Duncan Brown

I still think the camera can't format a new Cineflash (well, a Cineflash with an unformatted replacement SSD module installed in it.)  Oddly enough, once it IS formatted, and you decide to erase all the files on it in the camera menu, what it does is....format the drive!   But you can't get to that menu choice with an unformatted Cineflash.  That's some catch, that Catch-22.

We were finally able to format the drive with the Cineflash Dock hooked to an old laptop with an external SATA port and the proper cable, running Linux.  Previous attempts, with several differences, to just format the drive had not created a drive that worked in a camera.  So we used Clonezilla to create a backup image of the working Cineflash, then restored that to the repaired Cineflash.  That worked!  Now we have a backup image we can use to do that whenever needed.  At some point I'm going to solder on a second connector to the board inside the repaired Cineflash and see if we can make it a 240GB model by putting two SSD modules in it.

There's an interesting quirk with the EF mount - it's spectacular that it includes electronic aperture control, but the way it works is, every time you change the aperture, it opens up fully, then stops back down to the selected aperture.  It's like they don't trust it to know where it is and have to "re-home" it each time you adjust it.  Weird, but not too annoying once you understand what it's doing.

Duncan

Not many people wanting to chime in, eh?  Well maybe a little camera-porn will, er, stimulate the discussion.

Duncan

Now that these are getting old enough to be afforded by mere mortals (or companies whose main business is not high speed cinematography) I thought I'd start a thread where we could share tips and tricks on these.  I realize for many of you, I'm probably asking you to dredge up knowledge from a long time ago!

We have one camera with a PL mount and one with an EF mount.  Anything anyone needs to know that they think I could answer, I'd be happy to.  My previous high speed experience was with 16mm film but I think I've come up to speed (oof) on these pretty quickly, so I hope I could be a resource.

Questions for existing/past users:

-- The touch screen is flaky, to put it mildly.  It generally seems to be a matter of calibration - the touch area and the screen image don't line up well.  Sometimes turning the screen off and on again seems to help, so maybe it recalibrates when you do that?  If you figure out the right offset to touch, to do what you want, then the next thing you want to do you'll find the offset is off-screen somewhere so that doesn't help.  The most commonly frustrating thing is trying to change the capture rate.  Many other things can be done remotely from the app on a PC, but seemingly not that.

-- The PL mount seems to be thicker than spec.  I haven't taken it outside to see if I can reach infinity, but other clues, like a zoom that changes focus massively when zooming, lead me to believe that's the case.  I got several shim kits with the cameras, but adding shims seem to make the problem worse.  It came with no shims installed.  Thus my guess that the lens is too far away from the sensor, not too close.

-- I'm still working on getting a computer set up to read the Cineflash cards so I may be able to answer my own question eventually but it would appear to me that there is no way for the camera to format a new blank card, is this correct?  (It's new and blank because I replaced the dead micro-SSD inside it).  Also, anyone know if you solder on a second connector on the circuit board inside and install another micro SSD in it (and reformat it), if it will magically become a 240GB Cineflash?  Or is there more to it than that?

Duncan

Just to keep things updated - I used the RAF setscrew adapter and it fit perfectly in my shallow PL mount.  Not as convenient as the ones that spin/clip on and off of course, but no choice with this crazy PL mount.

Duncan

Often the other two wires on motors of that era are for the Pilotone signal, used to sync up the separate tape recording where sound was captured.  So the Power goes in and the Pilotone comes out.

Duncan

Maybe I could pay £75/week for 100 weeks!

(Any lucky new owner yet?

Duncan

Anyone have one of the Fotodiox adapters and can measure the protrusion for me?  Looks like it could be close to fitting my mount.

Duncan

Dang.  I picked a bad week to not have a spare £7500 laying around.  (Come to think of it, most weeks are like that.)

I hope whoever gets it puts it to good use like Uli has, not on a shelf!

Duncan

5 hours ago, Rafael Pankratau said:

Hi Duncan.

This adapter requires 21mm of clear depth.

Thank you.

Raf.

 

Oof - my crazy PL conversion has 12mm, maybe 13mm of full diameter depth, then a little more with a taper.  Looks like I may be limited to the setscrew adapters, and lenses with native PL mounts.

Thanks!

