Nathan Milford

Yeah, by default they ship from the factory in 4-perf unless you order a 3-perf model. They even made a 2-perf movement for it, in house... I doubt it is for sale unless you can sweet talk it out of Jean-Pierre.

Yes you can have a 4-perf 35-III converted to a 3-perf 35-III. The movement needs to be switched out at the factory. So it could be a few weeks and I think it is somewhere between 10-15 grand.. but I'm not at my work computer so I can't give a real quote. We just had a client (and lurker on this forum) purchase one of our rental bodies and have it converted. You might want to talk to someone here at Abel and seee if they could work a similar deal. - nathan

Yes.

I don't think it would be too difficult to design and implement a more orientable viewfinder extension for the A-Minima. The viewfinder housing attaches with four 1.5mm screws to the chassis. The assembly houses a prism and two optics. I'd design it if I had the time, but there are only 300 or so A-Minimas out there so if it were made... it'd cost a lot. Fro the LTR, it's really the screen. The intermediary prisms and elements don;t add or remove much in the way or brightness. You're talking about a 30 year difference in fiberscreen advances and performance and manufacturing between it and the A-Minima. You could buy a new screen (that would be the universal screen for the XTRplus) and it'd be as bright and clear as day. But it's an expensive part. - nathan

Yeah. It's about as loud as a Moviecam (28db). No where near as nice as the SR or XTR (20db or less). I wish it had a better viewing system and mechanical footage coutners on the magazines... I imagine those things were omitted from the design to keep the camera affordable. It's good for what it was made for though.

While it's not my favorite camera, I believe that is a misconception. Personally, I have a love\hate relationship with them because I repair them and they aren't particularly friendly for the technician, but the delicacy and reliability rumors are usually a result of the hurt egos of AC's who don't learn the camera (which is very different in MANY regards from an SR or XTR) and commit numerous user errors on set where they don't have time to really learn the camera and have lots of eyes on them. Especially when standard productions use it in a standard a-camera role. The camera is VERY easy to load, if you're experienced with it. It's a conceptual leap from Arri or Panny mags. It is incredibly feature packed. Intervalometer, incident light meter, TC sync, timecode generator (built in origin c+)... especially for it's price point. More onboard features than the Xtera or 416.. at a fraction of the price. The camera has a pretty simple mechanism. Very few parts are actually breakable if the camera is handled properly. It was built for extreme circumstances and for a specialized purpose. I wouldn't use it for an a-camera but I do enjoy shooting with it. I've stolen quite a few shots on the subway with it. I've seen them rigged in impossible places... places an SR or XTR wouldn't handle. I'd rather be shooting on a XTRprod... but the A-Minima is by no means delicate nor is it unreliable. I can't say the same about many DP's and AC's though. >8)

I'm quite sure there is a market for a good set of S35mm primes. They might even do well to make a few wider S16 ones for the 2K windowing mode... With systems like the Movietube and Pro35 out there Superspeeds and even Zeiss standards are difficult to find and S4s, Ultra and Masterprimes are way, way out of the budget of many of the people purchasing or renting such systems. Also the SI camera with it's optional PL-mount will add to the market, on top of Redone owners. Yeah... I'd say there is quite a market for them assuming they're as good optically as a set of Illuminas and of a better build quality. T1.9 isn't fantastic, unless they perform fantastically at T1.9. Zeiss Standards (which can be had for reaonable rate) open up to T2.1... Most people crave the Speed's T1.3 (who shoots at 1.3 anyways? nutjobs!). - nathan

It's not a matter of polishing. Typically it's a coating. The coating probably scratched off. Last I checked, this guy, would resurface mirrors. Otherwise, you may have to look for another shutter.

LTR and XTR mags can ABSOLUTLY take 100' daylight loads. The core retainer on the feed side comes off to handle this. You still takeup to a core though and will need to unload in a bag.

Howdy, I just saw the church I'm getting married in last weekend and I'm working out how I'm going to film my wedding. I'll have one XTRprod with 800' mags (22 minutes) shooting either 500T 7218 or 7229 and an S8 camera shooting '18 with the odd DXV for backup. Then I'll grade everything to B&W, maybe leave some of the S8 in color.. we'll see. I walked into the room and was underwhelmed... just a big off-white room with some windows and pews... So I did what I always do when underwhelmed, I turned off the overheads (might dim them low to create some highlights, but still leave the room dark) and saw what I ad to work with. I'll leave the alter overheads on and there are two small 100w lights modeling the undersides of the inside arches in the alter. I'll put some small lights in the two areas left and right of the cental alter and bring thier exposure up to create some symmetry and probably put something small behind the flags to warm up the wall behind them and sillhouette them. It'll be Jan. 7th at around 2.. so the light should just skid right through the windows on the left side of the frame and wrap around a few people and fall off by the center aisle. At 500 ASA I get a 2.8/4 in the alter, the windows will blow out with a bit of detail. I might throw something in behind one of the collums to give my future wife and I a bit of an edge... Should be fun.

We have both in our rental department. They are. And the weight differential between it and an S8 camera and the shoulder mounting make for steadier hand-held. Lighter, isn't always better... in a lot of cases even the A-Minima is too light...

