Douglas Underdahl

Yes, I still have copies of the book. $29 plus $18 for postage to UK. Good LORD you can get unreal deals on excellent 16mm cameras now! I see Arri 16SR2 cams going for under three grand, with a bunch of nice accessories. Can we afford to put film through them? Don't hate me, I have an Epic and it's great. Can I crop the sensor to 2k, use a 16mm zoom, add sharpness, some contrast and saturation in post, plus a bit of grain and maybe some hot splice sparkles, and make it look like 16mm? The answer is yes, but does it REALLY look like 16/s16? That would take a side by side test to tell.

Don't know if the examples you linked to are correct. You'd probably have to study the connector on the camera, see if you can find a part number. Also, try Arri NY. They are VERY good.

No, that crystal won't solve your problem because: A) you don't know if it works, and even when they do, they don't work reliably as the motors they are trying to control weren't meant for crystal control B) it has the Tuchel on it just like the camera! So you would be back to square one and also that Tuchel might have missing pins or weak pins So try to find that cable first, then test. But if it has good Tuchels on it and it's less than $50 it could solve your problem because you could use it as a connector donor for making a cable. But you'd still have to make or have someone make the cable. Yikes.

Hey, you got a cam with the angled connector mount. It swings the connector out from the camera so it's easier to plug the Tuchel in. Nice. But, you have snapped off pins. This is what happens to these connectors - you have to be really careful about how you plug and unplug them and if not, pins get snapped off. If the pins aren't important, then you're okay. Like they could be pins that originally carried bloop or piltotone, which no one uses anymore. If not, ouch. You have to replace the connector on the camera which requires soldering tiny pins very close to each other. And the connector itself might be unavailable. Or, someone could just solder a 4 pin XLR pigtail directly to the camera! Ask the guy at Leo's if he's got a cable. Maybe you'll get lucky.

There was the Jensen and also the Cinema Products crystal controllers. And the king of them all was the Media Logic replacement motor. I was half owner of Media Logic and we didn't make any money on that motor, but you could actually plug our 3 decimal control into it. Ah, to be young again. If you can find a controller, it will have the 9 pin Tuchel on one end and probably the 4 pin xlr on the other. So then you would need to find the 4 pin to 4 pin xlr cable which is common, like at B and H. But it might be that the Jensen needs the same 9 to 4 pin cable, so watch out! And you'd still be shooting 25fps because of the gearset. Who the heck will rent you a blimped angie? If they have this (I really don't think anyone does, are you sure about this?) then they could have the cable. Keep searching and if you come up empty, maybe I can make you a cable. But I have to say, that you are really going the long way around on this. That could be a fun trip, or not. You might not be able to make it all work. What I mean is, that you might find that renting a 16SR with all the goodies will fix everything. Sometimes when you are trying to make art, the solution to your problem is to throw money at it.

Oh, and you also got the cool hammered aluminum case and the camera carry handle.

Okay. You got a cam at a good price. You got the periscope finder which was $1500 in the day. Makes the camera rest on your shoulder better. But, it's set up for 25 fps. Maybe that's what you want? I'm guessing that you don't want to shoot and record sound because the camera has no blimped lens. If you put an Arri standard mounted lens on this camera that doesn't have the blimp, it will be noisy - like, you won't want to use it indoors to shoot and record sound at the same time. The gearset says 25 B/s which stands for bilders per second which I believe is German for frames per second. The camera is not crystal controlled, which means that it will not run in sync. Probably you can get by for short takes of 20-30 seconds, or longer and then you have to chop or add sound frames to fix the audio. No cable? Lordy, I don't know where you could find one. There's no picture of that part of the camera but it looks like you are going to need the 9 pin Tuchel to 4 pin XLR. You're going to have to hunt for the correct cable. Cine-60 used to sell them in the US but I don't know if they exist anymore.

It's hard to remember. Might have to get out my book. You could have a crystal control on your camera, or not. If not, then you likely have a sync motor with a power cable that goes directly to the camera. It's a 9 pin Tuchel on one end (I think I have one in a drawer around here) and a 4 pin XLR on the other that will plug into that Bescor. If you have the Tuchel be careful - they are easily stripped if they are not connected carefully. If you have a crystal control then it could be that you have a 4 pin XLR input into control itself which is better. You probably have a camera that is close to 50 years old, so the cable could be tired. Or someone could have replaced it last year.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/135340-REG/Bescor_BES015XLRNC_BES_015XLRNC_Shoulder_Pack_Lead_Acid.html You'll need the charger also.

No registration pin on the CP16A or CPR, or the Frezzi FR16, or the Auricons, which all have essentially the same movement. You can load a CP incorrectly and it will sound fine and shoot and then you get your film back and it's all horribly scratched or it will have registration problems like in your clip, Rudy. There's a nice loading diagram in the camera if I remember correctly and it has to be followed exactly or else. They put a ratchety noisemaker in the Eclair NPR that makes a hell of a racket if the loop is lost. Great idea. Arri 16S had something called the buckle trip, and the buckle trip override! Not as good an idea. I tried to explain the difference between the trip and the override to students and I think only about ten percent understood it. What's great now is just how inexpensive all this 16mm gear is!

$5500 for a 16SR3? Good lord. Such a great camera, better swing a way handle than 1 and 2, other improvements, and S16. Still, if I was on a serious budget, I'd probably buy a 1 or 2 and file the gate, make it into U16 . . .

It's astounding to me how inexpensive the Arri 16SR cameras are now. Sheesh! I remember when I worked at a company that imported them from Germany in the early 1980's and a body with two mags was $29,000 ! I had an Arri 35BL1 about ten years ago and I agree with Will that Arri NY is excellent at repairs. They really know their stuff and the prices were more than reasonable. As for current 16SR prices, go to eBay and sniff around, but make sure that you don't look at current auctions, because it's only in the last 30 seconds that the actual value happens. Click on COMPLETED AUCTIONS and you'll see what stuff is going for. If Will can sell you a good one for $1600 - that blows my mind and saddens me at the same time. I'd like to buy one just to have it, but I have no use for it at all!

That appears to be Amazon.com for hard goods that are shipped, which I did for about ten years with this book, but it's too time consuming as they refused to stock more than a few copies at a time. I wanted to ship them 100 copies that they could draw from, but they would take no more than two, so I had to pack and ship too many times. So I gave up. What I'd like to do is have customers pay for a digital download - say, $5. I think that this plan benefits me and the end user better. Anyone have experience with this? Looks like Pay Pal has something they call Digital Goods . . .

Thanks Jeremy - I'll check that out.

Hi Gang Douglas Underdahl here. I authored THE 16MM CAMERA BOOK quite a few years ago. I'm surprised to see so much interest about the format here, but maybe I shouldn't be. With films like HURT LOCKER and THE WRESTLER and MOONRISE KINGDOM, it seems that 16 and Super 16 and maybe even Ultra 16 are still alive and kicking. Recently I did a camera CLA for Louis CK - an Arri 16S with PL mount - and he actually uses it for his show now and then! So, I thought I'd start this thread so that you could ask me about your cameras and shooting and the format in general. I have about 50 copies of the book left that I'm happy to sell. Just send $40 via Pay Pal to longvalley@embarqmail.com and I will send you one, via USPS to lower 48. International, add $10. When they're gone, I'll probably do a digital download thing. Anyone have advice about setting that up? My equipment site is longvalleyequip.com Sorry about the plugs. Hey - thread your camera correctly (practice in the bag) do a scratch test, hair test, speed test, leak test, compare tape and eye, check your batteries, strobe your movement - and rock on! Doug