Fergus O'Doherty

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. You can call me (757)525-1658. There are a couple of places to get spares but they are few and far between. Sam Dodge makes some stuff out of his machine shop. Richard Bennett at Cinemagear.com restores some stuff. Those are the only 2 people I would send you to. What exactly are you needing? I have a working 2709 and used it recently. I'm working with Bodine Electrical Co right now to get a motor made for mine as orig. motors are pretty beat up and expensive. Regards. Fergus O'Doherty (2709 #289)

I am using it ( old Mitchell Matte Box) with a Bell and Howell 2709. It has sliding plates in the front stage. If I want to frame for widescreen, how far apart do I need to set the upper and lower plates ( or is this an elementary question I should be able to figure out automatically ? )

yeah it's 4. But looking at the film shuttle a good machinist could make a 2 perf right? I mean that's how they were made to begin with right ?

I'm shooting with this 2709 at the end of this week. I thought it was 2 perf but I was corrected... it's 4. I'll check that. I am shooting lens tests next Friday with Goerz Hypars ( 1 5/8 & 2") , Cooke Speed Panchro 50mm and I have a couple of others. I have a B&L 51mm 2" which I need to make an adapter for ( but the machro effect is amazing and I have a 600mm Kilfit, a 500mm Birns and Sawyer, a 154mm and 254mm Eymax and a few others. We're working a semi fictional civil war doc. called Fetchin' Water. ( Facebook). I also have a modified turret for it which takes PL mounts and Nikons. I have a Toshiba zoom also which I am testing after I get the adapter made. Fetchin' Water is a story made from letters that were written by people during the war. We're cleaning up the trailer this week for posting.

which model is it? Alan Gordon is one of the subject matter experts on some of their stuff(as noted above). I have a 70DL rebuilt by them but I haven't used it yet. It's a 16mm, but I am getting ready to use the 2709 first. The thing to remember is you can only put a certain amount of film in it and it'll only run for a short amount of time without a change. Also... if it's the spring-wound combat version which are very tough.. the spring is under a lot of tension when it's fully wound... it can break your 'digits' it's under that much tension. But there's plenty of info on line for them. It's a great handheld because of the weight, the only problem will be viewfinding while shooting, it's a whole lot smaller than a digicam monitor.

If you're in Virginia Beach... connect. fergusnod@yahoo.com

I am getting ready to test a B&H 2709....35mm.... I think it's 2 perf. This stuff's all pretty new to me. But from everything everyone says... the 2709 is a rock steady cam and pretty reliable though noisy (and heavy). My way around the noise is long lenses for certain shots and I'm planning on trying to make a blimp to house it. I've worked with fiberglass before and I think I can make one. I'm pretty excited to see what kind of results I can get on first test with a 100 year old hand crank camera. I have a motor that came with it, but it was designed as an animation motor so I am going to be talking to someone about making a motor for it which works with the frame counter I have at standard FPS speeds. If anyone wants to contact me directly about it my e-mail is fergusnod@yahoo.com Fergus O' Doherty.. (757)525-1658 Virginia Beach (facebook) I am going to need all the advice I can find. Everyone of you who use this website are my heroes. Thank you Lincoln ( featured extra) Pioneers Turned Millionaires ( Henry J Heinz) Atlantis Down (sci-fi camera crew Red One) The Night Vampires went after The Pope (author) New Detectives (extra) The Bureau (extra)

aaawwwww.. man I was so happy to hear this..lol. I just got an Arri 16BL which I'm planning to use cause it's a blimped sound sync 16mm. Then I have a 35mm hand cranked which I've had a zillion comments on about how the fact that it's 35mm will be fantastic for enlargement to digital. So I'm a happy camper.

