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ULTRA 16mm Conversion X Crop in post


flavio filho

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Hi all.

 

I know many has seen posts about Ultra 16mm, but I have a question regarding if worths or not to do?

 

I now have 22 Arriflex 16s, and I thought to convert them to Ultra 16mm...

But, giving the price to do this, I'm questioning if it worths to do this or simply crop in Post to 16:9?

 

I know if the camera is converted to Ultra, you can get a native aspect ratio of 16:9, and blow to 35mm without crop, and wonder ifthere's any advantage other than this?

 

Does it worth to convert to Ultra 16? If you can crop in post, the results would be the same?

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Does it worth to convert to Ultra 16? If you can crop in post, the results would be the same?

 

Hi Flavio,

That's a lot of cameras. Maybe just do a few and see how you and our your clients like them. S16mm conversion would be better as it would provide the most resolution and the most options for post but likely a lot more expensive to convert. You do actually gain resolution with Ultra 16mm vs cropping R16mm. The resulting negative area from a 16x9 R16mm crop is 59 sq mm and the result from U16mm is 70 sq mm. We made a chart studying this on the Cinelicious site

 

http://cinelicious.tv/we-love-film/small-formats

(scroll to the bottom of the page).

 

Best,

 

Paul

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If you are converting 22 of them, that is quite a cost.

 

If you can do it for $200 or less then I might consider it as long as your transfer house can handle the format. For blowups you would probably just use the center Standard 16mm portion of the frame anyway so I don't see the advantage if that is what you do.

 

I had a Scoopic done by Bernie @ Super16 Inc. and having a little extra negative is nice but really getting sharp focus is much more important than the extra negative. I notice a difference between regular 16mm blown up/cropped to 16:9 HD vs. Super 16mm blown up to 16:9 HD but I'm not really sure about the U16 being that much of a difference. Paul at Cinelicious could tell you more since they work with it everyday.

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If you are converting 22 of them, that is quite a cost.

 

If you can do it for $200 or less then I might consider it as long as your transfer house can handle the format. For blowups you would probably just use the center Standard 16mm portion of the frame anyway so I don't see the advantage if that is what you do.

 

I had a Scoopic done by Bernie @ Super16 Inc. and having a little extra negative is nice but really getting sharp focus is much more important than the extra negative. I notice a difference between regular 16mm blown up/cropped to 16:9 HD vs. Super 16mm blown up to 16:9 HD but I'm not really sure about the U16 being that much of a difference. Paul at Cinelicious could tell you more since they work with it everyday.

 

Will's right. The difference is subtle. It's not mind blowing. Basically the grain is slightly larger in a R16mm crop.

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I've just finished doing an Ultra-16 conversion to an old round-base Bolex H16RX. The first tests look quite stunning. Edge to edge sharpness with a 10mm Switar plus alot wider angle of view. Quality-wise I would certainly say this widescreen system is far superior to simply cropping standard-16. I haven't experienced any problems with scratching, though I was careful to ensure all surfaces round the sprockets etc that formerly touched the new area were filed away. However, I haven't started on a projector conversion yet which could be more tricky. But the camera mod was pretty straightforward and didn't take me too long, maybe several hours, and no cost involved. I don't know though, about how easy or not a DIY job on your Arris would be.

I was attracted to Ultra-16 rather than Super-16 because I like the wider 1.85:1 ratio, and this is only slightly smaller than Super-16, so I guess the results should look the same with the bonus of not having to move the lens to one side and so on ?

 

Doug

 

www.filmisfine.co

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi all.

 

Thanks loads for posting here.

First, sorry for the mistyping... I have 2 Arr 16s... Not 22... :P

So, Doug. Have you managed a conversion to Ultra 16 then?

Do you actually do the conversions, how much would you charge?

 

I have a Bolex EL to convert to Ultra. And wonder if you'd do that?

 

Thanks,

F

Edited by flavio filho
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Hi Flavio,

Yes I imagined 22 may not be the number !

I don't do conversions for others I'm afraid, but I will be putting details of my Bolex conversion on my blog FilmIsFine.co at some point. I don't know of a person who converts to ultra-16. Maybe Les Bosher in Wales does them ? Lesbosher.co.uk But as I said, with the Bolex bodies, and I presume yours isn't too different, it's just a matter of removing gate and enlarging it, filing areas on the sprockets where they touch the film, and widening/masking the reflex viewfinder, mainly on top of the prism. No change to lens mounting and all my lenses work with ultra without vignetting. I'll be doing another more recent body fairly soon and apparently the gate is made of softer metal so shouldn't take as long.

Hope that helps.

Edited by Doug Palmer
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Flavio,

Yes I imagined 22 may not be the number !

I don't do conversions for others I'm afraid, but I will be putting details of my Bolex conversion on my blog FilmIsFine.co at some point. I don't know of a person who converts to ultra-16. Maybe Les Bosher in Wales does them ? Lesbosher.co.uk But as I said, with the Bolex bodies, and I presume yours isn't too different, it's just a matter of removing gate and enlarging it, filing areas on the sprockets where they touch the film, and widening/masking the reflex viewfinder, mainly on top of the prism. No change to lens mounting and all my lenses work with ultra without vignetting. I'll be doing another more recent body fairly soon and apparently the gate is made of softer metal so shouldn't take as long.

Hope that helps.

 

Hi Doug!

 

That's great. Thanks for your reply!

Let me know here of your improvements, Please. If you are planning to post on your site the step-by-step, I'd definitely follow this up.

I'll get soon a Bolex EL that I'll try myself to do it.

 

Thanks,

Flavio

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Doug!

 

That's great. Thanks for your reply!

Let me know here of your improvements, Please. If you are planning to post on your site the step-by-step, I'd definitely follow this up.

I'll get soon a Bolex EL that I'll try myself to do it.

 

Thanks,

Flavio

 

I'll certainly do that next time I do a Bolex mod. Meanwhile here is how my gate looks for U16.

 

"Is Ultra-16 the Answer ?"

 

Right now I'm doing a projector and I'll post details of this soon.

Best of luck with the EL !

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