Konvas

The Konvas is a portable 35mm motion picture camera that was manufactured in USSR by MOSKINAP (Moskovskiy Zavod Kinoapparaturiy-Moscow Factory of Cine Apparatus, at one time in the late 80's had over 2,000 employees), and for a short period at the same factory after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is no longer made, although many working models are still circulating. The name "Konvas" is a portmanteau that comes from the first three letters of the first and last name of the camera's designer, Konstantin Vasiliev.

Initially, the camera was used widely by fiction, documentary, and news cameramen throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The relatively small size of Konvas cameras and its low price (it often sells for almost the same price as the more primitive, older Bell & Howell Eyemo) makes it popular with independent filmmakers throughout the world to this day.

Konvas cameras are reflex, using a spinning mirrored shutter, allowing the operator to view the scene through the main lens during filming. Because of the camera's movement mechanism, the shutter opening is 155 degrees as opposed to the 180 degrees which is standard on many other cameras. Consequently, the shutter speed is slightly higher, for which the exposure must be compensated from the usual 24fps light meter setting by 1/3rd of an f-stop. Some models accept a single lens, others have a three lens turret.

All Konvas cameras accept a 60 meter (slightly less than 200 ft) load of film via a detachable camera magazine, some also accept a 120 meter (roughly 400 ft) detachable magazine. The magazines are very easy to change, however; they are not easy to load and often present a challenge for camera assistants not familiar with the Konvas magazine.

The Konvas runs on an electric 12 volt DC motor. Some are capable of running at very accurate "sync" speeds from 8 to 32 frames per second. The camera is noisy (about 55dB), making sound recording difficult, so it can be used as a MOS camera. This was not a problem in the Soviet Union, as Soviet cinema usually re-recorded all sound during editing via a process called "ADR" or "dubbing/looping".

External links

* [http://konvas.org Konvas and Kinor 35mm Cinema Cameras]