I loved it man. Good job.

wow, this was a great thread. I loved the advice on rehearsals and blocking and stuff, autofocus vs manual, lighting I have a Bell and Howell 2709 with original lenses and will be using all the old manual stuff later this year minus a FF. So I will have to block/ rehearse and use focus tape on the lenses.. stuff like that. Great input from experienced cameramen though. Awesome. ( Bell and Howell 2709/ Arri BL16/ JVC Evario/Bell and Howell 70DR)

I like to picture the story through each lens and then decide how I want to tell it. We did a doc. with a 50mm and it looked great. We filmed 'Atlantis Down' ( sci fi ) with a variety... 14/18/25/35/40/50/85 can't remember if we used any others, I had a book with them written down and lost the book unfortunately. We did 'Pioneers Turned Millionaires' with few changes. I have a 35mm hand cranked and have about 8 lenses but I'm going to be using mattes and filters/angles/SFX.... not just clean filters but dirty filters which completely change the look of what's coming through the lens anyway. But in that particular shot... it will be a hand in a very close shot looking through a dirty filter.. so the focus in not really on what the lens is doing ... it's the color + dirt (cloudy)plus a hand out of focus... but then when you use a different color filter it changes everything. It is time consuming changing lenses, it is also a liability, you can drop one of them, get dirt behind it when your changing it,it costs time, you might put another one on and not like the look. Directors viewfinders give you an advantage, a forward look... but you won't know how the finished product will look enlarged and projected. I bought a 600mm not sure what I would get when I looked through it... when I got it.. I liked what I saw. But it's a beast, it's inconvenient, it's heavy. When they filmed B&W silent way back they only used a couple of sizes of lenses. The possibilities are endless. But a couple of KEY things are time !( how much time do you have to keep changing lenses because time costs money and you'll need help running... and look EXT/INT ! All that being said...I hope you have time to experiment. (xcuse typos)

Thank you Simon. I am close to doing a scratch test. I've had a local Public TV station express interest in covering some of the procedure for archive and as part of an ' Underground Art' segment on their Portal. I took some video through the viewing optic last night as I was cranking the camera over...it shows flickering, The only frame counter I have is one mounted to an animation motor that I got with the camera so I am trying to figure out whether to buy a Veeder Root counter online and get an adapter made for it. So that has to be figured out. I have run it with the motor before but not full bore. So I want to be pretty careful at first. I also have a Mitchell matte box and have a huge selection of filters. I've been checking them and between the lens selection I'm adding and the matte box and filters I should have a really good setup. I have short and tall sticks, a high hat, a friction head and an Akeley Gyro for fast pans and with the inching gears in it I should have some really cool potential. I also have 200, 400 and 1000 foot mags. Cheers for the info and contact.

Thank you for the reply. I am thinking of trying to make a soundproof blimp just for this camera but also storyboard the particular scenes carefully so that whatever I shoot with this camera is dubover/ subtitles ... something like that. I keep hearing this is such a steady camera I'm almost compelled to test it as much as possible to see how much it can be used. I'm just going to use multiple short ends in the 200ft magazine and test it as much as possible. Just an example....if the camera is noisy... you could film a piece of machinery which has a similar sound and blend both sounds together...that's just an example. Now I know the two butterfly shutters make noise when they rotate past each other. But what if I experiment making two plastic shutters or two metal shutters coated in Teflon paint. The plastic ones might not last as long as metal ones... but you never know until you try right. Also sound deadening is much more advanced than it was back in the day... so I'm going to try a few different things. My primary goal is to film test as many ideas as possible because even though todays electronic cameras have a lot of impact on how you can shoot a film, there are lots of things you can do with lighting the set, filtering a matte box and manipulating the development process, it's really more about skill and artform ( and I don't mean to take anything away from digital). Every time I look at a digitally filmed / edited production I can almost immediately identify it as digital. Another thing about the camera. You can slide mattes in behind the lens, there are also filters that can slide between the lens and film. There's a slot in the camera loading door for them. I don't know if all 35mm film camera's have that.... but there are a few companies that sell them ( mattes and filters) and I know of one set available on the market. So I can test this also. I am probably going to take a full year to test it. Anyway I look forward to anyone who has anything to contribute. Thank you again. PS If the silent you mentioned was The Canyon.....Adam Wilt and Art Adams ...yes I saw that... it's great documentary footage showing how some of it was done. ( 'xcuse any typo's... and I just see it was The Canyon))