Russian 16s

James Steven Beverly · April 25, 2006

I was thinking of getting a 16 some time down the road and looked around a little on Ebay. Seems to me the Russian cameras are the best bang for the buck. I have a 35mm Konvas and love it but it does have issues as do Kinors. Are there any issues with Russian 16s one should be aware of?

Joe Gioielli · April 25, 2006

I was thinking of getting a 16 some time down the road and looked around a little on Ebay. Seems to me the Russian cameras are the best bang for the buck. I have a 35mm Konvas and love it but it does have issues as do Kinors. Are there any issues with Russian 16s one should be aware of?

Like all things made behind the "iron bedsheet", quality control can be a bit iffy. Having said that, I've never had a problem. But you might get a bum, camera. Find a seller with good feedback and email his old customers and see how they felt about the deal.

As for the cams, get a K3 with an m42 mount. It should have a set of filters, a shoulder stock, film spools, and a lens hood. Should sell for around 150, shipping will be another 50 takes about a month and a half. Disregard location of the seller, all are shipped from the FSU or the Ukrain.

Issues with the k3, lightmeter may not work properly. Get a real lightmeter and it won't matter. Viewfinder has a yellow cast, this will not affect the film, just your view. Heavy. Autofeed may not work. Mine does, but it really isn't that hard to load. If you can load a reg8 camera, you'll be fine. In fact, if you'd like some dead 16mm to practice loading, I'll send you some.

16mm is wonderful. Not cheap, but worth it. Way better than anything you get with 8mm.

Best wishes

Joe

Olex Kalynychenko · April 25, 2006

Hi

= I have a 35mm Konvas and love it but it does have =issues as do Kinors.

You on correct way. If you wish have reliable camera with low price, this Kinor-16 SX-2M camera.

High precision transport mechanism with registration pin, electrical motor can be modify to multispeed or crystal sync multispeed edition, 120 m and 30 m film magazines, many prime lenses 6 mm...300 mm, a few zoom lenses 7.5-75 mm, 10-100 mm, 12-120 mm and more other.

James Steven Beverly · April 26, 2006

Wow, two widely varying opinions on cameras. Is there a registration pin issue with the Kinor 16 as there is in some cases with the Kinor 35s? I like the crystal sync. 16 w/ sync would be good for filming something intended for film festivals and straight to video. I've also seen a few K3's modified to handle super 16, something elst I'm considering (thanks by the way for the offer of dead film to practice with, that actually would be of great help. I'll email you once I get a 16 camera), are these viable as super 16 cameras or is this a Mickey Mouse sort of mod, also do they make sync motors for K3's? Thanks for the info.

Edited April 26, 2006 by Capt.Video

Will Montgomery · April 26, 2006

Those two cameras are for completely different uses... the K3 is great for picking up and running, handheld shots less than 30secs (I still have indentations in my palm from winding the thing) and the Konvas is more for shots you can setup and stage. The Konvas magazines are great for quick changes and longer runs where the K3 is a pain to load on the go.

Joe Gioielli · April 27, 2006

The cool thing about the k3 is that it is so cheap. You really can't go to far wrong. It is a run and gun type camera, though. I have always found it a pain to use a windup camera on a tripod. Just my view.

As for the super16 mod, well it seems everyone does it so I feel foolish saying I wouldn't bother with it. The gate is east to mod on a K3. You can download the diamensions off the net and have a jewler cut it for you. Modding the viewfind is involved. In the end, I haven't done it to mine.

This is how I look at it, it's a cheap camera. Why invest a lot of money fiddling with it? Use it and enjoy it as.

Joe