Sleep Deprivation: Effects on Safety, Health and the Quality of Life

Sleep Deprivation: Effects on Safety, Health and the Quality of Life

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Written by Farrah Hassen.

I. Introduction

A 2001 poll taken by the Washington D.C. National Sleep Foundation (NSF) reports that 63 percent of American adults don’t receive the recommended 8 hours of sleep necessary for good health, safety and optimum performance.[1] Fatigue’s consequences include higher instances of motor vehicle accidents, work-related accidents, decreased productivity and adverse health effects. Daniel O’Hearn, a Johns Hopkins University sleep disorders specialist observed, “People don’t respect sleep enough. They feel they can do more – have more time for work and family – by allowing themselves less time for sleep.”[2]

II. Sleep Deprivation and Safety Effects

Sleep deprivation instigates serious industrial accidents. “Sleep deprivation can reduce attention and vigilance by 50 percent, decision-making ability by 5 0percent, communication skills by 30 percent, and memory by 20 percent, says Mark Rosekind, board member of the NSF and president and chief scientist at Alertness Solutions.[3]

Consider the following accidents where fatigue has played a decisive role:

a.) On January 28, 1986, NASA managers preparing the space shuttle Challenger “had been working over 20-hour shifts before making the critical decision on whether or not to go and their knowledge about the O-rings.” The O-rings failed and caused the explosion, provoked by the managers’ fatigue, notes Rosekind.[4]

b.) The National Transportation Safety Board has traced the 1989 Exxon Va/dez Alaskan oil spill to the severe fatigue of the tanker’s sleep-deprived third mate (he’d slept for only six hours of the previous 48). The first mate on the Valdez had been working 30 hours, according to Mark Rosekind.[5]

c.) After completing an exhaustive 19-hour workday on the film Pleasantville, assistant camera operator Brent Hershman fell asleep at the wheel while driving home, resulting in his immediate death on March 6, 1997. Since his death, his co-workers have drafted the petition, “Brent’s Rule,” asking for a 14-hour shooting limit on film and television sets.[6]

d.) On October 23,2001, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that mistakes by a fatigued cockpit crew caused the 1999 crash of an American Airlines jetliner in Little Rock Ark, killing 11 and injuring 105 passengers. Studies by NASA and the Battelle Memorial Institute have concurred with pilot unions that a pilot should not be on duty more than 12 hours. Incidentally, by the time the ill-fated plane neared Little Rock, the crew had been on duty for about 13 1/2 hours.[7]

1.) Shift Workers, Fatigue and Safety:

a.) Shift workers and fatigue: Over 22 million Americans are shift workers, performing important functions in hospitals, on polices forces and in transportation and manufacturing industries. Although, shift workers are not immune to fatigue, especially when their shifts fall during the 11 pm-7 am period. The worker is forced to fight the natural wake-sleep pattern and is prone to less sleep, ultimately needed to help restore and rejuvenate the brain and body.[8] In a 2001 NSF poll, more than 38 percent of Americans report working 50 hours or more, with those who work more sleeping less.[9]
b.) Commercial truck drivers: According to the NSF, deregulation of the trucking industry has led to increased competition and an upsurge in the number of small carriers. Consequently, more commercial drivers are required to travel during the night, fighting the biological clock, in order to avoid increasing daytime traffic and meet the pressing demands of a 24-hour society. Figures suggest that driver fatigue contributes to 30 to 40 percent of all heavy truck accidents. Many truck drivers can’t recognize the point that their bodies are tired enough for them to fall asleep.[10]