Duncan

Rafael,

How far does the wide part of the adapter protrude behind the back of the PL mount face?  I have a Super-16 converted Eclair NPR that has a somewhat shallow cavity inside the PL mount and some adapters stick back too far.

Thanks,

Duncan

It does show why converting an ACL to S16 is so fraught with potential problems though - they cut all that timing SOOooooo close.

I'd have to remove the whole front of the camera to see whether we see any of the proposed bounce/bend/stretch at the end of the motion, to explain why an extended or repositioned mirror can slap the camera body even though statically it doesn't reach.

Duncan

With access to a high speed camera now, I thought this might be a fun place to post this:

Duncan

It sold for less than $2500 (ebay no longer shows the final selling price when Make Offer is used) I hope it was someone on here!

Duncan

Some more GSMO scans!

http://backglass.org/duncan/cinema_products/cp_gsmo_flyer_79.pdf

http://backglass.org/duncan/cinema_products/cp_gsmo_flyer_82.pdf

http://backglass.org/duncan/cinema_products/cp_gsmo_pricelist_19801201.pdf

...and the crummy 100dpi versions:

http://backglass.org/duncan/cinema_products/cp_gsmo_flyer_79_100.pdf

http://backglass.org/duncan/cinema_products/cp_gsmo_flyer_82_100.pdf

http://backglass.org/duncan/cinema_products/cp_gsmo_pricelist_19801201_100.pdf

Enjoy!

Duncan

Just showed up on ebay - a decent little ACL 1.5 kit, other than the crazy weird short viewfinder.  $2500

https://www.ebay.com/itm/226038623169

Duncan

54 minutes ago, Kamran Pakseresht said:

It's great you started a thread about this! I recently have been working on reverse engineering some of these adapters. Here is the official US patent for the mount for those interested: https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/3682069
 

I was very motivated to create an adapter for Micro Four Thirds lenses but after actually starting to calculate it and model it - it's just not possible, there is not enough room. I think there is a possibility of a mod - where you remove the 6 screws holding the TS camera mount to the camera body and replace it with a Micro Four Thirds mount - but I will need to get a cheap/parts only ACL to test this on.

I did make a 3d printable model of a cap that fits the TS mount as a starting point to all of this work - you can find it here.

What type of lens mount adapters do you think are the most useful/would you most like to see?

 

Very interesting info!

As Steven said, PL mount is a no-brainer.  I'm a Canon FD fan myself, but you'd probably only sell one of them (to me.)  Any of the other common mounts - Nikon F, Canon EF, Arri-B/S, etc - would be sought after if you can beat the price and turnaround time of Les Bosher.  (The latter might not be so hard...)

Duncan

Now we're talking!  Pictures galore!

Near as I can tell from Chrosziel's website, their collimators now just come with a PL mount or something that looks a lot like it, then they have adapters from that to all sort of mounts.  Guess it makes sense given the lens market these days.

More ebay searches to set up...  🙂

Duncan

That certainly looks like something Eclair would make, except they didn't paint it black in the throat like they usually do?  I'd love to see the back side of it.  Can we do like in the movies and say "Enhance!" and see it in this picture?

So it looks like for an Arri-B lens, you'd twist the lens in the mount, like it was designed by Arri.  On mine the lens stays put and the ring moves the locking part over top of it.  (Which I guess means the lens isn't oriented quite the right way...not that it should make any operational difference.)

How does an Arri-S lens work with that mount?  I don't see any mechanism to hold or release it.

Dunca

8 hours ago, Gregg MacPherson said:

I'm sure that is not the standard Arri-B/S to TS adapter that was sold (contemporaneously) with the original cameras. I've had one or two and seen a few photos on the web or brochures. It has a plain, simple front face.

The TS end of that adapter isn't just made to work like the more standard Eclair one, it's identical in every way.  OK, the TS threaded ring is a little bit different because it has to be, to make room for the other two rings, but I can't believe someone besides Eclair made that.  It's literally their parts.

I could see how maybe there are some thin metal cover plates missing from the front, which would make it look more plain.  Hard to believe those screws were intended to be exposed like that.  But that's the kind of thing that gets tacked on with Pliobond and falls off decades later.

Someone find a picture of a known Eclair one and prove me wrong 🙂  (Also, anyone feel free to post pictures of any and all TS adapters here - Eclair, Les Bosher, anything - as a resource for people buying, selling, searching for adapters in the future.)

