The Bolsey B-Series Rangefinders

Simple 35mm Cameras with an Impressive Pedigree

The Bolsey camera story starts way back with a man named Yakov Bogopolsky – born into a Jewish family in Kiev in 1895. As a young man, he was always full of ideas for inventing things and became interested in photography. He eventually moved to Switzerland, changed his name to Jacques Boolsky, and began work on a movie camera that would eventually morph into one of the most famous 16m movie cameras of all time – the Bolex.

And if that wasn’t enough, he also helped design a 35mm still camera that would eventually become the Alpa.

But prior to the outbreak of WWII, he emigrated to the US – changed his last name again to Bolsey – and began work on making cameras for the US Military. And after the war he began work on what would become these – the Bolsey 35mm rangefinders. It began with the Model B in 1947, the B2 – released in 1949, and the B3 came about in 1956. 

By the mid-50s, though, competition from Japanese camera makers proved to be too much and the Bolsey Camera Company was sold off. Sadly, Bolsey passed away unexpectedly in 1962 – certainly taking with him countless unrealized ideas.

Now if you’re even slightly interested in this story…well, it gets more interesting. Turns out that Jacques Bolsey’s great-granddaughter was a film student – that had no idea that her great grandfather made such a game-changing contribution to film-making. Once she discovered that and began to learn a little more about who Jacques Bolsey was, she decided to make a documentary about it and her process of discovering who this man really was. I watched it recently, and it’s an excellent film and tribute to her great-grandfather. AND made me all the more proud to have these in my possession.

And I recommend you check it out, too. The film’s called Beyond the Bolex and you can find out how you can watch it at beyondthebolex.com.

Check out the video below for a deep dive into these cameras!