The client went on to shoot something else... But on a personal note, I was actually just about to give you guys a call. I'm going to roll some S8 during my wedding in a few months and intercut it with some S16 and HDCAM. My Fiancee is bemused. I'm more concerned with how the wedding is lit than with who sits where and what they're fed... C'est la vie.

There is no set F/stop to T/stop differential. There is no set compensation. To recap: An f-stop is mathematical (focal length \ iris diameter, i.e. 50mm lens with a 25mm iris is F/2.0) and a T/stop is an actual measurement of the light transmission of the lens. Different lenses have different designs using a different amount of elements, air-to-glass surfaces, differnet coatings etc... Thier efficiencies differ. The T/stop takes in to account, were there no elements to disrupt light transmission (read: pinhole), what the proper amount of light an F-number should allow. When your light meter say's F/4.0, set the lens to T/4.0. It means the same thing for all intents in purposes. By using the T/stop ring on the lens you're choosing to let the actual amount of light through that should be transmitted by a mathmatical F/stop in a perfect lens. You're compensating for the lens design, just a smidge, and that all there is to it.

Your Angx. 12/120 is measured in both, unless you have some odd one-off version. The white numbers are callibrated for F/stops (F/2.2 wide open) the red numbers are calibrated for T/stops (T/2.5 wide open). Generally only ancient cine lenses come with only F/stop markings. Also, I believe Mark wasn't trivializing the needs and practices of stills shooters. What he was trying to illustrate is that, in still photography, you have a lot more room for error as you can fix much more in processing and printing among other niceties. Matching is matching, and for stills it can take hours in the dark room and is in many cases more tedious than with cinematography because you have more options in tweaking developer times or even developers, enlarger lenses, etc... In traditional cinematography the labs are strictly controled to give consistant results and printing is a bit more tiresome to get precisely what you want. Photochemically speaking, matching a tenth of a stop exposure differential is a lot easier for a still being printed to paper then for a 10 second motion picture shot being printed to print stock. That's not to say with DI's you don't have a ginormus new set of possibilities and options (like for still photographers with Photoshop), but again... I'm just talking photochemically.

That is definetly an Arriflex 16SB-GS model I described above. That is the pilotone module.

Sounds like an 16SB-GS. The lights are part of the start mark, or bloop system. If the system is working (i.e. the bulbs aren't blown out) it will expose (or bloop) the first five frames or so with a light so it's easy to see, when editing and actual work print, shot by shot. Sometimes it's hard to see where some shots end and some begin if the shot is very static. You probably also have a pilotone module on the side... You yeally don't need it and you can remove that with four screws and cover up the hole left over. It removes a whole batch of gears from the camera that draw currrent, thus making the camera a bit more power efficient. Also the hole left bu the module is perfect for mounting an XLR4 power connector. I did the same on my ARRI S before I sold it. Just machined a little housing for the XLR4 then wired it up. - nathan

Call the number in my signature and ask for Girvan. He should be able to help you out.

I'm waiting for our Optimo 24-290 to come back from rental... I want to mount the SI Mini on the lens (note, not the other way around!)... It's one sweet unit!

So is everyone else. With the proliferation of 35mm adaptors for video, SuperSpeeds are virtually impossible to find. And if you do find then, expect to pay a bit more as it is a seller's market. Many people have had to settle on the Zeiss Standards (T/2.1) as thier only other options are the 35mm Optars or spending the money for the Ultraprimes (we just sold a Movietube and a set of UltraPrimes to a client). Good luck soldier.

You can generally get them from the lab.

Just to give perspective. A new Aaton 35-III (body only) lists at $103,570. A used body might be $70,000 or so. A new S16 Xtera (body only) lists at $52,300. Nobody pays list.. but you get the point. Penelope will live somewhere between those prices. So, were I to speculate in the range between $100K and $50K and get it wrong... my employer would think me daft. C'es la vie.

The lenses can't be put into PL mount. to many limiting factors from the construction. Breathing isn't an issue on the one's that I have here. We have a 65, 85 and 135 or something like that. - nathan

I'm not going to hazard a guess, I don't want to quote to high and discourage people and quote to low and anger our sales team. The camera is probably a year away from being a product. Materials, parts and feautres are not finalized.

We have a set in rental and I believe Mitch Gross owns a set. They're perfectly fine for use with S16. Optically they're swell. The only drawback, with the one's I've had experiences with, is that they're it's difficult to set backfocus on them as there is no easy way to properly shim the mount. If the lenses are focusing way plus (infront of the focal plane) generally you have the polish the mount as there are no shims to remove. If you end up polishing too far, it takes a bit of work to shim them back up. In then end it doesn't make too much of a difference as they're typically longer focal lengths where the depth of focus is so much that you can get away with being a dozen microns off or so. Long story short, have them collimated and don't be surprised if they need an hour or two of labor to get the mounts in spec.

From Aaton's website, here The photo in your link will probably change based on the changes Aaton made to the Xtera's PBY. There will be a backlit LCD on the side, the batteries will tiedown and won't need that frame to hold them in place among other things.