Bolsey 8


The 1950's saw the development of an amateur motion-picture craze. The Bolsey 8 was first produced in 1956 and, like the French 16mm Mundus cameras, it attemtped to catch that wave. Although it was primarily designed as a still camera, it could also be used as a motion picture camera -- for very short bursts of moving pictures. The camera body appears much larger than it is -- due to its movie-camera shape -- but it was really only about the size of a pack of cigarettes!  The camera used 8mm film and has a super-fast 10mm (f1.8) lens that is reported to be, unfortunately, of mediocre quality. But the camera does offer close-focusing to 1 foot and has five shutter speed settings -- from 1/50 to 1/600.  Wide angle (shown here) and telephoto attachments were available, as well as filters and other accessories.

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