Venice Beach on a Digital Bolex

It's got a definite old school S16mm vibe to it! I wonder how much of that is coming from the camera, and how much is the lens/colour grading?
 
The video surely proves the Bolex is ready for prime time and has the quality most would come to expect from any camera these days. Great work and not bad for a beta camera.

However it doesn't look like 16mm to me, for one it looks like it was shot with a very small aperture? Maybe f8, f16 or higher? From this video it's not far off from something you could have shot on a HPX170. Of course being RAW however you are going to get a ton of flexibility for cc or grading.

I'm waiting to see something more cinematic from this camera.
 
The lens is a vintage Fujinon 16mm c-mount prime, 25mm focal length I think. It was shot without any filters at the lens minimum aperture, f/16 or /f22 and processed in Adobe Camera Raw. No "film" effects added.

I've not seen any footage out of any AVC 4:2:0 video camera that could hold noon day sun dynamic range without blowing the sky or blocking up badly in the shadows. Nor will most of them produce the rich saturated color without bleeding or other artifacts.

Kurt Lancaster said,

"Shot a short documentary on Venice Beach with the beta production model a couple of weeks ago (it had an uncalibrated sensor) of the Digital Bolex d16 using vintage 16mm c-mount lenses. Equipment: Manfrotto monopod, 5-in-1 reflector (for interviews), audio with a Tascam D-40 and Rode NTG-2 microphone (Michael Plescia) (beta test model did not have audio firmware installed). Color grading through Adobe Camera Raw.

Special thanks to Joe Rubinstein and Elle Schneider of Digital Bolex for letting me be the first to shoot with the camera outside of the Bolex team.
My intention: Can the D16 be used as a run and gun documentary camera in the field?
As you look at the image, remember that this is shot around noon--the worst shooting conditions possible--and no ND filters, but despite a few clipped values in the highlights I'm still seeing details and skin tones that would have fallen apart on an 8-bit compressed camera (DSLRs, prosumer video cameras). Also take note of the whip pan at end of video, how it has no rolling shutter issues.
My test shows that this camera can be used for documentary work."
 
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Razz16mm said:
I've not seen any footage out of any AVC 4:2:0 video camera that could hold noon day sun dynamic range without blowing the sky or blocking up badly in the shadows. Nor will most of them produce the rich saturated color without bleeding or other artifacts.
"
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i'm assuming you're referring to starcentral's mention of an hpx170 doing similar work? the hpx is a 4:2:2 dvcproHD camera, it would hold up just fine against such conditions. but even so, it's only fair to also compare to cameras in the same market/price, in this case, obviously the black magic cameras, which despite being very different and having their own issues, would stand up to the highlights and motion just the same.

i would rather they uploaded a less graded version, because as it is, yes it shows saturated niceness, but in doing that it masks seeing the whole picture of what was captured and seeing what the camera did before the grading software had at it. hence why people could say it resembles any number of other cameras which can shoot the baked in contrasty look.
 
hunter richards said:
For a Kodak sensor it looks a helluva lot like fuji. I'd love to play with some raw frames.
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Yes, it does. That's the first thing I thought when I sawr it. However, this is actually the first time I've seen something coming from this camera what looks promising (since the beta camera has been out shooting tests).

I actually do think it has a sort of nostalgic, film-like feel. The other stuff not so much.
 
My reference to the HPX was two things:

One being the fact that the depth of field look here is something you could have got with any 1/3" camera. That's not a knock, I'm just saying that a prosumer CCD camera would have been similar in look and DOF. If it was mostly shot at f16 (which I had guessed) well then that explains why the DOF is the way it is.

Secondly, the D16 realistically is only really 1-2 stops over some cameras and to me this video does not show a lot in terms of dynamic range that couldn't be achieved with a handful of cameras which offer 10-12 stops of dynamic range, and even use a quality-limiting codec for encoding. Some of the shots in this video (like the interviews) are controlled with a reflector in order to reduce the overall scene contrast ratio and help out the balance. Its not like it was shot without a reflector and then pushed in post drastically.

I think in general however the video was over-exposed by a couple stops. There appears to be some blooming apparent in the wide shots where you see a lot of sky or sand which might have happened in post (not sure), and in the interviews the white tent in the background is pretty hot and the highlights on the skin look clippy. This is not the fault of the camera, probably just the result of a slight over-exposure in-camera.

Knowing this is a RAW camera and shooting outdoors under the sun if it were me I would have under-exposed everything by at least 2 stops to help allocate some of that dynamic range towards the bright tones and highlights, then brought the skin tones back up in post to where they should be.

I would love to test one of these cameras to see how it compares to some of the other cameras I've worked with on-location and in post.


Razz16mm said:
I've not seen any footage out of any AVC 4:2:0 video camera that could hold noon day sun dynamic range without blowing the sky or blocking up badly in the shadows. Nor will most of them produce the rich saturated color without bleeding or other artifacts.
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I didn't read the background info on the video by Kurt, so it is good to know how it was shot.

Rich colors and non-blocky shadows are definitely an attribute to shooting RAW but again depending on how much you're really really pushing in post most grades can survive 422 8/10-bit. I'm not saying it is the same as RAW, just saying you don't always need the vast color space and bit-depth of RAW.

As for Kurt's statment about skin falling apart with 8-bit codecs, judging from his interview shots he exposed for the skin tone and not the background. So had he exposed for skin-tone using any other camera like the HPX, AF100, F3, 7D, 5D (all 8-bit 422 or 420 codecs) would he really say none of those cameras could produce pleasing skin tones? Interesting.
 
