I gotta ask - "Why"?

Nostalgia? It's not what I remember . . . . .

However, I must say, seeing all that Frame Stubble-Hair emerging was kinda, well, hankering to a past that was now over 50 years ago.

Still asking myself . . why? Is there an actual market for this?

G

Interesting development. Is there film for it? And processing? Today I saw elsewhere concerns about continued availability of Kodak Vision 3 film for feature production. I was never much enthused by 8mm (9.5 and 16 offered significantly greater image quality) and $5K isn't cheap. Going for a digital viewfinder instead of a TTL optical finder is a negative step, but obviously reduces the cost and video assist is a plus. When, as a teenager, I was shooting Kodachrome 9.5mm it had to be sent to France for processing, meaning a 3 week delay between shooting and viewing. Bit of a bind and shooters will be facing much the same delays with the present scarcity of 8mm processing labs.

I'm wondering the same thing.

I still have a working clockwork 8mm camera with a three lens turret and it would be fun to shoot something with it I guess.

What's on offer here though is akin to a Model T Ford with GPS, reversing camera, a surround sound system and air bags.

Bob.

Actually, to my surprise, Googling has brought up a few labs around the world, so the situation is better than I thought in the USA and Europe. http://www.pro8mm.com/contact-us.phpPro8mm[/link] even has their "own" brand of film. However their demo clips don't cause me to change my view of 8mm (Super or otherwise).

Yes, I wonder why as well.

I used 8mm film for many years and still have a Bolex H8RX with, if I remember, six fixed focus lenses and a zoom lens. It was very, very good -- but only in its day! It was heavy (but I was younger so that wasn't too much of a problem) but the sheer convenience and quality of video as well as the (comparative) ease of editing and the much cheaper cost, as well as length, of 'film' outweighs just about everything the Bolex could offer.

Richard.

Like Cole Younger used to say, "It's a wonderment".
JJK

I'm confuzzled. Why i all the hair and dust white? Hmmmmmmm?

It's almost like someone thought having hair and dust on the film would give it a more nostalgic feel, but was disappointed there was none, so added it in post, except that it had been so long they forgot that these things show up as black, not white.

Maybe there will be a resurgence of movie-making shot on old-fashioned media, kind of like there are people who love to collect and play LP records. To some it sounds better (I can't imagine how) and to others it's a retro kind of thing.

But 8mm? The image quality will always be crummy. I can see a return to 16mm. I had a friend who also had a Bolex and he just loved that thing. When I was a kid I had an inventor uncle in Texas who did a lot of home movies on 16mm and the quality was really remarkable to my young eyes.

As an aside I was given a Christmas present a few years ago of an 8mm camera, bought at a yard sale. Turns out it is the exact same model as the Zapruder one that filmed JFK's assassination, a B&H Zoomatic. Built like a tank and weighed about as much as one.

watch INTERSTELLA in 70MM IMAX REAL FILM the other day... WORST looking movie I've seen in a few years. Also saw it in Digital theater.... looked great.

time to evlove....

And no one has started manufacturing $1000 8-track tape players yet? Disappointing.

Was that sample footage for real? Arty or not, if I want my full HD goodness to look crap, I just select one of the old film presets from the video fx tabs.......

Joking aside, yes the hairs and the frame fuzz, there is a type of cadence or latitude in the colour that I like, that is enticing . . . sorry.

But I'm still left thinking just who/whom would be in the market for this? I' was hoping that this thread would wither away, and it wont keep coming back to haunt me with its siren-like beckoning me on to the rocks of Frame-Wellbegone.

I'm lost . . . .

Grazie

I cannot imagine this camera appealing to anyone, it belongs in the "What were they thinking?" bin.

The one remaining advantage of film is it can be used in cameras that are extremely robust. There's not much that'll stop a clockwork camera from working that cannot be very easily fixed with very basic tools. As already noted there's downsides to this solution but they're manageable, you just need to keep the innards clean.

All of those positive attributes are lost when you take what is pretty much a digital video camera, rip the guts out of it and replace them with a film transport.

Bob.

I've been following the development of this camera and I think you guys are looking at it the wrong way...

You're looking at it from an "ease of workflow/image quality" position. That's (mostly) not what these people care about.

There is still something to be said for shooting film.

More is at stake with film. And that's sort of the whole point of this Super 8 enthusiasm. Do-overs are HIGHLY impractical with film. (I know, there are no do-overs when videotaping live events; that's not what I'm talking about...) There are no "let's rewind the tape" and see what we got. Storyboards and planned story-telling becomes uber important. You have to choose carefully what to shoot. You have to be very knowledgeable about how the movie camera meters light, without a live preview. You are VERY cost conscience, especially now, since 50' of Super 8 film is about $25; and, at 18 fps, that's only 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
BUT, on top of all that, you have the excitement, after a long wait, of seeing what you got!

I think it's an experiential and education niche. (Don't most film schools still teach using Super 8?). It's a nod to the film masters; and a lot can be learned by putting yourself in this limited box with a Super 8 cartridge and not much else. Plus, many will argue, trying
to make video look like film is often disappointing. Film has a different look, especially Super 8. (No flaming, please.)

