Homemade 35mm -- Edited Copy for Reading

Stewart McDonald · December 17th, 2003, 07:47 AM

I'm thinking that maybe the glass would be too heavy for a cd motor. If you have a more powerful motor however it might work

Bob Hart · December 17th, 2003, 08:32 AM

To: Terry Wright. I don't think your satin glass is going to work. First up you've got a balance problem, then there's the power issue as mentioned in another response. The satin glass that I know also transmits too much light, is not finely opaque enough to adequately work as a projection screen as fine ground glass or etched glass would.

To: Everyone. Here's one slightly out of what you US folks call left field. Some years ago I thought I would do a conscientious thing and clean a rear projection screen on a Teleray motion picture film viewer.What I didn't know was the frosted glas wasn't. Instead it was a fine mist coat of something which cleaned off instantly very nicely.

I ended up using a piece of plastic shop bag stretched tightly over the glass sheet. It had a few wrinckles but did the job.

A piece of shop bag, Mitre 10 Hardware and Officeworks shop bags as used in Australia seem best, more opacity, less variation in thickness.

Pressed between two clear CD disks it seems to display an image without too much flare but still not as good as a ground glass. I arrived at this through ransacking my imagination on how to achieve a uniform coat of wax on the surface of a clear disk then thought of pressing it between two and giving it a few seconds or more in a microwave to melt the wax. Getting rid of the bubbles is a real cow.

Another good opaque material is the motor vehicle registrations stickers were have here, unfortunately in too small a piece. I have not got round to finding the source as I diverged from the project onto something else.

(The original project was to devise an oscillating groundglass for the film plane of any 35mm SLR camera, motor to fit in the space where the film canister goes but then I realised there would have had to have been too much electronic trickery to keep the glass moving in phase with the scanning frame rate of the camcorder and vibration would have been an issue, so I did not go there.)

Agus Casse · December 17th, 2003, 02:40 PM

I dont know which packs of cds will bring the already sanded disk, i just found it while i was looking something else in my room, but i call for a friend that buys tons and tons of cds in spindle and also had a few...

i only bought Imation, Samsung, and some other brand, so tried up those brands.

about the anamorphic adapter, well nope it wont work, you need some adapter that either replace the SLR lens, or put it in front.

I will try to put some pics of the new footage as soon as possible

Ernest Acosta · December 17th, 2003, 03:42 PM

This is an email that I received from the P&S people.

"Our Mini35Digital image converter works with anamorphic lenses. You can simply attach the lenses onto the converter and then you will be shooting in anamorphic. Good anamorphic lenses that we can recommend are the Elite lenses available from Slow Motion, USA"

I think there is a possibility that it might work. Theoretically if the anamorphic was the outer lens projecting into your main lens then the adapter would be projecting a squished image, which can be un-squished in post. The image size would be the same as if we didn't use the anamorphic. This is just my theory. Any additional input would be greatly appreciated.

Don Berube · December 17th, 2003, 04:05 PM

Geez, I hope this doesn't turn into a "Why are quality Anamorphic Lenses so expensive???" thread!

You would have to adapt the lens in front of the adaptor and relay lens with the anamorphic adaptor or use a full-on anamorphic len$. To clarify, everything needs to be done before the spinning glass image plane, unless you are using a cam with true 16:9 chips - but then you wouldn't have the need for an anamoprhic adaptor, unless you wanted "pseudo 2:35:1"

- don

Agus Casse · December 18th, 2003, 04:22 AM

Ok,

here are some news, for all the interested, i have decided to release a commercial version of the adapter, made with good hard material (alluminiun and plastic)

It will also include the support base with 15mm rods, using standards measures for compatibilty with other cine accesories, a matte box, and of course the adapter.

Now, i need some help here...

we are still working on flipping the image, seens like it is hard to find a solution, that will not raise the costs to high, cause listen to this... we want to sell the whole system for under 1k !!

Also we want to give compability for all kind of lenses, so you wont need to buy adaptors for each type of lenses, we will provide the pieces.

Ok,

so we need some creative ideas for flipping the image, and please we need some pictures of your cameras, Taylor sent us his pics of the DVX with complete measure of the lens. We need this info to give as most compability to all type of cameras as possible so you wont need to buy aditional items to make it work.

For XL users, let me tell ya it is a tricky camera, and we dont have one to try it up. but we will try also to give compability to it as well.

So,

please any ideas, post them here, and all images and size measures of your cameras please send them to agus@altoque.tv

Thanks for all your support, and we will be working our ass as hard as possible so we can bring the first version in January if possible at a very very low introducing price.

the whole system will be really cheap and the we guarantee 100% perfect picture with no vigneting at all.

