New Super 8 film camera!

[Fred Neilsen]

Super8 is a mort artsy format now days, I f I were to make a super8 camera, I would follow the business model of lomography (lomo/holga) - a manufacture and promotor of toy/plastic lensed cameras. They have turned cheap medium format russian and chinese cameras into $50-200 art making tools (imagine the profit margins- on something that costs maybe 5 dollars to make)

 

lomography.com

 

In order to take off again, super8 needs be accessible (an easy brick & mortar way of getting film processed, plus an excellent online service) new- hip/cool (nostalgia and the much craved gritty street fashion look could help) - endorsed by talk shows, seen in fashion ads (as the lomo Diana often is) and above all it needs to be easy - fully mechanical (or cheap electronics) and auto metering (or perhaps no meter, but simple easy exposure guides)

 

Fred (I may be repeating what others have covered, forgive me - I haven't read every post)

Edited November 1, 2010 by Frederik Nielssen

[Edward Koehler]

Super8 is a mort artsy format now days, I f I were to make a super8 camera, I would follow the business model of lomography (lomo/holga) - a manufacture and promotor of toy/plastic lensed cameras. They have turned cheap medium format russian and chinese cameras into $50-200 art making tools (imagine the profit margins- on something that costs maybe 5 dollars to make)

 

lomography.com

 

In order to take off again, super8 needs be accessible (an easy brick & mortar way of getting film processed, plus an excellent online service) new- hip/cool (nostalgia and the much craved gritty street fashion look could help) - endorsed by talk shows, seen in fashion ads (as the lomo Diana often is) and above all it needs to be easy - fully mechanical (or cheap electronics) and auto metering (or perhaps no meter, but simple easy exposure guides)

 

Fred (I may be repeating what others have covered, forgive me - I haven't read every post)

 

Agreed. Super 8 is a niche format now, used by broad range of individuals from hobbyists to professionals. On occasion, you'll see it used in music promos, skate films, documentaries, commercials and feature films... used by many professionals when it's idiosyncratic characteristic lends well to the story. Good storytellers don't limit themselves to whatever is perceived as 'professional'. They select from a wide variety of tools and techniques, and would use a modified Fisher Price pixelvision if it augments the storyline. A good friend is an Academy Award and BAFTA winner (for cinematography), and it should come as no surprise that he is also a Super 8 enthusiast. He happens to love grain structure, as do many of us here. I would ask what Karl he thinks of a film like 'Natural Born Killers', but I no longer care.

 

And yes, Fred... the retro-cool appeal of super 8 could be exploited by a company like Lomo. A motion picture camera does not need to be complicated, it just needs to work. Lomo is not going to produce something like a Nizo or better. It would likely be more along the lines of the old Bentley S8 cameras. Toy cameras intended anyone who might want to shoot some super 8 at a music festival, perhaps of their child halloween, of their best friend's wedding, or produce a short art film on a non-existent budget through a plastic lens. I don't see why that sort of thing needs to be denigrated as 'crap' or not professional. I had that attitude just out of film school, because I'd been taught to acquire the best signal to noise ratio possible. Then I stumbled upon Super 8 and have loved it's characteristics ever since. I actually did not shoot Super 8 until after film school... having shot mile upon mile of 16mm and 35mm, as well as a good variety of professional and broadcast video formats.

[Tom Jensen]

There's a reason why Sony doesn't make 8-track tape players. There's no demand. Don't waste your time or money. Invest it something that will give you a return. Look at how the value of 16mm cameras have plummeted. It's niche photography that already has enough equipment.

[Carl Looper]

There's a reason why Sony doesn't make 8-track tape players. There's no demand. Don't waste your time or money. Invest it something that will give you a return. Look at how the value of 16mm cameras have plummeted. It's niche photography that already has enough equipment.

True enough. However, electronics has played a role in audio recording for much longer than it has done in image recording. There hasn't really been any viable alternatives. Wax cylinders? Now digital systems are a "natural" evolution of electronic systems. If audio went digital it wasn't necessarily due to any pre-existant demand for such but because inventors of electronic systems (such as Sony) had been researching and developing digital systems in the first place. They had entertained the idea that digital systems could generate demand. By generating demand in new technology, you reduce demand in older technology.

 

I'm an advocate of Super8 but I also use 16mm. However 16mm is cumbersome (35mm even more so). What is attractive about Super8 parallels the attractiveness of video/digital. Cost. Portability. Convenience.