Image quality is secondary to these users, but still important, thus the market for this camera. They have already sold out their initial production run! Also, there is still a brisk market on eBay for old Super 8 cameras. Again, limited box: this camera designer is trying to squeeze the most quality out of Super 8 film, using state-of-the-art film transport mechanisms (image stability was always so-so in Super 8). While he's at it, he's incorporating newer workflow technologies like a video display and wireless capabilities (more power to him), but his essential goal is to get a super sharp, super stable 8 mm frame. (Admittedly, their sample quality is horrendous!)

You'll not be surprised that I've been acquiring old Super 8 equipment myself. I want to show my sons how it used to be! Practical? Not a bit. State of the art? Fuggedaboudit. Kind of exciting and risky? You bet.

And don't forget about the whole projecting on to a screen with this one-of-a-kind piece of celluloid. How fun is that!?

Lastly, film is still the best archival medium. J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan acknowledge this and do not want film to go away.

Speaking of Nolan: I too watched Interstellar at an IMAX theater last weekend and the image was stunning. Sorry to hear the other poster didn't have the same experience. I thought the movie was fantastic, too, btw.

Cheers!

Interesting views, but I think you just made an excellent case against the camera.
Geoff

[I]"Interesting views, but I think you just made an excellent case against the camera."[/I]

Exactly.
This camera has a video tap and an electronic viewfinder. The latter has been on every film camera for a long time and Yes, that output is recorded in case anyone wants an instant replay. On the better film cameras it also carried timecode so the editors were able to edit scenes as fast as the film cameras were shooting scenes. By close of day the coverage was ensured.

From my own limited experience having shot two shot films on film and one on video the whole camera thing is given way, way too much importance.
The last little film I shot was for a film school graduate, at the school she'd already made a movie but...the school gave the students a crew with two trucks of gear, we had none of that, heck I even had to press the better half into being a boom operator. The only thing I didn't have to do was act, catering and makeup. Oh hang on, I did end up in the thing and for that scene I was both behind and in front of the camera and oh dear remembering lines really is hard :(

Bob.

I understand an attachment to film and I appreciate that you want your children to know about the technology. As they should about steam power. I liked the whole business about shooting film, hanging and labeling clips sorted into bins, the contemplation of exactly where to place a cut (because changing it wasn't easy, especially when cutting reversal camera originals), editing on double headed machines for sound and picture, working with labs to get the colour corrected answer print.
When we were shooting film it was a great deal cheaper than now and I don't recall ever saying we couldn't afford to retake a shot. We did plan what we shot, but don't we now? The gear was heavier (but we were younger) and the max take was 11 minutes (400ft) and magazines had to be loaded in a light proof tent.
Yes, I appreciated all those little pictures strung out along the acetate strip and the smell of fresh film; there was a lot to like.
But 8mm? You can get good quality images with 16mm, but never on 8mm. If you want to shoot film there are plenty of cameras around without spending $5K. The imaging advantages of film negative (exposure latitude, toe and shoulder roll off) are now matched by video shooting RAW, so the only real reason to shoot film has also gone away.
No, I'm quite unconvinced that this new camera is a useful addition to the world.

I grew up with 1/4" tape on 7" reels and fell in love with every aspect of them. Later on of course i moved mostly to cassettes because they were smaller, more convenient, and could be played in the car, but i never lost the love or reel-to-reel. Eventually i went on to CD-R, and now of course everything is hard drive or memory card. There are amazing advantages to digital: less physical space, immediate access to anything, media doesn't wear or break (well, no where near as much, anyway), lossless copying, superb fidelity, amazingly easy editing, etc.

That being said, i spent the summer buying an embarrassing number of reel-to-reel decks and rebuilding my 7" reel tape collection. Why? Purely nostalgia. I spent Saturday listening to tape after tape after tape of 30 to 50 year old recordings, reliving old memories, experiencing one of my first loves all over again and enjoying them even more (i have WAAAAY better amp & speakers now than i did when i was a kid). However, there were a few things that struck me. I couldn't just hit random play. It's amazing how much i take that for granted now, even though i spent the first 80% of my life without it. I had one tape break which i had to splice before i could continue listening. And dang it! ... every 20 to 25 minutes i had to go flip the tape or switch to the next reel. I've gotten used to hitting one button and having music play all day non-stop.

The old analog technology may not be practical, but it does make me feel good. I shot a lot of 8mm film when i was a kid too, but i haven't touched that format in 30 years. I now own digital HD camcorders that are close to infinitely better quality, ease of use, capability, practicality, and economy than 8mm film. But, i may still yet dig out that old 8mm Popeye cartoon with the words on the screen, or the movie of our family picnic from 40 years ago just because they're fun.

But, aside from the nostalgia, the occasional history lesson, and making a few of us old farts feel good now and then, holding on to old outdated tech just doesn't make a lot of sense.