Has anyone ever used a Bolex?

[the big lebowski]

I'm just wodering if anyone has used a bolex EBM? If you have, please post your views!

Cheers

The Dude

[eddie]

yes!!!!
They are the dogs bollocks. Small, light, sturdy, a fair few features, cheap, reliable.
You can do fades, slow/fast motion, run the film backwards, double exposures, change lenses....
The only snag I can see is with syncing sound. Since they are clockwork the motor doesnt run at a consistent speed, but not enough to worry about for the semi-professional. Also Id avoid the non Reflex type: They have a side mounted viewfinder so what you see is not what you get.
You need to remember (for perfectionists) that the reflex type lose a little bit of light. So whatever F stop your lightmeter suggests, open up by one more.
Id say these are the best 16mm cameras for beginners, and are used by many professionals as well. But Im biased towards affordable reliable technology!
Id be interested to hear if anyone has had trouble geting parts, or lenses for these cameras????
Is there a mickey mouse attachment for attaching longer spools of film?

[Jon Taylor]

I used an EBM on some lo-budget black & white 1940's style western some years ago, with a young Ronald Reagon look-a-like. Turned out to be a terrible film. Anyway, we loaded the mag installed the strange looking battery, mountd it on legs and walked away to do something else. When I came back to shoot the greyscale....Nothing.

Turns out the batterty pack was so old it had shorted and melted ALL the internal wiring inside the camera. The heat genererated was incredible. Not much help when you're 50 miles from London. Had to send the focus puller back to London to pick up an Arri SR2 from VFG. Messed up the schedule by 4 hours.

The moral of the story is: use the best kit you can afford and not some unserviced equipment blagged by production from a friend of a friend because it was free or something. Ended up costing production alot more than they anticipated as well.

Other than that the EBM was not too bad in an old fashion bulky kind of way. Sorry I can't remember how noisy it was - we were shooting mute. In the UK, you can still hire EL mountlenses and accessories from Optex. Find them on:
www.optex.com/optex/

As you can imagine the EBM would probably not be my first choice, if I were hiring another 16mm camera.

Jon.

[the big lebowski]

Cheers guys!

I'll bear all of this in mind when finally gather the money together for a 16mm!

please checkout www.homestead.com/ufilmworks

thanks

The Dude