Jim Hoene Posted December 17, 2006 Share Posted December 17, 2006 What is a good Super8 Camera that can produce short films in b&w and color? What kinds of things can you do with a standard package as far as techniques/effects. What about recording and merging sound with the footage? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon lawrence Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 What is a good Super8 Camera that can produce short films in b&w and color? What kinds of things can you do with a standard package as far as techniques/effects. What about recording and merging sound with the footage? Thanks. Well it pretty much comes down to one thing: how much money you are willing to spend. Camera wise, you could try the following: Canon 1014 Canon 814 Canon 514 Nikon R10 All these cameras have a good reputation on this forum. The cheapest place to pick one up would be on eBay where they can go for anywhere between £10 - £200 GBP. They tend to be quite a bit more expensive if you buy from a shop however you get the added security of knowing that the camera probably has been serviced and is in full working order. I?ve brought cameras from eBay which didn?t work but I?ve only ever paid about £15 for them. The canon models I mentioned come in various forms. The numbers may be followed by letters. XL means eXtra light which means you can shoot in lower light. AZ means auto zoom and E means electronic. S stands for sound, however sound film is no longer made so this is feature is redundant. There is quite a big leap in price between the standard models and the XL's. Super 8 film cartridges are 50 meters/15 foot which gives you roughly 2 minutes 30 seconds of footage at 24 fps (frames per second) and about 3 minutes 20 seconds at 18 fps. 24 fps is recommended if you want to shoot sync. All the cameras I mentioned can shoot at 18 fps, 24 fps and single frame (for stop motion, animation etc). They can also shoot in slow motion. I think the Nikon r10 can shoot at 54fps and the Canons at 36 fps. So if you wanted to produce a short film at say about 10 mins you'd be looking at at least 4 cartridges at 18 fps or 5 at 24 fps. Super 8 films comes in two types, reversal and colour negative. For editing with reversal film you can use a splicer/super 8 editor to cut and paste your film together and use a projector to view it. Again, all these items can be picked up on eBay for varied prices. If you shoot negative film it has to be telecined before you can watch/edit it. Telecine can be a very expensive process. There are a lot of places advertised that will ?put your old home movies on DVD/tape for a low price? however I?ve read that these places are best avoided. If you want to merge sound with film you can have your film put onto cd rom/mini dv so you can edit digitaly. There are a number of places that sell film, processing and telecine: Pro8mm.com Spectrafilmandvideo.com Widescreen-centre.co.uk Pro8mm offer 4 rolls of film with processing and telecine for around $200. Shop around, see what catches your attention. If you have any questions this forum is the best place to get them answered. Just be aware that super 8 can develop into a very expensive habit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Mester Posted December 19, 2006 Share Posted December 19, 2006 Regarding recording Sound, look up my Thread "Recording Synchronous Sound" which links to an Information Sheet I produced to explain a simple method I developed for myself to record synchronized sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hoene Posted December 19, 2006 Author Share Posted December 19, 2006 Regarding recording Sound, look up my Thread "Recording Synchronous Sound" which links to an Information Sheet I produced to explain a simple method I developed for myself to record synchronized sound. Thanks, Im kind of new to these forums, how do I look up that "thread" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hoene Posted December 20, 2006 Author Share Posted December 20, 2006 Well it pretty much comes down to one thing: how much money you are willing to spend. Camera wise, you could try the following: Canon 1014 Canon 814 Canon 514 Nikon R10 All these cameras have a good reputation on this forum. The cheapest place to pick one up would be on eBay where they can go for anywhere between £10 - £200 GBP. They tend to be quite a bit more expensive if you buy from a shop however you get the added security of knowing that the camera probably has been serviced and is in full working order. I?ve brought cameras from eBay which didn?t work but I?ve only ever paid about £15 for them. The canon models I mentioned come in various forms. The numbers may be followed by letters. XL means eXtra light which means you can shoot in lower light. AZ means auto zoom and E means electronic. S stands for sound, however sound film is no longer made so this is feature is redundant. There is quite a big leap in price between the standard models and the XL's. Super 8 film cartridges are 50 meters/15 foot which gives you roughly 2 minutes 30 seconds of footage at 24 fps (frames per second) and about 3 minutes 20 seconds at 18 fps. 24 fps is recommended if you want to shoot sync. All the cameras I mentioned can shoot at 18 fps, 24 fps and single frame (for stop motion, animation etc). They can also shoot in slow motion. I think the Nikon r10 can shoot at 54fps and the Canons at 36 fps. So if you wanted to produce a short film at say about 10 mins you'd be looking at at least 4 cartridges at 18 fps or 5 at 24 fps. Super 8 films comes in two types, reversal and colour negative. For editing with reversal film you can use a splicer/super 8 editor to cut and paste your film together and use a projector to view it. Again, all these items can be picked up on eBay for varied prices. If you shoot negative film it has to be telecined before you can watch/edit it. Telecine can be a very expensive process. There are a lot of places advertised that will ?put your old home movies on DVD/tape for a low price? however I?ve read that these places are best avoided. If you want to merge sound with film you can have your film put onto cd rom/mini dv so you can edit digitaly. There are a number of places that sell film, processing and telecine: Pro8mm.com Spectrafilmandvideo.com Widescreen-centre.co.uk Pro8mm offer 4 rolls of film with processing and telecine for around $200. Shop around, see what catches your attention. If you have any questions this forum is the best place to get them answered. Just be aware that super 8 can develop into a very expensive habit. Thanks for your response- Ive been reading good things about the Canon 814 xl-s. My understanding is that the 1014 has the extra zoom to 10x instead of 8x and a few extras that are nice but not critical. I also read that it is extremely quiet. Is the 814xl-s sync sound capable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Mester Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 Thanks, Im kind of new to these forums, how do I look up that "thread" If you can't find it, just Click my Weblink below my name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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