Carl Durrenberger

Howdy Cinematography.com folks. It's been awhile since I've posted in the forums here, but wanted to give everyone a heads up that I've got some gear for sale on eBay currently. If you are interested and have any questions, shoot me a private message please! As always, I take the sale of gear very seriously and stand by what I sell. I really hope to find a great new home for this equipment. Additionally, I have some other smaller items that are not listed (16mm lens mount adapters, a few older primes), so if anyone is interested in those, please feel free to reach out! ------------------------------------------------ Item 1: CP16/R Standard 16mm camera. 170-degree half-moon shutter. Completely rebuilt by Paul Hillman in 2003-04, also repainted at the time. Includes three (3) 400' magazines, two (2) battery packs, one battery charger, rotating viewfinder, pistol grip. Camera was used for one short, has been carefully stored since then, runs perfectly and very quietly. Batteries still hold a charge. Item 1 eBay auction link: Cinema Products CP16/R 16mm motion picture camera CP16 CP16R Item 2: Zeiss 10-100 T2 zoom lens for Standard 16mm. This is version 1 and includes the outboard zoom damping mechanism and an Arri rubber mattebox that takes 3x3 square filters. External barrel has some surface wear, but the glass is pristine. The lens was last collimated by Paul Hillman in 2003-04 and at that time checked out sharp as a tack. Since then, used for one short and various tests. This lens absolutely killed the Cooke 9-50 against which it was compared at the time, making sharp, contrasty images that just popped on the screen. The mattebox secures to the front of the lens without an adapter. The mattebox has a small tear in one corner that can be closed up while in use with gaffer or electrical tape. It contains two 3x3 filter drawers. Item 2 eBay auction link: Zeiss 10-100 T2 zoom 16mm motion picture lens Arri-B Bayo... Item 3: Sachtler 4+4 fluid head "Superhydro 35." This is a real beast of a fluid head (made out of solid metal!) that worked perfectly with the CP16/R, even when fully loaded with a follow-focus uni, mattebox, and long zoom lens. Has four levels of resistance for horizontal and vertical motion. The fluid head was completely rebuilt by Visual Products when purchased in 2003-04 and was only used for one short film. It operates perfectly smoothly with no burrs or skips in movement. Includes a set of Arri wood legs and a bogen tripod spreader that function great. This is a wonderful (and I would say superior) alternative to the O'Connor 50 fluid head. Item 3 eBay auction link: Sachtler 4+4 SuperHydro 35 Fluid Head with Wood Arri Legs

Yes, that is the very one.

Hi Marco, I actually am selling off two of my better 16mm zooms as of last night (on that famous auction site). Both are in Arri Bayonet mount, which can be adapted to PL with one of the several adapters available (Whitehouse AV sells one, and I believe there might be one mf'd. by Optex available as well at ZGC). The two lenses I have for sale are: Cooke 9-50 T2.5 - in perfect optical condition, Arri-B mount, with zoom and focus gears and a step-up ring (custom-made, anodized) that is set-screwed onto the front in order to adapt for use with the standard 105mm mattebox opening size. Lens was last colimated in 2003, when I had the mount converted from Aaton to Arri-B. Focuses down to 1.5 feet from the film plane, or just 6" or so from the front element, allowing for close-up photography with beautifully blurred backgrounds. Angeniuex 12-120 T2.1 HEC - in perfect optical condition, Arri-B mount. Lens colimated in 2003 when I had the mount converted from Aaton to Arri-B. Babied and used as Backup to the Cooke since then. This lens is the completely redesigned optical formula that was only for sale during the last couple years of the 12-120's availability from Angenieux. Plus, it has the high-efficiency-coatings (HEC) that Angenieux developed to reduce flare and increase contrast and color rendition. It is significantly better than the other HEC 16mm lenses that just merely added the HEC coating to the old optical formulae (such as the 10-150mm and the 9.5-57mm). Very sharp, contrasty, almost as good as the Cooke. And very fast at T2.1! Both are very good lenses, reaonsably fast, in outstanding shape, and are likely to have closing auction prices within your budget, possibly even within your initial budget. All you would have to do is find the adapter to allow you to go from the Arri-B lensmount to your camera's PL mount, which shouldn't be too hard. I apologize for posting this self-promoting plug for my two lenses here. As a contributing member of this forum and an independent filmmaker/cinematographer, I would like to see these lenses go to help out folks in the same way that the DP who sold these lenses did back in 2002. Good luck!

