Ruben Arce

It's been great. I haven't shoot with it as much as I would like, but I got the camera serviced after the original post. I got the magazines converted to S16 and everything works just fine.

Thanks Aren, A technician told me about the serial number located inside the turret some time ago, but I'm glad you answered the question and included a picture so other people looking for this information can find it in the future.

Yes, QLM is out of business and the man referred me to Spectra as well, so I sent my light meter and my Minolta Color Meter II and they deemed the Minolta unrepairable. They said the cells were not in good condition and they don't have parts. The one that I have was in great looking condition, but it was around 40 years old... So, I guess I'll better get a modern one.

If you don't want to use the reglomatic or the light meter then you don't need the half power. You can just attach the positive and negative poles and ignore the half one.

There is a documentary named "Side by side" it presents interesting information about this topic.

Hey Gabriel, did you get your meter calibrated? I just got a Minolta Color Meter II and the readings are not even close to what I should expect. Actually as you mentioned all the measurements that I took came low.

Some technicians modify the magazines some don't. So technically is possible to shoot S16 using any magazine, but according to some technicians they may scratch the film. My NPR was converted by Les Bosher to S16 and PL mount, but he didn't modify the mags and several people had the same with Les. Then I sent my camera to Bernie for a CLA and he recommended modifying the mags and I did it even when the cameras used to work fine. You could load some brand new film on the magazine, run the camera for a few seconds and then inspect the film looking for scratches.

As an actual owner of a couple of Scoopic M & MS converted to U16 by Bernie I think I can comment on the original topic. Bernie did not convert Scoopics to S16, period. As a matter of fact Bernie prefers converting cameras like the Arri SR, Krasnogorsk 3 and Eclair NPR to U16 because it's easier. You don't have to offset the lens, you just widen the gate and there you go. You get a wider image that allows you to extract a 1.85:1 or 1.78:1 image talking advantage of the sides of the frame, getting a wider image which means more actual resolution and more pixels. The Scoopic can't be converted to S16 because the lens is fixed on the camera. When you have a mount and lenses that can can be mounted you can modify the mount to recenter the lens, which would be pretty much impossible without heavily modifying the Scoopic. Another reason is the at the 12.5mm position the lens barely covers the U16 area which is smaller than the S16 one. At the 12.5mm position the image starts to vignette on the sides and the image gets softer on those areas. Everybody knows that if you convert a camera to S16 you have to get lenses that cover that area or you are going to get a vignette on the sides. The viewfinder of the Scoopic can't be widened to display the U16 area neither because of the way the camera was constructed and again Bernie did not offer this modification. Bernie is famous for his laser brighten process on focusing screens that makes them brighter and easier to work with, but he did not offer that service for the Scoopic cameras, but I have to say he did a great job with my NPR. I mean there is nothing impossible, if you have tons of money and you find the right person you could modify the camera, which is very logical and old technology by the way, but is it worth it? If you really like the Scoopics because they are easy to load or something like that then get a Scoopic Sound. Some Scoopic Sound cameras came with a Canon bayonet mount , at least you can modify the mount and use a lens that would cover the S16 area. Talking about the difference between R16 cropped to 1.78:1 I agree that the image is going to be similar to S16, even when it's not the same for several reasons, but exposing film correctly it's going to help you to get more professional results than anything else. A lot of people don't compensate for light lost on the prism (M has T stops I know) Don't compensate for the actual shutter speed of the camera (170° on the M) or they may want to us the internal meter which in my opinion is not reliable even If it has been calibrated. If you get under exposed images and then you bring exposure back in post you are going to get more grain and S16 is not going to do much to compensate for that really. If you expose R16 properly, close down the lens a bit to it's sweet spot, expose properly and stuff like that and then crop you can get good results for sure. It's a chain of small elements what makes the difference in my opinion.

There is a small triangular black plastic piece that keeps the film leveled while the film enters the sprockets area. Make sure you have that one in place. I had a camera that didn't have that piece and it used to do what you describe every time.

