Bolex H-16 Non Reflex Lenses

[Jacob Kresak]

Hello All! 

I bought a used Bolex Non Reflex at the beginning of the year, and it came with one 15mm lens. With it being a C-Mount and necessary for the lens to be Anti Reflex, I've been having a hard time tracking down and finding lenses that work with my camera that aren't absolutely busted or outrageously priced beaten up glass. With all of that being said, I'm looking for a small guide or list of what lenses work best with non reflex. Or even just some suggestions from people who had used newer lenses or adapted different lenses to the non reflex.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[alexandros petin]

Hello, 

in this post i believe mr Wyss sums the options for c mount cine lenses. You will find more if you search the forum.

These options are not found for cheap unfortunately, and like you mention it is often that they are abused. 

 

I would also look at sample images and videos of Tevidon lenses. The were made from Zeiss Jena for early CCTV cameras.

I have not used them myself with my bolex, but you can find online many still image samples shot with m43 cameras, but also lots of videos shot with black magic pocket camera OG. Imho the quality is really nice and their price ok.

One thing i am trying to verify is if these lenses can be mounted to bolex c mount, or they cant because of their large size (circumference), that could interfere with the central silver part of the bolex turret.

[Dom Jaeger]

There are lots of normal C mounts that will work fine with a non-reflex Bolex or other C mount cameras. Often buying a camera with lenses included is much cheaper than trying to source lenses individually. The price of C mounts has certainly become ridiculous, but occasionally you can get a bargain - typically if it's an auction rather than a buy it now price. 

Kern made a range of normal C mounts for non-reflex Bolexes and other C mount cameras, which are good quality. Switars were the premium range, Yvars were a bit simpler and cheaper. Look for ones that have AR written on them rather than RX or Macro-Switar. Schneider also made good C mounts, as did Taylor Hobson (Cooke), Angenieux, Elgeet, Kinoptik, Kodak and others. Som Berthiot made lower cost lenses, but some were still quite good. Really vintage, pre-war lenses by the likes of Taylor Hobson or Hugo Meyer or Goertz or Dallmeyer or Ross etc can be OK but older lenses can be lower contrast and deteriorated by time. Japan made lots of excellent cine C mounts from the late 50s on - Canon, Nikon, Kowa, Soligor etc, and then quite a few TV or CCTV lenses by Canon, Fujinon, Kowa, Computar, Cosmicar etc, which were generally made to lower specs than Cine. Some TV lenses are fine, some are pretty crappy but they tend to be cheaper. You can also adapt to many other lens mounts using adapters. 

This guy did a comparison of a bunch of C mounts:

https://toby-marshall.com/galleries/bokeh-tales/a-comparison-of-the-bokeh-and-rendering-of-17-25mm-c-mount-16mm-cine-lenses/