Just saw "Good Night and Good Luck" at my local San Diego Landmark cinema and was wondering if anyone knew how the B&W look was achieved: original B&W negative, desaturation during a DI, direct transfer to B&W print stock, or some combination thereof? The grain structure looks a bit mealy compared to my memory of the dirty, more crystaline granularity of Double-X and Plus-X, causing me to suspect that the film originated on color stock. I've Googled a bit and poked around on the ASC and IGC sites, but to no avail. Does anyone know for sure how Elswit pulled off the B&W look on this picture? Thanks!

The bowtie=smear thing is absolutely NOT urban legend. The smearing occurs in the upper right corner of the frame in highlight regions and can be very noticeable. I bought a CP16/R with the 156-degree bowtie shutter back in 2002 and it smeared really badly. Just ask the BBC. They returned a large order of CP16/R's to Cinema Products in the 80's because of the shutter smear problem. That prompted a redesign on the camera to the 170-degree "half-moon" shutter, which fixed the problem. According to Paul Hillman (genius dominus of the CP16 at Visual Products), each CP smears to varying degrees depending on the exact geometry of how the gate and the shutter interact (keep in mind that these were all made by hand, as nearly all motion picture cameras were/are). Some CP's smear greatly (as mine did) and others hardly ever. Paul has a test he has developed to assess the severity of a given camera's smear. It basically measures how completely the shutter blades cover the gate during each exposure event. Paul also has a fix for shutter smear. He glues on blade extenders to the bowtie to bring the shutter angle down to 144 or 135 degrees so that the shutter covers the gate completely, even if the gate is widened for super-16. I think he includes this prodedure as part of the Visual Products Super-16 conversion; if you have a regular 16 unit, he will charge a couple hundred dollars or so to fix your camera without converting it to super-16. Paul performed the shutter reduction on my CP16/R and it absolutely fixed the shutter smear problem under all shooting conditions. I highly recommend it. The only downside is that you lose a bit of expsosure with the 135-degree shutter angle and that movement tends to take on a slightly more staccato or strobey quality than with the 156-degree and 170-degree shutters. A worthwhile tradeoff, in my opinion.

The CP16/R has one main advantage over the /A model: in-camera reflex viewing. This makes reflex viewing a function of the camera on the /R, meaning that any lens can be used, provided the correct adapter can be found to mechanically couple the lens to the camera. On the /A camera, reflex viewing is achieved via a "dogleg" viewfinder side-mounted onto the lens itself. The biggest problem with this setup is that you are stuck using only lenses that have such dogleg viewfinders built into them (probably the Angenieux 12-120 that VP sells with the camera). You can't use a nikkor still prime, a nice Zeiss zoom, Cooke glass, etc. It can be rather limiting. If you look closely at the images on VP's website, you will see the difference between the camera-mounted viewfinder of the /R model versus the lens-mounted "dogleg" viewfinder of the /A model. The CP mags do not require a torque motor; the takeup reel is driven by a camera-powered belt. If you're going to compare cameras, the CP16/R is the more fair comparison to the Eclair NPR, being that the NPR is reflex. That's probably why VP has the prices of those two cameras matched. The CP16/R does have certain advantages over the Eclair: 1. Video tap capable - for 950 VP will install one. (only the /R has this) 2. Lightweight on-board batteries - means you don't have to lug around battery belts. 3. Integral crystal motor - means you don't have to deal with the quirks of outboard aftermarket motors. The Eclair has certain advantages over the CP16/R: 1. Coax mags - means that changing out mags is easier/faster than on CP16/R 2. Variable shutter - means that you can change shutter angle to achieve certain in-camera effects. 3. 2-lens turret - means that you can switch between 2 lenses quickly (or even between regular and super-16 if camera is converted). In the end, you have to judge yourself which camera "wins" against your criteria. I personally chose the CP16/R, but many folks love their NPR's, especially for more spontaneous documentary-like shooting where the quick-change mags and lens features are advantageous. The CP16/A, while attractively priced, locks you out of using most lenses (particularly the wonderful Zeiss and Cooke zooms). I wouldn't particularly recommend it, but if that's all your budget really allows, it will suffice as a useful learning tool. And its certainly better than a Scoopic or Bolex because you can at least do sync sound filmmaking with it and get the convenience of 400-foot magazines. At this stage in your career, I think super-16 might be disadvantageous, mainly because I think you'll learn more by projecting 16mm prints and critiquing them rather than just looking at telecined super-16mm footage and trying to imagine what a blowup would look like. Remember that super-16 is not a projection format...

