On Mitchell Standards and some early GCs, you could order an option that had a series of gear boxes that would do automatic fade-in/fade-out over a selected number of frames. Mitchell 46 at one time had this option, but the kind folks who tried to reflex it ripped out most of it and disposed of […]
Time for a little more work on Mitchell 46 Read More »
I was talking to a cinematographer friend of mine who reminded me that, quite a number of years ago, I modified his RED Prime 18mm lens so it would work on his PL mounted MovieCam without crashing into the mirror. It seemed fitting to pass on what I did and do the same modification on
Correcting the 18mm RED Prime PL Mount Read More »
New arrivals: From the Rocco Gioffre collection is a small cache of wonderful items, including some fascinating ancient Cinema Engineering relics I built long ago. In the back row you see a single frame animation motor with a motion control interface box, an RCA friction head with pan handle, some Baltar lenses, some Cooke Speed
New: From the Collection of Rocco Gioffre Read More »
New this week: a pair of freshly converted Arriflex 2B 2-perf Techniscope cameras with PL mounts. As I was finishing up work on Mitchell Standard #125 and servicing several sets of lenses, my friend Daniil Nevskiy sent back two of my Arri 2Bs that he converted for 2-perf pull-down and PL lens mounts. I haven’t
Recently, I was contacted by my friend and fellow vintage camera enthusiast Michael Geiger, who had recently acquired Mitchell Standard #125. This camera, like Mitchell 46, had been abused in its previous life. Mitchell 125 was hacked into an animation camera, and whoever did the conversion, removed and discarded most of the original shutter control
A Face-lift for Mitchell Standard 125 Read More »
This past week I was lucky enough to meet one of the founders of the group that developed the Red Pro and UniqOptics prime lenses. One of the things that came out of the meeting was this mixed set of lenses consisting of five Red Pro Prime lenses and one UniqOptics lens. The story of
RED Pro and UniqOptics Prime Lenses Read More »
Another frequently asked question I get, along with how to thread a camera, is how exactly to get the magazine ready for shooting. I hope I am not boring you all to death with these how-to posts, but I want to make sure to answer some of the more interesting questions I have been getting.
How to Prepare a Mitchell Magazine for Loading with Film Read More »
Along with questions about threading a Mitchell camera, I have recently also been getting a number of questions about the proper way to clean and oil the movement in preparation for shooting. This short video demonstrates the method I was taught and have used successfully for many years. I hope it proves a useful resource
Getting a Mitchell Standard Ready for Shooting Read More »
I have been fortunate enough to find new homes for several Mitchell Standards, GCs, and Fries conversions recently. A common question I get about these cameras is, now that I have it, how do I put film in it? This is a reasonable question. And as I looked around online for a video to demonstrate
A Basic Guide to Threading a 35mm Mitchell Standard/GC/Fries Mitchell Film Camera Read More »
The heart of all motion picture film cameras, like Mitchell Standard 46, is the movement (or film transport). When I hand-cranked this camera for the first time, I noticed a bump or hard spot as I was cranking the camera. As I reinstalled the shutter assembly, I made sure that it was free-wheeling and turned
Servicing the Movement in Mitchell 46 Read More »
