Kodak's return to Super 8

[tom hardwick]

https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=zZPPjYiJyJM

Are they mad or don't I see the bigger picture? Shame the journalist/blogger wasn't a Super eighter or he'd have asked pertinent questions about film stocks, aspect ratios, FPS shooting speeds and so on. And V/finders only flickered on the Beaulieu and other esoteric cameras.

OK, you can access the scanned footage but do you get to keep the original? Why is it larger than the 1983 Canon 1014XL-S? What about camera noise and onboard mics? Who is it aimed at? What does it cost? The list goes on.

Tom.

[ned c]

Super8 never went away see; http://www.pro8mm.com/ for revamped old Super8 cameras and a wide range of filmstocks with processing and scanning all at staggering prices. Kodak is a company on life-support and it is interesting that this attempt at a return to Super8 has been around for over a year but no release date for the camera and no suggested price of camera or filmstock. Kodak is the example of how to be wiped out by a new technology that they were involved in inventing but ignored because of its impact on their "core business." At the Kodak website you can sign up for e-mail updates on the Super8 project.

ned c

ned c

[tom hardwick]

Hi Ned, you could say that Super 8 never went away in the same way as dialup internet never went away. And vinyl, fax machines, VHS and CDs. They all tick away somewhere, and especially so, it seems, in the UK.

I still want to know if Kodak is mad, and of all places the IAC should be the place to ask that question.

[Michael Slowe]

Oh Tom, the wonderful 16mm film camera the Beaulieu R16, makes me quite nostalgic, I don't think I ever made better films after I abandoned film. The image flickered in the finder because you were looking straight through at the subject,the flicker was the mirror coming down for the shutter. Exposure, semi auto through the lens, removable batteries, great ergonomics. Traditional proper editing, film and mag film synced up and wound through the sound head and viewer by hand.

Kodak can't recreate all that with Super 8 surely? No body would want to take all that trouble when modern kit does it all and more with your eyes shut. Modern, properly shot HD, beats almost any film image, except possibly 35mm negative, and not many are shooting with that, even professionally now.

Nice to remember these things though.

[tom hardwick]

Doesn't sound as if you've clicked the link in my post Michael. All Kodak are doing (or so it seems) is giving you a flickering V/finder, 2½ minutes of filming time and giving you access to the digitised footage for editing.

It sure seems like madness to me but there you go. Ford would probably sell a few Cortina Mk 1s if they started making them again.

[tom hardwick]

I said Kodak are giving you a 'flickering viewfinder', but I now see this new Super 8 camera has a CMOS chip on board so that the LCD panel is fed a digital image. This chip is fed by light ducted off on its way to the film, and of course the camera's battery has to power the camera's power zoom, its auto exposure, the CMOS chip and the LCD screen.
Again, whatever are they thinking at Kodak HQ?