A new super 8 movie camera? What is Jeff Clarke smoking?

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<p>Maybe someone got the idea that without new film cameras it is real hard to sell new film. All of these cheap used film cameras won't last forever.</p>

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<p>Nothing last forever but I think my 30 years plus old camera would last until the time I can't buy film no more.</p>

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<p>As well as I know it, there are still schools teaching film movie technology, and need cameras and film.<br>

If they want to keep the professional movie industry going, they will have to keep teaching students how to do it.</p>

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<p>This is exactly right. Kodak continues to sell camera negative to Hollywood, because there are filmmakers in Hollywood who like the film aesthetic and are versed in how to shoot it. If Kodak is to have a hope to continue selling ANY camera negative to Hollywood beyond 2020, they need to ensure a new generation of filmmakers knows what film is, and how to shoot it. Super 8 is a "gateway drug." Look at the marketing surrounding this new initiative -- lots of personal stories from big directors who got hooked on film with Super 8.<br>

Seen this way, Super 8 is the canary in the coal mine for everyone who loves analog <em>still photography</em>. We film photographers are being underwritten by Hollywood and the volumes of film required for motion pictures.</p>

<p>Once upon a time, Super 8 was great for students becuase it was the most affordable moving picture format among film or video. But it takes 24 50-foot cartridges for one hour of shooting time. And at $50 a cartridge (the number being thrown around by Kodak) that's $1200. Much cheaper than 16mm or 35mm but stll a lot of money for a student. At this point, shooting anything more than a few short clips of film is a luxury, not something most students or independent filmakers can afford.<br /><br />Super 8 can help keep up the interest in film among young people. But it's not really a way to teach people how to shoot with film. Popping a plastic cartridge into the camera and pulling the trigger has about as much to do with operating a professional motion picture camera as an Instamatic has to do with using a view camera. I've shot Super 8 and I've shot with a 16mm Arriflex. Both are film but Super 8 doesn't prepare you to load magazines, thread film, etc,</p>

<p>No, not the loading but exposing. </p>

<p>Well, I pretty much never did Super 8, but knowing how to expose film is different from knowing how to expose digital, still or movie. Even knowing the appropriate lighting conditions to get a certain look, which I suspect is what directors have to do, is different. And there is only one way to learn.</p>

<p>$1200 for film and processing sounds like a lot, but how much does a semester cost at a good film school? </p>

<p>Seems to me that similar to the way Diana cameras were used in classes, you want all the students to have the same camera model. As with still cameras, that is difficult if you are using 30 year old cameras, but easy if you use ones in current production. Kodak might even sell them with a quantity discount for schools. </p>

<p>For just one summer:<br>

https://cinema.usc.edu/summer/faq.cfm</p>

<p>Or for a full degree program:<br>

http://catalogue.usc.edu/content.php?catoid=2&navoid=464</p>

<p>Super 8! Not surprising for a company which laid their future on an altar of film while the digital revolution raged. It's not even an effort to rebadge something up to date, with a walnut handle, like Hasselblad and the Lumix. In pacem requiescat, Kodak.</p>

<p>Let's hope Nikon wakes up from its devotion to flapping mirrors. While they had 17% of the market in 2015 they're falling 18% a year against Sony, which has 14% and rising 25% a year.</p>

<p>$50-75 seems too high to be attractive. I question the pricing. Dwaynes develops Super 8 for $12 and for another $10 you get a disk. Of course Kodak will make their Super 8 in some sort of cassette. Sounds like they're creating a a proprietary unit so they can charge more then Dwayne's. Did the CEO work for Apple or Microsoft before joining Kodak? Maybe I'm wrong and they will make the same Super 8 film to fit in old cameras.</p>

<p>I'm waiting for them to come out with regular 8 film. I still have my wind up spring powered, 3 lens turret unit that still seems to work. It's 57 years old. </p>

<p>Alan, I think the $50 price includes the film. Super 8 is housed in a cartridge that has been around since the 1960s. I doubt Kodak would change it. You can buy regular 8mm film but not from Kodak.</p>

<p>A nearby store sells Super8 Tri-X reversal for $25/roll. </p>

<p>Will Dwaynes develop that for $12?</p>

<p>So I can't expect to project those super 8 with my good old super 8 projector right? Because the film stocks available only negative and unless they provide service to make print I can't project them but only to view them on the computer or TV. Really I could do that with a simple 4K camera.</p>

<p>The one I noted is Tri-X reversal, but I believe that there is also non-reversal Tri-X for scanning.</p>

<p>I am not so sure what the difference is.</p>

<p>The only Kodak B&W Movie film is XX or 5222 as it is known in 35mm Scanning films are out there. ORWO is producing many B&W films in formats for those who want to use it. or copy B&W. Tri-X reversal was ISO 200.</p>

<p>This isnt marketed towards photographers and videographers. This is marketed towards people who will go out and spend $2000 on a Nikon DF because its cool and they have 500 records even though they werent around when records were the medium of choice. Kodak is going after the niche market, the hipster market. And if they market it right, the hipsters will eat it up</p>

<p>They showed it on Jimmy Fallon (The Tonight Show), and mentioned between $400 and $750, along with two virtual reality devices.</p>

<p>I really like the look of super and standard 8, but it's so expensive to process it. Standard is such a pain too. I have a Minolta Auto Zoom 8 and it commonly forms loops around the takeup as I use it (i.e. it's not winding properly). I'd go with Super, but it's even more damn expensive!</p>

<p>how can they make it film and digital? surely you would need two lenses for that. Unless there is some innovation where light hits a sensor, and a source on the other side shines a replication of the image onto a film plane. who knows?</p>

It's the same question I asked earlier in this thread. I suppose they could use something like a pellicle mirror where some of the light is reflected onto a sensor for digital recording and the LCD display, and the rest of the light travels through the pellicle mirror onto the film.

<p>Most Super 8 cameras have semi-silvered prisms. There's your answer. :-)</p>