Dave Perry

My plan is to go from D-tap from V-mount to Cannon 4 pin. I'm either going to use the original camera mount that runs along side the mad or devise something else.

Hi Samuel. Yes, I've visited Les Bosher's site and e-mailed him. It's hard to tell from the photos on his site if he uses the C-mount or TS mount for his adapters. I've got tons of base plates, dove tails rods, lens supports, etc, from other camera rigs so I'm not worried about that right now, just the adapter.

Hi everyone. I just bought an Eclair ACL II. I've contacted AZ Spectrum, Visual Products, and Les Bosher and am waiting for responses but was also wondering if anyone knows of and adapter to go from the Eclair's TS mount to PL lens. I can't seem to find anything other than C-mount to PL and that just seems too risky as far as stress on the threads. Spoke to Bernie at super16inc and he is going to do the conversion to U16mm and suggested I look on eBay for adapters but I can't find any.

Thanks.

dp

Just an update. I picked up an Eclair ACL 2. I appreciate all the input from everyone. It's in good working conditions and has 2x400' French mags. I've checked with Bernie at Super16 Inc about CLA and super 16 or ultra 16 mod. I'll probably run a couple of 100's through it as a test before sending it to him but I'm crazy excited about working with it. Planning to get a PL adapter for it as well. I have a set of Schneider Xenon Fps I want to use with it.

The battery belt that came with it though is a Bescor lead acid pack that doesn't seem to charge though. I'm using an AC power source from my Ursa Mini right now but couldn't I use a V-mount battery throughout the Cannon plug for battery source?

Crikey, here we go again.

If intended for 35, they will be exactly the same focal length. Their FoV will be about half.

No worries. I'm well aware of the fact that focal length is not changed by image plane size. I have a set of Schneider Xenon FFs.

Thanks for the input guys. Looks like I'm the new owner of an Eclair ACL! Going to pick it up today. Now, need to get it CLAed and PL adapter.

Do you live near someone that can show you an ACL so you can get a feeling for the camera system....Worth a trip actually..

Hi Greg. Yes, I found one in a used camera shop recently and spent some time messing with it. The person running the shop that day knew nothing about it. The owner of the shop was on vacation but when he got back I asked him about it. He said it's there on consignment and would find out what the owner wants for it. He's having a hard time finding the owner right now but knows who it is. The camera was actually used to make a movie by its original owner at a local university. I'm hoping this week I can get a price on it. He says the owner has accessories but in the shop all it has is one 200' mag attached to it and that's all, no power or batteries.

The eye piece seems a little wonky to me. I had a hard time adjusting the level of the image. As I'm sure you know, and I discovered, there is a ring that rotates and turns the image based on how you have the eyepiece oriented. That mechanism seemed to work inconsistently but i was able to level the image regardless of how I positioned the eyepiece.

So far the responses you guys have given me are a great help and much appreciated. I'm really hoping I can get it. The shop owner wants to get it out of there, just a matter of confirming a price from the camera owner. Any online resources you guys know of would be great. I've found a couple already.

Thanks.

Feature wise Eclair ACL is a professional 16mm camera whereas Scoopic is closer to an amateur camera.

 

With a later model ACL you get 400ft mags, crystal sync 24 fps and non sync speeds 8/12/50/75. Self blimped. Using a proper adapter you can also use PL mount lenses on it. It is a steady but lightweight camera. Definitely better choice for narrative work.

Thanks Heikki. I was wondering about the ability to adapt PL lenses to the ACL. I have PL Schneider so that is a what I'm looking for.

dp

I’m looking at a couple of 16mm options, an Eclair ACL or a Canon Sccopic. I know the Scoopic is geared towards news gathering but what are your thoughts on the two for narrative work? Any pitfalls in each I should look out for, pros and cons?

Thanks.

dp

 

I loved it...and I'm sharing it with whoever I can! Thanks for the totally cool video!

Thanks for the props Samuel and I certainly appreciate you sharing it with anyone you think would appreciate it.

dp

How did you stabilize the footage? Were you using a metal pressure plate from Andec? I noticed the film didn't breathe much.

Hi Samuel. The image was stabilized, for the most part, in the scan. I used Pro8mm.com I also stabilized some of the shots in post. I cut in FCPX.

Hey gang. I recently finished up a music video shot on Super 8. It was shot in one 12 hr day and use 7 carts of film. The video can be seen here:

http://daveperry.net/portfolio/god-of-hell/

I wrote a blog post about it here:

http://daveperry.net/5288-2/

There are some obvious lessons learned from the shoot but I'm looking forward to another one ASAP. Your thoughts wold be appreciated.

