cinema products 16mm

[Justin Lovell]

A friend of mine has a cinema products(?) 16mm cam that was modified to mount any NIKON lenses. He may be passing it on to me.

I don't think it has many features on the camera, it's high speed is 64fps, and it isn't crystal synced. Seems like a very solid workhorse of a camera, but if i buy any cam i'd want one with a shutter angle you can adjust. It has a reflex viewfinder.

Also wondering if anyone knows how much it would cost or if its possible to modify this cam to shoot super 16.

thanks,

jusetan

[ccortez]

i believe there are super 16 CP's, but i don't know if they are mod'd or if they can be bought that way. Univ of TX has some CP-16s in their dwindling stable, but i haven't played with them.

anyway, a c-mount to nikon adapter is easily had and there are plenty of c-mount 16mm cameras with the same or similar features that can be converted -- bolex, filmo, etc.

[MovieStuff]

A friend of mine has a cinema products(?) 16mm cam that was modified to mount any NIKON lenses. He may be passing it on to me.

I don't think it has many features on the camera, it's high speed is 64fps, and it isn't crystal synced.

It would very odd if it is a CP-16 that isn't crystal synched. I've had a couple and every one that I have every rented, borrowed or used was crystal synched. Dependable camera, in my opinion, and very practical. I modified mine to take razor sharp Takumars. Nice.

Roger

[Ian]

All CP16's are crystal sync. The range of available speeds varies, but none goes as high as 64fps. Frankly if you want to shoot at that speed, you'd be better off using an MOS camera like a Filmo.

Reflex CP16's (the CP16R) can absolutely be converted to Super 16 through Visual Products. The cost is about $2,000.

The CP16R has its own lensmount which resembles a miniature BNCR. The lens has three ears that go straight back into mount, and then a circular breech collar on the camera is rotated clockwise to tighten the lens into position.

There are two ways of mounting Nikon lenses to a CP16R. The first involves a modification to the camera to allow the lens to sit at the correct flange to focal plane distance. I've never seen one of these modifications, but I would think that this involves the removal of the breech collar. The second is to use an adapter that was manufactured by Century which incorporates an optically flat glass element. The element does nothing but adjust for the back focus - it's a brilliantly simple solution.

I have one of the Century adapters and can attest that it allows you to swap back and forth between Nikon and CP-mount lenses with no issues. You can leave the adapter on the Nikon lens or on the camera as you see fit. Of course, you can also use Arri standard and bayonet mount lenses using the appropriate adapters.

[Justin Lovell]

so 2000 (US) for the sup16 mod.

how much would the camera itself be worth?

thanks guys,


jusetan
http://www.justinlovell.com

[discs of tron]

well there are 2 versions- a reflex and a non-reflex. i believe there are 2 slightly different shutter angles also. the reflexes (preferable) are usually about 3-6k depending on lens, mags, seller, etc. comparing cp16s to cams like bolex, filmo is apples to oranges. the latter cams are strictly m.o.s. cameras, whereas the cp16 is designed explicitly for sound shooting. (in fact, they originally shot single-system sound on mag-striped film.) they were THE workhorse news camera for american tv news. i'll assume yours is a reflex, since the non reflex cameras only work with the zooms with built in dogleg viewfinder. the nikon mount is a nice touch since the cp16s usually come with the 12-120 mm angenieux zoom that is a somewhat mediocre lens. with nice primes you should be able to do nice stuff with it. also, with 35mm nikon primes you won't have any problems with covering the s16 gate if you do the mod. the mags are easy to load. they don't work without the mags, though i'm pretty sure you can stick a 100' daylight spool into the mag. the camera body has a kind of complicated threading setup, which i think is due to the fact that they used to shoot sound film. the 2 main places for all your spare part/mod/service needs are whitehouse and visual products:
http://www.whitehouseav.com/
http://www.visualproducts.com/index.asp

in all, the cp16 is a nice camera to get into 16mm sync-sound shooting with.

[Nigel]

My advice is to get it and have it cleaned and just shoot it. Don't invest into an S16 mod for that camera....The mod is worth more than the unit. S16 is better than R16 for sure. I am simply saying that in the end it may not be worth it for that unit.

