Steve Zimmerman

I don't appreciate the hyped headlines these articles have. There is zero reason film can't safely settle into a more niche product. Two new still films were released from Adox, There are new Agfa reversal films for amature film cameras. Polaroid film is back (Impossible Project)! Ecomomies will improve and there will probably still be a market for all of this for a very long time.

I was interested in purchasing an expensive piece of video production equipment from a seller on Kitmondo. Is this safe? Will Paypal protect me? I find zero reviews for this site, good or bad online... ANYWHERE?? :unsure: What do you guys think? Anybody have a personal experience? http://www.kitmondo.com/ Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. Thanks in advance, Steve Zimmerman Charleston SC

I messed around with a 2 perf Kinor camera for about a year. The problem with 2 perf isnt the format, it's the scanners! Like academy, 2 Perf does not use the soundtrack area. Since the scanner can't zoom to scan at the sensors full 2K width (which is Super 35 including the soundtrack), you end up with a less detailed scan than s16 film would have. 2 perf would look very cool if 4K scanning was cheaper (or they started making special 2perf heads for scanners). With a 2k scan you don't see the true film grain, you see video pixels. --At least far as I know... --Same thing with academy shot films, with a 4K scan, Taxi Driver on the new Blu ray looks terrific with smooth grain!

It would be much easier to just use an indoor/tungsten balanced film like 7213 200T or 7219 500T. The 80 filters take away 2-1/2 stops of light, and that would be a struggle to see through the viewfinder potentially. --Better to expose well for solid, not grainy blacks and make the colors pastel in some other way. The softer, low contrast look could be acheived with digital color correction in post, or with a low grade (1/4-2) low contrast or difussion filter. Technically this should be in the film stocks section down the list :-) Good Luck!

I'm no master AC, but I would assume that hyperfocal would be helpful for wider lenses on a film camera. The image is so small, it would be difficult to check for exact focus. If you had a car approaching in the distance and stopping at 10ft from the camera, start at hyperfocal, then as the car becomes close enough breach the boundries of hyperfocal depth of field, start turning the folow focus knob and follow precise marks, until your lens marks and the car stop at 10ft together. Is there maybe a better method without using a measuring laser?? Anyone? :unsure: Thanks! Steve

Thanks for posting the video! I was just looking for this sort of thing.

Thanks!! We bought this quick release on ebay: Quickset Hercules QR We will see if it works or not. It seems big enough... I don't know if it has any sort of safety catch to keep the release lever from opening. Maybe we can engineer something to work as one.

It's for a Moviecam film camera. Steve

Resurrecting an old thread... Does this business still exist? Phone number does not work. --Looking for a cheaper alternative to this kind of quick release. We have a terrific big fluid tripod head, but no quick release. What could we use for a 30lb camera without spending $400+?? Thanks, Steve Zimmerman

I found a local machinist to cut my Konvas anamorphic gate to Super 35 size. He did a perfect job, but he said he destroyed six diamond drill bits in the process, and would never do that again. Maybe a local machinist can help you. Good luck!

A recent discovery I made that makes my Konvas worth even more is After Effects' Warp Stabilizer (built into CS5.5 and CS6). Just select the effect and it automatically just works in minutes to steady gate jitter and weaving, increasing the apparent resolution. A great post production solution for any film cameras without registration pins. Check out the many example videos on youtube for it.

http://www.alangordon.com/sales/film-cameras/16mm/mags.php http://www.alangordon.com/sales/film-cameras/16mm/minicam.php I had a cheap, windup camera that took these mags, but gave up on it after film jammed, and I had no way to fix it and save the film stock. Seemed like too much trouble, and used by Bolex for tight angles. If they work ok, I can see these cameras being great for weird angles. I remembered my cam made slightly unsteady footage, but now with After Effects' Warp Stabilizer, any decent but jittery footage from film cameras without registration pins can be stunning. Works great with my 35mm Konvas footage.

To clarify: 1. Why does our TV monitor squish down the image when playing back when the timeline should only be outputting 1080p? 2. Using ProRes422, what is the best workflow to output to 16:9 Blu Ray with the software tools we have? --We also have Toast 11. Thanks, Steve

We are editing our film using full frame 2K file size (2048x1556) super 35mm film scans in Prores HQ. We are using a consumer 1080p HDTV for playback and broadcast monitoring. At present we're stuck with a BM Intensity Pro card that caps out at 1920x1080, so the image gets squished on playback. It seems we have to resize to 1920x1080 for viewing/editing. Is AE best for this? We'd like to have a 1920x1080 timeline setting to compose to, moving the extended headroom around for hiding mics and such. Since the end result will be a commercial bluray. What is the recommended workflow to maximize quality? Is it okay to first recompose/resize to 1080p in AE, and then back to FCP all the way through grading and then recompress again for the Bluray? The current tools are FCP7, CS4 (AE), and Color. Thanks for your help! Steve Zimmerman

Just be forewarned when buying Lomo lenses. No lens techs in the US will work on them! --And if they do work on them, they may literally hold on to them for SIX months, never touch them, and send them back. They consider them junk. They wear out quickly and there are no spare parts. This was the experience of myself and my partner. The look like they have a built in low contrast/diffusion filter, that's what I meant by hazy, that problem was mostly w/ the Spherical Lomos. Back light would really glow around the person when using the bare lens. Since you are in LA, Indi35 (http://indi35.com/) has the lenses for rent. Try that first before dipping into the Lomo lens money pit.

