Gregg MacPherson
-
Posts
2,602 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by Gregg MacPherson
-
Which 35mm film camera is suitable for my needs? (new to this)
Gregg MacPherson replied to Ethan Bowes's topic in 35mm
Ethan, Are you still reading this? I don't think you need a 35mm camera right now. But I think you have got that already. I don't think you need a quiet 16mm camera either. If you are genuinely interested in a transcendent sensibility as illustrated by Tarkovsky. If you have never shot a foot of film in your life and have very little money then.......Focus on these things. - Idea, the escence of it. - What is there, really, that can possibly express that idea? When the forms, imaginations come, document this with notes, sketches, anything. - Composition and light. I would still say, borrow a bolex etc, allow yourself 100' of film and go shoot very short snippets of idea with your actor friends in costume, in character, in the environments or sets that you have in mind. Get a work print from that and project it. See if someone at Cinevic has a picsync or flatbed and try cutting elements of that together. -
Will, Thanks for that tip. I wrote that original post a while ago. Shortly after I talked to a tech in Australia who serviced lots of Aaton so I got some ideas about that, but the guy who services both Aaton and ACL wasn't there so I missed the chance to get a good comparison. Heikki, Sometimes ACLs were given winter lubricants. I've had this done once years ago. In Finland the cameras may be permaently lubricated that way?. Your ACL also. When using my winter lubed ACL in Antarctica it could still easily get too cold. I put the whole camera under my coat most of the time and the batteries were permanently under my coat. All fine if one is stumbling around in the snow on your own on a relaxed schedule. I'm thinking an electrically heated barney might work, assuming one had someone to carry the battery packs for that. Cheers, Gregg.
-
The last time that you or your co-workers bought really cheap film stock from Thailand, who or from what company were you buying it from?
-
Who are you buying this cheap stock from in Thailand?
-
When the film runs out there may be nothing to keep tension on the roll so some loosness on the outer roll is maybe normal? Just gently tighten it and get the paper band on, get in the can. Always unload in the lowest light you can, find some shade, make some shade.
-
Are you using 100' loads in the normal CP 400' mags? If you loaded in the bag as if they were cores you wouldn't loose anything to the light, and your minimum for threading up with the CP mag will be a lot less than 6'.
-
Never used a K3 but if the take up roll is a little loose on the outer part of the wind just very gently pull it tight then get the paper band on the roll and you are fairly safe. If you have to send off a really loose wind mark that for the lab. If the winds are really loose for all your take up rolls you need to fix the camera take up I guess. The cinching problem may be sensitive to the type of stock. I never once had a problem but these were not modern film stocks.
-
Anthony, See if you (the PA) can borrorw and take advice on minimum survival gear and safety from the locals. Especially good are those white rubber "bunny boots". Jackets even circa the Korean war are ok, and they need thermal underwear and warm mittens. Balaclava, most of the time rolled into a hat. If you are near a heated house/hut/vehicle then people can unthaw.
-
Heikki, That's an interesting read. Having learnt to fully dissassemble and lube some 400' mags recently I came to the conclusion that my previous service technician was only incrementally servicing my camera. There are bearing surfaces that need to be lubricated each time, and others that almost never need to be done. Nothing wrong with that, if there is continuity, the same guy looking at the camera each time and he has a plan. You do know that there are PL mounts for ACL? The Les Bosher one is very well designed and made. So any old well maintained ACL can take good lenses. Should produce pictures indistinguishable from the A camera. Cheers, Gregg. PS, can you tell us a bit mor about freshly lubed ACLs having trouble in the cold?
-
Where can one find information about that?
-
I shot some footage around MacMurdo, Antarctica in the early and late summer temperatures, often colder than -20C. First with a stock Beaulieu R16 then with a winter lubed Eclair ACL. The ACL had a kind of winter jacket barney. Working on my own I would just have the camera next to my body under my jacket most of the time if it was cold. I remember running for a heated hut a coulple of times to thaw my fingers and put the camera in the heating duct. The result of all the temperature changing was that one of the mirrors in the viewfinder dropped off. The same day I got a call from a film crew at Scott Base who just had exactly the same thing happen to their CP camera, wanting to borrow a camera. So I had a perfect excuse to not help these unlikeable folk from the other tribe over the hill. Then I epoxied my mirror back in place. Sentimental ancdotes aside I had these thoughts on Anthony's problem. If you were working with a team and shooting with a 100' load Bolex maybe you can keep the camera warm under your jacket. Maybe make a winter coat barney for the camera. If you you have a lot to do maybe you need 2 cameras, one warming up while the other is in use. If you are working near a heated house/hut/vehicle then things will go easier. Did someone suggest a heated (electric) barney yet. That could be one way to solve the problem, but you probably don't have time to make and test one. Edit: spelling
-
There's not enough information so only generic responses are possible. It's as though you're asking the cinematographers to invent their own idea or narrative. The film maker, whoever has primary authership of the idea needs to develop that enough that there is a clear sense of the form, the feeling. If there is a problem with the development of idea and form one can ask about that. If there is a problem with how to achieve a form, a look or a feeling one can ask about that.
