The storage device is often the bottle neck for your data throughput. The stability of the storage device not only reflects on the reliability of the camera, but sometimes can effects image quality. When bits are written incorrectly it can look like noise, artifacts, even dropped frames. When talking about SSD drives specifically, there is a whole separate class of drives which are designed and tested to be much more robust than typical drives and avoid these and other issues. They are called “enterprise” class drives.

Enterprise class drives are built from better materials, are much faster than normal drives, and are much more reliable. They are more reliable because they have enterprise data path protection which is a combination of hardware and software that determines the logic path your data actually takes while being written to the drive, and how it’s read later.

This is an example showing the difference in complexity between a typical drive and an enterprise class drive:

You can see that the complexity of enterprise drives is much higher. The firmware is also tuned for high end use. This means that your precious bits are checked and double checked as they are being written and read to assure that there are no errors, and if there are, the errors are corrected.

If we are taking care to create the best looking images we can we must also take care to store them correctly once the images are created.

When we were picking a drive for the D16 we had many factors to think about. Reliability and speed were most important, but price had to be part of it too. These enterprise drives are not cheap. When Arri charges over $3000 for a 512GB mag it’s because the drive inside costs almost $2000 in the first place. Until recently, you had a lot of choices in SSD brands and models, but not a lot of choices in SSD Class. You had the consumer level drives around $120 – $400, and you had your enterprise level drives that were between $480 – $2000. At that time putting an enterprise class drive inside a camera like ours would have been out of the question. Either the drive would be too small to be useful or the drive would cost the equivalence of half the camera price.

These days there are mid level drives, which are perfect for our camera. The drives are priced between the other two classes, they have the kind of performance and protection we want for our camera, including enterprise data path protection, and are being made by reputable companies.

There is even a slim version of the drive that is only 7mm tall instead of the standard 9.5mm.

The actual drive capacity of the hardware is 512GB, but it has been reduced to 400GB to create buffer space for dynamic wear leveling, meaning that the drive lasts much longer by allowing space for bad sectors over long periods of time. The P400e also has power-loss protection, meaning that if the camera power cuts out suddenly the drives’ onboard capacitors store enough power for the drive to commit all pending write commands before turning off.

But what about lifespan? There are not spec tables setup for our use case, which is very different from normal SSD use. First of all, most SSD use is rated for random read and write, and our use is almost completely sequential read and write. Also the published specs are for 1 year of data retention, which assumes you won’t erase any particular piece of data for 1 year. There is a direct inverse relationship between data retention and life span. So, for instance, if you lower the data retention to one day instead of one year the estimated life cycles go up dramatically. It took a little bit of work, but we estimated the drive life with our Micron dealer and it came out like this: the drive is rated for 1.2 million device hours and with our use case we think it will last at least 5,000 full write cycles before showing any kind of data loss, which means if you wrote the full capacity of the drive 3 times a day (4 hours of raw recording), every single day, it would last over 4 and half years! Most of us won’t shoot 240 minutes of footage in a day, and we won’t shoot every day either, so we estimate the drive will last somewhere between 5 and 10 years even with regular use.

We think reliability and data accuracy are very important parts of any camera, and we believe the Micron P400e will help us make a camera with these attributes.

Thanks for reading, Joe and the Digital Bolex Team

Old Bank is more than a video rental though, it’s part art gallery, part local hang out. The people that work there are the kind of people you could get into an hour long discussion with about Jodorowsky, or Kubrick, or Ghostbusters.

It’s the kind of video store that has sections dedicated to directors like Fellini and sections dedicated to categories like exploitation.

Films were shot there, like a scene in 500 Days of Summer.

 Or this short starring Michael C. Hall.

We even shot our Kickstarter video there.

Check out some of the Yelp reviews of this place, they tell a story all their own.

When I first moved to DTLA I didn’t have friends in the area and I was at Old Bank almost every night. One of the great treasures of Old Bank was Mark Schumacher, one of the owners of Old Bank and a fellow cinematographer / vintage camera enthusiast.

