Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Digital Super 8

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Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 12-10-2013, 10:14 AM:

Yes, everything old is new again. I came across the link below for a company that plans to manufacture a Super 8 film cartridge for digital capture on your Super 8 Camera.

Click Here

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-10-2013, 10:38 AM:

Shooting off a ground glass sounds like a dumb idea, especially one that small. Why can't they pick up the image as an aerial image? And internally processing the data to a particular film look is also not a good idea. Compress the data if you must but don't apply looks, IMHO.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-10-2013, 12:11 PM:

It's hard to think who the market for this gizmo will be. It's unlikely to appeal to seniors with Super 8 cameras in their attics, because a lot of them won't be comfortable with PC timeline editing the files afterwards. Arty types will regard it as inauthentic, while professional filmmakers trying to achieve the small gauge look (e.g. in a flashback scene to a 1970s childhood - that sort of thing) will probably regard 720p as being not good enough for integration into their post-production workflow.

If it only costs $30-50 I might get one just as a curiosity, but not if the sticker price is heading towards three figures.

Posted by Paul Gordon (Member # 3320) on 12-10-2013, 12:16 PM:

or you could shell out the big bucks and buy an all new super 8 camera and shoot on film.

http://www.redsharknews.com/technology/item/1294-super-8-bounces-back-with-a-new-professional-level-super8-camera?utm_source=www.lwks.com+subscribers&utm_campaign=f62add0b05-RSN_Dec10_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_079aaa3026-f62add0b05-74536277

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-10-2013, 12:24 PM:

The article about the first product suggests that super-8 cartridges are now unavailable. That is demonstrably untrue, as they are listed in the current Kodak motion-picture product catalog.

I wonder how it deals with cameras that are fixed at 18fps?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-10-2013, 03:39 PM:

Is the all new S8 camera actually a production item, though, or just at the prototype stage? It looks cool and I wish them every success, but there's nothing in that trade mag story to suggest to me that they've gone beyond a prototype and plans announced - same thing as with the long-promised Ferrania relaunch.

All that having been said, $2-3k in today's money isn't big bucks at all, given that the nearest to professional that S8 cameras got (Beaulieu etc.) in the format's mainstream period of the '70s and '80s went for around that figure at that time. $2-3k now is something a small start-up production company could realistically consider buying outright. A professionally spec-ed small gauge film camera from in the middle of the last century (sticker price $10-50k adjusted for inflation, depending on options) is something they'd have had to have rented on a per-production basis.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 12-10-2013, 04:46 PM:

You can shoot on Super 8 cheaply, but there's only 1 guy who's printing them in Germany, so there's basically no cheap way to shoot and project anymore.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-10-2013, 06:44 PM:

On a more substantial re-use front P&S Teknik has cone out with a digital magazine for existing Arri SR2&3 cameras... Digital Magazine

As for Super-8... who would want to project it? Straight to digital... Not like it's gonna look good on a big screen anyway. Super 16mm or Ultra 16mm, that's another story. I should add that Agfa recently released a new 16mm color reversal stock...

Mark

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 12-10-2013, 06:55 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
It's hard to think who the market for this gizmo will be.

Hipsters. That's who.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-10-2013, 08:11 PM:

I never thought of Super 8 as being hip. It's for home movies, not giant screen documentaries.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-10-2013, 08:27 PM:

Edit your own super-8 film, 1970s style

I am just finishing postproduction on two short films which I edited on film (in 16mm). I have no problem with film editing in 16mm, but editing super-8 just looks terribly painful due to the tiny size of the frame and the fact that (in the Kodak film above) one typically edits camera original in super-8. The sound quality is probably not so hot, either. And, when the film is edited, one is left with something that cannot be projected on a large screen, due to the small size of the film frame.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-11-2013, 12:10 PM:

Years ago there was a company that was going to market a digital imager that was made into a 35mm cassette with a sensor that one drew out to the location of the shutter in ones slr

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-11-2013, 12:28 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I never thought of Super 8 as being hip. It's for home movies, not giant screen documentaries.

To be fair, Vision 200T on Super 8 is in a different league from the reversal stocks of the '70s and '80s - transferred at 2K and carefully graded, it can look (subjectively, to me, at any rate) as good as a 16mm negative shot in the '90s. The problem is that the lenses on most Super 8 cameras were cheap sh!te, and so unless you're shooting on a high end Braun or Beaulieu, or another camera that has been remanufactured to put proper lenses on it (I believe Pro8mm can modify some cameras to take a T-mount), you'll never be able to use the stock to its full potential. Likewise, if you transfer the footage one light on the lower end scanners that "We copy your home movies to DVD" places tend to use, a lot more image information will be lost, too.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 12-11-2013, 01:13 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I never thought of Super 8 as being hip. It's for home movies, not giant screen documentaries.

Anything retro is hip now. Even more hip if it is obsolete.

Taking a perfectly good image and then fucking it up to make it look old is hip now.

Using a clunky super-8 film camera to record amateur-looking digital video will appeal to hipsters.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-11-2013, 01:15 PM:

What Leo said.

In addition to lenses, another weak point with super-8 is that the pressure plate (which is one of the most precisely made parts of a normal motion-picture camera) is a plastic thing that is built into the Kodak cartridge. By necessity, it is not a precisely machined object, and the film often does not lie flat in the gate. The new camera design referenced above solves this, as do double-super-8 cameras (which do not use cartridge-loaded film).

But, still, super-8 makes little sense in 2013 for most people. Film and processing cost about the same amount as with 16mm, as does telecine time. But, with super-8, the number of facilities that will deal with the format is very limited, the footage cannot easily be printed and projected as film, and the image quality is poorer than with any other film format. For $3k, a good, used 16mm camera would be a better purchase.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-11-2013, 02:11 PM:

quote: Manny Knowles
Taking a perfectly good image and then fucking it up to make it look old is hip now.

Yep. There's no shortage of music videos doing this. Image abuse in certain applications or Photoshop plug-ins like Alien Skin Exposure will deliver that effect.

Posted by Paul Gordon (Member # 3320) on 12-13-2013, 07:31 AM:

Scott,

Super 8 can look very good blownup or scanned at 2k. The PX black and white reversal stock now discontinued looked on par with 16mm when scanned. We do blowups of 8mm, super 8 and 9.5 in our lab to 35mm and the results are impressive.

Regarding 16mm being a better buy equipment wise I'd say no... Forget 16mm and move up to a decent 35mm camera. With everything moving to digital you can get great deals on 35mm camera packages now or even buy your own for less then $3000.00

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-13-2013, 11:12 AM:

Stock, processing and transfer is going to be a lot more expensive for 35 than it is for 16 though, if only because of the greater footage needed for a given running time.