Heikki Repo

Nope, unfortunately I haven't visited the factory -- if I remember correctly, I haven't even visited St. Petersburg.. But yes, Optars are nice. These lenses are rented out by one of the oldest rental houses in Finland.

Ohh yes. I love my Eclair ACL! I just received over the Internet some twelve minutes of footage from DeJonghe I shot on Tuesday. It came out perfect, despite the fact that this was the first time that... 1) ...I used my PL-mount adapter and some Optar Illuminas 2) ...I took care of the cinematography as well, in addition to directing and producing in a project this size 3) ...maybe not despite, but rather because I had a great team of a 1st AC and a gaffer to take care of pulling focus, gripping and lighting. But now -- if not before -- I have been proved that Eclair ACL is a 16mm camera that ought to be taken seriously. No need to rent that Arri 416. So let's keep the information on Eclair cameras alive and available! :) Thanks Erkan again!

There are several different 16mm Arriflex cameras. Which one is this? Would you mind linking to the auction? Unfortunately it isn't possible to adapt Nikon F lenses for any Arriflex cameras. All mounts (Arri Standard, Bayonet and PL-mount) on Arriflex cameras have longer flange focal distance than Nikon F mount.

Excellent!

Since it seems that my short film wasn't interesting enough for film festivals to get selected, I have decided to make it available on Youtube until the first of October. Maybe someone will enjoy it :) This was shot on Fuji Eterna Vivid 250D with a Super16 modified Eclair ACL.

These ACLs seem to have become rather popular these days, eh? :)

Stranger Things was excellent. Somehow the lighting (and quite probably all the things combined) made me feel really, really nostalgic. The warm afternoon sun and the cold Autumn -- I loved it!

Unfortunately I forgot about the flange focal length issue. CP-mount is apparently very similar to Aaton mount. Apparently "with slight modification any CP camera can accept Aaton mount lenses". Thus its ffd is 40mm. C-mount is 17.526 mm and Micro 4/3 is 19.25 mm. M42 would work, but the choice of wide lenses is rather slim. I couldn't find any OCT19 to M42 adapters and Meteor 5-1 is only 17mm in its widest end. Modifying the lens mount to OCT19 would seem a bit funny, even if it allows one to use cheap Russian cine lenses. Maybe in the end PL-mount is the only real option, were you to modify the mount.

Are there wider Russian m42 primes available? The reason why micro 4/3 would be such a hot choice is that it's almost the modern c-mount of our time: there are wide lenses available for it and with suitable adapters almost every lens can be used with it. You could ask Bernie about the lens mount. And you are correct about just framing for 1.85, modern film stocks are so fine grained that it'll work even if it's not S16.

I think the main question is, do you like it so much that you'd like to use it more? If yes, then the further modifications can be a good idea. I myself have been building an Eclair ACL set. I have had it modified to S16, bought PL adapter and rods for it. All of this while I know that I could rent an Arri 416 with all bells and whistles. However, my rationale behind this decision has been that with my Eclair I can use cheaper lenses and skip the rental house if I'm doing something low budget / solo (our closest camera rental that has 16mm cameras and lenses is a few hundred km from where I live). Now that I have a PL-adapter as well, I try to use this camera for all film based projects I'm dping myself. If I were to choose, I'd have your camera modified to micro 4/3 mount. That way your camera would have a feature not available in higher end cameras. S16 could be done at the same time. But all of this depends on the question: Do you want to use it so much that it is worth the money to modify it? If not, sell it for a small price to someone and give them hints what modifications they could do to it. Don't modify it just to sell it, you won't get your money back.

So, to get started with DS-8, 1) buy a camera (that Quarz is a good one to start with). 2) buy film here https://www.fotoimpex.de/shopen/films/foma-fomapan-iso-21100-r-ds-2x8-mm-10-meter-double-super-8-not-super-8.html 3) shoot the film: Load the daylight spool in the camera, expose, then flip the spool and expose the other half. 4) send it in for processing here: super8.nl -- tell them it's DS-8 Fomapan, they'll know what to do with it... It'll cost you a total of about 28 EUR for film and processing (shipping not included)

I'll post a step-by-step guide later today, now'll watch some Stranger Things :)

That was 28 EUR but for some reason the currency sign went missing. So 28 EUR for one roll of Fomapan film and processing.

Or, if you want to stay with super-8, the cheapest I have found is this (never used it myself): http://kpfilmlab.be/Projecten.htm Prices for film only and processing included.

Well, with Fomapan and DS-8, it costs approx. 28 film + processing for the same or a bit longer amount of film as one cartridge of super-8.

Chris, have you tested your battery pack to find out which of the pins is ground and which 12V? Once you find that out, building new battery packs is rather easy. I recelled myself all of the batteries I received when I bought my camera.

Correction: my experiment turned out to be a fiasco. The battery shut down even with 25 fps with film loaded. It just couldn't give enough current. Better idea to just stick to NIMH batteries.

The rarer ds-8 cameras cost much more, but those include a Canon Scoopic lookalike and Bolex reflex cameras modified to ds-8.

Well, most of the cameras that are available are quite cheap. You just have to find one that works. This is the most common ds-8 camera: http://m.ebay.de/itm/Quarz-Zoom-DS8-3-russische-Filmkamera-/252453330868?nav=SEARCH Processing can be done as 16mm. Thus it is something like 1.20 + vat per meter @ Andec. For a spool of 10 meters ds-8 you get 20 meters of super-8 after splitting the processed film but pay only about 12.00 + vat.

Well, there are differences in both sharpness and grain -- of which especially the latter is quite a good reason for four stocks. If I need the speed, I can use 500T. If I have lots of light but want to have near grainless image, 50D is my choice. All the other stocks have their place as well. These differences become very evident in smaller formats. Compare 50D to 500T in super-8 and you can't mistake one for another. Also, adding lots of NDs isn't that convenient either. :)

Yes, DS-8 is compatible with your existing projector :)

It's a rental house owned FF and I didn't even operate it, only my AC did so I really don't know the details. Sorry. But yes, you are correct that how the things turned out was very close to some ideas presented earlier in this thread.

The exposed (latent) image is going to start to deteriorate immediately after exposure. With color film the best thing is to try to have it processed the same week, after three months the deterioration already affects how grainy it looks. On the other hand, something like that can be done. For example, here is some 16mm footage that sat for 3½ years (!) before being processed (I think my friend did keep it in the fridge though): Please do note that with super-8 the effects of deterioration are going to be easier to spot.

I worried a bit whether or not a follow focus would reach the focus ring on PL-mount primes. Fortunately it was unnecessary. Even with a narrow gear the Chrosziel follow focus reached the focus ring on the Optar Illumina primes. We had to use a clip-on mattebox, as the Chrosziel 4x5.65" would hit the other end of the rods and thus not get close enough to the lens. To sum it up: Les Bosher 15mm rod base for Eclair ACL works fine with PL-lenses and follow focus equipment.

With film both mags had a very healthy sound. According to Bernie it's normal for things get a bit too loose in these mags without film balancing out feed and take-up sides. I guess this case is closed :)