Best 16mm Cameras

[dadoboy]

Ha ha. Yeah, film shoots are so seldom it's like you have to refresh how you work wit it. How do you like the Cooke Kinetals so far? Are the barrels large enough to pull focus with?

Great job on "Dispatch" BTW, nicely lit and crafted. I hope you get to shoot a lot with your new XTR, it will be awesome.

If you get involved with a short production who is looking for cheap film, I have 4 rolls of factory sealed Fuji Eterna Vivid 160 sitting in my freezer. Slow but beautiful stock. I bought it off a production I worked on 9 months ago. I'm moving in two months out of the country for a while and want to sell it for $75 per roll, half price. It's way better than getting recans.

I did get Tim Carrol's camera package.
It's over in Echo Park if you want to check it out dadoboy.
I'm trying to relearn this "Film" stuff

 

[Chamber005]

Techniscope's advantages over anamorphic CinemaScope are:

• More economical: half the film stock used in 4-perforation frame cinematography; half the stock, same running time, less negative to develop.
• Cinematography requires simpler, but technically superior, spherical lenses.
• Film stock loads last twice as long; 2-perf stock shoots at 45fpm (24fps), while 4-perf stock shoots at 90fpm.
• (may be seen aesthetically as either an advantage or disadvantage The circle of confusion of Techniscope is circular (due to its spherical lenses), whereas that of CinemaScope is elliptical (due to its anamorphic lenses).

Techniscope's disadvantages against CinemaScope:

• Enlarging the image to the 35mm print also enlarges the negative's film grain. (Although some cineastes sought this visual feel for the story; e.g. westerns photographed to appear unpolished, thereby enhancing the period settings' verisimilitude.) This step is also an additional production expense. If the enlargement process is done optically, the generation loss will add even more grain and reduce the image sharpness. Alternatively, the enlargement can be done as part of the Digital Intermediate (DI) process. This involves digitally scanning the 2 perf film negative. Output to film is done with a film recorder, such as the Arrilaser.

• Two-perforation cameras and telecine installations are rare. (Note: As of early 2008 Aaton is coming out with their newly-designed 2 perf-native (3 perf user-switchable) Aaton Penelope camera. Konvas cameras have been available in 2 perf for a while, and Arri is making 2 perf gates for their Arricams soon, available only through the rental dealers though. And more and more telecine suites have 2 perf gates for their film scanners.)

• The narrower frame line (between frames) emphasises imperfections (i.e. hairs in the gate, lens flares).

Note: When transferring a Techniscope film to a digital video format, the 2-perf negative or 2-perf interpositive A/B rolls can be used, bypassing any blown-up 4-perf element. Many DVD editions have been transferred this way and the results have frequently been stunning, ie. Blue Underground's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and MGM's special editions of Sergio Leone's Westerns.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Heck - for these prices, let's talk 35mm. That gives you a great 16x9 center extraction or you can shoot full academy aperture. I picked up a fully-functioning Arri 2c (one of Stanley Kubrick's favorite cameras) with battery, lenses, tripod and magazines for $2,000 on eBay. INCREDIBLE. ALL film gear is dropping like a rock. And let me tell you, nothing gives me more cred while shooting on a mini dv camera then pulling out my 35mm motion picture camera and letting the cast and crew know that it is an option. Granted, the film and processing is tough, but I am viewed as a 'professional' when I have it standing nearby.

You could set up the 35mm to do digital to film transfers.