Steve Switaj

By the way, if you're working with an EF, RF or Alpha mount, a really good, inexpensive, macro solution is one of the old 55mm Nikkor still macros on a mount adapter. Those old 55's (especially the newer f2.8 version) were among the sharpest lenses ever made for 35mm still cameras and it intercuts well with cine lenses from the same generation. You can find them in excellent condition for $150. Buy a high-quality adapter ( I recommend Fotodiox, https://fotodioxpro.com/ ). You should keep the adapter attached to the lens and use it as a unit, and (after assembly) use a couple of small dabs of hot glue to prevent any movement between the lens and adapter. The focus throw isn't as good as a true cine lens, but macro work tends to be more focus-by-eye anyhow, and for a couple of hundred dollars it's a really serviceable option for the occasional macro need.

My day job is doing camera engineering for a very large stop-motion animation studio in Oregon. Pretty much our entire world is macro work, and we've come up with a whole fleet of really creative solutions to get our shots. We test a lot of lenses, and, because of the very large number of stages shooting at the same time, I pay particular attention to cost effective solutions. If you're going to do a lot of close-up work, I'd suggest you buy an inexpensive, dedicated macro lens. Macro is often tweaky and frustrating and if you can save time and aggravation on a busy set... well, that has it's own value, and a lens that just does the job without fuss can be worth it's weight in pixels. If you have $1500 in the budget I'd suggest one of the new Laowa Sword macros. https://laowacine.com/product/sword-macro-cine-full-frame-lens-series/ Laowa is one of the brands made by Venus Optics, a niche Chinese lens manufacturer that offers an eclectic collection of unusual lenses. We've worked with them a lot, and as far as I can tell the company is run by a somewhat eccentric optical designer who pretty much builds designs he thinks are cool. The Laowa Sword line are cine-style macro lenses in a PL mount. The 60mm and 100mm are the standouts in the line. At about us$1500 each, they offer better than 1:1, the image is clean, sharp and color-neutral, with good evenness and very little CA, the irises are nice and round with plenty of blades, so out-of-focus highlights look good. They cover full-frame and at t2.9 they're reasonably fast (though because of DOF considerations you almost never shoot macro full-open anyway) Mechanically, they are very good, with smooth, wander-free focus (IIRC the elements ride on rails instead of a helix), and a really pleasant, long focus throw of maybe 270 degrees. Working distance and space to light are always an issue with macro lenses, especially for cine lenses with a big 80mm front, but the 60 and 100mm Laowas have a nodal point pretty close to the end of the barrel when at close focus, so they offer a reasonable amount of working room (and don't forget that because of the way macro lenses work, at 1:1 both these focal lengths will approximately double) Now, the bad news. They are not compensated, like, say, some of the Signature Primes. They are simple lenses, so they have all the optical issues that you find with any old school macro lens... They breathe - like a lot, and because of bellows effect, they have a really dramatic exposure shift as you get more macro (like 2+ stops, it's an optical consequence of moving the focal plane farther from the exit pupil as you extend out to focus close), so don't plan on a lot of focus pulls from infinity, they're one-trick ponies. Also, like most simple macros, at very high ratios they do that thing where they seem to dolly forward as you focus (because the nodal point of the lens moves forward down the barrel by a good few inches). So... are they a match for $35,000 Signature Primes? Well, no. But at literally 5% of the cost, they are a shockingly good tool if you use them for what they're good at.

What camera, or more specifically, what mount are you using?

As Tyler says, there are two Berg-style belts in the BL4 that rot away with age. (There's a third, conventional, timing belt off the motor, but that one ages much better) The main main belt connects the drive sprocket, mag drive and movement. Once you get the camera apart it's fairly straightforward to replace. The second, smaller, belt is the issue. It drives the shutter from the movement, and sits under that shutter. Unfortunately, the front face of the camera has to come apart and the shutter has to come off to service this belt. Then it all has to go back together and be retimed and reset for depth. Richard Bennett has a post on his blog with some pictures https://cinemagear.com/blog/2024/08/16/arri-bl-4s-finally-on-the-bench/

This is why I love these forums. After 30 years in VFX I was pretty sure I had seen every single Mitchell product ever released, from the 16mm 'Monitor' instrumentation cameras up to the big 65's, with a couple of missile tracking cameras, aircraft nose cameras, and underwater rigs thrown in along the way. But I have never seen one of these before, and had no idea such a thing as a 'MK-III' even existed. Do you have any pictures of the movement?

Looks likely. You might want to contact Visual Products and ask. sales@visualproducts.com

We end up using a lot of adapters from FotoDiox Like every adapter these days, the actual parts are made in China, but FotoDiox seems to have better quality control than the mass-market eBay brands, and their products have always worked well for us. https://fotodioxpro.com/products/ab-pl-p Also, no set screws in this design.

They're not just different colors, they're actually different numbers The foot focus marks on the left-hand lens go 20-10-5-4, while the focus marks on the right-hand lens are 8-6-4-3-2.5 So.. not like they misunderstood what you wanted and changed the mount before shipping, it's definitely a different lens. On the plus side (such as it is), if it comes to this there are parts available to convert the lens to a PL mount. Check out Visual Products https://visualproducts.com/product/visual-products-canon-pl-lens-mount-for-s16-zoom-lenses/

