20Dec Is Digital Bolex giving it’s kickstarter backers the shaft?
The Digital Bolex d16 finally has a release date after more than a year of waiting, but are they backpedaling on one of their promises to backers? In the stretch goal on the Digital Bolex kickstarter page it says:
If we reach $250,000 we’ll include an additional mount of your choice to anyone who buys a camera.
On April 11 2012 they met that stretch goal with a final backing of $262,661. Now Digital Bolex is telling backers that they will have to pay an additional amount for anyone that requested a PL mount for their camera. In a statement from Joe Rubinstein of Digital Bolex he writes:
What we were implying was a mount of your choice from the ones we make. At the time we didn’t anticipate other companies making our mounts for us.
Ironically the Digital Bolex camera is being made by another company (Ienso), as are most of the other parts going into the camera’s production. It seems to me it’s simply another case of kickstarter campaigns over promising and under delivering.
On the bright side, at least the camera actually materialized and didn’t end up as vaporware. Still, if you’re a backer I could see this being a big disappointment, a C-mount lens adapter isn’t horrible, but I could see many people wanting to use super 16 lenses with PL adapters on this camera.
In the end i’m glad to see cameras like the Digital Bolex being released into the world. More competition and selection leads to more innovation and better pricing. Maybe other kickstarter campaigns will take note, people are always happier when you under promise and over deliver instead of the other way around.
December 20th, 2013 at 11:52 am
People should make good on their promise, and beneficiaries of Kickstarter projects are no exception. I have contributed to a few Kickstarter projects, one of which went 9 months past completion of funding/delivery date, and another that is currently 14 months past funding/delivery date.
I realize production costs and production time is a moving target, but once a Kickstarter goal is reached, they should follow through on their original promise.
December 20th, 2013 at 12:30 pm
I agree, if you list it, it should be delivered. I’ve been waiting on the Swivel for almost 12 months which was only supposed to take 6. At least with their project they’ve actually added features originally not listed and improved the product. Still 12 and 14 months is a long time to wait and often I find myself regretting the investment. I could have spent that money on something tangible instead of an idea that may or may not come through.
December 20th, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Well what would you expect from a product called “Digital Bollocks”?
I regret I have little faith in the whole Kickstarter set up. It seems to flourish on the promise of something cheap in the future and, even through reports in these illustrious pages, seldom seems to deliver.
December 20th, 2013 at 12:20 pm
I almost made that joke in the title. Nice. I’ve donated to a number of kickstarter campaigns and I’ve had more that end up a failure then not. It seems like comic books and art projects do well, tech products are hit or miss, and really ambitious projects always end up in delay and disappointment. I don’t think kickstarter is a bad thing, but it’s more like a stock market than a retail outlet.
December 20th, 2013 at 12:20 pm
[…] Is Digital Bolex giving it’s kickstarter backers the shaft? […]
December 20th, 2013 at 12:38 pm
Hey Deejay, let me correct some errors for you. As a journalist I’m sure you will appreciate having an accurate article.
Ienso is not a separate company. Joe partnered with Ienso to create the company Cinemeridian, the company that designs and manufactures the Digital Bolex and its in-house accessories. The executives of Ienso are the executives and co-owners of Cinemeridian. If you look at the ABOUT page on our website, everyone’s role in our company is plainly stated. Our about page has existed for more than a year. I suggest you check it out, as it might clear up some of your confusion.
I would also suggest you try convince the anonymous commenter whose concern you’ve highlighted to do an interview with you so we can confirm that this person is indeed one of our Kickstarter camera backers. That way we can address their problems directly. To write an entire blog post based on one anonymous comment on a competitor’s website seems to take a lot of credibility away from your blog, which otherwise seems to have some pretty good content, so to have some verified facts would be pretty helpful to you I would imagine.
Most of our backers interact with us regularly and, to be crystal clear, we have not had one single Kickstarter backer contact us with the issues raised by the anonymous commenter on nofilmschool. If you don’t take my words at face value, you can interact with our backers on Twitter, Facebook, or feel free to start a thread on our forum, where about half of our backers post from time to time.
Below is the response that I posted nofilmschool, if you are interested. If you have any further questions feel free to contact me anytime at elle@digitalbolex.com
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Here’s the deal. We are offering free mounts that we make to our KS backers. That’s been on the table for a long time, as a thank you *bonus* when we reached our extended KS goal.
“Thanks to you we can not only make this camera happen, but we can start making new mounts,” is one quote. Here’s another: “our next milestone is $200,000, which will fund the manufacturing of each of the additional mounts, as well as some of the accessories we really want to make.”
We were never specific on the KS campaign page as to which mounts those would be because we didn’t yet know which mounts would be feasible, so nobody was *promised* a specific mount. What they were promised is that they would get *a* mount, which we are 100% following through on. EF and M43 were our most requested mounts, so those are the ones we prototyped. We hoped to have PL as an option, but realized after some time we couldn’t reasonably design it in house. That sucks. We also hoped to have B4 and Nikon, but those aren’t even in the cards right now, though hopefully in the future they will be.
