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Digital Bolex raw camera, no longer made
  • http://www.digitalbolex.com/

    This looks like a great camera that would really do what the ikonoskop tried to. It is s16mm at 2k or 16mm at 1920x1080. It records to compact flash cards ( cheaper than 100$ memory cards) has usb 3.0 out (better than a $1000 express card reader from ikonoskop) and has XLR inputs.

    I am sad to say I have found this just days after selling my 16mm lens. That's the way it goes though I guess

    oh did I mention it is $3300? If you preorder you can get it for $2500

  • 1130 Replies sorted by
  • Some guys never change, they always make up things and replace real story with nice fantasy

  • @zcream what recording software do you use? I remember I bought a 1910 monochrome in the past in the hopes of using it for an RGB telecine, but I was just being impulsive. I really need to sell all of my gear

  • There are usb3, FireWire and ethernet versions. Use a laptop to record

  • Using RJ45 interface

  • How do you even shoot with these cameras? They are just industrial cameras.

  • @ironfilm search using the Kodak Kai sensor used. There are other models of MVC with that sensor

  • @digger keep a lookout for an allied vision prosilica gx2300c (no c means monochrome) if you want to try out the same sensor that's in the digital bolex. The ~1920 CCD machine vision cameras are getting really cheap on ebay

    I can't see any GX2300C (or even GX2300) cameras on eBay? (not even when checking out past sold listings)

  • Interesting idea not making any more of these actually. If they have a secret stockpile of at least 100 units, after they have been gone a while and develop something of a small cult popularity maybe he can hock them for twice the original price (or at the bare minimum original list price which is better than continuing to produce and sell one unit a month.

    Btw... anyone know of a super 35 or full frame CCD sensor with similar readout capability as this one ?

  • 2300 is mono 2300C is color

  • @RobertGL

    Specifically, KAI-04050 and the KAI-02150 KAI-02170 sensors. Some cameras are KAI-04050 - GX2300C B2340 B2320

    KAI-02150 and KAI-02170 based cameras also.

  • Very much a real-deal type of thing, authentic to the core, but lacking in the marketing department.

    Well, nope. They had one of the best and cheapest marketing campaigns.

  • @digger keep a lookout for an allied vision prosilica gx2300c (no c means monochrome) if you want to try out the same sensor that's in the digital bolex. The ~1920 CCD machine vision cameras are getting really cheap on ebay

  • The comments about noise reduction are also weird because it ends up making it sound like the images coming from everybody else must be muddy and gross because there's been so much noise reduction performed on them and that's demonstrably false.

    This guy is onto something, regarding software processing applied to imagery acquired, but the way he presents it suggests lack of understanding and knowledge about that very complicated field, and looks really bad, like some hurt princess that blames the rain for being wet.

  • I think they have a coherent vision for what they think the camera is, it just doesn't deliver the purported expectations that they want in terms of usability. If you're willing to work with a finicky user interface in an inconvenient body shape with massive delay on the viewfinder, you'll probably like the camera. For a professional set, the latency of the video tap is just... questionable at best. Also, I'm pretty sure he left Elle out of it because they were a couple and they broke up. Personally I think Joe is kind of a narcissistic film school tool tool. This is the opposite of Authenticity, description of Camera technology is just outright lies.

    No Matter who you are, making a product from the ground up is hard. Some of the ideology is correct in terms of imaging, but some of it is just hype. Either way, building a product, even a partially successful one deserves some Kudos.

    If anyone from Digital Bolex is reading this, you should probably try to get hired as engineering or marketing for this guy - this guy is an EE genius, with the beginnings of a great product.

    http://www.krontech.ca

    Very much a real-deal type of thing, authentic to the core, but lacking in the marketing department.

  • If the company was restructured with commission-based sales agents instead of expensive media sponsorships, they could easily stay in business. Joe tried to convince the investor to take the money from those final sales to fund the shift. The investor wouldn’t have to pay for it himself. Instead, the investor pocketed the leftover profits and the D16 has remained out of production ever since.

    Yeah the investor does seem to be smart.

    Joe now knows exactly what the Digital Bolex is. It’s not a black box for fun events, a bare-bones camera for hardcore film nuts, a whimsical hipster toy, or a force of camera ingenuity that will bring Blackmagic to its knees. The Digital Bolex D16 is an educational tool that, true to its analog roots, holds mysteries and secrets that certain filmmakers will absolutely fall in love with.

    After all this time they don't even have a coherent vision for what the camera is. Honestly I've always wanted to try the Digital Bolex, but at $3000 minimum your money is much better spent elsewhere than on an "educational tool"

  • The comments about noise reduction are also weird because it ends up making it sound like the images coming from everybody else must be muddy and gross because there's been so much noise reduction performed on them and that's demonstrably false.

  • I spent some more time reading this

    As an example, the Digital Bolex has six boards in it, six electronic boards. One for the sound, one for the power, one for the sensor, so on and so forth. Compared to the first Blackmagic camera or the Pocket, they all have one board… Granted there are six boards, twelve layers thick or whatever, but when your power board is in the same board as your sound board and in the same board as your video board, there’s all of this crosstalk and noise, so they have to do noise reduction multiple times for their image. So you have an image that’s been cleaned like fifteen times. So even if they save the same RAW files that we save, Cinema DNG files, it doesn’t mean it’s still RAW. It doesn’t mean it didn’t go through layers and layers of noise reduction and all sorts of other stuff to get there. Whereas we do no noise reduction at all.”

    And for me it seems that while he was present at development, he have some problem understanding technical issues and frequently start to sound like early Andrew Raid.
    Does he have access to all internal documentation of BM? Where he got "noise reduction multiple times" things?

    He [the investor] thought that the way to get the most out of the camera and the company was to go to big box retailers like B&H and Samy’s Camera and a bunch of things like that

    Investor seems to be smart man.

    If you read carefully you find how some smart guys behind the curtain saved the project, but lost interest in all idiocy.

  • I think the most offensive part of omitting Elle from the story is that she seemed to be the one with talent.

  • @digger hard to see this enterprise being profitable. They did deliver to their purchasers though. Maybe they can parlay the experience into a higher status in the cinema ecosphere.

  • @digger You are 100% right. That is the worst part: basically the entire article is an advertisement/op-ed for him.

    I can't see how he could have made any money, but stranger things have happened. The article makes it seem like he's not bankrupt. I'm guessing a lot of other people lost money, though...