 

But I'm not a fan of so called "arty" reasons. I don't like badly scanned Super8. I don't like scratches. I don't like dust. I don't like soft images. I don't like hand-held shots that jump all over the place. I don't like grain. I don't consider any of these things as inherently artistic. Once upon a time they were. They represented a form of necessary anarchism - a revolt against the rigor mortis of the fifties and early sixties.

 

But today these things are just cliches - romantic nostalgia for a lost era.

 

I'd rather use Super8 in a way that had no self-referentaility whatsoever.

[Tom Jensen]

Film is not completely dead but it is dying. What will happen is that the consumer market will be just as good as the pro market. We are seeing TV shot on digital cameras now. It's just a matter of time until a consumer model will do everything a super 8 model, a 16 and a 35 can do. Maybe there already is such a thing. Super 8 is already at the bottom wrung of the film ladder and from an investment standpoint, it just isn't feasible.

[Carl Looper]

Film is not completely dead but it is dying. What will happen is that the consumer market will be just as good as the pro market. We are seeing TV shot on digital cameras now. It's just a matter of time until a consumer model will do everything a super 8 model, a 16 and a 35 can do. Maybe there already is such a thing. Super 8 is already at the bottom wrung of the film ladder and from an investment standpoint, it just isn't feasible.

 

A new, mass produced, Super8 camera is not just highly improbable. But next to impossible. But that's not the only interpretation of what a "new Super8 camera" means. One can also consider one-off devices - a Super8 camera made from scratch in someone's backyard workshop. A custom made - one off camera, that uses Super8.

 

How were camera's originally made? They were not mass produced in factorys. They were hand made. I'd love to see a hand made Super8 camera, inside a wooden box would be a nice touch. A handle for hand cranking would be cool. I'd love to see one made, not for some mythological mass of consumers that would buy it, but for those who would appreciate the art of it.

 

In the same vein that certain clothes are made purely for the catwalk. Or concept cars made purely for trade shows rather than actual consumption.

 

But a camera that actually works and solves all the technical shortcommings of previous Super 8 cameras. And a really good idea would be to make it in an extensible manner, in which it can be easily disassembled and reassembled, with plenty of space for mod work - adding electronics and so on.

[Tom Jensen]

But a camera that actually works and solves all the technical shortcommings of previous Super 8 cameras.

 

I think it's called 16mm and it's dead too.

[Anthony Schilling]

"

Anthony: No offense, but Lomo making a S8 camera? A movie camera isn't like a disposable camera in its simplicity. I'd give it a million to one odds that that would ever happen"

 

Just look at the first Kodak S8 cameras... they could churn something out like that for peanuts.

[Carl Looper]

I think it's called 16mm and it's dead too.

A one-off custom made 16mm camera isn't really necessary as there are plenty of good 16mm cameras around - that despite being "dead", work just as well as they did when they were "alive".

 

Super 8 cameras are a little different. Many weren't particularly well made - and those that were, still have some minor shortcommings. The shortcommings are not particularly bad, but it means there is some room for improvement - if anyone was so inclined.

 

As already explicit in my previous posts, my point of view is that a work of art - such as clothes, cars or, in this case, a camera - does not need to come out of a factory.

 

Carl

[Nicholas Kovats]

Which one would that be, Carl?

 

 

I purchased the Super 8 camera.

 

Carl

[Nicholas Kovats]

Heathens! Damnation! Super 8 will not die its deserved digital death!

 

Masturbate digitally in full 1080p. Everybody else is. Join the sweaty undifferentiated pixel crowd.

 

The pessimists are attempting to subvert exploration of extracting additional information from the incredible tiny format that could. And just is.

 

My plethora of Super 8 cameras are loaded and shooting and waiting patiently for assistance to maximize their fundamental and minuscule particle/ dye cloud randomness.

 

Onward!

[Carl Looper]

Which one would that be, Carl?

It was a Leicina Special. Its waiting at the airport. I have to get out there and pay some tariff fee on it this week.

[Carl Looper]

Heathens! Damnation! Super 8 will not die its deserved digital death!

 

Masturbate digitally in full 1080p. Everybody else is. Join the sweaty undifferentiated pixel crowd.

 

The pessimists are attempting to subvert exploration of extracting additional information from the incredible tiny format that could. And just is.

 

My plethora of Super 8 cameras are loaded and shooting and waiting patiently for assistance to maximize their fundamental and minuscule particle/ dye cloud randomness.

 

Onward!

 

Yes - those pessimists. Lock em up I say. I need to get back to my experiments. The ligtning rods are in place. The strom is rolling in. But they keep chanting at the door: "Burn, burn".

