Duncan Brown

That Super 16 modification looks well-intentioned but suspicious, but other than that it looks like one heck of a collection of gear! Duncan

Yeah the handle itself seems a little thin/awkward (but who knows, not having used one myself) but I thought the filter storage was clever. Duncan

I figure this topic might encompass lots of things eventually but for now I have a picture of something that's part of an ACL auction on ebay. It's a handle that has little slots to hold extra filter holders! Is that a stock item or something aftermarket? I'd not seen it before, in any event. Duncan

Was talking to someone with an ACL and asked them how their pins were oriented when the mirror was in viewing position. Holes were horizontal. So there's another vote for that being correct, and my body and motor that match being the oddballs. Duncan

Figured I'd add this here for easy reference... Duncan

OK, but that is like my camera on which the self-parking motor parks in the wrong spot! My motor/camera combination that works has those vertical when the mirror is centered for the viewfinder operation! What serial number is your body. What kind of motor did it come with? (not that that means anything about what kind of motor it originally came with, at this point!) I wasn't seeing what you guys were talking about with the pin for the claw, but on putting on my 3D brain a little better, I see it now. I just checked AGAIN, and both these bodies pull the claw down (move the film ) when the shutter is closed, and pull it out of the sprockets and put it back up again (not moving the film) while the shutter is open. So there's that. Duncan

It's hard for me to tell just from the parts diagrams available online but it looks to me like the drive shaft with the hub with the coupler on it has a couple of worm gears on it that could be put in mesh with the rest of the assembly in such a way that the camera mechanism would be synced but the drive pins on the coupler end could be in a few different orientations depending on just how the gears got meshed upon assembly. Either by someone servicing it, or at a factory where the mirror parking concept didn't exist yet so nobody really was paying attention to that relationship because it didn't matter. Duncan

Camera number 1643 is in the viewing position when the empty holes in the coupler (so, the drive pins on the motor) are vertical. It came paired with motor number 1292 which is of the variety with the mirror parking symbol and the speed knob that starts at N and then goes 8 12 50 75 then whatever the position beyond that is. The motor self-parks with the pins vertically oriented so it works perfectly with that body. The base is what I believe is called the mid-sized base - wide black slide switch on front with the silver button in the middle. Has the exposure meter knob, the Jaeger connector, the bloop switch, the fuse, and says "Made in France" I'll add a picture just so we know which one I'm talking about. Camera number 641 is in the viewing position when the empty holes in the coupler (so, the drive pins on the motor) are horizontal. It originally came paired with a (broken) heavy duty motor but the earlier one without the mirror parking. It has the exact same base as number 1643. This is the one that when I put the above motor on it, doesn't park in the correct position, for what is now obvious reasons. Duncan

Sure, the motor must have a way to detect position, but the motor makes precisely one revolution per frame, so it would be as simple as saying "the motor always stops with the pins vertical" and then setting up the body accordingly. Both bodies have perfectly synced shutters and mirrors. It's the relationship between those parts of the mechanism, and the drive pins on the coupler, that are 90 degrees out between the two bodies. It would be easiest to believe the motor and the body that came with it are correct... and that the other body was put back together at some point by someone who didn't notice they'd done it wrong, because the motor that was on it didn't care. Duncan

For what it's worth, your interpretation of the instructions, that the holes he's talking about are the ones that are set to receive the pins from the motor, is how the motorless body is set up. So if that means the other body is "wrong" then someone has somehow convinced the parking motor attached to it to be "wrong" the same way. (Which is why I was wondering if there's some secret way to adjust the motors.) The Tobin motor is not direct drive like the factory motor - there's a belt drive and the way the parking position can be adjusted involves loosening a setscrew on a pulley to change the orientation. No such arrangement exists on the factory parking motor - any adjustment would have to be electronic I think? Duncan

All 4 holes go all the way through the coupler. So you're looking at 2 holes that are parallel to the base, and 2 holes that are perpendicular to the base. In two of the holes you can see the shiny ends of the drive pins on the camera drive hub. Now which two "drive holes" is he talking about? Duncan

