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Kodak "Digital" Team now accepting reservations for new Super 8 camera


Nicholas Kovats

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Kodak "Digital" team is now accepting reservations (limit of one) for the new forthcoming Kodak Super 8 camera. Logmar is designing the hardware and software. Interesting how the fine print stipulates that there is no obligation to purchase the camera and new members of the "Super 8 Collective" will be updated on special offers.


I suspect they will use the reservation data to estimate initial number of manufactured units.




"Super 8 Camera Reservation

Sign up for the chance to be among the first to purchase a KODAK Super 8 Camera. When the camera becomes available, you will receive an email with full product details, price and instructions on how to purchase.



First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Country:


By submitting my information, I understand that I am both joining the Super 8 Collective and reserving the opportunity to purchase a Super 8 Camera at a price to be later determined by the Eastman Kodak Company “Kodak”. There is a limit of one Super 8 Camera reservation per person. By making the Super 8 Camera reservation, I am not obligated to buy anything from Kodak and Kodak has no actual obligation to sell me anything. I will however remain part of the Super 8 Collective and can unsubscribe at any time. Kodak is not responsible for incorrect, inaccurate, or misdirected entries.


The Super 8 Collective is provided by Kodak and is available only to residents of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. As a Collective member, you’ll get special offers on Super 8 Film and processing, as well as other exclusive offers from Kodak. Kodak reserves the right to modify the Super 8 Collective countries and benefits without notice.


Kodak will use this information for business purposes only and will not sell it to third parties. We invite you to read Kodak's Online Privacy Notice."


I submitted my info and voila, i.e "Thank you for signing up for the chance to be among the first people to purchase a Super 8 camera."

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Yes, received the same correspondence, went through the same process, got the same result.

 

It's in essence a fancied-up newsletter/product-offer subscription, under the cool communitarian guise of The Super 8 Collective™ and with the rather vaporous promise of "reserving" the new "Kodak Neomatic Model 2016" B) , as there are no actual obligations or financial transactions taking place on any side.

 

Yes, this may be a further validation of Kodak's initial production planning. But I have no doubt Kodak will already have a pretty solid idea of the projected sales to have made a successful business case for the camera in the first place. Even post-Chapter 11, Kodak ain't some start-up gauging interest after having come up with a cool idea. Therefore, I think this is more about gaining a narrower set of personal data to allow more targeted campaigns.

 

Apart from looking forward to ever more specs and data on the camera, I am mostly interested in Kodak's promise for "special offers on Super 8 Film and processing, as well as other exclusive offers from Kodak", and what those will comprise through which providers, at what quality level and what price.

 

For more viva la revolución aesthetics and a way to get the same email invite, go sign up to the Kodak Collection™ newsletter first. You gotta buy into the Collection first to become part of the Collective :ph34r: :rolleyes: .

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I didn't see any actual stipulation from Kodak for anything. Collection, Collective, "reserve the opportunity to buy", pretend layers of access to info that you can get anyhow anyway - it's just lovely marketing that Kodak thinks caters to the demographic they hope (and I hope) will buy the camera in large enough numbers to further sustain the S8 format and give it greater exposure to a new generation of cinematographers.

 

Where did you see a stipulation, Nicholas?

 

Looking forward to getting the cam, shooting with it alongside old school gear, and above all seeing Kodak's in-house S8 process/scan/distri chain and platform they are talking about.

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Michael,

 

I was referring to the last part of your statement, i.e. "For more viva la revolución aesthetics and a way to get the same email invite, go sign up to the Kodak Collection™ newsletter first. You gotta buy into the Collection first to become part of the Collective "

 

Are you utilizing the term "buy" in the actual purchase sense or metaphorically?

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Metaphorically, of course, as there is nothing you buy or purchase or transaction when you subscribe on the Collection webpage to the newsletter to receive the status of a Collective member -- apart from handing over your private data, which may have monetary value, but that's another topic.

 

Kodak's "...reserving the opportunity to purchase..." isn't like reserving a Tesla Model Ξ, although some may not get that. I already had a student thinking he just "reserved the Kodak camera, like a Tesla". :) The power of marketing... :lol:

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Heard the initial run is going to be around $1500 for a metal body and they are making around 2000 units.