2.) Drivers, Fatigue and Safety: Studies have affirmed that sleep-deprived drivers are just as dangerous as drunk drivers. A study by the British journal, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, found that people who drive after being awake for 17 to 19 hours performed worse than those with a blood alcohol level of .05 percent.[11]

a.) A study sponsored by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety looked at 1,403 North Carolina drivers and found that among those who got into automobile accidents, half had slept less than 6 hours before the crash. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 100,000 crashes – 3 to 4 percent of accidents – occur each year as a result of drivers falling asleep, causing 76,000 injuries and approximately 1,500 deaths. [12]

b.) Furthermore, during the period 1989-1993, an estimated 56,000 crashes occurred annually on U.S. highways in which drowsiness/fatigue was cited on the Police Accident Report. During the same five-year period, drowsiness/fatigue was cited as a factor in an annual average of 1357 fatal crashes, resulting in 1544 fatalities. Based on these statistics, reducing the extent of the sleep-deprived driver problem is certainly crucial to improving the safety of U.S. highways.[13]

c.) In a test of reaction times, people who were tired because of disrupted sleep performed about as poorly as the legally drunk subjects, new Stanford research reports. While alcohol’s well-documented slowing effects on reaction time has lead society to aggressively demand that airline pilots, truck drivers, train engineers – those responsible for others’ safety – limit their alcohol consumption, the same vigilance can’t be said about fatigue’s harmful impacts.[14]
Herein is the crux of the problem related to fatigue and the workplace: the lack of public awareness and consequential actions taken by industry leaders to address sleep deprivation’s serious effects on safety, health and in tandem, the overall quality of life.

III. Sleep Deprivation and Health Effects

A 2001 NSF survey draws attention to several medical conditions linked directly to sleep deprivation, including depression (83 percent), nighttime heartburn (82 percent), diabetes (81 percent), hypertension (79 percent), and heart disease (78 percent). In addition, sleep deprivation can accelerate the aging process, lead to obesity and increase the risk of memory loss. The British Medical Association also reaffirms the higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression among the sleep-deprived. [15]

Recent findings in other fatigue-related health effects include the following:

1.) Decreased Brain Activity: According to the military’s leading sleep expert, Colonel
Gregory Belenky, his research indicates that “brain function is degraded by prolonged waking.” Belenky’s high-tech brain images illustrate that sleep debt decreases the entire brain’s ability to function – most importantly impairing the brain’s areas responsible for attention, complex planning and mental operations and judgment. Even more ominous is the brain’s difficulty to recover from sleep deprivation; after 48 recovery hours of sleep, Belenky’s research subjects were still performing more errors than when they started.[16]
UCSD School of Medicine researchers posit that the brain is adversely affected by sleep deprivation because certain patterns of electrical and chemical activity that typically occur during sleep are interrupted, thus impeding the brain’s ability to function normally.[17] Certainly, impaired judgment stemming from decreased brain activity would pose direct safety hazards to industrial workers, drivers and others performing high-risk activities.

2.) Diabetes: As a testimony to sleep deprivation’s direct effects on health, researchers at the American Diabetes Association reported in 2001 that getting too little sleep may in fact increase the risk of developing diabetes. In a test undertaken by 27 healthy, non-obese adults ages 23-42, the results demonstrated that chronic sleep deprivation in otherwise healthy young adults indeed impairs the ability of insulin (40 percent) to do its job.[18]

3.) Night Shifts and Breast Cancer: In a 2001 study by researchers at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and at Harvard Medical Center, women exposed to a large amount of light at night appeared to have a higher risk of breast cancer. This finding adds concurrence to the notion that shift-work poses health risks by disrupting the brain’s day-night clock and throwing hormone levels out of balance. Also noteworthy, women who reported not sleeping through one or more nights per week had a higher cancer risk – 14 percent for each sleepless night.[19]

IV. Sleep Deprivation and the Quality of Life

The NSF’s 2000 Sleep in America Omnibus Poll of 1,154 adults 18 years and older found that on average adults sleep just under 7 hours during the work week. One-third of adults only sleep 6.5 hours or less nightly.[20]
Negative consequences to safety, health and work performance stemming from fatigue are inevitable, considering that it’s between the seventh and eight hour when a person receives almost an hour of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep – the crucial period when the mind repairs itself, grows new connections and puts itself back together. The periods of REM only increase as the night progresses, so a six-hour sleeper – for example – is deprived of the opportunity to repair and prepare for the next day.[21]

1.) Work Performance: With respect to sleepiness and the workplace, findings of the NSF poll included the following: 51 percent of the American workplace reports that sleepiness on the job interferes with the amount of work they get done; 68 percent of adults say that sleepiness interferes with their concentration and makes handling stress (66 percent) on the job more difficult; 68 percent of shift workers report problems sleeping.[22]