Hi Marcel, The trailer looks excellent. I like how you manage to make "real" scenes visually interesting with naturalistic lighting that adds subtle contrast punch (edge and side-lighting or spotlighting) while never calling attention to itself. Really good work. Incidentally, I saw "Code 46" in Oxford last year and really loved what you and Alwin Kuchler did to effect the dingy, futuristic film-noir look. I especially remember the street scenes in the Asian district of the city quite fondly.

I personally chose the CP16/R over the Arri 16BL. Here are my reasons: 1) Lens availability and compatibility. The 16BL sequesters the lens in an unweildy blimp, of which only a few sizes were made back in the sixties for use with the standard 16mm zooms of the day (Angenieux 12-120, Zeiss 10-100T3, etc). If you try and fit a sharper, contrastier, more modern zoom into the blimp, it won't line up properly with the focus, iris, and zoom transmissions, basically putting you SOL if you wish to use a snappy Zeiss 10-100 T2, a Cooke 9-50, or one of the excellent Canon offerings. The CP16/R has no such limitations. The DP has ready access to the lens and its various zoom, focus, and iris control rings. And you can use any lens you can find in Arri Bayonet mount provided you get the appropriate adapter. 2) Crystal Synch. The CP16/R was designed essentially for cystal synch from the get-go and as such has a very good integrated motor drive and control system. On the 16BL, crystal synch was more of an aftermarket add-on that had varying degrees of success depending on the details of implementation. Driving a motor that was never meant to be crystal-synched with an outboard control box has its problems, notably in the realm of reliability, where the older motors can sometimes freeze up or flat-out die. 3) Noise. This is what my camera tech has to say about the 16BL: "I don't know how they could call that a sound camera." The 16BL is a hack workaround the extremely noisy Arri movement from the fifties in which the whole drive assembly of the 16S was essentially encased in a big, heavy blimp. But because the damn thing had to remain hand-holdable, Arri could never take it far enough to reach adequate sound attentuation (such as in the BNCR). The CP16/R motor drive assembly was designed from the beginning to be quiet enough for sound shooting, obviating the need for the 16BL's drastic and cumbersome blimp. And, at least in the examples I've seen, the CP16 is indeed quieter. 4) Super16 Upgradeability. The 16BL is almost virtually impossible to upgrade to super-16. The CP16/R is actually rather straight-forward to upgrade. 5) Ergonomics. CP16/R has a nice balance for shoulder-carrying. And because the compact battery slides right in to the onboard camera slot, there are no battery belts or satchels to tote around. One major complaint, however, is the difficulty in loading the camera. It is truly more involved than probably any other 16mm camera I've used. But it's not THAT hard. Shouldn't take more than a couple minutes if your DP knows what he's doing. 