With all good intentions, today I was going to show you Mitchell BNC #357 running to demonstrate how nice and quiet it is. However, the motor that came with the camera is a TechniCraft synchronous motor, and it did not come with the power cable. The only thing I could find about this motor was …
A friend and fellow collector called me and asked about the Mitchell BNC rackover camera that I just acquired (serial #357). So this is the first of the collection I decided to take a look at. Surprisingly, this camera is in remarkably good condition. The camera turns over smoothly, there is little or no rust …
As we continued our search to find the proper name for the Mitchell geared head, which we still have not found, we came across this charming advertisement that Mitchell placed in “American Cinematographer” magazine in March 1931. In the ad, there are two camera operators, one using a geared head and one a friction head. …
Trivia About the Mitchell Geared Head and Friction Head Read More »
The other day I was reminiscing with a new client about early motion control cinematography and I happened to mention one of the various versions of video taps that I built long ago. That spurred me to dig this out of storage for a nostalgic look. The concept behind this video tap was not to …
A Look Back: Drop-In Video Tap for Mitchell Standard or GC Read More »
Catching up after Thanksgiving, and needing a breather from the other projects I have been working on, I came back to this mystery camera this week that has been part of my collection for a number of years. It identifies itself as a Pacific Laboratories V-10 camera and has a U.S. Government Property tag on …
Pacific Laboratories V-10 Mystery Recorder Camera Read More »
A few days ago, a new client called and asked if I had any ARRI Medical cameras in stock. As it happened, I had one left. During the course of our conversation, the client mentioned that he had seen a YouTube video in which someone had converted a medical ARRI into a film scanner. He …
Last month I received two Arri 2B cameras that were converted to 2-perf pull-down Techniscope by my friend Daniil Nevskiy. Sadly, the shutter in one of the cameras was damaged in shipping and needed to be replaced. I was able to source a shutter that was in fair condition as a replacement, so I thought …
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 …
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 …