The bottom line is another company decided to make a PL mount for our camera, and we cannot offer other companies’ products for free. They are not our products. We don’t control the R&D costs, the build materials, the price points, the cost of their employees, or their retail estimates. If we can negotiate a good deal on these items, that would be awesome! And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do, and why we haven’t made any decisions or announcements about the PL mount yet. We have been in contact with all of our backers who have inquired about this, and as Joe said, exactly zero have responded with any issues.
Because our backers get it. They donated to help realize a complex product. This was always going to be an evolving process, and I don’t think anyone would have donated who wasn’t okay with that. And our response so far from those who donated has been fantastic. We’ve had a chance to shoot with some backers already; two have posted guest posts on our blog. We see backers in person from time to time, and talk to at least half on a regular basis. The others seem pretty content to check in when they need to, or sit back and wait for their cameras to arrive, which is cool too. We appreciate all the support we’ve gotten, passive or active.
And in addition to the $800 discount on the camera itself, we’re delivering each KS backer a thousand dollars in freebies. Which is a pretty sweet deal. And so is the guarantee we’ve made to inquisitive backers about the PL mounts, because we know some people do want that mount, and we want to make that as easy and as inexpensive as we can for the people who supported us. Free, if we’re able to. But the thing isn’t even done, so we can’t say anything with certainty yet.
December 20th, 2013 at 5:44 pm
That is not the point.
JR stated on the kickstarter page that:”If we reach $250,000 we’ll include an additional mount of your choice to anyone who buys a camera. ”
“Additional”…. there’s no additional mount.
December 20th, 2013 at 8:07 pm
We are making EF and M43 mounts and each KS backers gets one of their choice for free when they go on sale. That free mount comes in addition to the C mount that already comes with the camera. So yes, there is an additional mount.
December 20th, 2013 at 9:53 pm
Not sure what “anonymous commentor” you are speaking of, those quotes are pulled directly from your website. As for who makes what, it seems like a pretty flimsy argument. Instead of spending time trying to argue about who makes what, why not simply say “Sorry we screwed up” and move on? Thanks for the copy and paste novel.
December 20th, 2013 at 1:40 pm
This one opened my eyes to checking people’s credentials before considering investing. When I heard Joe was a DP I looked him up on imdb.com and didn’t find much there and decided to avoid thinking about this one. I was an AC for years and years, that didn’t make me a camera tech. A DP, even a well known one, doesn’t make you a camera designer.
Some rules to live by:
-The only tools to consider are the ones available. BlackMagic confirmed this for me.
-1st generation product can be full of flaws. I can thank Apple’s MacBookPro (Intel) for that one.
December 20th, 2013 at 1:43 pm
Regardless, as a long time Bolex owner and user, I do hope the DB16 will become a fine product that will raise the bar.
December 21st, 2013 at 12:54 pm
As an old 16mm film shooter and previous Bolex owner who has been peripherally involved with the development of the D16, I can say it is exceeding all initial expectations that most of us had for what it would turn out to be. It handily exceeds the usable DR, exposure range and video transfer resolution of any 16mm film stock I ever shot with the classic film version. In that sense it more than fulfills the stated design purpose as a practical digital replacement for an S16mm film camera.
The build quality and components going into the D16 are worthy of Bolex name.
December 22nd, 2013 at 11:07 pm
I can’t wait to see some footage from all those Kickstarter backers!
December 21st, 2013 at 1:08 pm
Joe’s credentials as a DP may be modest, but I researched his background well enough to find out that he had a previous successful company start up that developed and marketed a sophisticated specialty digital camera system for photo kiosks. He sold his share of that company to start Digital Bolex.
December 20th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
The next few years are going to be pretty interesting for the industry!
December 22nd, 2013 at 8:42 am
DeeJay,
I just wanted to thank you for this post.
Although I am indifferent to this particular issue, critical articles (based in facts, even if just interpretation) are extremely important for the future of our on-line communities.
Many blogs shy away from them because of the inevitable fall out and what we are left with is a lot of one dimensional back slapping.
My only suggestion would have been to contact DB first and include their response within the text of your article.
Without someone asking questions, we will never grow, especially within the realm of crowd funding, which right now is like the wild west.
Thanks buddy.
December 23rd, 2013 at 9:47 am
Their direct response to the concern is in the post and their longer response (posted somewhere else after this article) was copy and pasted to the comment section by one of the founders (as well as a few jabs at me personally). As opposed to elaborate excuses about who makes what, they should simply apologize and move on. Instead they’ve given people more to argue with and complain about by using a poorly constructed argument who makes what.
As I stated in the post “i’m glad to see cameras like the Digital Bolex being released” and I’d like to see more bold moves like this in the future. After all it’s not a fault of the camera that the designers over promised in their kickstarter, it’s a fault of the kickstarter creators.