If there is still demand then they are planning on a plastic body unit for the $500-800 range.

 

Anyone else hear different?

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Heard the initial run is going to be around $1500 for a metal body and they are making around 2000 units.

If there is still demand then they are planning on a plastic body unit for the $500-800 range.

 

Anyone else hear different?

All I heard the larger, full metal body camera will come out first for about $750 or $800. Then there will be a smaller, sleek hand held plastic body design for around $400

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I am not keeping track but will Kodak offer a proper option of lenses? Bizare enough this shown TV lens costs no more than one film, possibly even without processing :) In the Super-8 days a camera would cost $1000 (1975 dollars) and Kodachrome would sell at $3-4 Like in this famous Super-8 saga http://www.retroroadtrips.com/

Not to mention the price of fuel :)

 

free-posters-banner.jpg

 

free-posters-filmstrips.jpg

Edited by Andries Molenaar
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I think a price above 1000 USD would seriously dampen interest, both from individual shooters to institutional buyers. For that money, you can buy a Beaulieu 4008 ZM II or Bauer A 512 in CLA'd condition.

 

I appreciate that Kodak is going the high road in terms of offering classic features (variable speeds, TTL exposure meter) and package this into a metal body. They could have gone cheap and only offer something plasticky and point-and-shoot, akin to their product range in the 1970s.

 

The Ricoh 1:1.2 / 6mm fixed and 8-48mm vario lenses for it I am really not sure what to say about. I didn't expect Optivaron or Variogon-level quality to ne offered out of the box, but these inexpensive CCTV shards of glass... mhh... Many who would now potentially buy the Kodak "NeoMatic 2016" grew up with the Micro Four Third hype, buying C-Mount lenses (for insanely overinflated prices) and adapting them on their MFTs. Buy choosing the Kodak's Max 8 film gate specs, I presume engineering had in mind that few buyers would retain the Ricoh as the default lens but rather put other C-Mount glass on, or use the myriad of C-Mount adapters in it.

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Kodak certainly chose the right focal length for a cheap and cheerful lens to get started with. The vario one is also quite solid in that respect. And with C-Mount, it doesn't really matter as you can ditch them and use different glass if you want to get more out of what the format allows. It will be interesting to hear how many camera kits will be ordered with what lens respectively (and what the final prices will be).

 

Mark, would you say the quality is similar to (now Ricoh's) Pentax Cosmicar range, in terms of optical resolving power and color-neutral reproduction?

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I'm excluded from The Super8 Collective as I'm in a country not listed as eligible.

 

Australia.

 

Politically we're the outgrowth of a British colony established in the late 1700s. We remain, if only on paper, subservient to the British monarch. One day we'll no doubt shake off this vestige and perhaps find some sort of political inspiration in having done so without shedding blood. We were a penal colony for a long time. Our population grew through the massive transportation of convicts from England. There are still, today, fcukwits in US immigration bureaucracy (or at least one) who find it hilarious to scribble "convict" in the margins of immigration application forms from Australia. We're a very large island in the South Pacific - about the same land mass as the US, or the same land mass as Europe, but we were unknown to Europe/US and their map makers until our discovery in the late 1700s. The population indigenous to the island has been here for at least 40,000 years.

 

A Kodak manufacturing plant was built here in Melbourne Australia, following a 1908 merger between Kodak and a photographic firm called Baker and Rouse. 96 years later Kodak closed this manufacturing plant.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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  • 2 months later...

Seems they had their reservation in on time.

 

Here you have a silvery Kodak S-8 neomatic being used as a prop (I assume/hope) about at 25seconds :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5ManM-7kis

 

Or is poor shaky imagery as mass produced using smartphone the new norm? :(

Edited by Andries Molenaar
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Seems they had their reservation in on time.

 

Here you have a silvery Kodak S-8 neomatic being used as a prop (I assume/hope) about at 25seconds :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5ManM-7kis

 

Or is poor shaky imagery as mass produced using smartphone the new norm? :(

Looks like that was just a dummy cam in the video, planted by Kodak to promote it.

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