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  • Premium Member
Posted (edited)

I hate including an ebay link in a post, because a couple of months from now the link will be dead, and someone searching this site years from now will be really frustrated.  HOWEVER, you don't see a Bolex PRO every day so this seems worth posting:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/355841511332

It's a legit seller (I bought some ACL mags from him and received them in short order) so at least it's not the usual scams, but obviously no way to know for sure the condition; he's just a bulk reseller.

I'll try to at least attach some pics from the auction, for the historical record.

Duncan

 

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Edited by Duncan Brown
  • 2 weeks later...
  • Premium Member
Posted
4 hours ago, Brian Drysdale said:

35 dB at 5ft could be one reason why it didn't take off, the CP16 was 31dB at 3 feet.

The Aaton 35III is downright loud at 34 db in 4 perf mode. No way you're getting good audio in a quiet intimate scene. Tuned CP16's can be 30db and I think that's the threshold. Over 30db is too loud, under 30db is "just quiet enough". The older SR's even tuned, are close to 30db. They rumble a bit as well, so it's kind of an odd noise. I'd consider the Aaton 16mm cameras, when tuned well, to be the quietest non-bimped cameras on the market. Obviously, any of the modern blimped cameras like the Arricam's, are noticeably quieter. The Penelope is also dead quiet if tuned properly. 

I have done lots of audio recording moments in dead quiet rooms with my 3 perf Aaton 35III, but the camera is always evident in the background when actors aren't talking.

Posted (edited)

Some rental companies had blimps for some 16mm cameras (e.g. Arri SR mark1 & 2 and the Eclair NPR) being used on dramas. These weren't barneys, but hard enclosures.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
  • Premium Member
Posted
18 hours ago, Brian Drysdale said:

Some rental companies had blimps for some 16mm cameras (e.g. Arri SR mark1 & 2 and the Eclair NPR) being used on dramas. These weren't barneys, but hard enclosures.

Yea, the SR1/2 they built a full on blip for, which is insane because a Barney is all you really need. We experimented with different methods of quieting down the Aaton 35III and we found just adding some sound damping material around the magazine, made a huge difference, along with a big mattebox. The sound doesn't go directly forward when you have a big mattebox and the magazine noise, which is part of why they re-designed the mags for the Penelope, can be reduced with a barney or even leather jacket, which is what I use to use on my SR back in the day. Just a tiny bit helps, tho to be honest, with modern AI noise canceling, you can use a much louder camera and nobody would ever know. 

  • Premium Member
Posted (edited)

the value of the package seen on this thread is probably something between 2k and 3k usd. If someone would like to give it some extra collectors value why not but compared to other cameras with approx similar features it is definitely not worth more than 3k even if it works.

One thing I have noticed about purchasing stuff from island countries is that they often have humid environment most of the year and there is higher risk of having corrosion and mold problems on equipment bought from those countries. Depends a lot on how it was stored and used but noticeably higher risk nevertheless.

For example UK, Japan, some US states like Florida and Gulf of Mexico area, some mid and south american countries, most of New Zealand, anything close to equator or having monsoons like India, Indonesia, etc. are generally higher risk than the cold drier countries. If the equipment was used close to sea it may have quite a bit of corrosion from saltwater mist as well. 

Another thing is something bought from Middle East, Central Asia, etc. which can quite often be full of sand and dust. Very bad for anything mechanical and needs complete disassembly to try to save the bearings.

Just something to keep an eye for. Island countries and warm-ish coastal states = possible corrosion and mold, Dry inland countries = very likely tons of sand and dust inside the gear.

 

Edited by Aapo Lettinen
Posted (edited)

I handled one of these back in the 90's.

I walked into a rental place down in Hollywood - maybe Alan Gordons, they were always good for having something unique on the floor - and there was one on a tripod.

It was a pretty neat camera. I got the impression that their expected market was less about film production and more about spot news gathering, with built in single system sound, auto exposure, and a fixed zoom lens.

But Bolex was just too late. By the late 70's "Film at 11" was still a slogan, but the film in question was now an HL79 and 3/4" u-Matic, which was a lot cheaper, had faster turn-around, and was good enough for the evening news. There just weren't buyers clamoring for a better 16mm eng camera any more.

But it was still a cool machine. One neat feature is that unlike the SR's and Aatons I was familiar with, where the mag docks up to the pressure plate, in the Bolex Pro the film was actually pulled deep into the camera body, threaded through the movement, and fed back out into the takeup side of the mag all by itself. If you opened the door and looked inside, you could see how the film path was very tightly controlled to achieve this, like a H16 taken to the next level.

Don't know what you were supposed to do if you had to break a roll though, and I wouldn't want to have to clean it out after a jam ....

Edited by Steve Switaj
Posted (edited)

The Bolex Pro has commag (single system sound), so has a record head and a playback head. It's a tight space, but there's automatic threading (as explained above), details can be found in the "Professional Cameraman's Handbook" for those who have a copy. There's a throwout knob, which disengages the sound heads, which may assist when breaking a roll.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
  • Premium Member
Posted

Yes it was supposed to be great for news gathering etc stuff but was so late in the market that video cameras were already there. Pretty rare camera, I think they made couple of hundred of them.

I know someone in Europe who said they use Bolex Pro for narrative stuff. I think they were renting them too. People using them for short films etc. and he said it was pretty handy for indie use when in proper condition. I was investigating on making a new external control unit for the camera because the original one is pretty clumsy and I think they didn't have enough control boxes for all their cameras. I checked the motor system briefly and said that it is fully possible to make a crystal control box with more speeds and much more compact than the original. maybe making something finished for the Bolex Pro in the future, will see

Posted (edited)

There appears to be rumours of an Arri connection, which has also been denied. It has been mentioned that the Bolex Pro was intended to compete with the Arri 16BL, which could be fitted single system sound and was commonly used for shooting news. That sounds less likely that Arri would be involved.

I guess the advantage for the Arri 16BL owner was that you could use the same camera for productions and for news gathering. 

Edited by Brian Drysdale
  • Premium Member
Posted
1 hour ago, Mark Dunn said:

Georg Thoma. Bolex set up a new factory to make it.

http://www.lusznat.de/cms1/index.php/kinomuseum-muenchen/die-entstehung-der-bolex-16-pro

He later got a technical Oscar for the Sachtler fluid head.

Fascinating stuff.  So only about 150 of them ever made?  I guess sometimes things are rare for a reason.

Interesting it says this Georg Thoma made crystal sync motors for the Arri 16ST, but so did Georg Jensen in Denmark.  So many Georgs in the crystal sync motor business.

Duncan

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