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Digital Bolex raw camera, no longer made
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  • New Footage:

  • @R4dev - that looks more like reversal, to me. Early 1980's reversal. I'm having a hard time understanding why they are releasing some of these clips.

  • I'm having a hard time understanding why they are releasing some of these clips.

    They made two very costly raw cameras, each for about $130000, and if I remember correctly some things work in one camera and others in another. You also wanted to show something is you drained 260k down the tubes.

  • @vicharris with the vimeo page smackdown comment!

  • @rockroadpix Yep, I'm sure I'll be slammed as well as all my videos on Vimeo by their minions. Honestly that video looks like it could be shot with anything. There's so much crap thrown on the top. I'm amazed that's what they are putting up. IMO, it looks like they are hiding faults with all the grain, soft focus and shit thrown on top. But what do I know.

    P.S. Are you stalking me on Vimeo? :) I might be an asshole but there's one thing you can say about me is that I don't hide who I am online!! ;)

  • @vicharris - not stalking, I went to the link that Vitaliy posted and your comment was "highlighted" on the video creator's page as active discussions... :)

  • http://www.digitalbolex.com/guest-post-kurt-lancaster/

    finalized sound boards just came in last week so I haven’t gotten a unit with working sound yet, but hopefully very soon

    LOL

  • Well they have got their motion blur done well. With the current push towards 60p many manufacturers seem to have forgotten how important this is. My new Sony GW66 (both PAL and NTSC) start raising the shutter speed long before they reduce the aperture, resulting in jerky frame-to frame video. Luckily, Vegas pro can calculate motion blur quite well. At least for my eye. And CPU power is not a problem these days. I guess if you don't know much about the technicalities of videography, and are just looking for a black box, something like the Bolex might appeal to you.

  • @trevmar

    What you mean? I think it is all shot in manual. And except for installing certain sensor they have nothing to do with "motion blur" here.

  • I'm an admitted skeptic - however I will admit colors and grade looked very good in that Venice breakdancing video.

  • @Vitaliy Yes, I was not clear with my chalk-and-cheese analogy. I was trying to say that I am seeing a lot of video these days which has discrete, jerky, frames, and that at least the Digital Bolex was giving smooth motion. That was a pleasant thing to see. The DB was certainly not stabilized, nor on tripod or steadicam, and I was impressed by the photographer's ability to hold a shot. And frame the shot, for that matter. I did examine a few of the frames to verify the amount of motion blur in the video, and it appeared to be about 50%, not 100%. But this is hard to estimate accurately...

  • Quote from their Vimeo page "In the coming weeks, I will be releasing an essay on grain theory" Now that is High Class BS. For those of you tired of waiting, you can achieve the same effect by putting tape over the lens of your new iPhone.

  • Oh I get it now. Shoot 75% of your footage out of focus and tell everyone that's what you meant to do and it's art. Dammit, I have it all wrong!

  • this is very funny: http://www.digitalbolex.com/forum/building-the-digital-bolex/how-to-organize-the-pre-order/

    was'nt this camera supposed to be released months ago?

    maybe DB should charge for all the entertainment they are providing.

  • They could :-) But it is no longer funny.

  • Why is their lighting so always so bad?

    The specular highlights look really odd to me. Whenever something is blown out it just seems to have a really fried kind of look.

    The break dancing video isn't so bad but all the stuff with studio lights looks really off to me.

  • Why is their lighting so always so bad?

    It's impossible for hipsters to hire anybody besides their friends... and they all think they're the best.

  • Smear in highlights. Typical in ccd sensors

  • @paglez

    Thanks, That must be why it reminds me of my old GL1 footage.

  • I don't see much to complain about in the most recent vid.. clear images.. decent DR in the the blow-out bits.. there seems to be some aliasing around the highlights in the hair, but I can't be certain as the video runs like garbage on this computer here. Looks comparable to the ikonoskop, I guess. I'll need to see some comparison vids using other cameras to get a better idea of the rendition.. as it stands the price is way too high for my liking

  • image

    In short, hipster photography is an existential exercise, a performance, even a ritual that marks out a tiny territory – an identity – in a world filled with images.

    http://visualcultureblog.com/2013/10/what-is-hipster-photography/

  • We’re planning to freeze the firmware development in the next couple of weeks, and while we start to assemble boards in Toronto next week, we’ll be sending our mechanical designer and one of our founders, Stelio, to China to oversee our next batch of parts.

    While there were vast improvements with this new generation of parts, there were a few problems here and there. Luckily the problems are with smaller parts, and don’t affect the functionality, but we want to get everything right on a cosmetic level for our first 100 cameras. There will be a slight delay to produce a new batch, but the good news is, it is a short delay and we are confident we can deliver cameras in the coming weeks.

    image

    High tech shit (c) :-)

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  • Gotta freeze that firmware, otherwise the firmware might melt and ruin the cosmetics of the camera.