-
what Film stock do I choose?
Gregg MacPherson replied to Vivek N N Rao's topic in Camera Assistant / DIT & Gear
I don't know if you are using series nine or 72mm rounds. Years ago I used Hoya 72mm rounds a lot on an old 12-120 zoom and jamed them into a 3x3 matte box in front of schneider primes. But even one 72mm filter can vignette on the 12-120. It's quite restrictictive if you want to explore filters more. . Grads, polarizer, ...so on. If you are patient you will find cheap, good, glass 4x4s. Some rental companies or pro's may ditch their 4x4s cheap. Instinct tells me that tungsten stock is the way unless you are shooting mostly exteriors. You could as an exercise take an example interior and light it for T2-T2.8 at ASA64 (250 less 2 stops). And you may need more light than that. A lot easier at ASA 200 (200T). If you are chasing sharp fast lenses. I was watching Zeiss distagons for a while. Sometimes the MKIs go really cheap. -
what Film stock do I choose?
Gregg MacPherson replied to Vivek N N Rao's topic in Camera Assistant / DIT & Gear
Maybe the Hoya filters are less dense. Can you check or compare with your spot meter? You have to go with what they actually are, or maybe relabel them if the blue density is off compared to a Tiffen or Schneider. Whatever people are commonly using is a defacto standard. Edit: spelling -
I thought you had already figuired out that both these cams take B wind film.
-
Like I said before, A wind at the top pic, B wind at the bottom pic. Was the seal on the first one perfect? Are you sure it hadn't been opened? Maybe it was exposed or used for a scratch test and not marked.
-
On the left is raw camera stock (EI). On the right is processed camera stock (EO). Both are head first. If you mentally rewind the processed film onto another core and then back again so that it's emulsion in (EI) then it will be the same as the raw camera stock exactly. I think your magazines take up EO. I don't know whether you need to nowdays, but I always used to mark the exposed can with EI or EO for the lab.
-
That's the black antihalation layer I'm seeing on the end you're holding? Then no it's a B wind. If you flipped the roll over it would probably match the drawing that someone posted before. Mark Dunn gave a good description on another post. "...This applies to emulsion-in. (just about everything, in other words). Hold the roll with the leader facing you, hanging down. B-wind (for camera film) has the perfs on the right. A-wind (usually print film IIRC) has the perfs on the left...."
-
Sorry to quote the photograph yet again, but it's a way to be precise. The feed roll here is B wind, just with the emulsion out. You can use regular B wind (emulsion in) stock in this camera. Or am I missing something. Is the magazine feed spindle only happy turning in one direction? Coming back to your very first picture. The roll in the extreme close up picture is A wind. If the packet was fresh it probably says that somewhere, otherwise it's been rewound. Someone posted a drawing of raw stock A wind vs B wind with emulsion in (EI). With the emulsion out (EO) the A wind vs B wind look like this. http://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/glossary/b-wind Get some double perf for your mag testing and practice loading if you can, then you don't have to rewind all the time.
-
Yes, where is Chris Miller when I really need him. I think there sometimes is a useful value in just calling it as you see it even if one crosses the line into vulgarity. But sticking to factual points, trying to herd you back to what has actually been said: I gave some directions to old tripods that were in Vadim's price range. It took me a few seconds to find the old Millers that had sold cheap late in 2012. Could he find something similar in London. My guess, yes. Without breaking his budget an O'Connor 50 might also be an option. Yes I suggested he might spend a little more and an old Vinten might be found in the UK. Absolutely nothing like "elitism" at work here. Quite the opposite actually, just tying to suggest cheap old gear that could be usefull. I don't think that Velbon is realistic, nor is suggesting it "keeping it real". Quite the opposite. And defending this bizzare excursion with the Velbon is just completely puzzling. I think others have learned to ignore this kind of thing, or just flipped the switch in their personal settings to render it invisible I wrote this before you edited your last post, but I think it's still relevant.