Haha, no doubt. The camera I moved the motor to previously had no mirror parking so if it were assembled "wrong" nobody would know! The Tobin instructions for mounting their motor to the ACL include the line: "Look at the rubber coupling that is driven by the motor shaft; an imaginary line between the two drive holes should be parallel to the camera base." OK, sure, but are we talking the drive holes with the pins from the camera drive, or the drive holes that will be receiving the motor's pins? BE MORE SPECIFIC TOBIN!! And in any event, their motor does contain an internal way of tweaking that position to wherever it needs to be. Duncan

I have 2 ACL 1.5 bodies. On one of them, when the mirror is centered in the viewing position, the two drive pins you see inside with the motor detached are in the vertically oriented position (6 and 12 o'clock) and so the drive holes in the rubber coupling are horizontally oriented (3 and 9 o'clock). On the other one, they are exactly opposite (90 degrees out). Needless to say, taking the mirror-parking motor from one and attaching it to the other does not give me the results I desire! The motor parks with the pins vertically oriented, meaning it is expecting the drive holes in the rubber coupling in the camera to be at 6 and 12 o'clock. Is one of the bodies correct and the other wrong? If so, how is that possible? Or is there an adjustment on the motor to match it to a given camera body? (If so it must be inside and not obviously externally accessible.) Duncan

Spotted on ebay (not mine): https://www.ebay.com/itm/284927608745 That's an NPR that continued to be given modern updates long after I would have assumed that was sane. Anyone know anything about that motor? The picture isn't quite square on enough to tell for sure but it sure looks like an S16 gate. Wonder if the obviously non-factory lens mount is centered properly for that? Wonder if the factory Cameflex mount is? Is that new mount Arri-B? Why go to all that trouble for S16 conversion and add a B-mount not a PL-mount? (It might speak to when the conversion was done.) That's a crazy amount of money for an NPR but it also is far and away the most modern well-equipped NPR I've seen. Hope someone here buys it and tells us more about it ? Duncan

I do not believe "ban" is a strong enough term. I believe thumbscrews and perhaps a little light kneecapping would be appropriate for offenders. Duncan

Not my auction, just spotted it on ebay. That's a lot of price, but also a lot of camera! (later ACL 1.5 or 2, 3 mags, etc.) https://www.ebay.com/itm/125426847675 Duncan

Just to follow up - a smooth and successful transaction with Steve! Duncan

Fascinating video, but I kept thinking "instead of acting like googling is investigating something, why not redirect all that effort into trying to reach Christopher Doyle and just ASK him?" Duncan

Sure, I'm always up for a challenge - I'll take the 5.7mm if nobody else has. PM-ing you now... Duncan

Jealous. I need to put together some better lenses and/or adapters to give my Factory-I'm-pretty-sure S16 NPR a better run. Duncan

Interesting NPR on ebay (not my listing!) https://www.ebay.com/itm/175344622428 The fact that it ran once after a total rebuild, then has been on a shelf for over a decade, means it's a bit of a risk, but at least it shouldn't be all worn, even if it might require some work to wake it up properly. Certainly seems well-equipped. That's a very interesting motor - it would appear to be a slightly modernized Perfectone motor (two crystal speeds, not all the other bells and whistles of some of the more well-known updates to that motor) but a VERY interesting cradle replacement - with a more stable foot/handle arrangement, and a provision for standard rods, including a clever set of cleats on the motor to hold them better than just the clamp holes alone. Duncan

Yes, even without the guide marks you can do it. Run the motor and let t come to rest. Take it off of the camera without disturbing its position. Now turn the rubber coupling around a few times so you get a feel for how wide the mirror is, then keep turning it until the mirror is in the center of its motion across the gate. Now carefully put the motor straight on to the coupling without moving anything...and you should be good to go. Duncan

Anyone know if the latest season's episode "Rich Wigga, Poor Wiigga" was shot on B&W film? If not, then they added some really subtle dust and other defects, which would hardly seem worth the bother, given how subtle it was. Duncan

Just for someone else's idea of important weird speeds (from the back case of a Tobin Milliframe controller) Duncan

Questions that immediately come to mind: -- The main motor model - if it uses none of the camera's electronics, does it have its own on/off switch? And will that mean that standard ACL things like the grip with switch, or the built in light meter, are no longer functional? And if that's the case, does the customized model retain any of that functionality? -- Will the external precision speed controller be compatible with any of the existing standard ones? (I have a Tobin milliframe controller, so of course I'd vote for that one!) Thanks, Duncan