A load of Bolex

This lovely hunk of metal and glass was bequeathed to neighbour Nik and he brought it around for me to marvel at. More than four kilos of movie making magnificence, it is of course a Bolex H16 Reflex, because it says so on a plate. It also says “Made in Switzerland”, probably at a time when “Made in Switzerland” means more than it does now.

We fiddled with levers and winders and generally went on about how wonderful it was, before deciding most money could be made by selling the lovely Kern Swittar lenses separately on eBay and hoping someone might also be prepared to buy the body along with the massive postage charge it would incur.

The lenses are C mount, so I stuck them on the E-M5 just for fun. The 75mm knocked out a lovely image, the 25mm and 10mm less so with too much vignetting. Still, I am sure someone will have a use for them.

Nik also presented me with an ancient Asahi Pentax Spotmatic SLR which had seen better days. An initial burst of enthusiastic clicks gave way to a sticking mirror which no amount of coaxing could solve. Eventually I resorted to advanced engineering techniques only a trained few could understand (WD-40) and it stuttered back into life for a while before dying again. Given its overall shabby condition, I regret it is heading for the great waste bin in the sky. If only it had been made in Switzerland.

Comments 🔗

2013-04-19 | Grant says

The day you talk a load of Bolex that handsome there’ll dancing in the streets. What a heartstoppingly beautiful thing, and I cannot believe that you and your Phillistine neighbour are remotely considering breaking it up without running a film through it first! Bloody cads and bounders!! This could be the start of ‘Spike - The Cinematographic Years’. You’re forever droning on, while we have a little sleep, about how those wankers in Hollywood aren’t doing it right. Now’s your chance! We’ll expect your youtube channel up by, oh, next Wednesday or so and if you want to go right back and set them all straight from the very beginning (and you’re a Pom so it’s in the genes) I happen to know that Rude Noise is very keen to auditon for the part of Buster Keaton on the days that he actually isn’t in Pattaya Central Court. Otherwise, how many kilos of coffee does Nik want for it? Asahi, Pentax, Spotmatic; ugh, ugh,ugh! You’ve wasted six lines on it…

2013-04-19 | Spike says

Fine. You can send me a film for it, find a processing lab, and then arrange for a projector to show the result? Didn’t think so.

2013-04-19 | Grant says

Not remotely a problem, Kiwis can do anything, film on its way. Got a projector in the shed. Gala premiere some time in July if you can’t make next Wednesday…

2013-04-19 | dude says

Seeing all the analog camera gear going away makes me kind of sad. Film SLRs and rangefinder-cameras used to have such a nice build quality, decent design and “no dust on the sensor ever” sounds squite good, too. Today almost every camera is just an ugly piece of plastic, waiting to be replaced by an almost identical piece of plastic that’ll be released 8 month later. (I’m looking at you Canon! All I need to say is: 550D, 600D, 650D, 700D…) Compared to modern DSLRs the small metal-body of my GX1 looks quite sexy-ish. The Shutter will probably break within 4-5 years and if anybody will be able to fix the shutter (which i doubt - probably no spare parts available) the cost of repair will certainly be higher than getting a new body…

2013-04-20 | Spike says

My 60 year old Kiev is still going strong; although the yak hair operated shutter has probably been replaced a few times. Modern stuff seems to be designed to both fail and be made obsolete by new developments, particularly in sensors . Nobody will be shooting with a GX1 in ten years, but people will still be using the old film cameras; provided film is still avaiable.

2013-04-23 | Grant says

Yak hair? Really?? Still, I suppose it gives you an extra reason to visit the zoo…