-
I may well be in error on the load rating of that Velbon. I checked the specs at B&H. Maybe they are wrong, or it's a different model. The gist of what I am saying doesn't change. The only reason I spoke up on this thread was because you were misdirecting someone else towards a really poor choice of tripod. To be honest, I simply can't reconcile your choice of tripod with the films you sound interested in making. It is a miss-step. It's not nescessary to see or handle the tripod to know this. Have a talk about with someone knowledgeble that you trust. Either experience, good listening or just plain common sense should lead you to an affordable solution far superior to the Velbon. Again, I don't think these opinions would come up if you were not misdirecting someone toward an inadequate solution. So I would say you are the source of difficulty here, and that this kind of thing is perhaps routine for you. You should only offer what you genuinely know or strongly believe in. I don't really feel either of those two things in evidence here.
-
Problems, difficulties and non useful things are always possible. But the suggested tripods are particular. I think quite a few people have used O'Connor 50Ds for 16mm cameras. I don't know what the minimum weight and camera centre of gravity (CG) height is. Find out. The answer may be useful to you. If your camera build is at 7.7kg already then I think you are heavy enough. Some of the 50Ds that are being sold will be useable as is. Others may have a small leak and still be useable as is. Yes, one should avoid buying a head that needs an moverhaul, but isn't this just beyond obvious. I think your friend Adriene has used 50D and could clue you up on them. The older Millers with wooden legs are a good cheap option. Price-wise, both these and the O'Connor 50s are useful to Vadim (or you) now. The Velbon 638 has a load rating of 8.82lb (4kg). At 7.7kg with the CP camera you are almost at twice the load rating. I don't know what safety factors the engineers employ for the design of these tripods but you are well outside safe normal usage. You may have nothing in reserve for inadvertent dynamic loads. A small accident by the grip that would normally not matter could produce these loads. I don't know if there really is a rule of thumb for the optimal or maximum useful weight rating of tripods/heads. If there was it would something like less than half the specified maximum load.. Rather than quibble about what you can or can't achieve with the Velbon, just try operating with something bigger and better. A lot of the resulting stability comes from the mechanical stiffness of the overal geometry, and bigger normally neans stiffer.
-
Actually I'm trying to inject some realism. I'm directing him to something like an old Miller, maybe with wooden legs. In the States these have been selling cheap recently. Check the sold listings for Miller. Saw about 3 units on that page in his price range (from late last year). I had an old Miller for years, never needed work, never leaked and the legs give a very stiff stable platform. http://www.ebay.com/csc/Tripods-Supports-/30090/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=miller&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc I found it a bit harder to rummage around in the UK I don't think your choice of tripod is realistic at all. You may learn to use that as best you can but it will effectively limit the range and standard of what you can achieve. You are better off going too big than too small. O'Connor 50s are really cheap now.
-
Vadim, Don't make the mistake of going too small and light. A setup like Matthew describes will make it much harder to oprate well. Go bigger, heavier, stiffer (legs) with the best head you can afford. There are a few old tripods with 75mm bowls that come up for sale cheap that are still good, may not have tilt springs or the graded drag controlls of later models. Some of those are in your price range and I think they are the minimum you should start with. The Weifeng may be OK, there's probably someone importing those to London, so go try one out with your fully built camera. Better, some 100mm bowl tripods may also be in your price range if you are lucky or patient. Otherwise just spend a bit more. Go to eBay UK and in Cameras and Photography search Vinten or Miller.
-
Is this an Arri S or B mount?
Gregg MacPherson replied to Matthew W. Phillips's topic in Lenses & Lens Accessories
There are a few cheap lens mount adapters to fit Arri mount lenses that literally fasten the adapter to the side of the Arri mount with set screws. A better kind has the screws at an angle so they apply pressure to the B mount tabs. At least it's better at assuring the lens is seated on the flange. The adapter Matthew pointed to on eBay, an Arri B mount lens is twisted untill you have a friction lock with the tabs. If one was switching out primes all day on an indie shoot the mount would stay in the camera and the set screw lock would not be used. Obviously it's not as nice a design as the locking one at Whitehouse, but if its machined correctly for back focus and it's stainless then it could be usefull. It's a cheap price. The locking type may come up cheap on eBay if one is patient.