 

But it's alive I tell ye. Its alive !

[Anthony Schilling]

I keep saying... all of your DIY film makers that use HD would not be making DIY films if it were not for HD. I have an HD camera and it shoots stunning video in technical terms but it's boring. All the numbers and technical factors mean nothing when comparing HD video to S8. Even crappy looking S8 footage mixed into an HD project does it a huge favor. S8 has wonder, mystique, pleasure, things that aren't measured in pixels, codecs, or all the techi BS that goes with digital.

 

People seem to think of a new S8 cam as something that a full feature could be shot with, and look really slick. Technically it could be done with Vison 3 stocks and a new kick ass camera model. But someone would have to take on that challenge and really pull off a buzz worthy film with what cameras exist now... otherwise there's no current demand for what has not yet happened.

[Robert Lewis]

I have been following this exchange of views, and other similar exchanges in recent time on other forums, with interest, and I wonder whether there is a fundamental weakness in the judging of film -v- video in the way in which it seems to be judged.

 

Based on my own experiences as an interested amateur rather a professional, it seems that "film" has been one single means of recording visual images for something of the order of 100 years. The precise format is not of particular significance because the process has been common to all. Widescreen, standard, super16, super8, etc., are merely variations on a theme, so to speak, as are the various gauges, each remaining viable today, and the endeavours of manufacturers, over the years, have, for the most part, been targetted on improving the quality of the image either from the point of view of the filmstock or the equipment used to film and then reproduce the image. There has, however, at all times been two common denominators: filmstock and equipment, and at all times quality has depended on the way the two inter-relate.

 

Video, on the other hand, whilst often referred to as though it has been continuous, has, it seems to me, been nothing of the kind. We have had format wars which have resulted in the investment by users being lost because one format won over another; we have had formats which bear no relationship between each other, for example VHS, Hi8, DV, memory cards and hard drives, and users have found that what they invested in has, almost overnight, become worthless, and unless they invested in methods of converting one to another, useless. Lastly, there are major questions concerning the life that even the most recent methods of recording images (DVDs, for example) will have.

 

I have to confess that having flirted with cine photography many years ago, I was attracted to "video". First I bought a VHS video camera. Then I bought a Hi8 video camera: one which was "semi-pro" and cost me something of the order of £2800 some 15 years ago. This camera suffered from capacitors which leaked a corrosive on to the internal boards and having been advised by the manufacturer and several service agents that neither capacitors or boards are now available I might as well throw the camera away, I have just done that. I now have a camera which is digital and records to hard drive or memory card. I am wondering how long that will be serviceable and whether the industry will, in a year or two, just move on to a different standard and will then shrug their shoulders and take the view that having milked customers all they could with that format the time has come to do the same again with the next format. The point has been made in earlier posts that the latest HD digital cameras are very successful because they are easy to use, but I do wonder whether the interest of non-professional users will be maintained once these cameras have to be thrown away because the standard has moved on and they are left with a useless piece of equipment because they can no longer be serviced or repaired, and unless they have invested in other quipment which enables them to retain the images they treasure, they have no means of viewing them, assuming they haven't by that time degenerated to an unuseable state.

 

I am one who, having been bitten in this way by the video industry, have increasinly moved back to film with the result that I now have interests in both Super8 and 16mm gauges. Every one of my cine cameras, however, are still around and still working and producing excellent results, both Super8 and 16mm, and I haven't been advised to throw any of them away. Arguably we now have a range of high quality filmstocks as have ever been available which is the result of continuous development and investment by those companies producing film without involving the wholesale abandonment of cameras or projectors. Moreover, there hasn't really been a single gauge of film which has been completely abandoned resulting in losses to users. If one filmed in standard 8mm, one can still film in standard 8mm, so to speak, and I believe that perhaps with the exception of the very cheapest models, cine cameras were built to a standard which is more resilient than many video cameras today.

 

One wonders, therefore, whether manufacturers in the video or digital field these days are truly motivated by the desire for improvement, or whether they all focus on profit. Perhaps I am being cynical when I wonder whether "improvement" is always based on a new product which bears little, if any, relationship between old and new, and requires the acceptance that "old equipment" needs to be disposed of as a necessary precursor to the acquisition of the new technology. Perhaps I am being cynical when I wonder whether improvement could not be introduced without the requirement to abandon what one purchased when one purchased the last "improvement". Perhaps, however, step by step "improvement" based on established formats, would not generate the new market which manufacturers rely upon.

