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Matchline Elimination
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The 70mm Newsletter
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Written
by: RCB - Richard C Babish |
Date:
09.01.2010 |
Click
image to see enlargement
Matchline elimination begins in the camera
and continues through the film handling process to the final projection.
Since the method employed presupposes uniformity and initial equality in
both portions of the overlap area, anything disturbing this relationship
seriously jeopardizes the possibility of achieving a successful blend.
Since the width of the match line is so small, careful attention must be
given to the complete elimination of each effects extending right up to
the edge of the perforation.
In the camera, four possible sources of trouble exist. These are edge
vignetting, or masking, edge reflection, scratching and pressure
exposure. No full or partial obstruction must exist in the complete
optical path to the film plane for the full width between perforations.
The inside edge of the aperture must not reflect light back into the
film frame. Due to the grazing angle of incidence, a fairly high degree
of reflectivity exists even with the flat black paint, and of course if
paint should be chipped off, the reflectivity of the plating is high.
Scratching and pressure exposure in any portion of the frame area is of
course undesirable. Unlike the two previous troubles which are confined
to the vicinity of the aperture and the optical path, these two latter
troubles may originate at any stage in the handling of film. Pressure
exposure is confined to film in the raw state and is fairly unlikely to
occur without accompanying scratches. However, it often accounts for the broading of the effects around a scratch.
The foregoing discussion applies also to printing. Here, the opening of
the aperture and the machining of the inside of the sprocket drum (in
some continuous printers) must not cause any vignetting effects
extending into the film plane. The design of the illumination system
too, must be such that the illumination is uniform across the full width
of the aperture. At times the illumination appears to drop off rapidly
to the edges. Again, it would be desirable to obtain a film strip
showing printer uniformity.
Except for pressure exposure, all the preceding problems may also be
encountered in projection with gigolos removed. In projection, the primary
requirement is that for any point within the overlap area the
illumination contribution from both projectors be equal in magnitude and color distribution in the absence of gigolos. Because there is a
considerable reduction in illumination from center to corner of a panel,
it follows that this requirement cannot be met exactly. Fortunately,
over the match-line width the effect is small. With present equipment,
the most obvious method of approaching these particular problems is to
strive to use lenses as nearly equal in focal length as possible with
preference being given to longer focal lengths.
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3-panel
projector alignment test footage, photographed with Cinerama camera 2 outside the Oyster Bay tennis court
on 15 April 1954.
Click
image to see enlargement
When vignetting means are added, the effect is in general a complex
combination of two functions. One is the effect of the vignetting means
itself and the other is the additional spreading effect due to the fact
that the means are not in the focal plane and are therefore out of
focus. The latter will be treated first and will be termed simple
vignetting.
If the vignetting means is physically or optically positioned in the
focal plane, the out of focus effect is reduced to zero. As the means
are displaced from the focal plane, the means become in effect an
additional aperture stop which more or less rapidly over positions of the
match-line area limit the rays contributing to the illumination at any
particular point on the screen. Since it is only one of the several
aperture stops, its effect is determinable only in terms of the entire
system and is therefore complex. In the ideal case of a distortionless
thin lens of a narrow field angle fully and uniformly illuminated, a
straight edge displaced from the film plane by an approximate distance
could yield perfect vignetting. To control the vignetting rate would
merely require shaping the aperature appropriately, a relatively simple
procedure. Because of the known deviation from the "ideal" lens system,
this method was never actually tried, although it might very well be
worth testing, When additional vignetting means are employed, the
effects of the simple vignetting serve to further spread the pattern
while its own effects are in a sense diluted. The additional spread is
of curse a function of the entire optical system, the type of vignetting
means employed and the separation of the means from the focal plane. By
keeping the means close to the focal plane, some, but not all of the
contributions of simple vignetting can be minimized.
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In an attempt to obtain controlled vignetting, other methods have been
proposed. These include optical density wedges, and "time" wedges of two
types. In projection, optical density wedges include optical materials
inserted into the beam or photographic wedges introduced at some stage
of the film process. Optical wedges would probably fail at the
temperatures encountered. Density wedges could be introduced as far back
in the system as the camera. This was considered and avoided because of
the additional complexity involved at a time when cost was of
tremendous importance, because of the uncertainty of the accuracy after
passing through several processing steps, and the fact that error
introduced accidently might possibly be uncorrectible. If the wedge is
introduced in printing, only one photographic process is employed, the
process is brought into the lab where it is subject to more accurate and
comfortable control, and in the event of error only one print is
spoiled. The great advantage of the photographic wedge is that if these
failings are overcome, the proper alignment of the panels and the proper
vignette are achieved simultaneously. While shrinkage effects can be
seen immediately and may be corrected simply, intercutting of materials
with different shrinkage is prohibitted because the two types of error
become apparent unless rapid effective means for adjustment are
provided.