6) Registration. If a 16BL has had a recent tune-up, with its registration pin system timed perfectly in the rare and incredibly expensive Arri registration adjustment tool (I think there are fewer than 10 in the world), then YES, a 16BL will possibly deliver steadier images than your garden variety CP. But, chances are, even IF that were the case, you still wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the CP and the Arri by the time your footage was either printed or transferred to video. I'm an image-quality engineer by training and only an amateur filmmaker with two short films under his belt, but I've never had anyone mention registration as being an issue when I've screened my work (albiet to small audiences in San Diego). Don't be fooled by the theoretical superiority of the registration pin mechanism. In practice, it causes more problems than it solves. There is a good reason why nobody except Panavision is really using it these days. When they work, they work great. When they don't, it is a PITA to fix them. 7) Video Tap Facilities. The CP16/R can be easily outfitted with a video tap becuase it was designed with that in mind when Ed DiGiulio's merry pranksters engineered a video tap port into its top plate assembly. Just plug in the optical kit and throw any CCD camera of your choice on top and Voila -- you've got video. The best part is, your DP can still operate through the viewfinder, keeping an eye directly on the ground glass. The 16BL can be "hacked" -- again -- to accomodate a video tap, in which the eyepiece is basically jiggered with a CCD camera, thereby preventing your DP from looking directly through the ground glass. Not an ideal situation. -------------- In closing, I've owned 2 CP16/R's and have found them to be versatile, quiet, reliable cameras with outstanding image quality. I put good glass on the front end and use modern film stocks and nobody has ever said "Looks like you didn't shoot with an Aaton or an Arri." I get pretty tired of folks dismissing the CP16 as a second-rate news camera unfit for indie filmmaking when in many scenarios, they do serve perfectly well and give good images for a very reasonable price. Part of the curse of the CP16/R is that there are so many examples of the camera out there that were nearly beaten to death in the daily, rough-and-tumble world of news gathering. And then people expect to pick up such a camera and have it exhibit world-class imaging without any servicing. And when it doesn't, they blame the camera, not the way it was abused for decades before. The biggest reason to NOT use a CP16/R is if you need fast, documentary-style shooting speed in your reloading. In that scenario, a coax-style film feed mechanism is greatly preferred (Eclair, Arri SR, Aaton). But with a 16BL you don't get that. You just get something that is marginally easier to load than a CP. And a lot more limiting in so many other ways. I would give the CP16/R another look and try to get your hands on some nice glass to put on the front end -- a Cooke 9-50 T2.5, a Zeiss 10-100 T2, or one of the nice Canon lenses. Of course, the Zeiss SuperSpeeds are also great. With one of those more modern lenses on a CP16/R, you will at least match the image quality of an older Angenieux or Zeiss zoom on a 16BL. Have Fun!

