Nolab : 720p in a Super-8 Cartridge

[Tim Tyler]

 

At the heart of the Nolab Digital Super 8 Cartridge is a tiny but powerful 5 megapixel image sensor similar to the one in your smartphone. Combined with a custom glass objective lens, the sensor focuses on a ground glass image plane pressed against the cameras film gate. By using a 5 megapixel sensor we can capture 720p HD footage at the native Super 8 aspect ratio of 4:3.

 

http://hayesurban.com/current-projects/2012/3/14/digital-super-8.html

[Matt Stevens]

OK so this is certainly different. Interesting concept.

[Heikki Repo]

It seems that article was published on first of April 2012. I wouldn't hold my breath... ;)

 

http://blog.nextfabstudio.com/weekly-staff-picks-april-1-2012

[Tom Chabbat]

Beware ! I think it's just a study from independent designers, nothing concrete... Sometime design agencies create some "dummy" products rendering just to show off their skills, creating some kind of viral publicity for them. I remember of a similar april fish made by an other design agency for digital 35mm "flexible" sensor you could put on your old trusty SLR camera some years ago.

[Rudy Velez Jr]

This is exciting despite the year of publication. I hope this develops into something that pops up on the market.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Rudy Velez Jr

[Andries Molenaar]

Filming from a groundglass is the best thing in this Nolab. It is near impossible to get a sensor surface at the focal plane. Another method would be to use a fibre block like in the polaroid backs for 35mm still cameras. These transport the image a few millimeters.

 

All this shutter interaction is way too much trouble and unsolvable.

 

The cartrdige should be switched on and film permanently. The software should trash all black frames and make a sequence from a set of frames who appear within a timeframe after a previous one. The only thing would be that no near black frames can be recorded.

When no filming is imminent. The cartridge should be switched of. Or it could do this itself.

That way no wiring or interaction is needed.

 

BTW another method would be to send IR light and when its reflection from the shutter disc disappear a frame should be registered.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Andries Molenaar

[Heikki Repo]

Please people: there is no Nolab! This is only a designer's take on how something like that would look like. Take a look at what Hayes has done: -- There are no projects requiring engineering, it's only about design!

 

Just because something is mentioned on some website doesn't mean it is real. Especially if the website went online on first of April and there has been written absolutely nothing about the project before or after that. This is as real as http://re35.net/

[David Cunningham]

I'm not sure why someone would want this anyhow. First, 720P is way too low res. Second, other than a handful of professional versions, most Super 8 camera optics are crap! Third, my iPhone can take 1080p and apply a really shitty Super 8 effect already. LOL

[Phil Rhodes]

It could probably be done, though...

[Tom Chabbat]

Thanks Heikki, it was the link you gave I thought about ! Those are just viral publicity for design agencies or students, nothing else.

[Nicholas Kovats]

I suspect most of us are here on this forum to conduct one singular activity..wait for it..shoot "film".

 

The design might be semi-practical as a gate/optic inspection device? I like the remodeled cartridge design. Perhaps as a basis for a pico lens test projector for Super 8 cams w/ fixed optics? :) Onwards.

[Carl Looper]

This idea of a digital cart for Super8 cameras has been contemplated and requested a number of times. I'm not sure why anyone would actually want or use such a thing. An inspection device as Nicholas suggested? The novelty value? Don't know. But it's of technical/theoretical interest anyway.

 

Either way, the idea of putting a ground glass screen at the film plane is not a very good idea as it would introduce additional grain to the image, and produce more light loss (and risk an increase in fog). A much better idea would be to use a condensor lens design, to directly refocus the film plane image at the sensor plane.

 

C

Edited November 30, 2013 by Carl Looper

[Anthony Schilling]

 

Unfortunately, the proprietary film cartridges are no longer in production and existing supplies are quickly diminishing

Hmmm, maybe they should call 1-800-621-3456

[Alessandro Machi]

If this product were magically developed, it would first possibly kill film, then, it would go away and we'd have neither. This is a common digital trap/technique. Apple's Itunes apparently screwed over their smaller market entrepreneurs when they came out with the next version of I-tunes.

 

"Oh, you want the last version of I-Tunes, sorry, it doesn't work that way". "We gave it to you for free, so you appreciate what you get and shut up." The same think mode would probably apply if this product came out. That's the problem with software/digital based apps, they disappear overnight and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

Digital Software vs Voltage Hardware, we actually need both, unfortunately Digital Software tends to wipe out Voltage Hardware and then the Digital Software tends to reinvent itself, rendering the prior version extinct.

[Carl Looper]

It's a conceptually awkward idea because it doesn't actually achieve anything better than

 

a. using Super8 film, or

b. using any number of contemporary digital cameras.

 

But for some reason it does appeal to some, (it's been mentioned a number of times over the years), but what is the appeal?

 

The only thing I can think of is that some really like, either the look and feel of their Super8 cameras, and/or the lens of their cameras, despite the fact that the digital cart would make most of the camera's internal mechanisms (other than the lens) completely superfluous, ie. dead weight.

 

Is the look and feel of a Super8 camera (and/or the quality of a Super8 camera lens) enough to warrant the superfluous dead weight one would otherwise have to carry around?

