steve waschka

bitworks... ive looked at them. seemed like a good choice. let me ask if you dont mind... what format are you receiving your files? and are they 1280 by 480p?

i do use avisynth as well as virtual dub adobe and many other programs to accomplish various tasks. avisynth is fast. it is NOT point and click. you dont appear to need it. thats a beautiful thing! i will tell you this in its favor. i can successfully do 2 thing with it: 1 can successfully deinterlace ntsc. 2 i can scan on a flatbed pull the images. not have them perfectly frame aligned. adjust a deshaker script. and successfully have a stable image. neither of those two feats i feel are small for any program to tackle.

no thats fine. im glad its an easy fix. i understand completely. if it were a simple process id have converted mine myself already.

sorry. i was in a rush when i typed that. i was referring to your post work. its a very clean video of your film. im assuming you did your own post work and might have hints from some of the scripts you may have written to handle the video file and clean it up a bit. i do have a question about the format though. as i am still contemplating having it done. there are some distortions around your frame. they look a bit like reflection around the top, and fog around the bottom. i am curious if it is possible the edges of the gate were not painted with some anti-glare. or is it something more complicated you are working on? ill log into vimeo and download your film for this weekend. i was trying to shoot an anamorphic video short for this weekends "movie night" at the house. no luck finding a good subject. so ill screen yours.

please tell me you have your frame server scripts nailed! thats really flippin nice looking!!! off a bolex h8 with no reg pins! if youd consider, id like to run that across my 8:3 screen at home. could i download?

very cool stuff. love to see an 8mm machine producing native "cinemascope". and when you consider deinterlacing a ntsc video camera (which i do a bit) that 8mm footage is pretty relevant! i still have an h8r4 id do this with. tore it down pretty far. built it back to 4:3. cant remember the hang-up but theres a lot to that conversion. if i remember you need a doner 16mm or vice versa. good stuff!

im PRETTY sure the non viewfinder non vari shutter bolexes are 144. but shoot a card and check it. edit: go here: http://www.bolexcollector.com/cameras/h16.html i think this stuff is pretty accurate. link is to a very early model. check out one in your age range. serial number date ranges at the bottom of the pages.

also make sure its not a filter. had a polarizer teach me that once. almost to the point i was going to box the camera up and send it in for calibration.

if you want to run and gun with this rig... dont mix and match lens designs. otherwise... read-on: best investment is a prismatic focuser. sometimes called a critical focuser. little ground glass prism on a magnet with an eyepiece. bolex has one made for them for their gates (2 designes, depends on you body age range). it replaces your pressure plate and allows you to check things like light fall off and focus at the film plane at various focal distances. problem with lenses not desgned for the specific camera body is you can have problems with all of the above. if its not designed for s16. ie its designed for the basic film gauge. it prob wont cover a whole s16 frame. however! and this however comes with its own gambles... if you buy lenses designed for larger film gauges they will obviously cover s16. but then they are not designed for rx. and you will need to buy the appropriate adapter (ie nikon to cmount) yes you can space them off the body with washer shims (sometimes). also some adapters can be rebuilt to accommodate the backspacing difference between rx and cmount. cmount is 17.53mm rx is 20.76. but theres more problems. 1st and its a killer, is most cmount threads arent long enough to handle the amount of spacing youll need. many c mount lenses designed for rx include rear elements that accommodate for the light going through a prism before falling on the film plane. no adapter will ever accommodate for that. and all the backspacing changes your doing will throw off your lenses distance gauge making critical distance measurements impossible. thats where the critical focuser comes in. a couple of the zoom dogleg lenses were designed in there core to fit a variety of camera applications. which means they can be opened, adjusted to hit the film plane at most backspacing distances for 16mm. which ones? well thats the trick. and forget about all the lovely wide angles like 5.5. probably will never be as sharp as should unless used in their designed working environment. bottom line is your doing something bolex did not intend. so it will have compromises. but! tack sharp at the film plane... is tack sharp at the film plane! no matter what the tape, the lens barrel or anything else says. so how you set up your shots has a tremendous amount to do with what you can get away with.