Mark and I spent hours recanting tales of film shoots gone horribly wrong and why the movie industry was in the sad(at least in our view) state it was in. It seemed like Mark had seen every movie worth watching and had an opinion I could always rely on.

One day I came into the store and asked Mark if he had a few minutes to talk to me about an idea I had for a camera. He stopped what he was doing and walked next door with me so he could focus on the conversation. I asked him if he had used a raw format motion picture camera like the Alexa or Red, because at the time I had not, and if he thought raw format digital cinema was the future of the industry. He was intrigued and said he did think that raw format digital cinema was not only the future of the industry but would expand the industry in amazing ways we can’t even dream of right now. He was always 10 steps ahead it seemed. I told him I was thinking about building a S16mm digital cinema camera kinda like what a Bolex would be if it was digital. He was clear and unwavering, he said “You have to do this”.

At the time very few people understood or supported this idea. DSLRs were in full swing and seemed like they would never go away (not that they have now), and raw format was something no one seemed to be talking about, at least on the independent film level. I did surveys to try and understand the market, some research said it would be a hit and other research said the market was too thin, but in the back of my head was Mark, the reliable opinion guy saying I have to do it. So in the end I decided to sell my half of a successful company I helped build in order to pursue this crazy camera dream. Mark was not the only voice in my head at the time, but he was a key one.

His passing was sudden. We had heard a few weeks ago that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and was in a hospital in Seattle, but that he was doing OK. We made plans to visit him and bring a camera to show him.

I’ll let his business partner and long time friend Erik tell you the rest. This is his eulogy.

Good afternoon everyone, It is with a heavy heart that I’m here to say a few words about our dear friend and brother Mark Deitrich Schumacher. Thanx to everyone who showed up today. The fact that so many of you are here is a testament to his kind soul, and I’m sure if he were able to witness this gathering he’d be very touched, it might even garner a ‘God Bless” in classic Schumacher form. Anywho, as you may know, Mark was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago after going to the hospital for what he thought were kidney stones. It wasn’t kidney stones. And the prognosis was bleak.

A few years ago while talking about my pipe dream sandwich shop, I retold to Mark the story of Warren Zevon’s last appearance on David Letterman where he was asked if he had any insight to life – having outlived the short timeframe he was given for his terminal cancer. His answer was, “ Eh, not so much, other than just enjoy every sandwich” And that was the text Mark sent from the hospital right after he found out. Enjoy every sandwich. And it just floored me ‘cause I knew what he meant. In the end, it wasn’t the cancer that felled Mark, but rather an actual fall on the walk home from getting some food nearby. Don’t know for sure, but I like to think it was a sandwich. Maybe it was a burger, but whatever. Turns out the spill caused some internal bleeding and Mark passed quietly later that evening on April 4th, in bed, watching a movie, with his dog Biscuit by his side. With potentially more bad days than good in store for him, it may have been, well, obviously not for the best, but maybe as painless as one could’ve hoped for, considering.

But enough of that, Mark and I met about 14 years ago at Scholl Canyon Golf Course, after I walked on as a single and joined his group. It is was also there that we played his last round the day before he left to Seattle for treatment. I got my first hole in one later that first day – a harbinger of good times ahead perhaps. So that’s where my history with Mark begins. As far I know, Mark was born a fully formed adult in Naperville Illinois in 1959 and started racontuering from day one. Or something like that. Actually, he was the oldest of 4, and excelled in school, hockey (which he played left handed, but when he took up golf – played right handed??? That may explain a few of the quirks in his swing that I never could really fix, he was a bit stubborn that way, but I digress) and gymnastics. The latter of which got him a full scholarship at Southern Illinois university. He would later move to Chicago and was part of the vibrant arts and punk rock scene in the late 70’s and 80’s. After a bit of traveling, that led him to parts unknown, he landed in Los Angeles to continue his photography and later cinematography career. He eventually settled in DTLA on Wall st. almost 20 years ago when it was like the wild west, or more accurately, a scene out of Charlton Heston’s Omega Man. (available for rent at Old Bank DVD BTW).

