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Folks, 

I am a still photographer getting into cinema and have a question about my Arriflex sr2 viewfinder. My camera is std 16. When, I am composing a shot, do I use the rounded inside frame or the outside 4 square corner broken frame? My screen says TV but I don't know if that is the outside our inside markings. Can you shed some light? Thanks.

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On an Arri IIC groundglass I had somewhere I believe the rounded inner rectangle is for framing film that was eventually to be broadcast on television. So I suspect you would frame your shot using the outer rectangle. But check with others.

That's not a dumb question at all.

I remember when I started a job, I asked a much more senior person there "Can I ask a dumb question?" about how to do something at work for that job. He said, "No, there are no dumb questions. Fire away." He was a kind fellow.

Edited by Jon O'Brien
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if you haven't done it already it is good to check how well your viewfinder markings align with the camera gate. there is a nice trick to do this by projecting the viewfinder image and gate aperture to a wall or paper using the taking lens: 

1. put the camera on a tripod directly facing a wall where you can place a piece of paper for drawing the markings. remove the magazine

2. with the lens on, rotate the shutter to the viewing position. you may now want to reduce lighting in the room to see the projection more clearly...

3. shine a very bright flashlight to the viewfinder of the camera and adjust the takeup lens so that it projects the viewfinder markings clearly to the piece of paper on the wall. hold the light there and draw the lines to the paper with pencil 

4. keep everything locked in place including the camera, paper and lens settings etc

5. rotate the shutter to the taking position with the magazine removed and attach a small piece of translucent material directly over the aperture on the film channel so that it is fully covered. a small piece of paper will do. try to keep the material flat against the aperture.

6. shine the bright light to the translucent material on the gate and draw the projection on the wall showing the aperture edges. Using a different colour pencil will help a little 

7. now you should have a paper where both the actual aperture and actual viewfinder markings align and you can evaluate how much there is difference between what you see vs what you get and where the actual aperture edges are compared to the framelines seen in the viewfinder. 

 

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