$3200 is 35 rolls of 7222 which can be processed in a lomo tank scanned at prob $0.30/ft and inverted to positive. so back some scanning money out... thats what like 4hrs of black and white 16mm? so you can look at that both ways. 4hrs is a LOT of disciplined shots. but the little bolex will provide i guess thousands of hours. then theres the stupid editing suite and computer with enough guts to run it. and the hard drives to store all your work and the hours of wanting to throw it all in the pool. of course its not like you / or the lab never screw up processing chemicals and want to throw YOURSELF / someone else into the pool from the 20th floor when you have to reshoot. ahhh the dilemma. oh wait... did we forget to spend money on lights!? nah skip em.

turned out... specific lens. also specific to table's design and prism system.

anybody still using or have experience with the components of this thing? i can pick one up in good shape but it is possibly missing the threaded projection lens. ive called a parts house and they "may" have one for $200. im guessing its not a 2" bell and howell. any replacement suggestions?

andrew your h8 rex aught to have a turret plate clamp on the top edge of the plate opposite the viewfinder. use it. i also use a locking plug at the same time. using those two items i can easily hang an older angenieux zoom, stacked filters and a metal hood. anything more like matte boxes, and you need to mount it on some rails. as youve obviously realized, ANY movement of that plate eliminates the back focus calibration. so lightly pull down on the lens' objective end while examining where the turret plate flushes to the body. if you can open a gap, you've got a problem. rattling around during takes and travel can allow this to move so on the reflexes... check the gate, check the spring, check the plate.

update: i have a lot of time into learning about betacam sp now. available working gear is limited. most seems to need work to get stable enough to use in a working enivironment. even then upkeep and repair diagnosis is complicated. although i have purchased the equipment for an absolute steal. it will be far more costly than intended when over. and i have been able to do much of the work myself. the camera is at a sony shop now for vtr go thru. probably gonna hurt. theres no place like film, theres no place like film....

the dog leg port is behind the iris. so not only does it allow light in, its not going to be attenuated by a stopped down iris. i have that lens. the all black version. find a cap. get a small rubber crutch tip or cap at a hardware store if you need. pan-cinors have a 66mm filter thread. requiring a 66-67mm step-up ring to get you into common filter step-up and accessory rings. that lens meters darker than any of the switars by about a stop. so compensate with exposure. if i remember correctly the t-stop markings are a bit optimistic. overall its a good lens. the swinging dogleg is a PIA to lock down so that you have a horizontal reference. the angenieux dogleg system is more fool-proof and recommended. the horizontal does not change with the movement of the viewfinder. more adjustable. more rigid. focus is more precise etc etc etc. just get a paint marker and mark the lens joint to the body and the lock ring to the dogleg after setting horizontal disc via leveled body or gate focus tool. all of those types of zooms are frontal focus meaning all accessories must be attached via slip fit and railed or not be attached to the objective end of the lens at all. i have some really nice footage shot with that lens on an 8mm that produced hearty contrast on 7266 in the past few months. if you need a dogleg zoom it'll work. if you dont collect switar primes or get a poe.

found some user guides. for reference to future researchers. the bvw 300 series camera (im assuming the 400 is not to dissimilar) has two bnc video outs. neither operate in playback mode and are for record monitoring only. the playback adapter va-500 only provides composite video and is also apparently best suited for monitoring. looks like a deck is in order for editing.

brian: next hurdle is the video out. ill want to output to adobe for editing. the playback adapter i understand needs to be inline inorder to produce color. however the adapter appears to have a single bnc connector for output. should i just get a deck? is the video coming out of the cameras bnc connectors useable for final black and white?

ya its b4. j15x9.5b4kre. not krs. dont know what thats gonna mean. well... the label says for sharp camera. that could be an issue. hopefully if anything its just in the wiring. i can redo that later (after i find a service man for the bvw). if it looks good on tape.

brian im not sure how to tell when these things were made. except for probably the price. but right now they all look the same to me. i almost went with a dof adapter so i could just use reg lenses. but bought a canon j15x9.5 looks like the objective element spins so i dont think its super special. and that also means matte boxes are gonna be a pain in the a%%. but for the price i had to try it. guess its thread-ons and a hood. we'll see....