Thanks.

dp

Hey folks. Looking for a suitable WA adapter for my Canon AZ 814. I've read in some places that I will need a lens that has a macro setting to be able to use some of the adapters. The lens on the AZ 814 does not but will the Canon C-8 adapter work well with it?

Thanks.

Also Dave I'm not sure how you see that it's more expensive. CineLab is $15-18/roll for processing and around $17.5/roll for HD Best Light telecine or $25/roll for 2k scan (which I recommend over telecine. It's a HUGE difference). So if you buy V3 stock for $26+ processing for $18 + 2k scan for $25 that's $70 without shipping which adds probably $15 but you should be sending in multiple carts at a time to offset that cost. Pro8mm starts at $100/cart for 2k stock+process+scan packages and 1080 is at like $130 due to the telecine process needing color correction. The 2k is cheaper due to being a flat scan so less work for them.

 

Nick, just got a response from Robert at Cinelab and he sent me pricing for telecine (which I would never do) but not LOG scanning. I contacted Gamma Ray also. Too bad they don't process the film also. I like the convenience of fewer shipments.

Thanks for the info.

I might also add that it is cheaper to purchase directly from Kodak and send it to Cinelab.com. Pro8mm is way over priced.

D is for daylight T is for tungsten. How much under? With the right scanner and colorist, many mistakes can be corrected.

Hi Chris. So far, from what I can tell, Cinelab is more expensive. I've reached out to them for clarification on pricing.

I'm a colorist as well, and it's anywhere from 1-2 stops under. Too much for my purposes. Boosting luma brings out too much grain.

D is for daylight T is for tungsten. How much under? With the right scanner and colorist, many mistakes can be corrected.

Thanks Chris. I'll check them out.

Believe it or not, I do know what the D and T mean. ;)

Ya you have a few things incorrect here.

 

First. There's no 50T stock out there from Kodak. 50D is exactly that: Daylight stock. So outside there is no need for a filter. And you saying you "notched" them to disable the filter doesn't make sense. You have it backwards. Daylight cartridges come with NO notch cut so that the cartridge pushes the pin inside the camera to disable to the 85 filter from being used at all since it's already balanced for daylight. If you were cutting out a notch that would actually enable the filter to be used on daylight which is bad. If you cut a notch, enabled the filter by having the switch on "sun" and then put another 85 filter on then you were doubling down on filters that weren't even needed in the first place. Also that effectively put your ASA at like 20 (if my math is right) with a heavy orange cast. So you'd need to correct that cast in your color correction manually and not via a LUT. and need a lot of light which also would account for the underexposure.

 

I think you may have been reading up on how Vision2 was notched which was incorrect on Kodak's part. Vision3 and I believe Pro8mm notch everything correctly now so that the auto exposure will be fine.

 

As far as the filter, if you don't want to use the internal filter, that only applies to 200T and 500T stock and you don't need to modify anything. Just set the filter to bulb when outside then screw on your filter and you'll be fine, even with autoexposure as the camera meters through the lens.

 

Hope that helps!

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the response.

Wow! I feel like a dufus! The way I tested my camera was to set the the filter switch to "Bulb", press the pin with my finger and watch the switch move to "Sun", then remove my finger and look through the gate as I ran the camera. I could see the 85 filter in place. Little did I realize that removing my finger is what allowed the filter to drop back into place. I mistakenly thought that the filter was in place to correct for tungsten film for outdoor use.

UGH!!!! What an expensive FU*@ING lesson! I shot 3 rolls that way!

It all makes sense now that I check the camera again and see that removing my finger from the pin allows the filter to drop in which in effect is what I did by notching the cartridge. No wonder it's so over exposed!

Anyway, thanks for helping me get it straight. That's why I'm here ;)

dp

lots to discuss.

 

Indoor? Outdoor? Why use a 85 filter on daylight balanced stock? You lost 2/3 a stop of light on an already slow stock. You are probably correct that the metering may be off, but in auto exposure that would adjust the aperture. Did you not pay attention to the aperture or what was it reading during different stocks. I ask all this and maybe more because, shooting outdoors with an 85 up front would give you a warm image. What did it look like? How underexposed was it?

Hi Chris,

Sorry for the missing info. Yes, daylight stock shot outdoors.

My understanding is that Vision 3 50D cartridges are loaded with tungsten stock, but when inserted into the camera, the cartridge triggers the mechanism to engage the internal 85. It's not the stock that is different, simply the cartridge case. I notched the cartridges to disable the internal 85A and used my own Tiffen screw on filter. I get my stock from Pro8mm.

I payed attention to the aperture when shooting this batch and the previous batch, which turned out nicely. I took light readings with the camera's light meter then set the aperture manually based on the readings (old habit, rarely do I shoot using auto anything).

