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Digital Bolex raw camera, no longer made
  • 1130 Replies sorted by
  • a_fuldaa_fulda

    I actually appreciate that DB made the effort to produce a camera which incorporates decent audio (XLR). Neither the newly announced GH4 nor the Blackmagic offerings (BMCC, BMPC-4K, BMPCC) can match this without additional rigging (GH4 extension plus battery; a bit of a joke if you ask me) or external recorder (BMC, BMPC-4K, BMPCC). In run and gun situations it is not always practical to record audio separately and synch in post. Image quality is a good criterion to judge a camera, but usability also counts.

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    @maxr

    HUGE CA's... not in the 80's, very recently... i.e. The Master

    Are you talking chromatic aberration? You found huge CA in a motion picture that was predominantly 65mm, using painstakingly selected lenses and optically timed? It's one of the most amazingly gorgeous films of our time, with close-ups that reveal just how far digital still has to go.

    Or are you talking about something good?

  • DrDaveDrDave

    @a_fulda AFAIK no one has really tested the audio, but let's hope for the best. I asked several ppl to put a voltmeter on it to measure the phantom power (loaded)--required for a decent mic--but so far not much info. My ideal cam would have four channel audio, after all, Zoom can do it for $150.

  • maxrmaxr

    @matt_gh2 thanks for that half bro XD - you put the thing with much nicer words {monkey looking at the sun}

    @BurnetRhoades , ok maybe not huge :P • Night boat shot with this lens have CAs (maybe 'cause wide open dunno), in the end of this shot there are purple and blue... not that it makes the film less good, that's exactly my point ,-) • BTW what do you mean by "Or are you talking about something good?" I'm honestly asking 'cause I don't know • Another thing about DB is highlights falloff, real hard... but again, and from the tinkering with DNGs, there's some room (not much) for interesting improvements via firmware. Will they manage? I guess time will tell. Will it get dragon's DR? Most probably just the whiskers of it. Will DB be able to produce very neutral (clinic) images? I highly doubt it, after all was not the whole idea to go Western Deep ? If you let me abuse of OT chatting, there's absolutely no point of seeing this McQueen's film if not in most overwhelming darkness with inverse protection, then you'll know where you are just by the pumping of your heart :-)

    As a final curiosity the greek word "alethia" literally means the state of not being hidden; the state of being evident

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  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    @maxr Yes, there could very well be some from being wide open to get that shot, but I wouldn't fully go by a digital image acquired through online means, or pulled directly from a BD player even since you are judging through a compressed, subsampled rendition of no providence. But let's look closer at this image.

    I see what I think you're reacting to, there's colored fringing around specific light sources, on the boat and back towards the dock area screen right. Production added these lights to the scene, all along, in view and hidden, the right hand side of frame. Some are not much more than Rodriguez "budget buster" little par cans. I save that PNG and blow out the exposure and the fringing looks more like flare to me.

    Look towards screen left, lights further away and smaller. Some of them no larger than the fringe area on these purple/blue lights. Where's the CA there? I'd expect them to look all different colors but they're a fairly uniform warm shade. I blow out the exposure and they stay uniform with no fringing or discoloration. These types of effect tend to be more pronounced at the edges of frame yet those tiny lights running all the way to the left edge of frame look very uniform in sharpness and lack of the color fringing you're seeing on those boat lights more central in frame.

    I zoom in and pan around and it's only those specific lights and the more I look at it the more it looks like flare or, in any case, an effect of the lens and not related to any criticism that could be levied against the Bolex's sensor, unless you were making a broader point that chromatic effects are acceptable (and to me sometimes beautiful in their random contribution to a film). I'd be in total agreement there. A lot of this pixel fucking is pretty laughable in the context of motion picture photography.

