A Digital Cinema Camera That Shoots 2K Raw for $3300? The Digital Bolex D16 Aims High

There are a lot of great cameras for filmmakers to put on their wishlist - the RED Scarlet-X, the Canon C-300, the Canon 5d Mark III.  Now a small outfit with a classic brand name has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for its new digital cinema camera - the Digital Bolex D16.  The initial specs are quite juicy, and at a planned street price of $3300 ($2500 if you "pre-order" it through the Kickstarter campaign) this item aims to make many people's wishlists.  What does the footage look like, and what are the specs?  Check it out:

This is a trailer for the very first short shot on a D16 prototype:

With a Super 16mm mode that offers 2048X1152 resolution, 12 bit color depth, and raw outputs into Adobe Cinema DNG, TIFF, JPEG image sequences, along with XLR inputs, the camera has great potential.  Now, how is it that they plan to offer these features at such a low price point?  As part of an excellent interview by Philip Bloom, product designer Joe Rubinstein explains:

"The secret behind this is that it's actually technologically, electronically, simpler than a 5d Mark III.  Because it doesn't have any of the stuff in it that does all the compression and everything.  It's what I'm calling technologically transparent -- meaning, it's lens to sensor, sensor to storage, and the camera really doesn't affect the image at all [...] I want to make a camera that is as hands off the image as possible.  So it's more like 16mm film, the way it would be lens straight to film [...] So that's the goal [...]  Let people play with the raw images that their sensors make."

The sensitivity of the sensor allows for ISO equivalents of 100, 200 and 400.  That may not seem like a lot, but Rubinstein explains that because you have roughly 12 stops worth of latitude, its ISO 400 will yield a sensitivity closer or greater to the 800 ISO on your average HDSLR.

That's pretty cool.  Of course, it's also pretty hypothetical.  Personally, I'm not a gambling man, so it would take a bit more for me to drop $2500 dollars on a camera that still only exists as a prototype, no matter how enticing the specs.  Hopefully they will release actual raw files that show how the camera responds in a variety of light conditions.  But I think with the Bolex company behind them, and an experienced camera manufacturer as their partner, there is a good chance this will work as promised.  This time-lapse footage does look pretty great:

Philip Bloom seems to be sold -- he has already placed his pre-order, and as he says at the end of his interview, "If it does what it says on the tin, [they] have a winner there".

Here are the full specs:

Specs

For more information check these links out:

• Philip Bloom Post on the Digital Bolex
• Digital Bolex Official Site
• Kickstarter Campaign for the Digital Bolex D16

[via Philip Bloom]