Bolex D16: RAW, 16/Super 16 sensor size, costs less than MkIII

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

I love it.. they had me with the pistol grip..

^ if anything they should not have gone with the little girl 'storybook' theme, which was a really soft debut video, imo, and instead should have gone with a François Truffaut type; some kind of retro new-wave filmmaker.

View attachment 49943

With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a thick french accent, he would could turn to the camera and tell the viewers something like, "Ah... so you want to be an indie filmmaker, do you? Well, sissy man, dust off the brain, grab your father's light meter and get ready for your balls to drop and some hair on the chest. We're going all manual!"

Now I joke... kinda. >

 

[kylevant]

Let me revisit this though. Getting exposure with a light meter and all that -- it's different from what you're used to, but is it harder? No, it's infinitely simpler. Video has given us many powerful tools, but it has required them because of how complex everything is. Whereas with a raw camera, there's not really anything you *can* do to the image. You point the camera, you set the iris, you pull the trigger, and you hope and pray you've got what you need to make it look like you want it in post. That's the way you shoot film, that's the way you'd shoot raw with a DBolex. You don't have to stress about the exposure because you've got 12 stops of DR spread across 12 bits of information, so as long as you profile the camera and learn how the sensor reacts (i.e., it holds 4 stops over exposure and 8 stops under, or whatever) then you meter the scene with your meter to make sure what you want stays within that range, and then you shoot. And then you work it all out in post. Same as we do with film.

As for color -- that's all done in post. Use your three-way color corrector instead of adjusting your R/G/B gain in camera, etc. The adjustability is all there, it's just moved out of the camera and on to the desktop.

But the point is, once you've lit the scene properly, you pull the trigger and then you sort it all out in post. Very, very, very different (in fact, pretty much diametrically opposite) way of how we work with video cameras, where you optimize menus and tweak settings and build scene files so that when you shoot footage, it looks the way you want it to. Exact opposite way of working.

That's probably why a device like this is appealing to film shooters, but may prove frustrating to those who have been weaned on something like a GH2. I mean, the GH2's manual is huge and intimidating, whereas on a Bolex the manual was maybe 16 pages (I'm guessing) and probably half that was spent on how to load the film in.

Ahh, it was a different world...

Well, at the end of the day I think many of us will be willing to put up with all the complexities of using this camera just so that we can get something better than H.264. Maybe that’s a bad thing. Maybe it just shows how desperate we are. Maybe we really don’t want RAW, but just something that can retain more information with all the comforts and advantages of our DSLRs. Maybe...


It really will be interesting to see where all this goes.

they didn't replace anything....
prosilica use same sensor...

"...we did an initial sensor test to make sure that the Kodak chip was the right choice. For this sensor test we modified a GX to have our sensor and processing unit..." ~ Joe Rubinstein

...There will be no auto focus, no auto shutter, no auto iso, and no auto aperture...

That just cracked me up. I've always hated anything with the word "auto" in front of it anyway!

 

[vladszp]

Well, at the end of the day I think many of us will be willing to put up with all the complexities of using this camera just so that we can get something better than H.264. Maybe that’s a bad thing. Maybe it just shows how desperate we are. Maybe we really don’t want RAW, but just something that can retain more information with all the comforts and advantages of our DSLRs. Maybe...


It really will be interesting to see where all this goes.



"...we did an initial sensor test to make sure that the Kodak chip was the right choice. For this sensor test we modified a GX to have our sensor and processing unit..." ~ Joe Rubinstein



That just cracked me up. I've always hated anything with the word "auto" in front of it anyway!

that answer doesnt make sense ....
gx 2300 use KODAK KAI-04050 ....
dbolex use KODAK KAI-O4050 ...
what they change?
what is modification ?
what is "our sensor"

 

[kylevant]

that answer doesnt make sense ....
gx 2300 use KODAK KAI-04050 ....
dbolex use KODAK KAI-O4050 ...
what they change?
what is modification ?
what is "our sensor"

Don't shoot the messenger.

If they do use exactly the same sensor, well - that is a strange answer... more conspiracies I sense...

 

[yolk]

the sensor is still the kodak one. but unlike the machine vision camera you don't have to be tethered to a laptop. the internal FPGA buffers the data to SSD then reads it out to dual CF. the FPGA will also handle the audio, menues, crude B&W video monitoring etc.

the mockup:

 

[yolk]

also the senor is a 1" chip with 2336x1752 pixels. they window the 2K and fullHD portion so you'll get roughly the S16 and regular 16 frame.

 

[vladszp]

no problem
i was very exited about dbolex....
and i always bet on underdog ...
but these all become fishy ...
i don't wont people to become disappointed if all this is just too good to be true...

 

[kylevant]

the sensor is still the kodak one. but unlike the machine vision camera you don't have to be tethered to a laptop. the internal FPGA buffers the data to SSD then reads it out to dual CF. the FPGA will also handle the audio, menues, crude B&W video monitoring etc.

the mockup:

View attachment 49955

Well, he did distinctly say that they modified it to have "our sensor." Unless he was just trying to simplify it or something.