For those first 10 years or so, downtown was kind of a rough place to call home, but it was the pioneering spirit of Mark and other kindred souls that provided the spark that would eventually ignite the flames of what downtown has since become. I remember the first time he told me about Pete’s Cafe 10 years ago now – “Hey dude, this really nice bar just opened around the corner – good food and drinks, cute bartenders and all” (and as you know, that was right in Marks wheelhouse – an epicurean at heart, if you will) And I was all like, “Really, why in the hell would someone do that? On skid row?” Well they did, and much more too. (thanks to Tom and Pete and everyone else next door) but that was just the start of the rebirth. After reading through condolences written on Marks facebook page, many of the comments were from people saying he was the first person they met downtown (usually on the patio over there), and that it was he who showed them how to navigate the area and provided the example of what the community could be. That is but just a small part of his legacy, even if unintentionally so. As it was just a result of his good nature that flowed through him and inspired others.

Many of you here met or know Mark through our Video Store where he and I held court. It was he who casually suggested to me – on the way home from one of our many epic rounds of golf where we’d play until it was too dark to see the ball anymore, that somebody should open a video rental store DT as he was tired of driving to Silver Lake and it was looking like DT was about to blow up. But it would have to be a really cool one, like Facets in Chicago where he used to rent, or Scarecrow in SeattIe that we would eventually model the store after. That simmered in my head for about a year or so until the combination of stories about the rise of The Old Bank District and dissatisfaction with my job led me to ask Mark whaddya think about that video store again, it could work? Cut to a two shot of Mark on the patio at Pete’s talking to Tom, who may, or may not have been couple of Martini’s into his evening at that point, and the store was born. Toms one caveat was that it had to be cool. But of course, we got this, what’s the worst that could happen? While we may have had mixed results in actually, ya know, earning a living, (but the store is going to be OK, despite rumors of our demise) we were always on the same page about spreading the love of film and expanding the collective unconscious, ya know, that Jungian thing. In the many conversations I’ve had with Mark since he left for Seattle, he was always proud of what we were able accomplish, the legacy that will be left behind with the store. And that a couple of slackers kinda, sorta got away with our Quixotic folly for the past 7+ years. I, and on Marks behalf, thank everyone for your support over the years. It’s been fun. Mostly, naw it’s been fun.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank a few people who have been important to Mark’s life, and surely I will miss a few but, to all the folks at the store past and present, but most importantly Brie (who couldn’t be here today on account of her walkabout that now finds her quite appropriately in Australia). We couldn’t have done without our little roller girl and she sends her condolences. And there’s been a few women who loved, but mainly just tolerated his sorry ass. Phoebe, who helped build out his loft on Wall St. and was also a pivotal influence on Mark. Maureen Lantz, who supported him for many years while we and the store needed it, and who has also taken care of his cats – Moe and her sister Larry, since he left. Rebecca O’learly, who was dearly loved by mark, spent months in Seattle helping to take care of him, procured many sandwiches along the way, and was instrumental in organizing this memorial. Also thanx to Monica and Kristen from Banquette (who Mark kinda of inspired them to open the Nickel after his sunday night dinners) and now of the Nickel Diner who fed, watered and well, caffeinated and beered us for years at our old spaces, as well as maple bacon doughnuting us at our new space. Quick story, Kristen and Monica gave me a nice bottle of bourbon for my birthday probably 5/6 years ago that I left in our office. At some point, I noticed it had been opened – not by me, and was getting nipped at. Wanting to at least try some of it, I decided to hide it somewhere in the store. And somewhere where Mark wouldn’t find it. In a bit of a genius move on my part, if I do say so myself, I found the last place he would ever look – the box of his crap I had been asking him to go through or throw out for the last few months. Anyway, I got a call from him a few months later asking if that bottle was still around and perhaps if he could share a drink with Paul Johnson, surf guitar legend, father of Anne Johnson, DT OG and once Marks fiancee until she wasn’t. So I told him where was and we both almost died laughing.