2.) Economic ramifications: According to Cornell University psychologist and sleep
expert James Maas, sleep deprivation and sleep disorders cost the American economy at least $150 billion a year, as a result of decreased job productivity and fatigue-related accidents.[23]

3.) Personal effects and overall impact on society: Because fatigue is linked with irritability, impatience, anxiety and depression, such problems can directly jeopardize job and family relationships and upset social activities. The ultimate costs of time-pressured societies, where fatigue plays a constant role, include “declining health, industrial accidents, splintered families, delinquency, depression. inadequate learning, and tired and weakened communities.”[24]

V. Conclusion

Sleep is the only way to beat fatigue, complimented by a greater educational emphasis on recognizing the signs of being gravely sleep-deprived. In a 24-hour-a-day society that places productivity on the highest pedestal, the correlated safety, health and personal costs of fatigue are easily overlooked.
National Sleep Foundation polls have consistently pointed to a majority number of sleep-deprived Americans. They are truck-drivers, doctors, university students, camera operators and entertainment-industry workers, cops, pilots and other shift-workers. The Challenger explosion. Exxon Valdez oil spill, tragic death of camera operator Brent Hershman and the recent American Airlines Arkansas crash represented a varied spectrum of the labor force. Nevertheless, they all shared the same destructive contributing factor of fatigue.
The question remains how much more devastation to human life will it take before industry leaders respond to the ever-present seriousness and reality of fatigue’s detrimental effects in the workplace?

[1] National Sleep Foundation “Less Fun, Less Sleep, More Work: An American Portrait.” Mar. 27,2001. www.sleepfoundation.org.
[2] FDA Consumer Magazine. “Sleepless Society,” July-August 1998
[3] Carvalko, Debbie. “Sleep Deprivation: ‘Public Enemy Number 1’ for Cops.” Medscape Health, July 2001
[4] ibid
[5] Wald, Matthew L. “The Costs of Sleeping on the Job.”
[6] Masters, Kim. “The Longest Day.” Time. April 21, 1997.
[7] Malnic, Eric. “Crew Fatigue Cited in Fatal 1999 Crash of Jetliner in Ark.” Los Angeles Times. Oct.24, 2001, A28.
[8] National Sleep Foundation www.sIeepfoundation.org/about.html
[9] National Sleep Foundation. “Less Fun, Less Sleep, More Work: An American Portrait.” Mar. 27, 2001. www.sleepfoundation.org
[10] “Lack of Sleep America’s Top Health Problem, Doctors Say.” CNN Health. March 17, 1997. www.cnn.com/HEALTH.
[11] “Sleep Deprivation as Bad as Alcohol Impairment, Study Suggests.” CNN Health. Sept. 20,2000. www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH.
[12] Greenberg, Bridgette. “Drowsy Drivers a Danger.” ABCNEWS.COM. Dec. 21, 2000. www.abcnews.go.com
[13] Peters, Robert D. and Esther Kloeppel. “Effects of Partial and Total Sleep Deprivation on Driving Performance.” Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center. www.tfhrc.gov/humanfac/sleep/sleepweb.htm.
[14] “Sleep Deprivation shown to have as much impact on reaction time as alcohol.” Sept 28, 1999. www.med.stanford.edu.
[15] “Sleep Deprivation as Bad as Alcohol Impairment, Study Suggests.” CNN Health. Sept 20, 2000. www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH.
[16] “Risks of Sleeping Short.” 20/20: Sleep Debt. 2001.http:/fmy.abcnews.go.com
[17] “Brain Activity is Visibly Altered Following Sleep Deprivation.” Feb. 9. 2000. http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2000.
[18] “Getting Your ZZZ’s to Help Avoid Diabetes.” CNN Health. June 26, 2001. www.cnn.com/HEALTH.
[19] Hall, Carl T.”Night Work Adds to Breast Cancer Risk, Studies Say.” Santa Barbara News-Press. Oct, 2001.
[20] National Sleep Foundation. “National Sleep Foundation Releases New Statistics on ‘Sleep in America.'” Mar. 3, 2000 www.sleepfoundation.org.
[21] “National (sleep) Debt is Killing Americans and Hurting Economy, Cornell Psychologist Says.” Jan. 19, 1998. www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan98/sleep_dep.hrs.html.
[22] National Sleep Foundation. “National Sleep Foundation releases new statistics on ‘sleep in America.'” Mar. 28, 2000. www.sleepfoundation.org.
[23] “National (sleep) Debt is Killing Americans and Hurting Economy, Cornell Psychologist Says.” Jan. 19, 1998. www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan98/sleep_dep.hrs.htm1.
[24] Running Out of Time. Dir. Johnde Graaf. Oregon Public Broadcasting. KCTS/Seattle, 1994.

