Digital Bolex D16 Footage Has Been Seen

I have to admit that the news about this camera has seemed to pass me by, even though it's been talked about for almost 2 years. It's still not quite available, but Bolex has made some footage from the new camera available to view on their website. The low light capabilities are impressive.

This camera is supposed to sell for less than a new Canon 5D Mark III and it seems to fit a similar niche that the Blackmagic cinema cameras do. And it can mount a wider range of lenses and shoots RAW footage, so that is all good. But what is that crank on the side of the camera for? And I even like 1950s Space Age aesthetic to the design. Retro and Modern at the same time. Go to Bolex here to watch the sample videos and learn more about it.

Fotodiox Debuts New LED Light

Photographic lighting has undergone several changes over the years. The first lighting was based around tungsten bulbs. Then quartz lighting proved to be more stable with less color temperature fluctuations. Then electronic strobes took over most of still photography, especially in the studio, and that seemed to solve most of the problems that photographers faced when using artificial lighting. With flash, they had short exposure times with adequate depth of field at low ISO ratings. Seemed ideal, but a funny thing happened when photography started to include movie making with digital HD-SLRs. Now flashes didn't work at all and the search was on for better lighting sources for video and filmmaking. For a while, florescent lighting was used, and still is a little, but then LED lighting was tried and that proved to be a significant innovation.

With LED lighting, you could have fairly bright lights that could compete with quartz lighting in terms of output, but LEDs were radically cooler. And by this, I mean that the lights remained cool to the touch. The main handling problems with high wattage tungsten and quartz lighting is that the light housing could heat up so much that you couldn't safely touch them after you were finished using them. You had to wait several minutes before they were cool enough to touch without burning yourself. LED lights don't heat up like this.

Until now, most LED lighting consisted of flat panels of LED bulbs arranged in a tight grid. And petty much what you saw was what you got. There were little or no light modifications you could use with them. But now, Fotodiox has changed that with the introduction of their new LED light, the LED100WA. This is an LED light based around a strobe style housing and made to be compatible with standard Bowens flash accessories, like umbrellas, softboxes, barndoors, snoots and more. The LED100WA is rated at 600 watts and is available in either 5600K (daylight) or 3200K (tungsten) color temperatures. It will sell for $324.95, and it can be purchased directly from Fotodiox.

That Old Blackmagic Does It Again!

Blackmagic Designs from Australia  have announced a new Micro 4/3s based point-and-shoot camera designed for movie making, the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. The specs are impressive: Super 16 sensor size, dynamic range of 13 stops, SD card recording, choice of ProRez 422 or lossless CinemaDNG recording formats, uses the Micro 4/3s lens mount, and records in 1080HD resolution at either 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97 or 30 fps. This pocket-sized movie camera is designed to go where a full-sized camera cannot fit and promises to deliver nearly the same image quality. And the price will be around $995 for the body! Not bad at all.

They've also announced an updated version of their regular cinema camera, to be called the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, that will have full 4K resolution, has a Canon EF compatible lens mount, and will sell for $3,995 (body alone). Considering the cost of a RED camera, that's pretty good.

Blackmagic Cinema Camera

Blackmagic Design has announced their first camera, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. This will be a very interesting camera for people who are into movie-making. Blackmagic Design has up to now been more involved in the post-production side of things, making hardware and software for editing and such.

The Cinema Camera will be a 2.5K camera in terms of resolution, regular HD has basically 1K resolution, with a dynamic range of 13 stops, which approaches the dynamic range of film stock. The major goal for the camera is to produce the best possible footage in terms of image quality, which is a high goal indeed. It also uses the Canon EF lens mount, which is bound to of interest to filmmakers using Canon DSLR's like the 5d Mark II, and now the 5D Mark III, and the upcoming EOS-1D C, which is specifically geared towards filmmaking. And on the back of the camera is a 5-inch touchscreen for viewing, which dedicated controls for recording and playback. It will record onto interchangeable SSD hardrives or you can use a Thunderbolt cable and record straight to your computer. To sweeten the pot, so to speak, its price will come in around $3000, which puts it $500 less than a new 5D Mark III body, and it should be available in July.

As you can tell from its design, this camera is not trying to be anything other than a movie camera. It's not trying to be both a still camera and a movie camera. It's for making movies. I have the feeling that these will be very popular when they are available. You can find out more about the Blackmagic Cinema Camera here.