The King and Queen of Digital Bolex have sat around the round table and feasted with the help where they doth conversed about releasing more Digital Bolex sexual magnetism. If thou wilt ease into a wish list, thou heart wilt fill with amor.
SOUND
The D16 has balanced XLR inputs with phantom power so just about any professional microphone you buy will work well with it. We currently use the Audio Technica 4073A which is an excellent mic.
We are excited to try the Audio Technica BP4027 and the Sennheiser EW122-p G3 wireless lavs, and we’ve heard good things about the Mackie 402-VLZ3 Premium 4-Channel Ultra-Compact Mixer.
LENSES
We are of course making our own lenses, but these are some vintage and new lenses we think will work great with the D16.
The first thing to know about C-mount getting lenses for the D16 is the FFD (Flange Focal Distance) which is 17.526 mm. Most C-mount lenses will have a 17.5 mm FFD, but some vary. Some lens makers publish this information, others you may have to ask. Almost all lenses that are intended to be used with 1″ sensor formats will work with the D16, but it is important to check and make sure that the FFD / back focus of the lens will work with the D16, or can be adjusted. One inch sensors are generally 12.8 mm x 9.6 mm and S16 format is 12.5mm x 7.4 mm.
Fujinon, Nikon, Schneider, and Zeiss (among others) make lenses for the 1″ format. Graftek sells a number of these.
Edmund Optics makes some great lenses too. And UKAOptics has a .95 25mm lens!
As far as vintage glass goes, pretty much anything made by Switar, Angenuix, Kowa Voigtlander, Astro Berlin, and of course Zeiss are usually great. You can find a lot of these lenses on eBay.
And of course the gold standard would be the Zeiss Ultra 16 lenses, but these are out of our price range and I am assuming out of the price range of most D16 users. Maybe we can rent them one day though
ONBOARD MONITORS
We haven’t purchased an EVF yet, but we have checked out both the Zacuto and Small HD EVFs. They’re both great products and do things our onboard monitor will never be able to pull off.
ONBOARD LIGHTING
The D16 uses a daylight balanced sensor, so while you can shoot in tungsten or florescent light and balance in post, you will get the most natural look from daylight balanced light.
As an on board source we have used Litepanels LED lights with great results. These also look pretty cool: Flolight MicroBeam 512 High Powered LED Video Light (5600K).
We’ve also experimented with some of these daylight balanced CFLs. If you haven’t seen these they put out an impressive amount of light in the right color temperature! The CRI index isn’t perfect, but they might be the best bang for the buck in the day light balance light world.
We haven’t tried these yet with the camera, but it also seems like a very interesting solution: Ushio 1000264 – EBW PS-25 NO. B2/BLUE Projector Light Bulb
If you get that, make sure you get something like this too: Leviton 61 15 Amp, 660 Watt, 125 Volt, Outlet-to-Lampholder adapter. Not all lamps are safe to use at 500 watt bulb in!
CAMERA SUPPORT / RIGGING
We’ve had some great recommendations for affordable jibs and sliders, like the indiSYSTEM AIRjib and the Midas Mount Skaterail Slider.
The Cavision Matte Box we are considering has several parts, like an expandable French Flag and Adjustable Side Flaps, but is great because it can be used with and without rods.
Currently the Zacuto Mini Baseplate is what we’ve bought to get rods onto our camera…
VIDEO SOLUTIONS
“Video solutions” is a terrible term, but what we really mean is a way to take advantage of some of the newfangled set technology, particularly wifi & bluetooth, which will both be featured on the camera. We haven’t gotten a chance to try the Teradek Cube, but based on the stats the HDMI version should work with the D16 and we will be very interested to try it when we can…
BATTERIES
Battery options are a huge part of the D16. We recommend the Bescor 7.2 Amp Shoulder Battery Pack.
STORAGE
CF cards will always be coming down in price. Right now 128 GB / 800x Lexar cards are $308 on Amazon, and there is a cheaper one by Komputerbay.
See Digital Bolex for more about their D16 camera or download the camera spec sheet HERE.