Robin Phillips

Ultra 16s are a super 16 lens set exclusively. Ultra Primes are super 35 formatted lenses, but they're sharp enough to use the 16mm and up for super 16 work. Arri's ads for the U16s initially said to use the UPs for your longer focal lengths Ultra Primes and U16s have the same size housing, and the UPs will clear an SR3 viewfinder with no problem. have done it before.

the way to do this is with 100ft rolls of 16 and ideally the camera and lenses you want to work with. load the 100ft rolls entirely in the bag to ensure no light bleed. then use the either the same scanner you intend on using or the closest one you can afford to get your scans done. anything outside if this workflow will leave you with a lot of question marks and uncontrolled variables that may lead to a surprise once you start shooting and getting scans back

having owned an optex 8mm and an optar illumina 7mm, the optar was MUCH sharper. those optar and elite lenses are pretty remarkable if you dont want zeiss glass.

the arri / zeiss Ultra 16s are going to be the sharpest hands down, followed by master primes. weirdly, the zeiss LWZ.2 is nearly as sharp as the Ultra 16s, and will clear the viewfinder on the SR3. Ultra 16s will fit an SR3, Master Primes wont (I think they technically will if you put the viewfinder in a vertical position that makes it unusable). Regular Ultra Primes work fine, but they're not as sharp as the Ultra 16s. That being said I have no issue using a 40mm UP in leu of the U16 35mm if I really want that smidge narrower field of view. Originally they only released the U16s from 6mm to 14mm, assuming that users would simply use the regular ultra primes to round out their lens set. Not long after they rounded out the U16 set with longer focal lengths.

thats great. will make the a minima much more usable

will the film still need to be re wound with this solution?

episode 1 is quite clearly shot on film. the main cameras were 535s along with some 435 and vista vision use. model unit was all film, mostly (maybe entirely) vista vision. there is at least one digital test shot in it. episode 2 was digital on the sony F900, which came out the same year as 28 days later which was all on the canon XL1

it looks like the tap is misaligned and needs to be moved "up", so to speak, given how much at the bottom you are seeing. had the camera previously shown more of the ground glass? or is this camera new to you and you are just seeing this for the first time? are you 100% sure nothing is obstructing the ground glass, and that the ground glass is properly seated? have you contacted visual products?

I'll say this, just about every time a new video AI model comes out my film friends get anxious, but my non film friends are annoyed by the unfocused (in the sense of action, not actual optical focus) AI slop. It probably wont last, but I think there will be a point where, much like with movies where the vfx have taken over the show yet become kinda boring, the technology is going to have its limitations for narrative. as for tv ads, internet ads, random quick shit on tiktok, thats harder to say. but it feels like the movies are already headed more toward character driven over plot and cool vfx driven work, so at least some of the audience out there is gonna be pretty sensitive to this stuff even if they cant nail down whats wrong with it. that being said theres almost certainly a world right around the corner where we'll be able to shoot actors in a black box theater type environment and use AI to fill it out. what I'm actually most interested are the lawsuits here in the US going after unauthorized reproduction of training data, given that the very nature of these systems is such reproduction, even if in small bits. once discovery moves forward on some of the cases in the US, we're likely to see some interesting results that will complicate much of this. Surely the big AI companies will do everything they can to avert that situation, but we've seen with Apple's case with Epic how an arrogant, bad faith company can face serious consequences from a judge who has had it.

if you are able to report back at all on how 16mm performs on the 416 please do.

well if it opened up a world where you could get motion runs of just about any stills film, that would be pretty incredible. though if tons of cameras/mags need modification, thats certainly something thats a bit worrying given how few technicians are still in that game. seems like theres a decent chance kodak is playing with fire. but if they have people at corporate who think motion would continue sales at stills prices... yoish...

I've seen a few rumblings online that kodak is moving to remove the remjet layer entirely from its motion line of film stocks (both on fb and reddit). While someone posted screencaps of what appeared to be a technical document onto fb, they wouldnt actually post the full document or link to it from a kodak source. does anyone know whats going on? is this a weird rumor thats starting to spread, or is kodak actually eliminating the remjet layer?

Im sure Paul at Shruco Tool can do this to a donor glass / screen. Though sometimes the easiest way to get ahold of him is through Andree at AM Camera. you probably would want marks on the screen where your gate limits are though, even if just hooks, since the viewfinder optics will show you more of the image circle than the gate gets (normally the shaded area on an arri ground glass/fiberscreen).

Roundabout has a director, I think its the older 10k model https://www.roundabout.com/restoration-remastering also Cinelab Boston's xena scanner can do the same sort of thing. I did some s16mm tests a few years ago with them, and the range that was extractable was insane, especially on 50D negative. Cinelab does consumer, hobbiest, and professional scanning. I dont know if Fotokem has added to their scanner line up or not, but its been my experience that as long as you can afford their rate they wont say no to money. I think thats generally the attitude with any of the labs these days to be honest. though Im sure some have a minimum charge.

just FYI you are very unlikely to find one in mint condition. if you did, you'd want it serviced regardless. also an SR3 HS will almost certainly be louder than an XTR Prod, so I'd recommend sorting out if you actually need 150fps or not. if you do need it, you really want a HS Advanced model if you dont want to have to worry about replacing the rails as they wear on the normal HS.