That being said, Mark was not without his flaws. Lazy at times, and averse to certain chores at the store, (you dick), prone to drink too much, a Casanova of sorts (hands up from all the girls who made out with him in the house), egotistical, confrontational, Surly at times – or just didn’t suffer fools gladly – which is a positive in my book. I could go on. And on. But let’s not dwell on that because it was all eclipsed by his finer qualities. He’d laugh if I had to rattle those off right now, you magnificent bastard, knowing how much it pains me to get all sappy, but there will be a few people to speak after I’m done who can add their thoughts on the subject. I’ll not ramble on much longer, so as to leave a few things for others to talk about, and will just add this one last thing in closing. Despite Mark’s penchant for saying things like, “God bless” and “from your lips to Gods ears”, I don’t think he was an overly religious sort. Quite the opposite to be honest. But if the quality of positive thoughts instilled in those left behind and lives improved and/or inspired by the recently passed is truly the kingdom of heaven (allegorically speaking of course), then Mark is in it. God bless. You’ll be missed. There’s some sandwiches over there being served. Please enjoy them.

Mark was an inspiration to me on a profoundly personal level. The greatest regret I will have about this project is that I never got to put the camera he helped inspire in his hands before he passed.

Thanks for your guidance Mark you will be very sorely missed.

This is 4th and Main, a few yards away from Old Bank DVD.

This is Jean-Pierre Beauviala and his camera…

The following is an email that was sent to the CML (Cinematography Mailing List) by Martin Euredjian, founder of eCinema Systems, discussing the situation with Aaton and the plight of small imaging companies. I asked permission before I published it here. It’s long, but very important for everyone in our industry, or learning about our industry, to read.

Funding complex R&D without an existing product line 

Well, I haven’t posted anything on CML for probably three years, if not longer.  This is going to be long.  Sorry.

I want to give the CML audience one point of view on what it takes to be a self-funded innovator in our industry and how you can help (or hurt) those who venture into entrepreneurship to, yes, serve you.

The last few years have certainly seen massive changes to our industry.  The economic downturn caused untold damage across all industries and took down a myriad of players and, yes, innovators.

Our industry is small. Very small.  Painfully small.  And fickle.  Very fickle.  Innovators walking into this with the benefit of ignorance of the business realities involved learn –the hard way– very quickly.  One of my all-time favorite quotes is by Mark Twain: “A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way”.

Complex R&D in the context of a small industry with high cost of sales is a bad combination for a self-funded or underfunded entrepreneur.  Well funded companies can afford to quite literally burn cash, make mistake after mistake, sell mediocre product below cost to kill competition and grab market share.  And still survive.  When you’ve put all of your savings into your business, mortgaged your home and topped off all of your credit cards and still don’t even have enough money to match the marketing budget of larger corporations, you ought to take pause.  The problem is that an entrepreneur does not see this until having a firm grasp of the cat’s tail.  At that point it’s too late. You are all in and have no choice but to grab on and hope to survive the ride.  And, of course, sometimes we do what we do because we are passionate rather than rational.

There are so many factors conspiring against small companies in small high-tech markets.  And example of this are large suppliers who can cause a lot of damage through their decisions.  I don’t know if the alleged Dalsa sensor defect was the straw that broke the camel’s back (does anyone have verifiable data on this or is it just conjecture?) . I can tell you from first hand experience that these kinds of events can be severely crippling if you don’t have the deep pockets to absorb them.  I had one memorable experience when buying high-grade LCD panels from Samsung.  The LCD industry is known for the callousness of the OEM suppliers and the almost surreal difficulty in dealing with them.  The kind of thing you just can’t believe (or know about) until you are knee-deep in the mud.