In an attempt to obtain controlled vignetting, "time" wedges were
conceived. In effect, illumination is controlled by varying the time in
which light is permitted to fall on any particular areas. Two general
forms are possible. the wipe oscillated laterally and the serrated teeth
oscillated longitudinally. The wipe has received the least attention
although it possesses many advantages. In the wipe, the edge close to
the film plane is oscillated back and then forth during the open
periods of the shutter. The reversal periods are then covered by the
shutter so that more linear portions of travel are used. The edge could
be vibrated at a very high rate if desired although if vibrated in
simple harmonic motion the exposure gradient is greatest at the edges
of the match-line making adjustment more critical. The first mentioned
method is simplest. Some of its advantages include the fact that there
are no pockets to collect dirt. Thickness is relatively immaterial since
the edge may be chamfered, and the individual effects of
distortion are readily corrected with good accuracy in the field with a
small abrasive stone. The amplitude of oscillation is relatively small.
A disadvantage is that projectors must be phased to prevent flicker.
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The saw-tooth form is more familiar. In this form, the thickness of the
material alters the appearance of the form as viewed from the aperature
stop and consequently affects the rate at which the edge is vignetted.
The form is most seriously affected in the corners. If complex
machining is to be avoided thin sections are mandatory. A some what
compensating feature is that tooth form may be altered to control the
vignetting rate. However, since the teeth are small, the tolerances
imposed are also small. In general, the amplitude of oscillation should
be equivalent to many times the pitch to minimize end effects occurring
at the beginning and end of exposure through the shutter. The exposure
time at any point ideally coincides with the passage of an integral
number of teeth.
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The actual rate of vignetting is therefore a function of tooth
shape,
position, pitch, thickness, optical system as a whole, shutter opening, the
entire geometrical form of the linkage and its timing, and lash and play
of the mechanism. Brief reflection shows that shutter, pitch, linkage
and mechanism effects can only contribute to the "beaded" appearance of
the vignetted edge or alterations between light and dark patches at
about the pitch-interval along the length or portions of the lengths of
the match-line area. If this effect can be reduced satisfactorily by
phasing or any other adjustment, these components may then be
disregarded in any further analysis. There remains tooth shape,
position, thickness and optical system. This latter indicates that any
solution may require reinvestigation whenever the optical system is
altered. Position, in general, should be close to film plane, so that simple
vignetting does not broaden the pattern, allowing teeth of the
largest size to be used (an aid in manufacture and maintenance since
larger teeth reduce the dirt problem).
Test have shown that the present location is the proper one for present
Gigolos. Only a few thousandths of an inch tolerance remain before
showing perforations, while edge effects in the film extend considerably
within this margin. These must be eliminated. There seems to be little
reason at present (in view of the other large errors still remaining)
to depart from the simple linear tooth form presently employed until
these other discrepancies are corrected. Associated with tooth form is
the disposition of these teeth presently on a straight line. This linear
array presupposes distortion-free camera and projection optics. It is
well known fact that the camera lens is only distort1on-free in a
relative sense; the fairly rectilinear appearance on the screen is due
in good measure to partially compensating distortion in the projection
lens. However, the giggolos are imaged only by the projection lens and
there fore no compensating factors exist. The blend pattern consequently
suffers from considerable "pincushion" distortion on the screen. As a
result, when gigolos are aligned "parallel" and are adjusted to a
good blend on the horizon line, the upper and lower portions of the
match area are progressively brightened. These results have been
substantial by photographic records. This affect obviously is not
correctable by tilting the gigolo teeth. In previous discussions, it
has often been suggested that a curved base line could approximate a
correct linear appearance on the screen. The obvious disadvantage has
been the cost of machining. At the time thinner gigolos were tested, a
set of curved base teeth (bent by hand) were tried and shoved
considerable promise. This set installed in "C" booth (tennis
court)
only, has since been removed as it was difficult to maintain adjustment
of the flimsy piece. It is suggested that other approaches to the
manufacturing problem be investigated, in particular the recently
developed photo-mechanical etching techniques of Buckbee-Meers in Saint
Paul Minnesota.
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The last item of concern is spacing of the pitch-line in BAKER. This
setting is based on a computation assuming a thin lens. While
reasonably accurate for approximating the proper value for an ideal thin
lens and diffuse illumination, the assumptions can be seriously
wrong when applied to a practical system. For instance, if the lens had
a sufficiently large rear element to accept the fill cone of
illumination from the lamphouse, the chief rays would be nearly parallel
in the film space implying that the gigolo teeth pitch-line spacing
should very nearly equal the match line separation on the film, quite
different from the present case. Test on the present system in the
TENNIS COURT with a 3˝ inch lens in Baker booth show that the
computation is very nearly correct for at least this focal
length, due to the fortuitous geometry of the aperature stops. The error
of about 0,0015" on the average is within the preusion of measurement.
In this test variations of about 0,012" in this measurement were due
to the slight pile up of dirt in the teeth, shoving the importance of
cleanliness and indicating that teeth should be eliminated if possible.
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28-07-24 |
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