Good Luck

[Justin Lovell]

I don't see any reason why i would want to shoot reg 16mm anymore, it's just not my style, and not to my liking. (unless the story REALLY called for it.)

what is the shutter angle on the reflex version. One of those websites said that they have one modified for a 170 deg shutter, so i wonder what it is normally.

jusetan

[mattias]

I don't see any reason why i would want to shoot reg 16mm anymore, it's just not my style, and not to my liking. (unless the story REALLY called for it.)

nothing stops you from shooting widescreen with regular 16mm though. just make sure you have the proper groundglass markings.

/matt

[MovieStuff]

I don't see any reason why i would want to shoot reg 16mm anymore, it's just not my style, and not to my liking. (unless the story REALLY called for it.)

nothing stops you from shooting widescreen with regular 16mm though. just make sure you have the proper groundglass markings.

This is a very valid point, especially with the new fine grain stocks. I would dare say that wide screen regular 16mm today approaches what Super 16 looked like some years back, even with a hard matte instead of anamorphic on the regular 16mm.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[Lunar07]

i believe there are super 16 CP's, but i don't know if they are mod'd or if they can be bought that way. Univ of TX has some CP-16s in their dwindling stable, but i haven't played with them.

anyway, a c-mount to nikon adapter is easily had and there are plenty of c-mount 16mm cameras with the same or similar features that can be converted -- bolex, filmo, etc.

You mean the RTF dept? They even have the Rank Taylor Hobson 10mm C mount lens :-D I have not seen it, but it is listed on their web site. And here I am for over a year waiting for this lens to appear on eBay. It is almost like searching for the white whale.

[ccortez]

You mean the RTF dept? They even have the Rank Taylor Hobson 10mm C mount lens :-D I have not seen it, but it is listed on their web site. And here I am for over a year waiting for this lens to appear on eBay. It is almost like searching for the white whale.

You should make them an offer. I doubt it gets used much. My sources tell me that UT film school is all digital anymore. Not much real film being taught or used. I guess that means the analog-types in the dept. can pretty much play with all the cool old school toys whenever they want. That's be fun...

[Ian]

To all that has been said I would add that the CP16R's are selling at bargain prices these days, with full kits going for $1,000 - $1,500 on Ebay. Yes, the Super-16 mod costs more than the camera in many cases, but this still represents a good value overall. The camera isn't as sexy or fast to reload as an SR or Aaton, but it gets the job done. Magazines are cheap, and it will take a huge variety of lenses.

[Lunar07]

I don't see any reason why i would want to shoot reg 16mm anymore, it's just not my style, and not to my liking. (unless the story REALLY called for it.)

nothing stops you from shooting widescreen with regular 16mm though. just make sure you have the proper groundglass markings.

/matt

From a past discussion on what makes for a normal lens in R8 the issue of what anamorphot to use came up. Your comment was that the height is what constituted the format. The consequence was that one has to use the anamorphot on the same lens since this will make it wider but NOT tight. But from what you mention above, one is ok with changing the height (making a shot tighter) in order to achieve a widescreen format. How can you reconcile these two things?

[audadvnc]

There were three models of CP-16R, according to the post on the cinematography.net forum:

http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/CP16.HTM

"The three flavors of shutters are 156 degree bowtie, 144 degree bowtie, and 170 degree half-moon...Half moon shutters were built into cameras sn 1995 and up. Bowtie shutters are not upgradable to half-moon."

Bow-tie shuttered CP-16R cameras have a reputation for smearing the image, which was resolved with the switch to half-moon shuttered mechanisms.The "fix" for the smearing issue (the severity of which is unit dependent) is to block off a bit of the opening between mirrors, thus lessening the percentage of time the film is exposed. Interestingly, the CP-16 was based on the Auricon mechanism which always used half-moon shutters. Why they adopted bow-tie shutters in the first place for the CP-16R? My guess is that they were trying to lower the camera noise by spinning the shutter at half speed compared to the Auricon.

Paul Hillman at Visual Products is apparently the go-to guy for Super 16 conversions:

http://www.visualproducts.com