Overstepping? Opinion

Overstepping? Opinion

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This blog ran a series of articles delving into an internal problem at a state university.  We were made aware of this problem late fall of 07 and began putting up articles a few months later in an attempt to pressure the university to take action.  It took a while but the university did come around (we are not sure why) and apparently resolved the issue.  The article that once appeared here has been taken down because we think it no longer serves the purpose it was intended.

The CSUF, RTVF, Charlie Foxtrot Explained (opinion)

The CSUF, RTVF, Charlie Foxtrot Explained (opinion)

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It would appear that the alleged cancer of administrators self promotion and institutional promotion has erupted in a new place. It has metastasized itself into the KCET and CSUF joint venture project. In an effort to promote the university, allegedly at the expense of the academic mission, the university has joined in an agreement to allow the taxpayer’s facilities to be used by KCET TV station. Let me list the alleged cancerous invasions into the normal RTVF department educational process:

• KCET allegedly asked to have carpet put on to the studio floor for their show. You do not put carpet on a floor where a camera dollies. You can put it into a set but not out into the path of a camera. Cameras do not move very well on carpet. Putting a ‘permanent” carpet in place is so stupid it is beyond comprehension. The carpet can be rolled up and then out for the KCET production like every other student production.

• After KCET got their carpet installed it as pointed out that students setting up their shows would damage the carpet. Out of this concern, the dean’s office has ruled allegedly, that students will not be allowed to drag any set pieces across the carpet.

The RTVF Department has always had a small studio and thus their policy is to not allow permanent sets to exist. This is one of the main reasons why Broadcast Journalism students have their own studio, because of the time it took to set up their lighting and set. Broadcast Journalism is all about reading the news on camera and not doing studio set-ups and running camera. They needed their own studio. RTVF Department is all about the complete production process. Nothing is set up for the student. The students must come in and set up every part of their show: lighting, stage setup, character generator, audio, teleprompter, etc. The KCET request to have a lot of their show setup remain and not be touched is a normal request. The problem is that this interferes with the classroom use of this studio. The ideal solution is to require KCET to have no better ranking than any student production and clear their set after each show and reset for their next show. It is the standing policy of the RTVF studio to strike the set after each show.

A lot of student shows require a setting of the acting-taking place in some sort of room. A room requires walls. When building a set, one of the first pieces to be put in place are the “flats” which is a section of wall. The CSUF, RTVF Department studio standard for a flat is four feet wide by eight feet high. A flat is a four foot by eight foot section of wall, typically made of a frame on which is attached by glue or nails a four by eight thin wood panel. The frame is normally not seen, facing away from the cameras, and a hinged brace can be swung out from the back of the flat to prop this section of wall up. The brace keeps the flat from falling forward or backward. After the flat is in place the brace is swung out and a sand bag is put on the brace to ensure the wall will not fall. One husky man or women can lift this flat depending upon the type of wood used in the construction of this flat. The typical movement is to slide the flat across the floor in an upright position trying real hard from having it flop forward or backward. I have seen women of slight stature slide the flats across the floor with no problem.   This now requires a husky man or two more slender students to lift a flat. This new requirement now brings up another problem. At the beginning of each TV production class semester, the student projects are individual projects, not group projects. Any TV production is a group effort and the faculty emphasize to each student in the class that they are expected to help out in setting up for the production. The reality is the student, whose turn it is to do their production, comes in early to do the setup Problem is, typically, no other students have shown up to help out. I see two possible negative outcomes. The student will attempt to drag sets across the carpet anyway, violating the dean’s policy and possibly damaging the carpet as no one will be there to police their efforts or they will injure themselves trying to lift the flats single handed.

