[Frameworks] Kodak Super8 digital camera

[Toni-Lynn Frederick]

Hello

Maybe I’m a lone voice on this forum, but I’m actually quite excited about Kodak’s new Super 8 film camera, and I find it somewhat disappointing to read so much negativity about an attempt to offer a new Super 8 film camera to a digital world. 

I’ve hardly drank the Kokak Kool-Aid, but if I wanted to look at things with a less conspiratorial eye, I’d see it as Kodak attempting to bridge the gap between digital and celluloid — and between generations of users — because there is a market there. If one neither wants nor needs that bridge, then don’t buy it. 

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not the case that, with the creation of this camera, comes the guarantee of continued stock production — or at least it means that raw film stock won’t disappear as soon as some of us feared? 

That’s got to be worth something, no?

Maybe I just get too excited about new gear, though ;)

Toni-Lynn Frederick
University of Reading





> On Jul 14, 2017, at 5:39 PM, Jeff Kreines <jeff at kinetta.com> wrote:
> 
> Super 8 has an aesthetic based on reversal film, shot with little cameras one holds against their eye. 
> 
> Color neg in Super 8 just looks like bad 16mm, IMHO.  And if it costs $100 to process and scan 2.5 minutes of film, not including the raw stock, it's cheaper to shoot 16mm, including processing and scanning.  You can find excellent 16mm sync cameras for under $2000 these days. 
> 
> Kodachrome and Ektachrome and Tri-X reversal are great, whatever format.  But S8 color neg just wants to be so "professional" but it's just a boring group of stocks with nothing exciting about them. 
> 
> The Kodak camera is a terrible industrial design -- look at the top handle as an example.  Big and ugly and not designed to hold to your eye. 
> 
> It's Kodak's pathetic attempt to go after the trust-fund hipster market. 
> 
> Sad!
> 
> 
> Jeff Kreines
> Kinetta
> jeff at kinetta.com
> kinetta.com
> 
> Sent from iPhone. 
> 
> On Jul 13, 2017, at 8:05 PM, Dave Tetzlaff <djtet53 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>> Mindless design. No optical viewfinder, just a flip out video screen. Plus, it is overpriced. 
>> 
>> The projected price of the initial "limited edition” version is $2000, with a less expensive “standard edition” supposedly to follow. It’s a film camera, so the real cost is in the stock and processing:
>> 
>>> Filmmakers using the new Kodak camera can send the 50’ cartridge to Kodak for developing and for a $100 developing fee Kodak will mail back to the filmmaker the developed film on a reel as well post a scanned digital version of the 2.5 minute film in a password protected cloud file.
>> 
>> I’d have to guess the concept and pricing reflect a similar approach to The Impossible Project’s new design Polaroid film camera, also very expensive. These things seem targeted at cost-no-object users in Hollywood and hipsterdom, who get off on having whatever tool – vintage or new-fangled – has been used by some cel;ebrity maker in some high-profile project. 
>> 
>>> Before the reborn Super 8 camera has even hit store, big Hollywood names such as directors Steve Spielberg, Christopher Nolam, and J.J. Abrams have endorsed the product.
>> 
>> For reference, Pro8mm in Burbank sells rebuilt Beaulieu 4008’s for $2000.
>> 
>> I’d expect folks who want to do experimental work in S8 to stick to old Canons and Nizos or whatever shows up in decent condition at the local thrift store or on eBay. 
>> 
>> Jeff: what’s the problem with having what amounts to video assist versus a dim optical finder? Isn’t the good news here for photochemical filmies that some sort of stock and processing options will remain available from Kodak a while longer now that they have this thing to support?
>> 
>> There’s a 46 second test clip from a Kodak prototype on YT [http://tinyurl.com/yayv8yok] complete with plastic pressure-plate registration flutter, dust and scratch in the negative glitches, and a nice chunk of crud in the gate. Ahh, the memories...
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