 

[Digigenic]

^ if anything they should not have gone with the little girl 'storybook' theme, which was a really soft debut video, imo, and instead should have gone with a François Truffaut type; some kind of retro new-wave filmmaker.

View attachment 49943

With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a thick french accent, he would could turn to the camera and tell the viewers something like, "Ah... so you want to be an indie filmmaker, do you? Well, sissy man, dust off the brain, grab your father's light meter and get ready for your balls to drop and some hair on the chest. We're going all manual!"

Now I joke... kinda. >

I love your take on this.
The storybook theme wasn't very effective.
Your concept would have been far more effective at luring indie-filmmakers in with humorous hard candy truth.
You should pitch that concept to them for when their production ramps up and they want to expand their promos.

 

[yolk]

they probably modified the sensor board (where the ccd sensor sits on) to fit their needs. i'm pretty sure they didn't spend 1-5 mio to develop their own sensor

 

[jmmusic]

Barry,

With as much speculation that is flying around (understandably), as a mod & well-respected voice in the community, do you think you could invite Joe to come over and participate in this discussion? Or perhaps even create a thread specifically for he and Elle to have a moderated give-and-take discussion with investors and potential purchasers?

Thoughts?


250K in less than 2 days! Just... wow! Even solely as a marketing research exercise, in a time filled with wonderful and inexpensive DSLRs, that says everything about the desire for this type of product and price point in the marketplace. Speculation hat on: based on the stampede for those $2,500 backer slots, and now the $3,500 slots filling up in the last 12 hours, I wouldn't be surprised the they decide to do a second pre-order run to bring in more funds.

Zebras? Histograms? Grab your Sekonic, folks. Lighting by eye is back. Yeehaw!

 

[kylevant]

they probably modified the sensor board (where the ccd sensor sits on) to fit their needs. i'm pretty sure they didn't spend 1-5 mio to develop their own sensor

Yeah, I agree. It's just that the way he answered the question was... just strange.

 

[Postmaster]

With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a thick french accent, he would could turn to the camera and tell the viewers something like, "Ah... so you want to be an indie filmmaker, do you? Well, sissy man, dust off the brain, grab your father's light meter and get ready for your balls to drop and some hair on the chest. We're going all manual!"

Yeah, that would have been the right way. A pity they missed that chance.

 

[vladszp]

@yolk
i dont expect to develop new sensor ...
and that is not my problem ....
what is a modification ( identical sensors ) ...
why even mention ...
you are spot on about tethered to a lap top...
on their BTS we can see that they use GigE to computer ...
no custom fpga ...
there is nothing custom about that gx ...
its too small box so we will notice the difference ...
maybe pl mount ..
it looks like that all they did is recode image from gx to a laptop or pc ...

 

[yolk]

@vladszp

i don't know what your concerns are. yes they tested the sensor with the machine vision camera. they now have a frankenstein camera (the shoebox) that does not need to be tethered to a laptop. they have at least the external design (shown in mockup).

unless the shoebox is empty, your bickering is out of place.
my concerns are not that they use a kodak sensor and off the shelf parts. it's going from frankenstein camera to a real product and producing 100 of them by august...in china

 

[colormate]

"Ah... so you want to be an indie filmmaker, do you? Well, sissy man, dust off the brain, grab your father's light meter and get ready for your balls to drop and some hair on the chest. We're going all manual!"

lol..

You should give them a call, I mean the script is there, all you need is the camera and this guy

 

[vladszp]

i m done with this...
im not bickering ...
all i see that they use industrial camera without any modification...
recode image as anybody else who will buy gx2300.. ...
than use that image as commercial for their camera ...
and i bet that external design is only thing that they get

 

[kylevant]

Some news about the HD-SDI output:

We're working on an HDSDI unit that will attach to the bottom of the camera. We couldn't include it in the initial camera because it would double the cost. The HDSDI ports are crazy expensive, we were talking to the guys at Canon about it yesterday.
Elle

So looks like my little joke wasn't as unrealistic as I thought...

I'll see if I can get an answer about the black and white...

 

[jmmusic]

i m done with this...
im not bickering ...
all i see that they use industrial camera without any modification...
recode image as anybody else who will buy gx2300.. ...
than use that image as commercial for their camera ...
and i bet that external design is only thing that they get

Based on the screen-grabs from the video and the specs listed for both products, it's certainly not outrageous to speculate as such. It would be great to have Joe over here to "get ahead of the story" and start a dialogue.

 

[yolk]

i don't think it's unfair to use the machine vision camera to show what the sensor is capable of.

they say all the electronics boards are mostly done (except for the dual CF card slots).
so you think they are lying and they have nothing else except the machine vision camera tethered to a laptop?

why would they do that? to run away with the money to mexico? even there they'd spend that money in a couple of years that makes no sense.