Matt Petrosky

I believe Sergio Leone used this format a lot on his famous spaghetti westerns.

Ha ha, so true. I can't begin to count the number of times I've had to net a beautiful set of Zeiss Ultra Primes.

The ground glass is almost certainly more accurate, especially if it it an ARRI-made (and not a hand-drawn) ground glass. The adjustment and positioning of the ground glass relative to the film plane is limited to very small adjustment amounts because the tolerances are so critical. Why would one need to move the ground glass further away or to the left by 2mm? The Arriglow glow-mask is another story. It is easily moved and adjusted in very large/coarse increments. Assuming that you have matching formats on both the ground glass and glow mask I would wager that the ground glass is much more accurate and the glow mask is off. BTW it is very easy to adjust the glow mask in the field. Similar to alining the video tap. Hope this helps, Matt 600 Camera Assistant Los Angeles, CA

Yup, marking the iris rods with colored sharpies is a great trick. Keep us posted about your experience with the Elite lenses.

Nice review Mitch. Anamorphics and varying sizes always seem to go hand in hand. Joe Dunton has a nice series of Anamorphics based on old Cookes, the Cinema Anamorphics. Nice lenses, but totally random sizes and shapes. I finally had a set of Delvron rings made up for me (always seemed to need them for pick-ups, etc.) that adapted them to a Arri LMB-3 6x6 clip on. Are you familiar with the WillyTec follow focus system? http://www.birnsandsawyer.com/cdva-followf...es-willytec.htm At first this system seems a bit strange, but after a day with it, I'll never go back. Super-smooth slop-free mechanics and it can be configured to work on any lens. 24mm Anamorphics, the VPs, you name it. Worth looking into. How are the focus scales on the Elite lenses? Do you know if the focus drive mechanics are helical or cam-follower?

Check out LOST IN TRANSLATION.

We used an A-Minima on RASING VICTOR VARGAS for close quarters shooting (i.e. small bathroom). I don't recall any sound issues, it was certainly quieter then our Prod and Plus which lived in the barnies (all three cameras were from Able NY, nice people BTW). For some really quiet stuff, we might have thrown a jacket or something over it, but it's a good little camera. Just remember to double check that the film is sitting properly on the rails in the gate as it's not hard to misalign it, and then who cares what it sounds like cause it's all totally blurry. Actually I've used the A-Minima from time to time since then and it's always delivered the goods, quietly. Good luck with it, Matt