• The RTVF faculty told the deans office that the students would be using food or drink as part of their shows and the carpet might be soiled.  It is heresy not to allow students to drink (non-alcoholic), eat, and smoke. The rule is this. It shall be allowed! The university does not allow smoking, but if it is called for in a script and the crew does not have a problem with it, it can and will be done. If the script calls for food and drink in the set and consumption of same, it will be done! If the script calls for alcoholic beverages, the faculty member will see to it that the fluids be substituted to make it seem that the actors are partaking in the real beverage and they will drink when the script calls for it and directed to do so by the director. The script, the director, the student, the faculty rule not some administrator.

• KCET requested, allegedly, that some of the lighting be pre propositioned for the KCET show thus removing the total lights for student use. Also, the lights for the show might get in the way of a student production. When setting up lights for a show it is normal practice to find the closest existing light fixture that can do the job to speed up the process. Also, if a light fixture is blocking the light path and is not being used in the show its C clamp is loosened and slid along the light grid to get it out of the way. A good lighting person thinks of what is expedient because a number of student productions take place during a single lab period. Not allowing students to be able to use ANY lighting fixture has never been the policy of the RTVF Department and goes against what is best for the student lab process.

One of the major complaints of tearing down the TV studio on the Humanities Building and moving into the basement of the library was the new studio space was simply awful for a whole long punch list of reasons. The principal deficiency was the rat’s nest of existing pipes in the ceiling, which forced the lighting pipe grid to be too low for proper light angles. Now the students had to avoid these dead hanging lights, which were used by KCET.

When done properly, lighting is probably the most time consuming activity done for setting up a show. Depending upon what is called for in the script, the lighting can range from just a couple of lights, typically used for a single action area, to lights for multiple action areas which can dramatically complicate the effort needed to finish the setup in time for the show to start on time. Typically each talent should receiving three points of light. This means that for each actor there must be a key, fill and back light. If you have three talent and they do not move around you would have to set up nine lights, minimum. If they move around the lighting person typically goes for pool light, meaning the actors walk into one pool of three points and then into another pool of three lights. If it is a happy show (sitcom, game show, news), maybe more fill light is added. Lights on the set to highlight a curtain or plant or the outside of a window would add to the set up total. It is one of the basic mistakes of a new student director to not allow enough time for light set up and also to take too much preproduction time setting up lights and not dealing with other equally important issues. The point I am making is this. You do not want to slow up the lighting set up process one bit, it naturally eats up too much time when you have a perfect studio to work with.

Let me state a rule in lighting. It takes a LONG time to set lights. I can see why KCET wants their lights set in place. As for propositioned lighting, that has been a reoccurring issue before KCET came on board. Here is how the department handled it. A student would be quite smart to come in the day before their production; this especially worked his or her production was the next morning and was the first class of the day. The student would typically ask if it was ok to set up lights for the next day production. The department never had a problem with that and it showed intelligence, and preplanning on the part of the student, which was encouraged. The department NEVER guaranteed that someone would not move the lights. It just worked out that the schedule seemed to favor setups the night before the production. Now let us get to KCET. To expect that lights be stationary for their production is laughable. The studio is a student lab and students are expected and ENCOURAGED to come in and set up lights any time they can with no restrictions. Now saying that, for labs with a number of productions taking place during the same lab, the faculty often times ask the students to coordinate their lighting schemes so each production can use lights that are ALREADY in place. The former studio never had enough electrical circuits and lights for all of the student productions that take place in each lab period.

Another practical concern is who would police the KCET lights not being moved?

When setting lights, a ladder is used and moving a heavy ladder all around the studio would in itself cut into a carpet. Should we expect next to hear from the dean’s office that the ladder must be lifted over the carpet?