 

Carl

Edited December 4, 2013 by Carl Looper

[Anthony Schilling]

http://hayesurban.com/current-projects/2012/3/14/digital-super-8.html#comments

Someone posted it on Facebook today.

People here should bomb this comment page and point out that this merely turns your S8 camera into a video cell phone and they do in fact make film.

 

The Kodak Super 8 system is a brilliant film format that inspired thousands of wonderfully well made Super 8 cinema cameras. Unfortunately, the proprietary film cartridges are no longer in production and existing supplies are quickly diminishing.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Anthony Schilling

[Pavan Deep]

Interesting idea, but putting the idea aside, the fact is the article is incorrect and is misleading and this needs to be pointed out especially when when false information is branded about as fact, it is nothing but irresponsible journalism. Film is not dead! Super 8 cartridges have not been discontinued! Film is expensive, but not as much as people make out and there are quite a few different film stocks available in Super 8, far more than there were when Super 8 was the popular home movie making medium. Such an article should be removed and the authors should apologize about misleading readers as clearly they do not know about celluloid and the world of Super 8.

 

 

Pav

Edited December 8, 2013 by Pav Deep

[Carl Looper]

Interesting idea, but putting the idea aside, the fact is the article is incorrect and is misleading and this needs to be pointed out especially when when false information is branded about as fact, it is nothing but irresponsible journalism. Film is not dead! Super 8 cartridges have not been discontinued! Film is expensive, but not as much as people make out and there are quite a few different film stocks available in Super 8, far more than there were when Super 8 was the popular home movie making medium. Such an article should be removed and the authors should apologize about misleading readers as clearly they do not know about celluloid and the world of Super 8.

 

 

Pav

 

Right on Pav.

 

Super8 (and film in general) is still very much alive and well.

 

I think many just don't understand that film cameras are just tools for shooting film (ie. exposing that photochemical material called such). If you replace the film with a digital cart it then defeats the purpose of the film camera. It was only in the early days of digital that retro-fiiting film cameras made any sense but today that no longer holds as there are much better alternatives.

 

If one wants to shoot digital then one should really just buy a digital camera as it will be a thousand times less cumbersome than using a retro-fitted film camera.

 

Othewise all one is doing is suggesting that the cumbersomeness of a film camera is in someway desireable. I've always treated this cumbersomeness as the price one has to pay in order to shoot film, rather than as some desireable attribute of a film camera. So it makes no sense to me if you take the film away because then all you are left with is this cost - this cumbersomeness - but without the actual benefit.

 

The only caveat might be the lens but the fact that a Super8 digital cart would require additional optics anyway (to clear the gate) would defeat that argument. The benefits of an existing lens would have to be tempered against the degradation provided by the additional optics.

 

In the end it's an idea without much actual benefit.

 

C

[Anthony Schilling]

Interesting idea, but putting the idea aside, the fact is the article is incorrect and is misleading and this needs to be pointed out especially when when false information is branded about as fact, it is nothing but irresponsible journalism. Film is not dead! Super 8 cartridges have not been discontinued! Film is expensive, but not as much as people make out and there are quite a few different film stocks available in Super 8, far more than there were when Super 8 was the popular home movie making medium. Such an article should be removed and the authors should apologize about misleading readers as clearly they do not know about celluloid and the world of Super 8.

 

 

Pav

Right on Pav, I made a similar comment on the site last night. What drives me crazy is that so many people are willing to jump on this, thinking their old cameras will be shooting super 8 again with the ease of digital. when in fact it would be 4:3 silent cell phone footage. Also the false info breeding through the media and the public that film is just dead, gone, going, or at best this stagnant technology that hasn't changed since 1900.

[Nicholas Kovats]

They have extended this fantasy and are now modeling fictitious Super cameras to house this design, i.e. http://technabob.com/blog/2013/12/08/nolab-digital-super-8-cartridge/

[Jeremy Cavanagh]

Right on Pav, I made a similar comment on the site last night. What drives me crazy is that so many people are willing to jump on this, thinking their old cameras will be shooting super 8 again with the ease of digital. when in fact it would be 4:3 silent cell phone footage. Also the false info breeding through the media and the public that film is just dead, gone, going, or at best this stagnant technology that hasn't changed since 1900.

I've been shooting on and off in the streets here in South London for a short film I'm making using my DS8 converted Bolex. On Sat a young guy cycling past (BTW, I'm getting shots of cyclist) saw me, shouted out "cool" and hopped off his bike and started chatting, turns out he works for an animation company that still uses film, a few weeks back on the same stretch a guy walked past and said, "hey, a Bolex H16", I explained it wasn't but turned out he was also an animator also using film and the funny thing is aside from these two when I've been filming down Brixton way all these Caribbean guys middle aged or older would stop and say excitedly things like, "man, you are using FILM, Great"! and earlier this year filming the London Marathon all the police came up to me really interested to see someone using film, they all knew what it was about.

 

The point of writing this is perhaps there are perhaps a lot of people about who won't be fooled by this sort of thing.

[Friedemann Wachsmuth]

You, Carl, you just nailed it.

The good thing is that this Nolabcrap won't ever happen anyway. But maybe it makes some hipsters google for Super 8 and find out that actually the real thing is still alive...

Edited December 9, 2013 by Friedemann Wachsmuth