I think almost all of the Vista productions were shot with the Mitchell 'elephant ear' cameras. There were earlier proof of concept cameras built by converting old technicolor bodies, but these were unwieldy even by the standards of the 50's. I shot a lot of Vista in my VFX days, but never got to actually use one of the old elephant ears. Every one I ever handled already had it's movement removed for use in a 'new' spinning mirror body. There were at least a few blimps made for tight sound work, but the blimps were _huge_ . I know this because I have a friend who has one in his shop. It came in on a pallet with some other gear and he initially though it was an underwater housing until he examined it closely. It's clearly a production unit though, with a body and hardware similar to the blimps for the normal rackovers. Lot's of access doors because the camera opened up on all sides for loading. It did not have the feel of a one-off, so I suspect there were probably a handful built by whatever company was making the rest of them. But I suspect the cameras were not all that loud to begin with. Even though the movements looked like an overgrown Standard, I think they might have sounded more like an NC, more muted, you might just throw a couple of blankets over the thing an live with it. I base this on fact that when I see a BTS photos of, say, a Hitchcock production, as often as not the camera is unblimped on the dolly, even though it's clearly a dialog scene. (I'm a VFX geek, I always look for the camera). Also, from my personal experience with the format, the sound of film going through a VV camera is different. It's more of a flup, flup thing and less the sewing machine of a Standard or GC. Maybe the bigger loops pitch it down a little bit? dunno, but it's different, and I could see where it wouldn't carry as far. The sheer _mass_ of the elephant ear cameras probably didn't hurt when it came to damping out the sound. You really have to see one in person to appreciate it, but here's some links... http://www.mitchellcamera.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25 http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingvv2.htm Also, if you absolutely must have one for your very own, you're in luck right now because The Prop Store has one up for auction. Sadly, it's missing it's movement, but it would look great on a set of sticks in the corner of your office anyway https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/449/lot/157100 It's serial # 21, which is the highest I've ever seen, so by VistaVision standards, it's brand new. Gotta hurry though, the auction ends March 26th. Also, if you want the matching blimp to complete your set, contact Joe Lewis at General Lift. I'm pretty sure he would entertain offers. Or maybe tours, if you want to check it out in person. Actually though, if people here are really interested in seeing the blimp, I'll ask him to post a few photos.

For anybody chasing number 4, the power cable, the standard BL connector is an Amphenol 165 series, and they are still available from Mouser electronics. Granted the price is ouchy, but at least it gives you an exact part number to search the interwebs. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall it's a 12 pin. What I don't recall is which side is male and which is female. If it is indeed a 12 pin, it's one of these https://www.mouser.com/c/connectors/mil-spec-mil-type/circular-mil-spec-connectors/circular-mil-spec-connector/?m=Amphenol&number of positions=12 Position&series=165

Oddly, I have an amateur radio license. I actually didn't care about any any of the radio stuff, but in the rural area where I grew up the local amateur radio club had free hands-on electronics classes to prep for the exams. It was kind of bizarre, because I was too young to drive and here I was sitting in class with all these retirees that had too much time on their hands, but the club was the only group within 50 miles doing any kind of technology, so I earned my license while I learned about transistors. The transistor part was useful, but buch like "stop, drop and roll" or how to escape from quicksand, the ability to tap out 20WPM in morse code has not come in as handy as I was told it would be when I was a child.

Did you ever make any progress on your project?

The "right" answer depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to use the Todd-AO glass for the look, then yeah, it's the right choice. Not every story has to be tack-sharp and contrasty and picking a lens that matches the subject is always the right way to go. If JJ Abrams thinks oblong lens flares are a style he wants to embrace, that's good enough for me. That being said, from a purely image-quality point of view, I suspect it's not close. Assume that we're talking about a 4-perf camera with a full-frame gate. That's a basic image size of .980" x .735". Mapping IMAX digital's 1.90:1 aspect into our super-35 gate gives us a frame of .980" x .516", which means we loose about 30% of our starting height. If we use an anamorphic lens then we can use the entire height of the gate, but we can't use the whole width. Our unsqueezed image would be .735" high and 1.396" wide. Unfortunately, with a 2:1 squeeze it would map down to only .698" wide. In this case we'd loose about 29% of the available width. So... Spherical lens = 70% of the available frame area used Anamorphic lens = 71% of the available frame area used Effectively the same area, so the difference is going to be mostly about lens performance. If you go spherical, you have your choice of a variety of outstanding modern glass, spurred on in recent years by competition with the entry of new players. In contrast, the Todd-AO lens are designs from the late 70's, effectively created by adding anamorphic elements in front of existing spherical lenses. Like any anamorphic (especially the older ones) they're prone to the typical anamorphic artifacts and distortions. As you obviously understand, these days they're typically chosen for their 'period' look, being a touch softer, less contrasty, and more flare-prone. Which, again, if that's what you're looking for, is great. But considering the degree of enlargement that IMAX implies, and the fact that you might loose resolution on one axis while desqueezing during scanning, If you're really worried about this image being blown up to a screen the size of a house, it's not hard to imagine that modern spherical lens designs are so much more optimized for contrast and sharpness that they'd easily leave a lens like the Todd-AO's behind.

Arri also made a BL16 prime-lens blimp that would work with one of the 10mm lenses, maybe a Zeiss or Scheider. I owned a BL16 back in the day and handled it once or twice, but can't remember anything past that. I think the thing was that the lens had to have some ears on the focus ring that would engage tabs on the focus ring of the blimp. But, of course, as Dom notes above, if you're not worried about sync sound, most B-mount lenses are just fine, since they were developed in the era of the S/B or later, and would account for mirror clearance.

Incredibly off topic of this already off topic topic.... ... But there's a really good book about ice merchants and how a few early entrepreneurs created the improbable business of harvesting ice in the New England winter and shipping it (via sailboat!) throughout the Caribbean in the early to mid 1800's, a time and place before refrigeration, where cold was in very short supply. Really, a pretty fascinating story about some pretty fascinating characters engaged in the most unlikely business you can reasonably imagine. "The Frozen Water Trade", by Gavin Weightman https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Water-Trade-Gavin-Weightman/dp/0007102860