  • maxrmaxr

    @BurnetRhoades thank you for thoughtful insights ,-)

    Guess The Master it's not such a good example after all, as I was kind of shoken by this "effect"; by contrast, as everything else was so... to be completely honest I had a hard time integrating the whole thing. Better now

    But, as you put it very clear "unless you were making a broader point that chromatic effects are acceptable (and to me sometimes beautiful in their random contribution to a film)" I'll just add + imagining coherence, again the context thing. Now I'll leave the devil's advocate rol and maybe we can settle on it, have a beer and go for next minutes, je je

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    Totally, and I hope I didn't come across harsh or anything. I'm trying to work on that ;) I just only recently saw this film, despite PT Anderson being maybe my favorite contemporary director along with Danny Boyle. I wasn't expecting it to be that amazingly beautiful and arresting, visually.

  • MicahMicah

    Lenses have had CA forever. As long as we've had color stock to capture it, it's there. We ignore it. (as an aside, I once had a pair of aspheric eyeglasses that I could see CA through!) So CA is...whatever. It's a lens function. Just like soft corners and vignetting, experienced eyes/brains are ok it it, and inexperience ones don't have anything to compare to.

    But color moire is both new and very difficult to remove in post. We're not used to seeing it, and most of the eyes that have experienced it in a further past associate it with cheap video capture/TV/news anchor neck ties. It'd be a simple fix for DB to add an AA filter, but this would probably eat some light (reducing the already poor DR) and increase softness (which is already present, since the tiny sensor is really pushing the res of most lenses), and push up cost.

    I actually really want to like this camera. The whole development made me skeptical, yet a part of me wanted to be proven wrong and for DB to achieve a great product. All I see are apologies and marketing tactics, not a great product.

  • last_SHIFTlast_SHIFT

    Even a skeptical chap like me says lets hold off a bit until we see a wider sampling of footage, right now we're still looking at the work of those trying hard to justify their purchase and retro fanboyism.

  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    @maxr Lol. BTW was lucky to have seen The Master on a big screen in theater. Good looking film.

  • goannagoanna

    lets hold off a bit until we see a wider sampling of footage..

    Visit the non-reviews of the Digital bolex.

    The first camera to be not reviewed at famous camera review sites like ¹

    Your search - Digital bolex - did not match any documents.

    and also absent from many more review sites which seldom miss a new product. Apparently, the lack of product samples has something to do with it...

    Hey, what's the deal with the "no-info" marketing idea? We know more about life on Mars than what the Digital Bolex can produce! Can anyone remember any camera being launched like this? At just what point do we declare this critical information "missing in action", a "cold case", and call off the search? Am I the only one to smell a rat here?

    ¹ (yes, we do know which site has indeed reviewed - and sells - this mystery camera)

  • last_SHIFTlast_SHIFT

    Even though I say hold on a bit - I could really give a shit about this overpriced and oversized looking retro star trek phaser. Im quite happy with my current set up. :)

  • lunalobo75lunalobo75

    @goanna DB16 is shooting a promo commercial tomorrow, so they'll probably have it up soon. Bloom's review is coming shortly (yes, he bought a camera, but I always think he's fair with his reviews), and when there are more cameras for other review sites to work with, I'm sure they'll have their reviews up. Until then, I guess DB16 will just gave to survive through all the backlash. You can also find out more about the camera here a their site digitalbolex.com

  • luekioluekio

    @goanna . Only kickstarter backers are receiving cameras at the moment, the camera is still on pre-order so I'm not really sure why you would expect all those sites to be posting reviews. In the meantime, plenty of initial footage out there from both DB, Phillip Bloom and other users. Or if you have a real question, you could actually just ASK on the DB forum and the company founder will likely reply within the day, try that with blackmagic.

    PB was one of the first people to BACK the kickstarter and will post his full review soon, in addition to the footage and opinions he has already posted. Good place to start since I would urge folks to get their information from people who actually use camera's for a living and not gh2 shooters posting test footage of their mom's cat's on vimeo :P

    @burnettrhoades: Agreed. The Master was triumph of cinematography :)

  • CFreakCFreak

    @lunalobo75 "Bloom's review is coming shortly (yes, he bought a camera, but I always think he's fair with his reviews)."