The only difference (I thought) was that this time I was using an external 85 rather than the camera's built in 85. I'm wondering if the metering may have been off, not because of the use of the external 85, but because of the mechanism that engages the internal 85 was bypassed.

Hey everyone.

I got my second batch of test footage back from Pro8mm this week. I shot 3 rolls of Vision 3 50D. This time I notched the cartridges to disable the internal 85A and used my own Tiffen screw on filter. The idea was that hopefully the bypass of the 40 year old internal filter would yield cleaner images.

I'm sorry to say that this run did not turn out as I expected. Most of my shots are under exposed. I'm thinking that bypassing the internal filter signaled the light meter to take different readings and that the use of the external screw on filter caused the under exposure. I had the film scanned to 2k log and applied a Vision 3 LUT in post, as I've done in the past. However, I've had to boost the highs so much and bring down the lows that it is exaggerating the grain, not what I want.

I will post some clips soon but does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks.

Monoaware is kind of an art house, they don't really work with modern professional equipment. It's more of a place for people who are beginner filmmakers. They do have a 35mm course in July, but 1 roll of film and $900 bux? EEEK!

Yeah, I visited their web site and although it looks interesting, I'm looking for something aimed at professionals. The search continues.

check these folks out. they do offer workshops on basic filmmaking.

 

http://mononoawarefilm.com/

Looks like a good program. Thanks for the info.

Thanks Satsuki. There are no rental houses in the area. There are a couple of independent production guys like myself that rent their own stuff out but no film. Closest would be the D.C. area. Your idea of heading to NYC sounds like a reasonable option though, maybe Atlanta as well.

If you're making a living shooting digitally, then there doesn't seem to be much a film course could teach you that you couldn't learn from shooting still film. Most of the technical skills of loading and threading film are handled by assistants, or if not, are very easily learned (as least as far as 16mm goes), and it sounds like you already know how to expose film.

 

There are probably many 'film schools' out there that offer the chance to shoot film, but many of them are only offering the opportunity to work on someone else's film (and help pay for it in the process). I don't know if there are accredited schools offering weekend or similar short courses, but if so, they would seem the safest bet.

Hi Stuart. It's true that there are "film schools" out there that will train in whatever areas one wants to learn. In my search it seems like they are scams though, mainly supplying crew for indie film or commercial/corporate jobs through a "mentor" working in your area geographically. The one I checked out has continued to follow up with me and they are always asking about the down payment. I asked them who the mentor they were going to pair me with was because I know a vast majority of the productions folks in this region. They said they'd get back to me. I finally told them I didn't think what they offer is what I'm looking for. Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU, in Richmond Virginia is an outstanding art school, always has been and is highly regarded. I've checked out their Cinema Studies program and they seem to have a fine one. They are one of a handful of programs in the world that offer 35mm motion picture training to under grads. Oh to be young again :)

I don't have any film SLRs any more but I'm brushing up on exposing film through Super 8 these days. My search continues.

Welcome to the forum Dave!

 

I offer hands-on courses with motion picture film in here in Los Angeles. My weekend course is free, just need to pay for film, processing and print.

 

We project on 16 and 35mm as well, so students can do the entire workflow if they wish.

 

We can use either Aaton cameras or Arri, 3 perf (scan only) or 4 perf (print). It's all up to what you're looking to accomplish.

 

Generally I put my "students" on to short films I'm making on motion picture film. We have one of those shoots coming up May 27th and 28th.

Hi Tyler, thanks.

That sounds great! Just the kind of thing I'm looking for. I'm on the East coast though. However, I will be in LA in October for a short film of mine that will be screening there the week of October 20-26, 2017. Maybe we can connect when I'm out there.

Hey everyone,

I’m a working adult, full time, self-taught professional looking for training in cinema and film. I’m not sure what I can afford in time or financially at this point but In particular I’m looking for anything that would offer training/work in 35mm or 16mm film production. At this point I’m well versed in digital cinema. I’ve searched the web for seminars, workshops, Summer intensives, continuing edu, etc. I reached out to the folks at the Virginia Production Alliance, of which I’m a member, to see if they had any resources in that area. They had little other than suggesting I contact the heads of the cinema studies programs at UVa and VCU, which I've done and have not heard back from them yet.

I feel fortunate to have been making a living doing this full time since 2003, but I started in video, not film, and want to get some film experience. I starting shooting 35mm stills as a teenager in the 70's and 80's (so you can figure out I'm no Spring chicken) and I'm currently shooting Super 8 movies for fun, but also trying to see if I can fit it into some of the corporate work I do as a creative option.

Any suggestions, pointers, or info on how to get some "hands on" with motion picture film (short of enrolling in full time film school that still uses film) would be greatly appreciated.