• Faculty and students were allegedly told by the administration that they cannot put KCET set pieces into the hallway. The administration did not plan for storage. Who needs stinking storage? Ask the staff in the College of the Arts, they did not plan for storage very well in their new building and is a current complaint by those staff members. TV studios, audio studios and drama theaters NEED storage. The exiting RTVF studio is not large enough for most productions and proper operation of this studio cannot allow any standing set pieces to remain in place.

I see a number of solutions to this problem in order of what works best for the mission:  KCET gets the same studio status as any student production.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Note: This blog ran a series of articles delving into an internal problem at a state university.  We were made aware of this problem late fall of 07 and began putting up articles a few months later in an attempt to pressure the university to take action.  It took a while but the university did come around (we are not sure why) and apparently resolved the issue.  This article now has been revised (9-4-08) to reflect this improvement.  We still think the issues stated in this post are relavent.

Charlie Foxtrot directed at RTVF

Charlie Foxtrot directed at RTVF

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Opinion Piece

For about two years I have been hearing of how the educational system at the CSUF, College of Communications, more precisely the television and film program, is allegedly being poorly administered at the dean’s level and higher. I have been waiting well too long for a solution to this alleged near incompetence and thus have called it quits for glossing over this problem to help preserve the “CSUF image”, what ever that is.

Let’s back up a few decades from now. CSUF has had a very long history of picking administrators over media programs that need proper credentials for understanding film, television, audio and related studies but not always did. On the support side, the Media Center lasted for decades but was done away with allegedly because the staff appeared to be a problem. The department was phased out to become smart classrooms program. No one could handle the problems within the Media Center so it was dissolved. The alleged hidden truth was that administration cronies filled the positions of directing the department ever since the first legitimate search for a director a Dr. Denno retired. Dr. Denno had legitimate credentials and designed the Media Center when it was first built and he was a pretty good administrator.

On the academic side, the School of the Arts allegedly tried for years to pretend they had a film and TV program when all they had was live stage. There was an alleged internal bias for live stage and anything else was looked down upon. Film was finally dropped and TV has been on life support for decades. They currently possess the best space for a TV studio but politics being what they are on that campus, it fails miserably to come up to its potential. In this case it was an administrator and faculty that held the same opinion, not too bad except you would be a fool to come to CSUF to learn acting for TV. And the university president did not seem to know any better. He was happy so long as he could call up his live stage actors for PR gigs.

Another academic department, The Department of Communications had an emphasis called TV and Film, which was created and run by Dr. Mastroianni. Dr. George, as he was called, ran a pretty good program until his passing. Dr. Maxwell and Dr. Alexander hired Dr. George from a legitimate search of candidate’s way back in the 60’s.

If you have not picked up on my point so far let me be blunt. CSUF has not done too badly conducting legitimate hires into media management positions. It is when cronies are swung into being in charge that it usually goes bad.

Now back to the present. We have a Department of Radio-TV-Film, which broke away from the Department of Communications so it could get out from under the POB accreditation scheme. Students need to learn the equipment more than they needed to take liberal arts classes, so ran the logic for this break. Currently Dr. Fink is the department chairman. He was hired from a legitimate search. He has a good reputation in the classroom and as an administrator, except he should have been tougher against the villains in this story. His power and the power of the faculty in that department has been stripped away by the dean’s office and that is where the problem lies. Once again, the we find individuals who fail to understand the areas of radio, TV, film, audio, lighting but insert themselves into the decision making process with alleged ruinous results.

The doctorate degree is a most unfortunate invention when possessed by anyone who thinks his degree transcends out beyond his or her area of expertise. At CSUF it is not where learning is preeminent it is where a bunch of numskulls think they have the credentials to step beyond their credential capabilities. And you want to know something? Right now there is a Charlie Foxtrot upon the RTVF faculty going on and being a taxpayer and a sincere concern for students and faculty, I will campaign for a management change until there is a resolution to this problem.