It is true that there is not a defined standard being used, but they should not be that far apart. Digital cameras use ISO which is a standard, but then they do all kind of tricky things with their RAW or LOG formats to make their cameras look good or more sensitive than they actually are. Now Kodak uses ISO instead of ASA which is basically the same. There have been two standards used for light meters through history but the results are pretty close. Ansel Adams was a proponent of the 18% gray standard, and manufacturers prefer 13% gray because it delivers brighter images. In "The Negative" Ansel Adam's book from the 70s he talks about the K factor, which is a compensation of about half stop from 18% gray and that is exactly the difference between the two standards. I have tested several hand held and camera meters and they work properly. They are half stop off from each other. Sekonic and modern cameras use 13% gray, but they don't disclaim that information because it is very confusing for some people so they simply don't disclose that information. If your old meter works properly, it should give you numbers no more than half stop off of the Sekonic, but let me tell you that I was there a few years ago telling myself that the meters don't work properly, that they were not designed to work with digital cameras and stuff like that. It took me a long time to learn how to get proper readings and I was the one thinking my meter needed to be calibrated and that it was not accurate at all or that I needed an expensive one. When I learned how to use it properly it started working for me right on the spot every single time. You should test your meters in a simple setup. Put the two meters next to each other under the sun in exactly the same conditions, using exacly the same settings, or in a studio with even light and they should give you close readings. Some old meters specially the ones that don't have batteries don't work properly anymore and some meters that require mercury batteries don't give you accurate readings because those batteries don't exist anymore in this part of the world and replacements don't put out the same amount of power. Another simple way to test your meters is using the Sunny 16 rule. Do your research. I use my Sekonic L-558 Cine to shoot all kinds of film motion and stills and the images are right on the spot every single time. There is nothing special about film, light meters work just fine and they do work with good quality DSLRs as well like my D810 or the D850 or cameras in that range. With Digital Cinema cameras you can always calculate the ISO they are using and once you find it you can use your meter with the camera, but I can tell you that with LOG formats they pretty much do whatever they want.

No problem. In my experience all M42 lenses have worked great, but I definitely recommend using prime lenses. Zoom lenses from that time period were not what they are today, they are soft, but yes I used several lenses with my K3 and I have never had any issues.

You can use pretty much any M42 lens on the K3 without problems. I don't know where that guy got that info, specially when it's almost impossible to get factory details or service manuals for the K3s. The focal flange distance of the M42 mount is 45.46 mm VS the 45.50 that you are talking about that's a .04mm or 4 hundredths of a millimeter. Technicians consider +-.02 the tolerance for a correctly calibrated mount, so as you can see it doesn't make much sense. Now when technicians set the FFD of a camera mount, meaning the body not the lens they subtract .02 or .03 to the original FFD so the image falls right in the middle of the film. You can use M42 lenses, Ks never have the right FFD on the mount anyways since they were not designed as professional cameras and they were not manufactured to high or strict specifications. A technician can do it for you, but unless that was the case just mount the lens and it will work

Adjusting or calibrating the nozzle to the bed and cleaning the bed with alcohol helps a lot. I use hair spray after cleaning and calibrating the bed and prints stick to the bed really well. I just use the basic hair spray from the dollar store, it works like a charm. Also started getting much better result when I changed the bed heating temperature to 55 instead of 60° and the fan speed to 60% instead of 100% I print stuff at speed of 25-35 and that has helped me me to pretty much eliminate warping. I'm going to be out of town a couple of weeks, but I'll print the small tank soon.

I have the Ender 3 and I have a 0.3mm nozzle mounted on it now. I'm going to use that one to print the spiral, so I can get better detail and minimize scratches on the film. I'll report later, since just the spiral it's going to take 14 hours to print, but I'll give it a try for sure.

Wow! That's a super cool design and you are just sharing it. I don't have a printer that big, but this will make some people happy for sure.