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i like the look of this video regardless of what may or may not have been done in PP. still have no interest in buying it but the IQ still looks very pleasing to me. i saw another video recently from this camera (can't find int now) that also impressed me as to its "look".

david
 
the footage looks OK, but nothing really outstanding. Side note, would someone actually use a tripod, so we can get some steady footage. Having shaky footage, trees and power poles skewed 15 degrees doesn't add value. DR is nowhere near BMCC, not even close.
 
Looks good. I know just by the specs it won't match other cameras' dynamic ranges, but the global shutter, size, and cost make it a frontrunner for me. Besides, if you're willing for your footage to have as much grain as, say, 16mm, I bet you could pull another stop or two out of the shadows.

Actually what it reminds me of is the warm, saturated, contrasty look of 8mm --- without the grain, which to me is a very good thing. My grandparents have better-looking home movies than I do.

The different demos vary so widely in look, though, it's got to be post.
 
Why don't they ever get this into the hands of someone who can really shoot and give them something to actually shoot? This footage isn't bad but it does not seem thought out or executed with anything more than a wing and a prayer. Don't want to toot horns, but Hunter Richards (who posted in this thread) could have shot something much better looking, informative, and visually captivating in his sleep. This isn't an exclusively D16 issue either. The Arri D21 had a horrible test footage run as did many other larger cameras... (remember some of the F5/55 promo material sourced from film schools?! How unwatchable was most of those shorts?)

Can't wait for a D16 Bolex to hit the market. Wish out of the 1,000's of talented filmmakers in LA, they'd give us more than mediocre footage from Venice Beach.

I will second the previous opinion that I can't wait to see something that has more thought, effort and resources put toward it. I don't want to be negative, but I work on sets almost everyday and I see the results of people creating, planning and executing ideas. This looked like 20min of hardly caring about what was being put on screen. I mean, the shot and finale of this piece starting at 2:01 is a complete mess. That framing and operating is awful. I mean truly awful.

I don't want to be too hard on the guy, but if you are a camera company plagued by delays and competitors releasing similar priced/spec'd cameras, you think you'd be a bit more selective of the quality of footage you put out in the world. But I guess not. :/

Now to talk about what I did see:

My favorite looking stuff was the MCU's with the very strong reflector work. I liked the way the skin looked and the DR was favored by the strong bounce.... looked to be a bronze/gold bounce but I could be wrong, as everything was colored that way (skin tones were tan, sand is warm, etc)

The vintage lenses helped the DR a bit by keeping the contrast from getting too severe and kept a little details in the blacks.

Overall, the sensor seemed to handle the harsh light rather well and as stated above it seems the vintage lenses likely helped keep some of the contrast from getting too crunchy (I like less crunch, however others really like it. I hate crushing blacks, but some people rush toward it. Whatever your preference)



I'd be very excited to get my hands on a d16 to test. I had one of the original reservations and gave it up last minute. Glad I did, but I never stopped wanting one or rooting for these guys.

That said, they really ought to pull the trigger soon or they will end up like Duke Nuke'm Forever.
 
I like the colors, and the DR seems fine. Maybe not BMC fine, but fine. I'd blame the softness on f/22, this sensor is diffraction-limited by f/10 or so. And I think they deliberately trashed the handling of the camera so you'd see it has no rolling shutter. Or maybe not, who knows.
 
DR is nowhere near film/Alexa/Red quality, not even a ballpark. Where you see it is not in the shadows, but in washout and overblown highlights (which are horribly and harshly clipped). Maybe if they used polarizer it would come out better. Skin tones isn't everything, the clouds are just just white blobs, without any detail.
 
snowblindfilm said:
DR is nowhere near film/Alexa/Red quality, not even a ballpark. Where you see it is not in the shadows, but in washout and overblown highlights (which are horribly and harshly clipped). Maybe if they used polarizer it would come out better. Skin tones isn't everything, the clouds are just just white blobs, without any detail.
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From working with raw sample files from different cameras, the D16 has more usable DR than the Kodak 16mm negative stocks I used to shoot with. It is about on par with Epic/Scarlet-X and maybe a stop less than a BMCC, but there is less noise to contend with in the shadows.

It gives up a stop of sensitivity to the BMCC, but that is the price you pay for denser more saturated color filters in the Bayer array and does not negatively impact total DR. Photon conversion efficiency is in the 43% range vs 66% range for the BMCC due to the difference in Bayer filter density. But the raw color gamut is richer. More saturated and more refined.

It compares roughly to the difference between shooting Kodachrome slides for richer color palettes, or Ektachrome slides for faster ISO speeds ( when you had that choice:cry:). At least that is my experience with various raw sample files so far.
 
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A friend of my used to say: T-A=0. I see, what I see and there is NO DETAIL in the clouds, they are white blobs. And after shooting with Velvia, Ektachrome and Kodakchrome, none of the shots are even in the same category.
 
snowblindfilm said:
A friend of my used to say: T-A=0. I see, what I see and there is NO DETAIL in the clouds, they are white blobs. And after shooting with Velvia, Ektachrome and Kodakchrome, none of the shots are even in the same category.
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Doesn't mean there are no recoverable values or details in the raw files if it were graded differently. There weren't many clouds showing, the most notable ones were in closeups where despite the small aperture the distant background is in soft focus. They were not clipped either, they looked to fall about Zone 9, not pure white like some of the glossy skin highlights and clothing highlights that did show some clipping.

It shows very well what a solo shooter or small crew shooting run and gun doc style without many tools to modify the light can capture under the harshest of conditions. There is no worse DR test than midday direct sunlight. Seems to me the D16 handled that pretty well. I've seen much worse highlight blowouts in BMCC footage depending on how it was shot.
 
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