BTW we shoot some new footage with a improved version which could be considered the BETA version (sorry no pics for now and video still rendering with film effects)

Bob Hart · December 18th, 2003, 06:01 AM

The Bolex H16 groundglass viewfinder path might be worth studying. Objective lens>>>90degree prism>>>groundglass(on one face of prism)>>>lens>>>90degree prism or mirror>>>eyepiece diopter>>>

It is however, a long path and on a 35mm scale might be unwieldy. With this method, the rotating groundglass disk would have to be mounted horizontally.

Thomas Bruegger · December 18th, 2003, 07:22 AM

agus, thanks for the info.

about flipping the picture. i thought about turning the lcd display about 150 degrees just before the camera starts flipping the picture again. then put a mirror in front of the lcd and the picture should then only have the horizontal flip but is not upside down anymore and can be viewed when standing behind or beside the camera. the final flipping horizontal and vertical can then be made in post.

about camera measures: could you please post the camera models you allready have the measures of, so people dont send the same modelmeasurments again and again.

does anyone have a website where all the pictures and infos are collected?

does anyone know how many diopters the conversion lens must have to use the pd-150/vx-2000 with the agus35 i only own a +4 lens but that was not enough.

Thomas

Daniel Thornton · December 18th, 2003, 07:33 AM

I have been working on an Agus 35 and I have a little different design.
I used an old Nikon film camera and took some parts out of it. I noticed that the view finder had a small piece of rectangular frosted glass in it. I used this instead of a sanded spinning cd and found it to be easy to focus on and lets plenty of light in. I have a drawing of what I did if any one is interested. I am experimenting with the picture quality now.
I do not know what this rectangular piece of glass is but it makes a good picture for the video camera to zoom in on and focus.

Video Cam>>UVFilter>>short PVC pipe>>Nikon view finder Rectangular Lenses>>threaded PVC adapter>>short spacer>>Lenses Mounting Plate off old Nikon camera>>Sigma 35mm Lenses

All PVC pipe was 1 ½ in. The Nikon Rectangular Lenses fits into the pvc pipe allowing the Sigma 35mm lenses to focus on it.

Zac Stein · December 18th, 2003, 08:13 AM

well there is an optical way to flip the image.

Just use a concave lens, any half decent optometrist can make you one, the only thing is to know the correct size, anyone here know anything about physics and the best place to put the concave glass within the piece?

Zac

Peter Sciretta · December 18th, 2003, 09:02 AM

I'm currentlyworking on my third version of this adapter... I haven't installed the motor yet, but here is some pics

http://www.orfilms.com/adapter1.jpg

http://www.orfilms.com/adapter2.jpg

Bob Hart · December 18th, 2003, 09:56 AM

A furthur idea on alternative groundglass material between disks, - I tried a small piece of translucent window material which had my new PIN number on it.

This stuff seems to work better than shop bag and might be sourced from a stationer or the manufacturers of the PIN number forms might be able to advise the source.

It may be a commonly available modern plastic based tracing paper. Placing between two clear disks to keep it in alignment might be an option.

I have also asked Chris to post a .jpg of a a relay adaptor for the PD150 I mentioned furthur back in these posts.

It is at http://www.dvinfo.net/media/bhe11.jpg

I have a .tcw design drawing showing lens positions however in making the prototypes, I strayed from the design for practical reasons.

This has to be incorporated and the drawing re-dimensioned. The adaptor relays a smaller 18mm image target and demonstrates a general principle only. It also does not re-erect the inverted image.

Ernest Acosta · December 18th, 2003, 10:03 AM

I think if the image can be flipped without any loss of resolution or image detail then it is good (may be we should try to see how the original was flipped). If there is a loss, then I agree with the post on using mirrors on the lcd and flipping it in post. BTW the P&S version had a 1 to 2 f-stop loss. How many stops are we losing with this version.

Peter Sciretta · December 18th, 2003, 11:14 AM

Chris - The cat just likes to sniff the camera and make faces at me like. I'm more important than this stupid machine... pay attention to me!

It's actually funny because he jumped into the picture, I wasn't even planning on having him in the picture.

J Clayton - The support structure is:

a 3420 Telephoto Lens Support from Manfrotto/bogen (this thing almost seems like it is built for this rig... and its only like 50 bucks I think)

and a camera shoulder mount which I picked up years ago (i don't remember how much, but under 100)

J. Clayton Stansberry · December 18th, 2003, 11:19 AM

Peter,

...and both the mount and the telephoto support just fit together or is there some rigging involved?

Do you know the model of the shoulder mount?