i think tube cameras are pretty cool. i like vacuum tubes for music. but they can be tempermental and usually require warm up and cool down to ensure they stay in good shape. i have a marshall guitar amp full of em. wouldnt consider using a transistor amp ever again. so i can imagine cameras are probably not too dissimilar. all of that being said. this is an interview camera. and a camera for running long takes trying to catch that one action in an unstaged sport where film is just way too cost prohibitive for me. and if i can figure out its strengths properly ill add it in where i can. ive seen some pretty nice work done with these things. but im a film photographer. i dont own a dslr. i just dont speak the language. i dont need to venture off down another learning path to figure out tubes. im already studying drum replacement. and praying that surgical procedure is not in my immediate future. thanks for the help guys. what are your thoughts about glass for these things. i understand the bodies have a beam splitter in them. so its bolex all over again. think a POE will focus on that thing!? just kidding!

glad you mentioned that model brian. just purchased a bvw-400a. i like the recordings ive seen. and i think its going to keep life relatively simple.

i studied betacam sp all day. now thanks to keith i have to go back and revisit tubes. thanks for the info! theres really not much easily obtained info about these cameras. for example once you find out a dockble deck connects to 50p bodies you have to determine what models are 50p. and then lens compatibility. etc etc. and even less easily found is footage that is tagged by camera model from that era. now adays everybody tags videos with the camera used and many discuss the transfer and upload processes. i did find some clips for sale or stock footage sites that did mention at least the format. this forum is really my only contact with anyone who has real history with this gear. thanks! maybe this will get botted into some search engines for some others. i found some betacam sp stock that was pretty dang nice as far as blues and greens. havent been able to compare much in the reds. theres apparently a reason for that.

ill start with an apology that i dont think this topic belongs here. but i couldnt tell you where the best place to put it would be except maybe the SD equipment forum. but it looks pretty dusty in there. heres what i need: i need to know what you would buy if you needed to go on ebay and buy a tube or early ccd rig today to shoot some interviews. cheap and i mean cheap! it needs to handle black and white too. i need to know what camera and what deck or laptop rig i could use for capture and can i copy it straight to my tower for use in adobe. heres why im asking: i am working on two small docu style films and i am REALLY liking the idea of using a broadcast grade video system to eliminate the costs associated with the interview segments. these are both self funded and i was going to do moderately close-in inteviews (shoulder and head) on 8mm 7266 7285 as i thought the grain would be interesting and off set the mundane of the stationary close-ups needed to make 8mm useable. again this is a production cost issue. im relatively new to shooting interviews and when the subject rambles on till the mag empties my wallet has a real issue with that. SO>>>> i looked at some tape of the 3 tube saticon and 1ccd and 3ccd systems. so... the three tube stuff looks pretty nice. as long as most of the frame was near key. once your a couple of stops out your effed i know. the highlight tracer effect is no biggie as it will probably be always stationary. i think i can stage my shots and be ok. i have a hi8 camera somewhere but i think i would like to have an iris and a shutter speed / angle setting i can use to control my key exposure. plus according to what ive read the jvc ky and panasonic wv 3 tube and 1ccd cameras are capturing close to 600lines. that sounds better than what my residential hi8 did as i remember. tell me what your thinking. if the idea absolutely sucks tell me that too. ill stick to 8mm film. thanks a million in advance!!!

i shoot a fair amount around water so boat decks and various white gel coated surfaces, sand, etc throw glare from every unwanted angle. i like a compendium style shade / matte box that accepts a few square filters and is a size or two up from the lens im using. that way i can extend the shade out pretty far without worrying about vignetting and not be constantly on the lookout for a flare on a filters surface. acrylic and gel square filters can be cut to fit a finicky tray whereas circulars or lens mounts either you have the right threads with you or you dont. ive never used clamp ons as david mentioned. probably would have saved me many times if i had. that being said my simplest rig is a bolex with a screw on polarizer and a screw on hood. whole thing goes in a backpack. you wont do that with a set of french flags. however on many zoom lenses for bolexs the objective lens element twists and extends or retracts when you focus. so a linear polarizer will have to be adjusted every focus change unless you use a mattebox that attaches to a rail system and remains stationary in its horizontal while allowing for extension and retraction of the lens. or just get a circular polarizer. the trade off is ive heard theyre not as effective. never used one. might be just fine. but i use old cameras. new ones dont have a great many of these issues.

h16 mag fed to body for no ancillaries