POB = print oriented bastard.
Charlie Foxtrot = cluster fuck.
Attack Force

Attack Force

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Movie Review: Attack Force

Actors: Steven Segal

Attack Force is just about as a complete disappointment as can be put into a movie. Everything was uninspired, the plot, sets, acting to mention a few. I thought the music, at times, was far better than the action and more enjoyable which shows you how distracted I was from the action. The plot was utterly unbelievable. The plot could have been twice as good with a rewrite by a good screenwriter. If a storyboard was done, it was done incorrectly or anyone looking at the board cards was blind or drunk. The director needed to save this movie but seemed to not even try. Steven Sega’s voice appeared, at times to be overdubbed by another male voice. The male actors, to evidently hide the fact that Segal had taken on the dimensions of Jackie Gleason, wore heavy coats most of the time. The women of course were scantly dressed; sex sells. If Segal was not going to loose a few pounds to do this movie, I do not think anyone should put down a few pounds to pay for it. If I were to rate this movie, it gets trashcan rating.

Schneider – Kreuznach, Arriflex-Cine-Xenon 1:2/50 Lens Repair

Schneider – Kreuznach, Arriflex-Cine-Xenon 1:2/50 Lens Repair

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Lens Repair: Schneider – Kreuznach, Arriflex-Cine-Xenon 1:2/50

Problem #1: The lens came to me with a major problem. It was in two pieces. I soon discovered that the lens had two problems. The second problem was that the lens was loose. If you held the very front of the lens firmly in one hand the rear of the lens could move or pivot a bit up or down or side to side.

Solution: I removed the rear element by unscrewing it. There was a series of screws that were quite loose inside. I tightened the screws and this made the lens tight. I then proceeded to go to the second problem.

removing_rear_element-500p

In the image above the rear lens assembly has been removed revealing the rear optical element. Unscrew the element by rotating in a counter clockwise direction. Upon removal of the rear element, you will see inside the front part of the lens a number of screws. Tighten the screws. Reassemble the rear optical element back into the lens.

screws_to-_tighten-500p

Problem #2: The lens came to me in two pieces. This lens is a puzzle that is somewhat difficult to figure out. The major thing going for me was that the focus ring was not loose and I felt I could depend upon its setting to help me get back a lens that would achieve critical focus. The puzzle depended upon getting the rear element part to marry with the front part of the lens using the correct dihedral threads. To complicate matters a bit are two rear lens tabs that must chase along a channel. By trial and error I went through quite a number of possible threads until the lens matched the focus markings. When doing this, you should understand that there is a single screw that acts as a pin into a 180 degree cut out. I placed a pencil mark on the lens where one end of the 180 was. The other end of the 180 channel was at the infinity mark. When screwing the lens together, visualize where that pin goes into the lens but without the pin. I used a magnification lamp with a circular florescent bulb to look into the hole and determine when I had screwed the lens in too far. You will not be able to screw the lens in but will meet some resistance. This is because the two small tabs must locate into the front lens piece. Slowly rotate the back of the lens element until you feel the tab move into the slot. .When you think you have found the correct threads, screw in the screw pin and test the lens.

lens_parts-500p

Note the image above has a tab labeled. It is this tab that rides into the channel seen in the picture below.

where_tab_to_chase-400p

The channel cutout above is where a set screw will be used to ride in the channel and determine how far the focus ring will turn.

Image of lens.

The above image shows the special set screw that is used to unlock and lock the focus ring and allow the lens back end to be removed.

When you think you are finished putting the lens back together, do a focus check, using a camera, to ensure that the lens repair is a success.

I had to depend upon ground glass focus for the eye and measuring the lens at infinity tape out to a test star chart with the iris wide open. I firmly recommend that any lens repair be done by a good optical repair shop. When I did this repair, I was working for a state university that had a very limited budget.

The information here is for educational and reference use only. Decide on your own how to proceed in performing any repair you face. We do not accept any responsibility for this information being entirely accurate. We hope it is accurate. Most of the information posed here has been noted to be significant, used in the repair process, and to some extent tested for accuracy through the actual discovery and recording of performing a repair. If you decide to use any of the information here, try to keep in mind that a number of factors may change when you attempt the “same” repair. Models do change from apparently being same units. Their are definitely different methods of making a repair. The steps that you should use to achieve a successful and expedient repair might be different. The problem you face with a piece of equipment might be similar but not an exact match to what we faced. Just use common sense and always be a bit skeptical of following our methodology until you feel that you and we share the same viewpoint and tactics.