{"id":3088,"date":"2026-11-06T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/?p=3088"},"modified":"2026-11-05T16:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T00:55:36","slug":"some-minor-surgery-on-a-fries-mitchell-35r3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/06\/some-minor-surgery-on-a-fries-mitchell-35r3\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Minor Surgery on a Fries Mitchell 35R3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few weeks ago I shared a trio of Fries Mitchell reflex camera conversions, along with a couple of geared heads. Among the cameras were two Fries 35Rs, which are reflexed using a pellicle mirror which divides the light between the viewfinder and the film. The third camera was a Fries 35R3, which uses a spinning mirror reflex system that makes use of a shutter with a mirrored surface on one side to intermittently send the light bundle to the viewfinder and, as it spins, let 100% of the light reach the film plane. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Some<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While I was evaluating the three cameras, I thought back to when I was still shooting VFX and how much I preferred the spinning mirror reflex system, especially when I was working in low light conditions. The 35R3 didn\u2019t come with a motor, but one of the 35R cameras had a Fries motor and a Cinematography Electronics high speed crystal base on it, so I decided to move the motor and the CE base to the 35R3, thinking that would make it a more versatile production tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Some<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It looks like this Cinematography Electronics base was custom modified to work with the Fries V120M motor because it lacks some of the features you would typically find on the ARRI 3 version. Whoever installed the Cinematography Electronics base on this 35R chose to remove the original Fries baseplate, drill and tap new holes in the bottom of the camera casting, and bolt the CE base directly to the camera. It seemed to me that I could install the CE base without disassembling the whole camera and drilling and tapping new holes in the casting. Instead, I chose to remove just the Fries base, installed an aluminum backer block, drilled and tapped a mounting hole so the CE base can be bolted directly to the Fries base, and then reinstalled everything. This configuration allows you to choose whether you want to use the CE base or just the Fries motor. Of course, once I had done all that work, I discovered that the Fries motor is not currently holding sync, so off to electronics repair it goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Some<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I shared a trio of Fries Mitchell reflex camera conversions, along with a couple of geared heads. Among the cameras were two Fries 35Rs, which are reflexed using a pellicle mirror which divides the light between the viewfinder and the film. The third camera was a Fries 35R3, which uses a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[33,244,10],"class_list":["post-3088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cameras","tag-35mm","tag-fries-35e3","tag-mitchell-camera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3089,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions\/3089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}