Digital Bolex raw camera, no longer made

tosvus

Well ikonoskop is already in big financial trouble.

vicharris

Is this thing even relevant anymore since BM is selling their 2.5K for $1999? Not trying to start anything here but I really feel like it's too little, way too late.

tosvus

I guess one can argue the ergonomics and global shutter would be a differentiator, if it ever comes out..

Wilbo

@vicharris +1

vicharris

Oh it has a global? Well there is that I guess.

Wilbo

@vicharris

Well, this is kind of off topic, but I'll say this... there's a really long thread on dvxuser dedicated to used Sony F35 enthusiasts and I've seen some basic test footage that looks more convincingly cinematic than a lot of stuff I've seen shot on RED or BMC for that matter IMHO.

For me, I contribute a lot of that look to the Sony CCD with global shutter. I see tiny bit of that cinematic magic in the CCD images of the D-Bolex too.

Of course there's all that other stuff like Sony color science and $250K worth of electronics that went into the F35 image, but I still see a slight similarity image quality wise with DB.

Will the $2.5K DB be better than a now $2k BMC? I don't think so. But I'd still be interested to see how the DB shoots when those ambitious hipsters finally get everything figured out :) I'm not against them :)

kazuo

@Wilbo,

Have you seen the Raw footage they put online for pp to download? Try playing with it and see if it speaks to you.

Wilbo

@kazuo I have not yet... fantastic idea :)

MikeLinn

rockroadpix

Well, you can't accuse them of using nice lighting to "pretty it up". And seriously, wtf are those leather strap thingies that Joe is always sporting? I thought it was a backpack, but it's something else. Too much out of focus footage to make any real conclusions, imo.

bwhitz

That Strip&Razor film doesn't look good at all. I'm not really trying to stir things up... but the motion is hideous. Smeary and video-like. Looks like a camcorder.

Joshua_Cadmium

@bwhitz

I thought the motion looked fairly bad too, but I saw on their website that the camera they were using was set at a 220 degree shutter angle, so there was some extra blur going on in the motion.

Wilbo

@kazuo tried grading dngs... not too bad. motion/cadence not too filmic though. I think DB mentioned they had no control over shutter speed so that's probably why. Also, I agree with @rockroadpix. Too much out of focus stuff to make any type of call on quality.

Siddho

i dont get it!

if you are going to showcase your new camera why would you then shoot something like that? (unless you want to hide something!??)

just pointing the camera at a tree in a gentle breeze would have been enough; or more dynamic lighting to show off the alleged dynamic range; or something vaguely in focus even...

Vitaliy_Kiselev

just pointing the camera at a tree in a gentle breeze would have been enough; or more dynamic lighting to show off the alleged dynamic range; or something vaguely in focus even...

Hippies never use the easy way :-)

kazuo

Hippies don't make good businessmen either.

Just point the camera at some leaves in broad day light, and lock it down. Let the breeze move the leaves and carry the motion. Don't understand the point about having the lady at the bench. Out of focus shots do more harm than good for the reputation of the camera.

goanna

It's clear from their marketing that the DB people know their public. Numbers and tech details aren't what their target group buyers are looking for.

If ever there happens to be (by some miracle) a launching of the product, I'm imagining it as a post-modern, arty, opening type affair with lots of dress-sense and neo-beatniks. I can personally mix it with the cognoscenti for just so long before I have to leave the Chardonnay crowd for the table out the back where us nerds can tuck into the sandwiches and guffaw over global shutter jokes as beer snorts embarrassingly out of our noses.

TheNewDeal

You have to wonder, when their behind the scenes footage looks far better than their own camera footage.

maxr

Before all heavens fall upon me, maybe it is a good death after all, I want to say I was curious about this bolex dngs. I "played" with the available sequences between camera raw and after effects; staccato was, as so many mentioned, really playing against a naturall/organic look. I also noticed they've somehow corrected the CA's...
Anyway I was not so much interested in workflow dynamics but in the clay itself. So, just for fun I imported 1 dng into several well know big boys photo processors. Processing vary very much from application to application and off course I was guided by my subjective "shitty-taste". I see some came out greenish and other with a blueish skin tone, well it's ok, life's go on, je je je.

Though once I fooled around wih BMC dngs, I haven't played yet with (looking good) raw from latest ML developments; that said the thing I would say stroke me stronger in this DB's dngs was the incredible latitude the files allowed; they endured quite a lot of nasty tricks and still kept their stuff together.

Nough said, click for 1:1 size

PS
sorry Ellen for the lack of sensitivity and ass loading your face

UPDATE though how unfair was for free and open-source programs... so I did the same with them... must say very different results, surprised with how fast I got it out of LZ (that has not even curves controls yet)and how good and complex (in a good way) RT is. Now bed

goanna

You've done lots of work. Which of the edited stills looks most like what you were trying to achieve?

maxr

@goanna something funny about my methodology - you can call it that and visualize a duck running with the ass on fire - it's that, for this kind of things, it becomes almost impossible to separate the use (and interface) of the software from the experience itself thus the resulting output, this part I like it. Also you're left with lots of results... the only way I've been able to deal with that is: either I let time pass by and then recheck and re-feel things from scratch or I have an use for them and some would be more adequate, further twisting often happens. I know, sounds like big time bullshit explanation... but that's the way it is. Anyway I just wanted to twist digital bolex's dngs and see how they behaved... they did well :D • along the way I share them with U guys

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@maxr

It is not good idea to embed big pictures. Make thumbnail and link it to picture.

Wilbo

@maxr That's a lot of work man (way more fooling around than what I did). Thanks for sharing! I hope the end product does prove to be a real useful and intuitive tool, but I'm not holding my breath just yet :)

tosvus

@maxr Good job! Definitely good detail in there.

maxr

It is not good idea to embed big pictures. Make thumbnail and link it to picture.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev you're absolutelly right man, sorry about that, I changed to thumbs now :D

@Wilbo and @tosvus latitude latitude latitude... I'm still amazed how much light one could "inject" or "subtract" from these dngs and the whole structure of the image would still hold on. BTW I used different tools in different apps, but never brush, gradients or zone lighting. Also it's incredible how each render engine interprets the raw and how different applies color temperature... Capture One was really hard to tame. Anyway I guess that is happy hour when colorists gets raw material like this, being from Kine, Canon, Black Magic, Ikonoscop, Phantom, Red, Sony, Arri or Satan's brother 8k soul ingester machine. All good

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