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Dirk DeJonghe

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Everything posted by Dirk DeJonghe

  1. The A-Minima has very specific spools, unlike any other camera. You only need two parts, the center core and the flange, identical left or right. I had about 50 spools in stock, they were all sold by us with fresh filmstock and processing and scanning included. Not one has been returned for processing since several years, the empty spools are apparently worth more than the filmstock, processing and scanning (roughly 150€ each). This is a pity for the A-Minima owners who want to use their nice camera and can't find the spools anymore;
  2. Have you thought about making Aaton Minima 200ft reels? They are plastic, left and right sides are identical, with a core in the middle. They are nearly impossible to find. I can supply one if you want, or someone in the US. This would be a very useful and fun project that would make you many friends around the world.
  3. Since we began scanning with our Scanstation two years ago, we noticed the same lateral unsteadiness on Super 8 scans while Standard 8, 16 and 35mm were rock steady. It turns out there is a 5 frame repetition of the lateral movement. After talking to Kodak and Lasergraphics, this is what we found: 1. Kodak perforates the S8 film cutting 5 perfs at a time and the 'knife' cutting the perforations is slightly skewed, not perfectly straight to the edge of the film. When asked why this is not yet fixed, Kodak replied 'it is the consumer division'. 2. The Scanstation adjusts each frame by looking at the perforations and adjusting both horizontal and vertical position of the frame. Because of previous complaints, the scanning software now has an option to only do the vertical positionining of the frame, improving the unsteadiness introduced by the skewed perforations. 3.Using the Resolve Stabilize function, most shots can be easily stabilized. You need to do it shot by shot.
  4. We had several of these for lab work, but they all have gone west, any recommendations on new equipment? It must be useable for working at arms length one-eyed, single handed, not for shooting deer at night.
  5. Thanks for all the attention. The film was shot entirely on 5219, processed normal. Timo Salminen is the DOP; I have worked on the previous Kaurismaki film 'The Other Side of Hope' as well. What do you want to know about the technical parts of this film?
  6. We do this workflow several times per week, mostly to 35mm camera negative, but several times per month to 16mm. We also make 16mm optical sound negatives and contact prints with optical soundtrack; Most of our work in this area is digital-film-digital to add analog feel to digital images. We accept any resolution from HD to UHD and higher.
  7. I got CH-DTPQ-01 and happy with quality and service, I asked a couple questions and they were promptly answered. If you order via their website, you can get 10% off, the code is PROAIM10 (don't know if it still works).
  8. I bought a new dovetail and bridgeplate for my Aatons from ProAim recently. The price was very reasonable and the quality is good. Not more than 150€ for both, brand new. Proaim is an Indian company making tons of grip equipment, tripods etc.
  9. There is one aging effect that you cannot stop by freezing and that is cosmic ray fogging; it is a bit like X-rays but much lower dose over a very long time. It affects high speed stock a lot more than say 50D, but even then 15 years is a lot. I recommend shooting a minute of so in various conditions, overexposing already one stop to start and ask your filmlab their opinion.
  10. First, start with viewning through the proper input LUT in Resolve, see my document below (previously uploaded). I attach it again because many people found it helpful. Cineon Log to Rec709 needs a LUT before anything else to compensate for the 'curve'. The general rule is to keep 'blacks with detail' at -4 stops, but this is a matter of personal preference. Underexposing will NOT give you deeper blacks, overexposing slightly and printing down will. I suggest you start with 2/3 of a stop overexposing. Using the Input LUT as described in the document, you will see if you need to bring down the overal exposure with offset or increase exposure. This is before doing any 'real' colorgrading. CineonLog_DaVinci.pdf
  11. We are glad to have been involved for the lab work for two major films shot on 35mm: "Fallen Leaves" (Prix du Jury, 2023 Official Competition) and "Occupied City" (Steve McQueen).
  12. It helps to understand how film densities of a negative are converted into Cineon Values. Have a look at the sensitometric curve. The Y-axis is the film density, increasing with exposure (X-axis). The Cineon Log file is created by scanning (linearly) the density of the film and writing them in Cineon Values ranging from 0 to 1023 (for 10 bit). Why is it called LOG since it is a linear transpose of film densities? Very simple, the X-axis is LOG Exposure, so the relationship of Exposure to Film Densities to Cineon Values is Log. During scanning from negative, the scanner will calibrate itself to the base density of the unexposed film (orange mask) in order to shift the RGB curves so that the black level falls at about 95CV.
  13. Here is a document that I send to customers, this question is asked frequently. Please share freely. Some people try to tweak Cineon Log with contrast settings, this is wrong. CineonLog_DaVinci.pdf
  14. Push process increases gamma, thus reducing exposure latitude, pull process reduces gamma, you gain a bit of exposure latitude.
  15. Gevaert Photo Producten (Mortsel, Antwerp Belgium) merged with AGFA (Leverkusen, Germany) in 1964. So by deduction, this film must date from before 1964. Probably very heavily fogged by cosmic rays.
  16. A hair in the gate of the scanner would show up as white if scanning negative.
  17. To me it looks like a hair in the camera gate.
  18. Kodak did not discontinue the sound recording stock, but it needs to be ordered specially without edgenumbering. The edgenumbers are smack in the middle of the picture otherwise.
  19. We do many shipments of both exposed (inbound) and unexposed films (outbound) all over the world. Probably over a thousand per year; never had any problems with DHL/Fedex/TNT. We tested the X-ray machines at the local Fedex facility and sent different boxes with 500T stock through the machine (1x, 4x, 8x). Even at 8x there was no visible or measurable fogging. Measured by densitometer and confirmed by scanning the negatives. All the X-ray problems we have seen are always when the customer brings the stock as checked luggage, but hand luggage is not much safer. Also, x-ray exposure is cumulative, a low dose multiplied by 6 or 10 may become visible. Remember, each time you change passenger flights, a new security scan is done. On the Fedex/DHL type of shipping only one scan is done at the beginning of the journey. You want to limit the number of sectors and shipping. In the last two weeks and next two weeks, I have shipments of rawstock to Chile, Japan, Greece, Kosovo, and most of the EU. Contact me if you want more info.
  20. Patricia, I would advise to spend some time to get familiar with Resolve, I recommend the Ripple training available on their website. You will learn ten times faster than just reading the Resolve manual (over 4000 pages). DaVinci Resolve 18 Core training is a good starting point.
  21. I need to shoot a long sequence spanning several magazine changes. The framing should not change at all. Changing the magazine on the Aaton 35 requires a hefty push from behind. Is there a way to fix the camera so that the maximum repeatability between mags is guaranteed? How to solve this? The camera only has a fixed focal length lens mounted and no other accessories. I use a Ronford Baker F7 head on a sturdy tripod. Any hints?
  22. Hello, I have an Oxberry 3100 that I want to repurpose, anyone with schematics?
  23. The problem is to have the film camera in phase so that the first frame of a new shot on the screen comes clean on the negative and not a mixture.
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