I have only used the CP16R in my limited Reg-16 shooting experience and I like it quite a bit. It is rugged and reliable. Parts are readily available. There are several experienced and excellent service technicians around who can keep them running in top, as-new peformance. The entire system is well-integrated, from battery to crystal motor, to video tap port, to the handgrip, to the excellent and highly adaptable lens mount. I love it. Okay, so a mattebox and rods can be hard to find. Make your own rods for your Petroff or Chrosziel Follow-focus and use a clamp-on mattebox. Or talk with Jim at VP about having them make one for you. I would assume that it's really not that big of a deal compared to lugging around outboard battery belts, adapting lenses to the inferior Eclair lens mount, and gambling with the dreaded underpowered ACL-I motor that is reputed to burn out when constantly pulling 400-ft loads. However, please keep in mind that I have never used the Eclair ACL. I do not mean to slight what may be a very fine camera just based on hearsay and conjecture. Many people complain that the CP16 is tedious to thread. This may be a valid concern in documentary, run-and-gun shooting scenarios, but it's never been a problem for me when shooting narrative short films. The thing that is cool about the CP is that loading the magazines is a total breeze (and the mags are cheap!) -- and that's the part that must be performed in total darkness (where loading is HARD). The threading through the camera can be done on the set in the light and it's really not that difficult -- just time consuming. Noise has never been a problem for me. Both my CP's run very quietly -- but they are also kept in good shape. The famous shutter smear problem afflicts all bowtie-shutter CP16R's, although with varying degrees of intensity depending on the peculiar geometry of any given camera (yes, there were significant manufacturing inconsistencies!). Some bowtie cameras smear the highlights a lot, others smear hardly at all and only under certain focal length & aperture circumstances. My first CP16R had extremely intense shutter smear, something that is quickly and easily verified with a smear test that any good CP16 technician can perform in minutes. Basically, they check to see if the shutter closes over the gate completely. If it doesn't completely close, then you get light streaming across frames, usually in the upper righthand corner, although the location can shift depending on mechanism timing. This manifests itself as highlight smearing on your footage. It is very irritating. Luckily, every CP16R with a bowtie shutter can be modified to eliminate this smear artifact by basically extending the shutter blades, closing down the shutter angle from nominal 156-degrees to the Bolex-like 135-degrees. This absolutely eliminates the problem. Paul Hillman at Visual Products is your man and if you buy from VP, I would not even consider shutter smear an issue at all. He will make sure it doesn't happen. The shutter smear problem was deemed a show-stopper by the BBC in the eighties, causing them to promptly return a huge order of CP16R's that they had just purchased from Cinema Products. This prompted a redesign of the camera to the 170-degree "half moon" shutter that obviated the smear problem (although it made the timing train less robust, from what I gather from Paul Hillman and Ken Hale). Find out if the Super16 CP that Visual Products is selling is the 135-degree modified shutter model or the later 170-degree "half-moon" model. They will probably charge you less for the modified bowtie configuration than the "half moon," and depending on how concerned you are about interframe strobing (which is more intense the narrower the shutter angle) versus budget, you can make your decision. I shoot with one of each and only I can ever tell a difference, and then only in very specific sorts of situations. I have never had anyone who has viewed my footage complain about the registration of the CP16. I tend to laugh at people who worry about that too much. You're going to pick up more registration error in telecine, printmaking, and projection than a well-tuned (and threaded) CP16 will ever produce natively in-camera. Just talk to a camera technician to hear about the ridiculous hoops they have to jump through to get an SR to register properly. I think registration is the biggest "red herring" issue that people have with the CP16, or with cameras in general. Keep it maintained and adjusted correctly, use fresh film, and form your loop correctly and you'll be fine. (DO NOT skip the lower rollers as some suggest -- unless you want loop instability!). There are bigger fish to fry, in my opinion. You can use just about any lens you want on a CP16 without too much trouble. There is an excellent postive-locking CP/Arri-B adapter that you can get that will let you utilize the best Zeiss, Cooke, or HEC Angenieux glass out there. There is also a CP/Nikkor adapter that will let you use the big Nikkor telephotos (such as the 300mm/4 or 2.8) with it for those soft, lo-con, romantic, backlit afternoon walk-in-the-park tryst shots that no character-driven film should be without. Finally, let's talk about support. Between Whitehouse AV and Paul Hillman at Visual Products, the CP16 is a camera that keeps on running and running. When I talk to Paul, he cites CP's and Aatons as some of the easiest cameras to work on with the easiest parts to find. He loves them! Paul can add a PL-mount, a video tap (hardwired, wireless, and perhaps even color, if you talk with him about it!), and a speed control port to a CP16 if you need it, too, further expanding its options as a full-featured camera system. I thought a lot about which camera to buy and in the end, I chose the CP16R. I have not regretted it at all. However, if I were shooting handheld day in and day out, I might have more seriously considered the Aaton or the Eclair ACL or any of the coax-magazine design cameras. But for my style of tripod/dolly-mounted indie narrative filmmaking, the CP16R is my loyal workhorse.