Thanks.
Clay

December 17th, 2003, 03:42 PM	#229
Ernest Acosta Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: New York Posts: 59	Mini-35 with Anamorphic This is an email that I received from the P&S people. "Our Mini35Digital image converter works with anamorphic lenses. You can simply attach the lenses onto the converter and then you will be shooting in anamorphic. Good anamorphic lenses that we can recommend are the Elite lenses available from Slow Motion, USA" I think there is a possibility that it might work. Theoretically if the anamorphic was the outer lens projecting into your main lens then the adapter would be projecting a squished image, which can be un-squished in post. The image size would be the same as if we didn't use the anamorphic. This is just my theory. Any additional input would be greatly appreciated.

December 17th, 2003, 04:05 PM	#230
Don Berube Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Boston, MA (travel frequently) Posts: 837	Geez, I hope this doesn't turn into a "Why are quality Anamorphic Lenses so expensive???" thread! You would have to adapt the lens in front of the adaptor and relay lens with the anamorphic adaptor or use a full-on anamorphic len$. To clarify, everything needs to be done before the spinning glass image plane, unless you are using a cam with true 16:9 chips - but then you wouldn't have the need for an anamoprhic adaptor, unless you wanted "pseudo 2:35:1" - don __________________ DONALD BERUBE - noisybrain. Productions, LLC Director Of Photography/ Producer/ Consultant http://noisybrain.com/donbio.html CREATE and NETWORK with http://www.bosfcpug.org and also http://fcpugnetwork.org

December 18th, 2003, 10:03 AM	#238
Ernest Acosta Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: New York Posts: 59	Flipping the Image I think if the image can be flipped without any loss of resolution or image detail then it is good (may be we should try to see how the original was flipped). If there is a loss, then I agree with the post on using mirrors on the lcd and flipping it in post. BTW the P&S version had a 1 to 2 f-stop loss. How many stops are we losing with this version.

December 18th, 2003, 11:19 AM	#240
J. Clayton Stansberry Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 316	Peter, ...and both the mount and the telephoto support just fit together or is there some rigging involved? Do you know the model of the shoulder mount? Thanks. Clay __________________ I understand everything about nothing.

December 17th, 2003, 07:47 AM	#226
Stewart McDonald Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: UK Posts: 130	I'm thinking that maybe the glass would be too heavy for a cd motor. If you have a more powerful motor however it might work

December 17th, 2003, 08:32 AM	#227
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,477	To: Terry Wright. I don't think your satin glass is going to work. First up you've got a balance problem, then there's the power issue as mentioned in another response. The satin glass that I know also transmits too much light, is not finely opaque enough to adequately work as a projection screen as fine ground glass or etched glass would. To: Everyone. Here's one slightly out of what you US folks call left field. Some years ago I thought I would do a conscientious thing and clean a rear projection screen on a Teleray motion picture film viewer.What I didn't know was the frosted glas wasn't. Instead it was a fine mist coat of something which cleaned off instantly very nicely. I ended up using a piece of plastic shop bag stretched tightly over the glass sheet. It had a few wrinckles but did the job. A piece of shop bag, Mitre 10 Hardware and Officeworks shop bags as used in Australia seem best, more opacity, less variation in thickness. Pressed between two clear CD disks it seems to display an image without too much flare but still not as good as a ground glass. I arrived at this through ransacking my imagination on how to achieve a uniform coat of wax on the surface of a clear disk then thought of pressing it between two and giving it a few seconds or more in a microwave to melt the wax. Getting rid of the bubbles is a real cow. Another good opaque material is the motor vehicle registrations stickers were have here, unfortunately in too small a piece. I have not got round to finding the source as I diverged from the project onto something else. (The original project was to devise an oscillating groundglass for the film plane of any 35mm SLR camera, motor to fit in the space where the film canister goes but then I realised there would have had to have been too much electronic trickery to keep the glass moving in phase with the scanning frame rate of the camcorder and vibration would have been an issue, so I did not go there.)

December 17th, 2003, 02:40 PM	#228
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	I dont know which packs of cds will bring the already sanded disk, i just found it while i was looking something else in my room, but i call for a friend that buys tons and tons of cds in spindle and also had a few... i only bought Imation, Samsung, and some other brand, so tried up those brands. about the anamorphic adapter, well nope it wont work, you need some adapter that either replace the SLR lens, or put it in front. I will try to put some pics of the new footage as soon as possible

