Patrick Lewis

Call this a prototype, but if you're interested in rigging up a battery, two 9.6 volt packs wired together in series works like a charm. These little blue crimp connectors from the hardware store slip right on the terminals on the camera just enough to stay put. I used Velcro to hold the batteries on. Probably not the best placement. Though. See image. https://www.dropbox.com/s/lifwcs7vcs6u1at/IMG_20160112_203114070.jpg?dl=0

Figured it out by finding this photo. For reference, here is a link to it. I do not own this photo. Came off of eBay. Looks like positive is the top prong on the camera. https://www.dropbox.com/s/77wyq9mzy5pdf82/%24_3.JPG?dl=0

Sorry to resurrect this thread. Can anyone provide the polarity of the battery pins on the camera? I'd like to rig up a power source of my own, but I don't have a battery for reference. Don't worry, I have an engineering degree, so I won't destroy anything, and I know a thing or two about circuits.

Thanks! I'll give it a shot.

Hello everyone. I've recently obtained a CP-16A (non-reflex), with a tilted frame in the finder. How would one go about leveling it to match the orientation of the camera? Is there a mechanism in the dog leg finder itself, or do I rotate where the lens mounts? I can't seem to find any information on this. Thanks for your help.

I think the Black Magic camera footage looks like stills from a point and shoot digital camera. The highlights still scream "VIDEO!!" to me. The colors seem odd, as well. Too saturated and not natural looking. Film is so much nicer. What has digital brought us? It's brought us washed out colors and low contrast, overly manipulated color at "glorious" 2K... most of the time. Seriously, what is better about digital in the end? You don't get real blacks in your image, the projection resolution is pathetic, and the colors are more often than not, wretched. I'm sorry, but it's sad the way things have gone in cinema. The storylines have changed, too. Movies have to constantly be moving, have background music, or constant action. There's never any quiet time in movies anymore. Most people probably can't sit through 2001 anymore, whereas it was popular in it's day. Sorry if this seems like a general rant, but as someone that is visually aware, digital cinema and television just doesn't seem all that great.

I was thinking about this a while back. I wanted to explode a light bulb. Never did it, but I've heard that if you spray a hot light bulb with water (like from a spray bottle), it will thermal shock the glass and shatter the bulb. If you don't want the water in the shot, maybe try spraying from behind the bulb. Hope this helps. So maybe get the bulb good and hot, shut it off and start rolling. Then do the 7 seconds or so of fading in and spray a stream of water at it.

Low contrast, grainless, not-that-great color. Color is subjective, of course, but it just lacks a richness that I see in film and not this. Film gives better local contrast in faces, it seems. Each time I get a workprint back from the lab and run it through a projector, I'm wowed. This doesn't get me excited, and, honestly, I find the video a little pretentious. I prefer Kodak's filmstock demo videos. They don't try to grab you emotionally because they don't have to; the stock speaks for itself.

Still looks like video to me.

I'll give this a go. When I was a little kid (less than 10), I used a hand-me-down pink Minnie Mouse 110 camera that used to be my sister's. It had no flash or anything. I remember being fascinated when I found out that there was bigger film (35mm) and I wondered if there was infinite detail in the negative. The K-100, coincidentally, was my latest still camera purchase. Then my first motion picture camera was a Braun Nizo XL Super 8.

I didn't think anyone printed super 8 anymore. Are these the only guys that do it, or is there another lab hidden somewhere?

I'm new at this, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Is it really necessary to use a crystal sync? I recently shot some test footage with a K-3 and was able to sync dialogue sound with my projector for a full 25 second take by simply changing the tempo (but not the tone) of the recording in Audacity. I understand that some people might want longer takes, but the change in tempo is not even noticeable because the adjustment was only about half a second total. Is this a bad way to work? For instance, are there other issues that can arise when splicing multiple scenes together?

They're boasting about 20 stops of dynamic range and they give THAT as their first example?? Sure, the stills look nice and crispy, but am I wrong when I say that they don't really show off a wide dynamic range? They don't really show much color, either...

In my efforts to come up with some sort of story for a script (for my first effort, as well) I came across this article. The things mentioned here already are on the list, as well as many other things I didn't think to avoid. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination. I'm still trying to get a script together. I hope this is some kind of help. For me, I've really just been interested in going through the proper process of making a film, so I've been researching some of the technical aspects of that. Sound is high on my list of things that need to work well. I also want to shoot in 16mm, so I'm also trying to decide if I should go the telecine route or edit the film itself and sync the sound to the print. It's all definitely complex, but it makes you appreciate good films more, I think. https://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/20-reasons-why-most-student-films-suck/

Just as an update, there was no fogging on the film beyond the first and last portion. I guess the gap between the reel and the film doesn't affect anything when you're in subdued light. Also, the "slack" I described is an apparent non-issue. If you're ever going to disassemble the take-up spindle, remember that it's a REVERSE THREAD... Yes, I made that mistake and broke the head off. Luckily, it's fixed now. Just don't be dumb like me.

I sure hope kodak can make it out of this and become stable. I just got my first 100 foot print of 16mm back today. So beautiful!

I was thinking about cannibalizing a broken super 8 camera and rigging it up with some kind of hand-turn knob to advance the film. Then just use a digital camera to snap a photo of each frame. It might seems tedious, but it's way easier than scanning on a flatbed and cropping each frame by hand... which is what I've been doing.

Thanks Gregg. The film isn't falling off the spool or anything. I guess I just expected a little more gusto from the take up spool winder. It cinched up a few inches (not really sure if that would be dangerous to unload in the light). Does anyone out there know how to adjust the take up torque? I know there's a flat head screw on top of it... But I hesitate to meddle...

Hi there, I hope this is a proper place for this. I'm having trouble finding anything helpful. Plus, it's on the same subject of unloading the K-3. So I've just shot my first test roll of 16mm with my K-3. I unloaded it in the dark, just in-case things didn't move through properly. I noticed, however, that the film take up spool didn't wind the film very tightly. I just pulled it snug before bringing it into the light (hello cinch marks!). Is this normal? And if so, is it still safe to unload in the light without the film being perfectly tight on the spool? Thanks for any help.