Duncan

Next is an item I recently picked up with a lens, and was gobsmacked to discover is the near-mythical TS to Arri-B AND Arri-S adapter.  Lots of people talk about it existing, but I've never seen an actual picture of one.  I've seen the Les Bosher version (with its distinctive lever, like most or all of his adapters.)

It screws on to the camera in the usual fashion with the big wide bottom knurled ring.  Then there is a middle knurled ring which operates the Arri-S part of the mount.  Spin it fully counterclockwise and the two little "wings" along the outside of the mount are retracted.  You can then push in an Arri-S lens, aligned properly with the standard Arri-S locating tab, until it is fully into the mount.  Spin the middle ring a fair amount until it stops, which pushes the little metal wings into the slot in the lens and holds it quite securely in place.  (I show pictures of the two wings in the retracted and the mounted positions.)

The outer knurled ring, then, is the one to use when mounting Arri-B lenses.  Spin it fully counterclockwise to clear access all the way down the bayonet slots, push an Arri-B lens fully into the mount (takes a little wiggling back and forth at the very bottom) then spin the outer ring clockwise until it firmly latches over top of the bayonet tabs.  This won't be much of a spin.  Do it with all your might against the knurls on the rings, and you may still be worred that your lens isn't fully secure (but it probably is.). It just doesn't have the satisfying final click you get when putting an Arri-B lens into an Arri camera B mount.  I showed it spun fully clockwise, which you'll never be able to do with a lens in the mount, then I show about how far I was able to turn it when a lens was there.  I guess I see why Les adds the levers to his adapters!

Oh yeah, when using one style of lens, the ring for the other style can be in any position at all.  Clever of them to make the functions so completely separate like that.

Duncan

Next is a pretty common option that comes with the above mount: a CA-1 to Arri-B (bayonet) adapter.  Using the knurled edges of the outer ring, you can spin and lock it into the CA-1 mount like you would a lens... and then an Arri-B lens can be pushed into it and spun clockwise to bayonet-lock it into the adapter-within-adapter.  It works well, but of course when you go to remove the lens, there's kind of a 50/50 chance which bayonet will decide to let loose, so ou might end up with a lens in your hand, or you might end up with a lens with the adapter still on it in your hand!

You can frequently spot this adapter in pictures of ACLs with lenses on them, because of the distinctive brass knurled ring on the outer part of the combined adapter - you won't see that in a picture of an ACL with a CA-1 lens mounted to it.  This particular adapter was originally on an NPR that had an optional (home made?) setscrew on the side of the stock Cameflex mount, which would go through this adapter and hold in an Arri-S lens that had been shoved into the adapter until it bottomed out on the surface of the adapter, then the setscrew could be screwed in to the slot in the Arri-S mount and hold it in place.  I guess that worked?  Anyway that explains the spurious hole in the side of this adapter.

I'm including a few pictures of the loose adapter, and then a couple to show what it looks like when it's in the TS to CA-1 adapter.

Duncan

Seems like a good idea to have a place for everything TS-adapter, because there's a real dearth of information on them out there.  There are the original Eclair ones, Les Bosher will make anything you ask for (given enough lead time...) so there are presumably tons of adapters out there, but very few good detailed pictures, or other information.  For those new to all this, the TS mount is this large diameter set of threads on the front of the ACL, to which a very sturdy adapter can be screwed on with a standard (TS) side, and then the other side can be designed to adapt to any number of other standard lens mounts.  The mount on the camera also has c-mount threads in the center, so for light enough c-mount lenses you can dispense with the adapter entirely and just thread the lens directly to the camera.  Clever setup!

First up is the adapter probably everyone is familiar with because it seems to be the default adapter included with most ACLs - it threads onto the TS mount on the camera and allows you to mount a Cameflex (CA-1) mount lens to the camera.  It has the big threads on a knurled ring that spins and fixes the adapter to the camera, the locating pin that matches up with the camera mount to keep it from spinning on the camera once it's cinched down, then the Cameflex mount in the center, which is a bayonet-type mount which allows you to push the lens in the mount and twist it clockwise to lock it into the mount.

Duncan

Justin,

Sorry, it was up there for over a year, before finally selling late last year.

Duncan