    Before he put up his disclaimer of giving every manufacturer a fair shake he was definitely Canon/Zacuto biased, if not in their pocket. In the early 5dmkii & 7D craze, he never once mentioned moire, which, was so bad (and obvious) when I bought a 7D, I sold it and stopped caring what Bloom says. He must have cut all the shots with moire out of his videos (focused on faces and organic shapes) and forgot to mention the issue. 'It's great camera, (except on wide shots).' Lmfao.

  • lunalobo75lunalobo75

    @CFreak you may be right, he is a canon/Zacuto fan - but he definitely talks about moire, rolling shutter and the likes now with all cameras:) I dunno, I like what he has to say, but that's just my opinion.

  • CFreakCFreak

    Did anyone else notice how the right side of the frame in the long panning shot of PB's "Ocean on Fire" was soft? It looks like it was only on the 18-35 Sigma. Could be his lens adapter? I hope it's not due to the sensor, not sitting flat in relation to the lens mount. Could also be a smudge on the rear element on one side. Other shots look slightly soft, but not like this. 1080 Screen shots show the problem. Click to enlarge.

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  • CFreakCFreak

    @lunalobo75 in what little I have seen of his in the last 3 years, I will say he has gotten fairer, perhaps the contract with Canon ran out… and now he CAN talk about moire and rolling shutter ;-) Anyone who spends a lot of time on a blog, can't have that much time left to work as a DP. AFAIK.

  • maxrmaxr

    @luekio

    from people who actually use camera's for a living and not gh2 shooters posting test footage of their mom's cat's on vimeo :P

    My cats' lawyer contacted me and expressed how offended his clients are... furthermore - he said - they urge me to stop participating in macho like fanboysism useless arguments if I want to keep filming them {monkey making symbol with unknown meaning}

  • lunalobo75lunalobo75

    @CFreak hahhahha, maybe there was a contract, maybe not;)

    'Anyone who spends a lot of time on a blog, can't have that much time left to work as a DP. AFAIK.'

    If you check under his "Films" section on his blog, the guy has done a ton of work and still does; seems he only get's about 2 post a month on his blog now - now his twitter and Instagram is about as active as a honey badger on snake! But, in the long run, it's just another opinion, I guess.

    Salud

  • CFreakCFreak

    @lunalobo75 "But, in the long run, it's just another opinion, I guess."

    -and I only hope today it's a fair opinion from PB, that's all.

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    from people who actually use camera's for a living and not gh2 shooters posting test footage of their mom's cat's on vimeo :P

    Maybe DB16 users shoot cats, we just don't know... :)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Maybe DB16 users shoot cats, we just don't know... :)

    They do it in secret :-) I made some inspection lately and it seems like cats are unusually rare here. Not good.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    My concern with this camera is suppose you are making a vid with it, and it breaks down, how are you going to get it repaired or replaced? That was one of the issues cited with PB when he unloaded his RED cam. And in this case, I have no idea what the "Bolex" license is, but in the Wikipedia it mentions that it is only licensed in the USA (I don't know that this is true, just what it says in WP). So suppose you are in Europe (which I often am) and you need a replacement and it gets permanently stuck in customs. I don't even know what the broader implications of the license are, does that mean you cannot for example use a photo or rushes from the set in promo-material-worldwide that show the Bolex logo on the cam? I don't want to have to worry about this stuff in the middle of a project.

    What that means to me is that if you are doing a medium or high budget film, and there is an issue with the cam, as it stands right now you could be left high and dry. Hopefully that will change but I would be reluctant to put myself in that position.

    @goanna I hadn't though of that, but that is pretty strange, considering that vaporware is sometimes prereviewed.

  • lunalobo75lunalobo75

    @DrDave you have some legitimate concerns - have you tried and email them directly at info@digitalbolex.com? They've been pretty good at getting back to me within 2 days time. Hopefully they can answer your questions, man.

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