We were getting ready to do a major product-line expansion.  eCinema was going to go from a one product company to a line of sixteen products spanning a range of applications and affordability levels.  Having had really bad experiences with LG Philips I sought to switch to a different OEM supplier and initiated negotiations with Samsung.  Does anyone remember Apple LCD monitors that went pink or magenta?  Yup, LG defects.  If they do that to Apple and get away with it, imagine what they are willing to do to small guys.  Now multiply what you imagined by ten and you might have an idea of how these OEMs can treat small manufacturers.

The Samsung negotiations happened during NAB with no less than the top three VPs of Samsung LCD Americas.  In other words, to get any higher you had to go to Korea. We agreed upon terms and they guaranteed availability of the OEM LCD modules that they helped us select.  A huge problem in the LCD business is the constant threat of premature EOL (end of life).  I had fallen pray to that one as well with LG.  This time I brought it up with Samsung multiple times.  They guaranteed seven years availability of the panels they helped us select.  Now armed with this we could embark in this major new step for eCinema.  I hired another engineer and we got to work.  Eight months and well over a million dollars later we had in our hands the first eight of the sixteen planned designs.

Then it happened.  We went to place orders with Samsung and got a chilling two line email from the distributor:  ”These panels have been discontinued.  You have to redesign your product.”.

In the single-source OEM LCD business this is equivalent to having your entire product line evaporate –literally go “poof”– overnight.  This is not unlike what can happen if you single-source a custom sensor for a camera from an OEM.  Anything can take you down and you have absolutely no control.  Sue Samsung?  Right.  Good luck.  This event cost us well over a million dollars.  That is “you are now dead” money for a small business.  A lot of it is a blur now as the whole thing turned into a horrible nightmare that put me in the hospital no less than twice.  Data was hard to come by, but conjecture at the time was that the main buyer for these panels had pulled the plug on the contract and Samsung pulled the plug on the entire line, affecting all small manufacturers.  Through a distributor I learned of a manufacturer making monitors for government applications who was sued by the government to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars because
they could not deliver the product as specified.  Carnage.

In the context of all of the above we also had to deal with mind blowing market realities.  Competition can be ruthless when very well funded companies are threatened by what you are doing.  And example of this is learning that a competitor actually bribed and paid-off some our dealers to keep our product from being shown at important events such as NAB as well as off their websites.  Then there are other cases where product is almost literally given away in order to cause you damage by denying your company much-needed sales.  Stuff from movies right?  Well, no, that’s real life.  And you don’t learn about some of these things until well after the damage is done.

And then there’s you, the user, the buyer, the one who talks about what these small companies work so hard to bring to market.  You can help, a lot.  You can also hurt, a lot.

The first issue is the constant chase of the new shinny thing on the shelf.  I get it.  I understand where this comes from and the need for it.  The problem is that this is very damaging for small companies to deal with.  It causes real economic damage and, in reality, slows down innovation.  Forgive me if I can’t offer examples from other companies.  One doesn’t often learn about these incidents because they are kept very private.  So I can only talk about what I have experienced at eCinema.  Please don’t think this is about me.  It’s just that I don’t really have other examples I can share with you.

And so, we were about to close a very nice sale of potentially fifty to one hundred of our high-end monitors.  I should say that this was a much-needed sale.  As a small company you are almost always underfunded.  It can be a painful existence.  There are periods of time when you go from sale to sale walking the edge of a financial precipice.  Large purchases inject oxygen into the business, let you breathe and actually execute on your plans rather than focusing on survival.  This sale was massive for us.  The bad news was that this was taking place about a month from NAB.

I’ve always dreaded trade shows.  They are great opportunities to connect with your customers, share and learn.  And, for some, tradeshows are great opportunities to cause damage to the competition.  When a competitor learned of our large sale they moved quickly to make promises and representations about a product they were about to introduce at NAB.  The sale was stopped cold on it’s tracks, pending NAB.  In practical terms this means that, if you are lucky, you are looking at a three month delay before you resume the conversation.  A typical tradeshow cost us between $100K and $200K to put on  –not to mention opportunity costs.  This is nothing for a larger business, but for a smaller company it’s a ton of money.  I would venture to guess that if you asked most exhibitors at NAB they’d tell you that these shows are seldom worth the investment…but you have to do them because people think you are dead if you don’t show-up.  And you always have to have something new for nearly the same reasons.  Thankfully the internet has changed a lot of this.  Just know that exhibitors are spending a lot of money to have a chance to talk to you face to face and almost always this is at a non-trivial financial loss for small companies.

