I thought the work on the 400’ magazines for the VistaVision Butterfly camera was going to be routine, but lengthy. The weather though decided to interfere with my plans this week by giving us some rare LA rain. Wrinkle paint does NOT like moist air, and while painting magazine number 3 started off well, it …
I love 16mm cameras. I learned how to be a cinematographer with Bolex, Arriflex, and Beaulieu 16mm cameras, but my current business isn’t focused on this format. While I have not done a full service and restoration of either of these cameras, I have scrubbed and cleaned the outside of them, made sure everything was …
Winding down our look at the table full of 16mm cameras this week, I wanted to highlight a few more items that I thought were cool. The Arriflex 16 SR turns out to be a working camera under all of that dirt. A quick cleaning and careful examination made me comfortable enough to power the …
We promised in our last post that I would give a closer look at the 16mm camera collection I showed off last week. I had very limited time to look through them this week, so I was only able to evaluate a few of the pieces. Arriflex M To begin, I looked at the ARRI …
At a certain point, everyone has to say, “I just can’t take on anymore stuff”. But this group of cameras was literally going to end up in the landfill, so it came here with the hope of having a new life. I don’t usually take in 16mm equipment, but this garage load of equipment belonged …
A few weeks ago, an up-and-coming cinematographer wrote to me and asked if I had any 16mm animation cameras. He was planning to shoot a table top animation short subject. As I don’t currently have any 16mm Acme or Oxberry cameras, the next camera that came to mind was this lovely 16mm Mitchell Pro. The …
The Cine-Kodak Special II is a marvel of 1940’s engineering, with innovative features like a divergent lens turret, interchangeable magazines, a through-the-lens critical focuser, and an audible warning when the wind was coming close to an end, among others. Before we send this Cine-Kodak Special II off to its new home, I thought we would …
The Victor Cine Camera Model 3 is a 16mm spring-driven motion picture camera manufactured by the Victor Animatograph Corporation and introduced in 1927. The company was founded in Davenport, Iowa in 1910 by Swedish-born inventor and showman Alexander Victor. Victor’s career began in 1894 when he joined the show of traveling magician “The Great Stephanio”. …
One of our next pieces up for service is this Auricon Super 1200 camera, a favorite for news-gathering, documentary, and industrial films beginning in the 1950s. Auricon cameras were designed and built by the Berndt-Maurer Corporation (later Bach-Auricon), founded in 1935 by Eric M. Berndt and John A. Maurer. Previously, Berndt and Maurer had both …
Over the years, I have collected numerous Unit I shuttle camera and projector movements. I used these movements to build animation cameras, optical printers, and rotoscope stands. The first camera I remember using that featured a Unit I shuttle was a Bell & Howell 2709. Developed by Albert S. Howell and patented in 1912, the …
