Meet the Digital Bolex 16!

[Glen Vandermolen]

The first finished body is out:

Meet the Bolex D16 on Vimeo

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Sorry, but its absolutely ridiculous looking. Let's hope the footage is better.

[Victor Nguyen]

It does looks kinda weird haha. Wonder how it'll compare to BMCC

[Murray Christian]

Looks like a Bolex. Not sure what people were expecting there.
The BMCC looks like two iPhone's glued together with a lens mount on the back. *shrug*

[Michael Wisniewski]

Retro Star Trek phaser-like. IMHO that's a pretty cool looking camera. Set to stun and shoot.

[Simon Wood]

Crazy design. I think most people (other than hipsters) will feel a bit self conscious walking around with one. They should have stuck to their original idea to have textured black plastic surface sections (to look like the old Bolex).

XLR jacks on the left side - perfect for getting tangled up with.

Hopefully that is just a mock up - the joints don't look very sealed.

[Adrian Frearson]

I've been unsure of this project since it was first announced. I think their idea is cool, but they've just gone about it in a strange way. The design is based on early super 8 cameras, which were designed to be used up against the eye, where this seems to require the onboard screen or external VF/LCD? The pistol grip therefore is just a decoration as far as i can see. I'd love to see it in use and some footage to get more of an idea where they're going with it.

[Gary Huff]

So say nothing of how long your camera will be down as it transfers raw CinemaDNG files from the internal SSD to CompactFlash cards.

[Brian Drysdale]

Here's a link to the changes they've made: 100 Changes | digitalbolex.com

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

It takes a lot of effort and guts to make and market a new camera, so I congratulate them on this.

However, I must say the video doesn't inspire confidence in its construction. The image quality will be the ultimate judge. Kudos!

[Murray Christian]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

Here's a link to the changes they've made: 100 Changes | digitalbolex.com

That's an interesting list. Stuff lower end pro-sumer cams rarely care about, it seems. Nice to see but also somewhat necessary I suppose, since the BMC really upstaged them on the essential 'Raw for the people' feature.
I wonder what it'll retail for.

[Noa Put]

From what I read it would be around 3200 dollar, I wonder how long it will take before the established brands, like Sony, Canon or Panasonic will produce their own cheap raw version camera, my guess is that they will produce raw capable camera's as well to compete with bmc and digital bolex alike camera's but I bet it won't be for 3K. The main difference between BMC, digital bolex manufacturers is that they don't have to protect any higher end models. So they don't have to deliberately cripple their camera's like Sony and Canon does to protect sales.

Even tough the design on the bolex looks very silly I"m sure it's capable of producing high end content.

[Jon Fairhurst]

I hope the handle is removable. Sometimes I want a low shot - or to use a tripod.

The crank cracks me up. I have a Bronica medium format film camera with a crank for 120 film. It makes sense on that camera as its operation is spring based - no batteries needed. I don't see the need for a crank on a digital camera - unless it can charge the batteries!

The design seems to be all about branding. That's fine by me, but I think features, quality, price, reliability, and time to market will determine its success.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Aside from the aesthetics I think these guys really missed the boat with what might have been a great market opportunity.

Sure they can sell a handful of "raw cinema" cameras to an over-saturated market of "filmmakers" who for the most part are already presented with a plethera of video camera options (some of which don't even want raw) - OR - they could have sold 100 times more of them by first releasing a more consumer version of the bolex reinvigorating an old past that so many new and young people could enjoy. You know, something you'd pickup retail that would allow you to shoot in a PC friendly codec but still decent quality.

Later with a good revenue stream behind the company it woudl be quite easy to come out with a higher model version with more bells and whistles for those looking for more "professional" use.

Well, just my two cents of course.

[Murray Christian]

They'd have be going head to head with Canon and Sony in the handycam market, as a start up. I'm sure they'd get chewed up and spat out.