.

I had a near new 9mm T1.7 Kinoptik a while back. I couldn't verify that it had any siblings for sale anywhere to build a prime set, even after ringing the manufacturer, I sold it for enough to buy two Zeiss SS lenses. For some reason even old Kinoptik primes cost a lot.

Hey David, I have another PL adapter that is going on eBay, for about $200. It is an aluminum body (black anodized), stainless and brass for the part connecting to the camera like all the others. Cheers, Gregg.

."...anyone have any methods/ideas on how to get rid of, fill in, or smooth out larger gouges or dents in the anodized coating? ..." If you have dents or scratches that need to be filled, an issue to be cautious with is the bond to the aluminium. It oxidises so quick.. You can scratch it with fine sandpaper or scotchbrite to get a key and clean it with solvent then apply the filler (glue mix) quickly. Sometimes to get a bond to aluminum I have abraded the surface wet, with epoxy as the wet medium. No oxide is possible. A bit neanderthal, but it works. Once a suitably hard and tough filler has been added to a low spot or gouge (epoxy resin with glue filler?), the problem then is how to dress that back to shape without adding a large area of scratches with the sand paper around the actual repair. Familiarity and skill can make that easy. Otherwise, there are some tricks. For straight surfaces, developed surfaces, as in any surface that you can create or simmulate with a curved piece of cardboard. Sanding blocks with the paper stuck to the block. Double sided tapes on aluminium box section is good. Wood blocks are ok, I suppose (nah). If you are not familiar or are out of practice, wrap some masking tape around the ends of the block, and you will then only be abrading the high spot. Use glued sanding blocks to shape stuff in a controlled way, then softer blocks with some cushioning with finer paper to smooth and blend stuff. A marine laminating epoxy like West with some glue filler might be ok. Sorry George, bondo is crap for this sort of thing, unless one is unfamiliar with the sand papering, in which case the softness (relative to the aluminum) will help keep one out of trouble.

I did have a Beaulieu R16 once, without the zoom, and I did find it hard to properly clean and inspect the gate. The gate didn't open enough to see easily and clean easily. Sometimes I would see an emulsion build up and wonder how long it had been there. maybe I missed it before. I wonder if there us a possibility of some inertial contribution to your problem from the zoom, with a basically unbalanced camera on the tripod. The whoile thing is front heavy. Normally people ballance a camera on the support, and make sure the configuration has enough stiffness. Sorry if you have sorted this possibiulity already. If not, you could just put a small C mount lens on, and the inertial contribution, if there is one, will be gone. Not that this affects the existence of other factors. And if there is more than one contributing factor things can get confusing I guess.

What sort of frame rates are required? If you are looking for low frame rates with beautiful smeared images could you just glue a crank to the inching knob of an arri 2 and try it? I had, still have, a Cinefelx 35, an American, almost copy of an Arri II from WWII when copright was not an issue. The side mount for the motor allows a crank possibility. My pet bucket list project involves dragging this camera on weells, like a Buzzy Bee toy, with the wheels driving the camera movement