Bolex - History

History

The Bolex company was initially founded by Jacques Bogopolsky (a.k.a. Jacques Bolsey or Bolsky) in 1927 under the name of Bol. Bolex is derived from his name. He had previously designed cameras for Alpa. In 1930 Jacques sold the company to the Paillard Company who retained his services until the mid 1930s. The 1935 H-16 camera is a development of the Auto Cine B model. 9.5mm and 8mm versions followed. The H-16 was highly successful and Paillard Bolex introduced the L-8 for the market for a smaller 8mm camera. With the post-war boom in home movie making, Paillard Bolex continued to develop its 8mm and 16mm ranges with the H-16 increasingly adopted by professional film makers. The company also made a successful range of high end movie projectors for all the film making gauges.

To take part in research about early Bolex cameras and for more information, follow the link: http://bolexserialnumbers.wix.com/bolex#!home/mainPage

In 1965 Kodak introduced the Super 8mm format. Paillard Bolex were slow to introduce a Super 8 camera although they quickly modified the 18-5 Auto 8mm projector for Super 8 as the 18-5 Super. At about this time the 16 Pro Camera was introduced as a technically advanced professional camera more suited to television use than the H-16.

In 1970 Paillard sold the Bolex division to Eumig of Vienna. In 1971 Eumig rationalised the Super 8 range and Super 8 equipment production in Switzerland was discontinued. The Bolex product brand was retained while being manufactured in Eumig or Chinon factories. The H-16 cameras continued to be made in Switzerland.

In 1981 Eumig went into liquidation and Bolex was bought by a management team who set up Bolex International in 1982. Today, the Bolex factory in Switzerland continues to produce new 16mm and Super 16 film cameras and also can convert Bolex H16 reflex models to super 16mm.