The loss of this sale caused us to have to retreat and exhibit at the MGM instead –for about $10K– and make the best of it.  As it turns out the product that was introduced –the one that stopped our sale– was shit.  It didn’t matter.  The shit product actually stopped a huge percentage of our sales for months and months.  I don’t have precise data, but I would guess the effect of the shit product lasted at least a year.  It took a while for people to realize that it was no good and then come back to us.  Again, it takes a few cuts to damage a small entity beyond repair, whereas an elephant won’t even feel it.

Constantly chasing the new shinny thing on the shelf can really hurt both you and the small entities serving the industry.  It hurts manufacturers because they are denied the much-needed steady revenue stream that supports R&D.  It hurts you because you will ultimately not benefit from the results of such innovation.  I think it is fair to say that certain kinds of innovation does not usually come from large players.  Innovators are usually small “cowboys” who risk it all to bring ideas they are passionate about to market.  They are driven by different metrics than those of the larger players and can execute difficult technology at a different pace.  Still, it often is an “all in” business with huge personal risk.

Then there’s the matter of price “warfare”.  Well, consumers at all levels tend to want to buy the lowest cost product that will meet their needs.  And that’s OK.  Greed?  Nah, just reality.  And, while I don’t have a problem with this concept or this reality in the context of a fair and even playing field it is quite a different matter when the playing field is tilted.  We have now pretty much killed manufacturing in the US and Europe.  Making nearly anything is significantly cheaper in China.  Anything.  And so, trying to compete by manufacturing in your backyard is almost delusional.

The problem is that small market (low volume) high-tech products can’t reasonably well be manufactured in China.  For example, I am working on a small project right now with plans to manufacture in China.  The minimum order quantity for one part alone is 5,000 pieces.  You can make the same part in the US at minimum order quantities of a few hundred pieces at five to ten times the cost and twice the tooling costs.  That’s just reality.

The other reason is that you really need detailed hands-on engagement with the manufacturing process in order to ensure quality (not to mention IP theft, etc.).  When competitors come into the market who opt for overseas manufacturing they usually come in with a price advantage.  The usual scenario is that of a lower quality and lesser specification product with less support, features, reliability, etc. offered at a deeply discounted price when compared to locally manufactured goods.  The other scenario is that of well-funded companies explicitly coming into the market with below or near cost pricing in order to damage the competition and take the market.  A large company can afford to lose money for a year or two in exchange for owning the market for ten.

Yes, in consumer-land there are great examples of very high quality products manufacture in China, the iPhone being on easy to site example.  The reality here is that these are huge high volume products where a massive infrastructure is put into place in order to ensure quality and delivery value.  If you are only making a few hundred of something a year you are SOL.

What does this look like from the vantage point of a small company?  Your sales half –or worst– nearly overnight with the introduction of low price products.  Your R&D efforts are stymied.  You have to retreat into survival mode and engage in the impossible task of selling the same product for less –or go overseas and play the same game. You get to compete with a product that might be 70% of yours at half the money or less.  Every sale you loose is another cut out of the one thousand that will kill you.

I can’t say much more about the chase for the lowest cost solution other than to suggest that, with every dollar you spend, you are supporting the present and future direction of a product category.  If, in a small market, buyers flock to low cost solutions the net effect will be that all mid-range innovators will be damaged and possibly taken out.  What will remain will be the uber-high-end and the low end, with few offerings in between.  You are voting with your dollars for the future of what it is you are buying. Rather than look at it as scoring a great deal for a given widget you might want to consider every single one of your purchases as a vote towards the future direction of the industry or a category in the industry.  I know, without a doubt, we had customers who bought our more expensive product instead of cheaper overseas alternatives because of precisely the idea of supporting the vision we were trying to execute and the idea of supporting your own backyard.  I remain humbled and grateful for such support and loyalty.