Hawk Lenses: http://www.vantagefilm.com/en/equipment/hawk_anamorphic.shtml http://www.vantagefilm.com You would need to find a place that rents them. I read the Hawk's don't make the cool lens flares of other anamorphic lenses. respond more later.

Also, read this FAQ for Anamorphic lenses: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=4690 At this point, I would say cropping S35 in post is cheaper and much easier. If you have the time and money for anamorphic, go for it! 2Perf 2.35 gives you much less quality, because when scanning 2k, you are getting a less than an HD scan. Why oh why isn't 4K scanning cheaper?? :-P Steve

Those are actually my clips. I gave up on my Lomo anamorphic lenses. Traded up to some nice new Zeiss CP primes. Just a word of warning before you jump into anamorphic. If not already perfectly setup, working with anamorphic lenses is a PAIN IN THE ASS. For the Lomo square fronts, you have to get the lens' mounts "clocking" corrected,(the squeeze lens elements have to be perfectly vertical) or else the image will be warped. Sure, all this stuff can be corrected, but all this can involve more time and money. Most lens techs do not even service Lomo lenses any more. The nine (3 Ana PL and 6 spherical Oct19) Lomo lenses I've used created rather soft, hazy images, even when perfectly setup and cleaned! This was just before the techs decided they weren't worth the effort. The Ana's were the better quality of the two. You're not going to get even remotely close to Panavision/Hawk anamorphic lens quality with them. --But if you like that look, go for it! I have a Konvas 1M w/ a PL mount, and I think it's great. It's very portable. The camera is a workhorse, the magazine is harder to load, but not too bad. I got it modified to S35. More time and money. Better to find a camera that's at least already upgraded to PL. With Oct18/19 mount you are stuck with Lomo lenses. If the camera is in great shape and basically ready to go, a lubrication and cleaning isn't too expensive. Hope this didn't come across too cynical, just trying to help others streamline their efforts. Get a quality camera with a useful PL mount. Most important even that the camera, get some high quality lenses to use with it. Make your movie. Good Luck :-).

Olex upgraded a 17EP motor for me a couple years ago, and it's been working great. Excellent work. Steve Zimmerman Charleston, SC USA

I'm guessing something like this: http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?productID=1092&Cat=3&Cat2=49#bigPic They probably used a ton of light on it to get the depth of field. Since there's no people involved, the heat would not be a problem.

I would love to see a 35mm negative HD transfer of this stock.

I would love to see some HD transfers of this stuff posted! :D Thank you, Steve

We returned the lens to RED and got a refund. Just looking at that cheap plastic tube coming out from the lens when zooming... :huh: We got a deal on some Zeiss Compact primes (Mk1), and guess what? They fit fine on my PL mt. Konvas, and they focus. Red is rather loose on their specs, I guess. PL mount should mean that they fit PL mount. They should start calling them "RED PL mt". RED Customer Support was also annoying. You have to nag them on the phone to get timely responses.

I had my Konvas 1M (upgraded to PL mt before I bought it) changed to Super 35. Since I could not find the S35 gate anywhere I found a local machinist to cut a Konvas Anamorphic gate wider. He said it destroyed 6 diamond drill bits and said he'd never do it again! I had Bernie at Super16inc recenter the PL mount, and he recentered the ground glass. He also added a wedge shaped piece of metal, covering the back side of the pulldown claw as a light baffle. I guess opening up the camera aperture lets light bounce off the pulldown claw. The light baffle causes slight squeak to the sound sometimes, but the camera was already really noisy. Still waiting for the first test film to return.

My greatest apologies for double posting, but I figure this is the better forum for this. I just got a new Red Pro Zoom PL mount 17-50mm shipped to me. The PL mount slides in all the way, the tabs touch the steel of the camera mount, but it cannot be locked on, the tabs seem slightly too thick. We measured and they are just slightly thicker than a PL lens we have that fits. The mirror clears the lens back just fine. More importantly-- the focus is WAY off. When zoomed in to 50mm, and I focus on a point 8 ft away, the witness marks show between 20 and 50 ft! Zoomed out it loses focus. Obviously the back focus is off. I heard these lenses were used on Arricams, and PL mount is PL mount, right? I am using a PL mount Konvas 1M. I have used Arri Super speed lenses on this just fine. The camera has been collimated very recently. I've seen videos of this lens on lots of different digital cameras all focusing well, so why would it focus badly on mine, if all PL specs are the same? The first version of this lens which became the Digioptical 18-50mm on BH Photo says it works with Digital or film cameras, one would think this one would as well. Do I need to modify the lens? Kubrick got that NASA lens to work right? I don't have that much money... Its sad a beautiful affordable lens does not work. I was guaranteed that RED would have this perfectly collimated when I asked before I bought it. We are poor filmmakers, I sold my old fuzzy lenses and pooled all our money into this one lens! We are very upset. :( If anyone has ideas how we can get this fixed, let us know. Thanks Steve