December 18th, 2003, 04:22 AM	#231
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	Ok, here are some news, for all the interested, i have decided to release a commercial version of the adapter, made with good hard material (alluminiun and plastic) It will also include the support base with 15mm rods, using standards measures for compatibilty with other cine accesories, a matte box, and of course the adapter. Now, i need some help here... we are still working on flipping the image, seens like it is hard to find a solution, that will not raise the costs to high, cause listen to this... we want to sell the whole system for under 1k !! Also we want to give compability for all kind of lenses, so you wont need to buy adaptors for each type of lenses, we will provide the pieces. Ok, so we need some creative ideas for flipping the image, and please we need some pictures of your cameras, Taylor sent us his pics of the DVX with complete measure of the lens. We need this info to give as most compability to all type of cameras as possible so you wont need to buy aditional items to make it work. For XL users, let me tell ya it is a tricky camera, and we dont have one to try it up. but we will try also to give compability to it as well. So, please any ideas, post them here, and all images and size measures of your cameras please send them to agus@altoque.tv Thanks for all your support, and we will be working our ass as hard as possible so we can bring the first version in January if possible at a very very low introducing price. the whole system will be really cheap and the we guarantee 100% perfect picture with no vigneting at all. BTW we shoot some new footage with a improved version which could be considered the BETA version (sorry no pics for now and video still rendering with film effects)

December 18th, 2003, 06:01 AM	#232
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,477	The Bolex H16 groundglass viewfinder path might be worth studying. Objective lens>>>90degree prism>>>groundglass(on one face of prism)>>>lens>>>90degree prism or mirror>>>eyepiece diopter>>> It is however, a long path and on a 35mm scale might be unwieldy. With this method, the rotating groundglass disk would have to be mounted horizontally.

December 18th, 2003, 07:22 AM	#233
Thomas Bruegger New Boot Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: switzerland Posts: 20	agus, thanks for the info. about flipping the picture. i thought about turning the lcd display about 150 degrees just before the camera starts flipping the picture again. then put a mirror in front of the lcd and the picture should then only have the horizontal flip but is not upside down anymore and can be viewed when standing behind or beside the camera. the final flipping horizontal and vertical can then be made in post. about camera measures: could you please post the camera models you allready have the measures of, so people dont send the same modelmeasurments again and again. does anyone have a website where all the pictures and infos are collected? does anyone know how many diopters the conversion lens must have to use the pd-150/vx-2000 with the agus35 i only own a +4 lens but that was not enough. Thomas

December 18th, 2003, 07:33 AM	#234
Daniel Thornton Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 43	I have been working on an Agus 35 and I have a little different design. I used an old Nikon film camera and took some parts out of it. I noticed that the view finder had a small piece of rectangular frosted glass in it. I used this instead of a sanded spinning cd and found it to be easy to focus on and lets plenty of light in. I have a drawing of what I did if any one is interested. I am experimenting with the picture quality now. I do not know what this rectangular piece of glass is but it makes a good picture for the video camera to zoom in on and focus. Video Cam>>UVFilter>>short PVC pipe>>Nikon view finder Rectangular Lenses>>threaded PVC adapter>>short spacer>>Lenses Mounting Plate off old Nikon camera>>Sigma 35mm Lenses All PVC pipe was 1 ½ in. The Nikon Rectangular Lenses fits into the pvc pipe allowing the Sigma 35mm lenses to focus on it.

December 18th, 2003, 08:13 AM	#235
Zac Stein Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 730	well there is an optical way to flip the image. Just use a concave lens, any half decent optometrist can make you one, the only thing is to know the correct size, anyone here know anything about physics and the best place to put the concave glass within the piece? Zac

December 18th, 2003, 09:02 AM	#236
Peter Sciretta Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 72	I'm currentlyworking on my third version of this adapter... I haven't installed the motor yet, but here is some pics http://www.orfilms.com/adapter1.jpg http://www.orfilms.com/adapter2.jpg

December 18th, 2003, 09:56 AM	#237
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,477	A furthur idea on alternative groundglass material between disks, - I tried a small piece of translucent window material which had my new PIN number on it. This stuff seems to work better than shop bag and might be sourced from a stationer or the manufacturers of the PIN number forms might be able to advise the source. It may be a commonly available modern plastic based tracing paper. Placing between two clear disks to keep it in alignment might be an option. I have also asked Chris to post a .jpg of a a relay adaptor for the PD150 I mentioned furthur back in these posts. It is at http://www.dvinfo.net/media/bhe11.jpg I have a .tcw design drawing showing lens positions however in making the prototypes, I strayed from the design for practical reasons. This has to be incorporated and the drawing re-dimensioned. The adaptor relays a smaller 18mm image target and demonstrates a general principle only. It also does not re-erect the inverted image.

December 18th, 2003, 11:14 AM	#239
Peter Sciretta Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 72	Chris - The cat just likes to sniff the camera and make faces at me like. I'm more important than this stupid machine... pay attention to me! It's actually funny because he jumped into the picture, I wasn't even planning on having him in the picture. J Clayton - The support structure is: a 3420 Telephoto Lens Support from Manfrotto/bogen (this thing almost seems like it is built for this rig... and its only like 50 bucks I think) and a camera shoulder mount which I picked up years ago (i don't remember how much, but under 100)