Bolex anyone!

[ben-s]

lucky you! I wish someone would leave one on my chair

[kraker]

Lucky you! You have your own chair at work!

Been reading this thread with much interest, must... resist... the... temptation!

[polaski]

Used a Bolex H-16 Rex in college in 1967, and then again in Europe (never mind what for) in 1971. What a beautiful camera. Continue to have fun.

[Phillip P. Dimor]

I love cine cameras. I've never used one but they sure do look pretty. Is it difficult to get in to? Aside from sourcing the film, developing and projecting it.. ? It looks like a lot of fun. And those cameras, they look so shiny and full of metal.

[Kino]

Bolexes are easy to acquire; thousands were made and most were treasured, so most are in decent shape.

Google around, there are many, many sites dedicated to Bolex cinematography...

[PHOTOTONE]

Older Bolex 16mm cameras took double-perf film. I don't know when the change took place, but the Rex4 and Rex5 will take single or double perf film. The clockwork mechanisms are virtually indestructable. Later Rex-style Bolex will accept motors and crystal sync, for double-system sound. They even made a blimp (soft) for sound work.

[ic-racer]

Originally Posted by Phillip P. Dimor

I love cine cameras. I've never used one but they sure do look pretty. Is it difficult to get in to? Aside from sourcing the film, developing and projecting it.. ? It looks like a lot of fun. And those cameras, they look so shiny and full of metal.

After 25 years of still camera shooting, doing the Bolex thing was was really great. I was excited again about just shooting things to see how they came out on the film and it was a lot of fun. These cameras are also SLRs and are fun to use.

The 16mm cameras are easier to come by, but film costs will be quite high. The 'high-end' 8mm cameras are quite a bit much rarer (especially the two I have shown) but the film costs are one-quarter the larger format.

In terms of how difficult? I would say that all the number little things you need to watch out for would be similar the number of details to watch out for when using a view camera for the first time.

[Bosaiya]

Have anyone tried enlarging 16mm stills from their films? If so, what is the quality like in, say, 8x10 (or even 5x7)? I have a project that would be ideally suited for this, providing the enlargements worked out okay.

-B

[ic-racer]

Originally Posted by Bosaiya

Have anyone tried enlarging 16mm stills from their films? If so, what is the quality like in, say, 8x10 (or even 5x7)? I have a project that would be ideally suited for this, providing the enlargements worked out okay.

-B

My main issue with doing this is the fact that I shoot reversal movie film. But if one were to use negative film, the Bolex 16mm will give quality enlargements.

I frequently enlarge 16mm negative film to 8x10 with excellent results with a 16mm still camera. Quality is better than the movie camera because the film runs sideways and the image size is almost double.

[Bosaiya]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

My main issue with doing this is the fact that I shoot reversal movie film. But if one were to use negative film, the Bolex 16mm will give quality enlargements.

I frequently enlarge 16mm negative film to 8x10 with excellent results with a 16mm still camera. Quality is better than the movie camera because the film runs sideways and the image size is almost double.

The key to the project is the high frame rate available on the Bolex. Do you have any samples of enlargements from negative cine film laying around? Obviously quality is in the eye of the beholder and they may have different ideas of what to expect.

If it won't work I'll have to advise them to go with HD and pull stills from that, although the framerate will be really low for anything they can afford to rent.