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Mark Dunn

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Everything posted by Mark Dunn

  1. You haven't told us what the problem was! We need to know!
  2. Not any more. But 30 years ago we were ordering long pitch 16mm. ECN and VNF by the containerload. Our store cupboard alone must have held 100,000ft. On a big trial we'd use a couple of miles a day, and we thought nothing of burning 1000' of fresh film just to test continuity of cabling. We had our own processing lines, so we could confirm a result in a couple of hours, and a security-cleared London lab for workprints. Coincidentally it was the one my college used. Probably not coincidence, come to think of it- it must have been one of the last. There must have been dozens of government establishments bigger than us.
  3. Maybe so. But 10 years ago, when the thread started...........?
  4. If it's still at the lab, ask them to check. If they have a problem that's got past their own QC they'd want to know about it- real quick. It does look more like a streak than a scratch- it's quite wide, like a trickle of water on a window.
  5. They are probably all within the 150-180° range, but the difference between those two is under a third of a stop, and you can't set the aperture more accurately than that. If you're just curious, fine, but it isn't too relevant to exposure. The K3 is 150° btw. You probably already know that the H16 reflex prism absorbs 1/3 stop.
  6. I doubt it, it's a multi-element reducer computed for that particular lens. You could try it, but as I see it's €300, it's a pretty big punt. If they still exist, one of the cheap Chinese single-element wide-angle adapters for a fixed-lens digital stills camera might work if it's big enough not to vignette- I used one before I had a DSLR- but don't expect much. I doubt that any of these have a big enough rear thread https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=wide+angle+adapter+lens+-filter&_sacat=625&LH_TitleDesc=0&_blrs=recall_filtering&_odkw=wide+angle+adapter+lens&_osacat=625&_sop=15
  7. I think this must be one of the VV cameras re-jigged after it was revived for VFX use, Star Wars being a famous example.
  8. No, for the Ministry of Defence here https://www.qinetiq.com/en/shoeburyness/about/mod-shoeburyness-timeline-and-history
  9. No, it's mine, see my sig, I'm London Steenbeck! It was rented for the day along with me and travelled both ways in a prop van. As did I, we're very close? londonsteenbeck.eu5.org
  10. Very interested- this was my day job for 4 years (the high-speed camera bit, not the atom bomb bit, they were down the road?). Most of the article is accurate but the errors don't detract from a useful piece. The image isn't particularly unsteady, at least as steady as the Steenbeck- I've just checked something shot at 5000pps on it. We used to run up to 10000 with a half-height frame on the E10. One 400-foot roll per shot. The edge of the E10 shutter rotates at up to Mach 1. https://www.nacinc.com/datasheets/archive/E-10 Film Camera.pdf I understand Nolan didn't want to use CGI so he had to do his explosions properly.
  11. As detailed in "Today's Office" but bears repeating (I would say that wouldn't I)....my screen debut
  12. Courtesy DefJam/Academy Films, producer: Laura Manners
  13. An update......fame at last. My screen début, if not the Steenbeck's, as "Beardy Film Guy" in "Time in our Lives" by Tendai. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxuHu0844yo Enbedding doesn't work for me.
  14. Could have been from back East, maybe you had to be in CA to get enough light at 10ASA?
  15. ...........or you could try Lightworks, which runs perfectly on my old machine! With, as I said, the render limitation.
  16. Well I've put 5w30 in the car, so I reckon it ought to serve at the lower revs, and I don't have too many cold starts...except for last week? One of the Cinema Museum 35mm. 4-plates has cracked a vee-belt pulley, and they seem to be pretty close to extremely difficult to remove and replace, even if 3D printed, so it's over to the rewind table for that one until we do some heavy-duty figuring out. The plastics are just turning into......well, something that's no longer actually plastic as the word originally meant. Powdery, brittle, and so on. I've had to varnish my core spindles to stop the surfaces flaking off. I even have some older metal rollers in a box of spares. Intact of course, but they'd be really hard on the film. Fortunately I don't have anything important that's close to failing. Well, I don't think I have.........Now I have the video tachometer on the Iphone I'm even sure of the speed to 0.1fps. No more stopwatches.
  17. As promised, an update. Steenbecks are supposed to have a motor gearbox oil change every once in a while. I suspect it is (was?) a rare event. In the case of my 1975 machine, an unprecedented event, because the drain screw was still sealed with the original paint. The motor was partially extracted for access. Anyway, on removing it, and the sump screws, exactly no liquid ran out. A flush with brake cleaner and leaving it overnight with some fresh oil in yielded the following..the ancient oil also migrates up the coupling shaft and forms a muddy sludge around the coupling joint, now replaced with fresh grease. The '01s have a solid coupling- the beds don't hinge up- so this wouldn't be present. (However, they have a plastic cog and socket which can crack!) Then a refill with 5w30 motor oil (after decades, how bad a choice could that be?) and the machine may be a tiny bit quieter. Or maybe not. Time required by a competent tech: 1 hour, less if you can figure the ergonomics without unbolting the motor. I regreased the motor coupling as well. Verdict: probably not necessary, but 48 years is a bit of a stretch for oil, and I can use it as a selling point. It may be more convenient in the newer '01 machines, IIRC the motors are better located for access. A cranked screwdriver might have got me there faster.
  18. I've never used the XTR but it looks to me like a loading guide, to ensure the film end feeds in the right direction. You may have some difficulty loading but it's not needed for normal running. But don't take my word for it. This guy from about 5:50 is just using it as a guide to get the film onto the sprockets.
  19. That is referring to stills film and only to the finishing, which I take to mean cutting and packaging in China. But one would assume that they are slitting and perforating there as well, as I'm not sure it makes much sense to ship cut rolls when you could ship master rolls.
  20. Actually my memory is wrong, my notes say I didn't- I just topped it up 5 years ago, and that would most likely have been with 3 in 1, ordinary household stuff. The current manuals say to use ATF, and I have a bit of that from my last car. But I have 5w30 motor oil as well. The Steenbeck is 48 years old and doesn't make any funny noises. Hmm.
  21. Cheated a bit, I went down the 214 route on Street View?. But I thought it looked familiar- I was half a mile away with the Steenbeck for a music video (in 16mm) in September. Looked like that part of the world.
  22. I guessed Kentish Town, not too far off. it's never looked this good outside Four Weddings. (OK that was further west, but it'll get there). Uli, ladies and gentlemen. Shoots his home movies in 35mm, in colour. Erste Klasse.
  23. Not a problem, just musing. Dwight's my go-to man for tricky stuff, which this isn't (although I did fix something he didn't know about recently?). Better see about that gearbox, though. That's been in for most of a decade.
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