Advanced R&D is expensive.  As we navigated the years we continued working on what became our DPX technology for monitors.   High-end R&D is incredibly expensive, be it cameras or anything else.  We had things like custom thermal management heat sinks which cost $27,000 to prototype each and every design iteration.  And, while we ultimately installed our own CNC machining equipment in getting ready to bring DPX to market, the costs were still staggering.  I forget how many prototype iterations we went through.  Each one cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.  When you are engaged in something like that and have to, at the same time, deal with some of the realities I discussed above, R&D happens at less-than-ideal pace.  And, frankly, it is far too easy to give up.  Without passion most do.

Finally there’s the economic downturn of 2008/2009.  How can we not talk about that.  This affected everyone.  People lost jobs by the millions.  Companies went out of business at industrial rates.  Horrible.  And, of course, our industry was in no way immune to this.  If you survived the initial blast, the radiation –in the form or much reduced or non-existing sales– eventually got you.  Unless you had the finances to survive.  In our own case it was a combination of the two.  A lot of our gear was purchased through leasing rather than outright cash transactions.  When banks stopped lending, orders stopped virtually overnight.  An unimaginable black swan event.  Still, we navigated through the initial blast and emerged damaged but stubbornly clinging to life.  Existence at that stage is very delicate.  Then we had a major deal (millions) unravel, again, because of banks setting the breaks on lending.  And that was that.  No more.

Again, my apologies for what can seem like self-serving stories.  As I said before, these are all the stories I have.  I can’t rightfully talk about what other entrepreneurs experience or have experienced in our industry.  And even where I do have some inside information from others I do not have the right to publicly discuss their internal stories and struggles.

I don’t know what the Aaton story might be.  I have to say that in all these years I have not had the pleasure of personally meeting JP.  I think we may have swapped emails a couple of times over the years, but never met in person –something I regret.  Still, I have always felt a connection to any “go it alone despite the odds” entrepreneurs as I have been that guy more than once.  It can be a hard and lonely ride that few are equipped to appreciate.  I sincerely hope JP figures out a way to come out of the ashes to grace us with great innovative thinking.

JP, if you are reading this, count me in to help in any way I can, even if all you need is to simply talk to someone who has survived something that might resemble what you might be experiencing right now.  I know that without my family, children and friends things would have been far different.

 

Be well,

-Martin Euredjian

We here at Digital Bolex have gone through some of the hardship that Martin talks about. We have had parts we were planning on using discontinued, we have had issues because of products viewed as competitors, and of course many added R&D costs because of delays and changes. This email really touched home for me and I needed to share it.

In my monologues I often talk about how small business will one day replace large companies in many ways, and while this is true, it is not without great struggle. The truth is if we want smaller more personable, more responsive companies to be able to survive in this world we have to fight for that, and as Martin so elegantly said, we have to vote for it with our dollar.

Thank you for reading this, and thank you all for your support,

Joe Rubinstein, and the entire Digital Bolex team.

A couple of people have asked us if you can use the PL mount with the pistol grip. Yes, you can. Here’s how to remove the base plate and attach the pistol grip if you have the PL mount attached.

Of course we highly recommend using the base plate to support the weight of heavier lenses, but it seemed safe and worked well for the CP2s. And it looks pretty damn cool too

We are indebted to Hot Rod for their work on this accessory. Thanks Illya!

We shot these tests at Pershing Square in downtown LA from about 4PM to 5PM. The white box denotes the S16 frame, everything outside is the micro 4/3 frame.

This is the 10mm:

This is the 18mm

And this is the 38mm behaving surprisingly well!

We also did a few lens flare tests.

The 10mm:

The 18mm:

The 38mm:

We think these shots look even better than the last, and can’t wait to show you more!