 

A final thought is whether it will be long before the latest digital equipment has to be replaced at great cost, no doubt, by those who hear the cry of the salesman, or because that they had has become the victim of obsolesence, whilst good old "film" continues on producing results which are arguably every bit as good, if not better, than the best digital results which can be achieved. A "tortoise and the hare" situation perhaps?

 

I guess none of this really addresses the issue of a new Super8 camera. It would truly be exciting if a new camera did become available, but I think the moral of the story lies in the significance of the fact (one we should celebrate) that film, be it Super8 or some other gauge, is, unlike, video, stable in the sense that it has been around for many years, whereas video or digital imgaging has continually changed to the point where it has not had continuity. Every step has,in effect, resulted in something which is completely different from what preceded it. It is rather like trying to argue that the motor car is a development of the horse and cart.

[Edward Koehler]

^Some great points, Robert.

[Carl Looper]

Well said Robert.

 

I too have have moved back to film, for reasons of archival stability and technical simplicity. However I remain an ardent fan of the digital space - unstable as it is.

 

One of the first things one can learn in the digital domain is the transitory nature of the information running through it's circuits. I don't know how many files I've just let rot in broken hard drives or otherwise thrown out because I can't be bothered maintaining them. This can be interpreted in either tragic terms, or a re-evaluation of what electronic/digital media (or rather electronic/digital systems) might otherwise mean.

 

I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again. When the US put Armstrong on the moon I saw it live on TV. Indeed, living in Australia, close to the tracking stations, I saw it a couple of nano seconds before the rest of the world. It was the live aspect of it that had meaning - that it was occuring in that peculiar dimension we call the "present".

 

I've shot numerous hours of video in my life (working as a documentary 'film'maker) and while the results were not live as such there was certainly a similar kind of buzz in being able to turn around results more quickly than the two week for some Kodachrome40 to get back from the Kodak processing lab.

 

But there is certainly that loss one feels - not at the time - but years later - when attempting to reconstruct the past for archival/historical or nostalgic purposes that can cut through one's heart quite severely. Especially when its personal. Photography of one's children for instance. That peculiar space we might call, for want of a better word, that of the 'home-movie'.

 

When a fire threatens ones belongings, one of the first things almost everyone trys to save (apart from their family of course), are their photographs. But interestingly enough, if they lose their photographs (assuming they rescued their family) one of the first things they will feel, in the aftermath, is a huge burden lifted. There is a re-appreciation of life itself. The lost photographs pale into insignificance.

 

Carl

[Tom Jensen]

Better yet, with all the SR's around, why not just shoot 16? Because Super 16 is preferred to that. But why not just shoot super 16? Because digital is replacing that. Stop spinning your wheels. This is like taking an Edsel and making it an electric car.

[Nicholas Kovats]

Excellent points, Robert.

 

You are speaking correctly of planned obsolescence as perfected by the auto industry.

 

Digital is relentless in this regard and has no sense of refinement or for that matter gradual evolution nor perfection of product.

 

That motion picture film and it's wonderful apparatus are still with us is a testimony to the perfection of the 100 year old Geneva film movement and fundamental random silver particles. It also speaks to the fundamental analog nature of the medium in contrast to the binary approximation of reality as represented by digital video.

 

But I recognize that the digital juggernaut is here to say and that a hybrid approach to our filmic co-existence is inevitable.

 

I do not miss the physical labour and imperfect craft of editing tiny Super 8 frames.

 

Carl's attempts to extract maximum information from silver particles(b/w)/cloud dyes(color) deserves our support.

 

I am enjoying this discussion regarding a "new" Super 8 camera. I will add my two cents eventually in greater detail.

 

For now all I will say is that the possibility of purchasing the machining plans to a fundamental and historic early 70's niche precision and modular Super 8 camera (double pin registeration - "digital" servo feedback loop) are available to this community. But it would require a major fund raising effort and some earnest dedication.

 

This camera is built like a tank, is noisy from its extreme upper speeds, requires 28 volts and employs a simple modular C - lens mount of rectangular machined aluminum (?)held to the body of the camera with four precision aircraft thumb screws.

 

The DIY nature of such a collective "open source" camera project could conceivably machine multiple lens mount by nature of it's large thick plate design and effective precision alignment.

 

And it "re-purposes" the standard 50 foot Super 8 cartridge. I forget if it employs TTL ground glass or aerial focusing.

 

Think of it as a Mini-Mitchell. :)

[Nicholas Kovats]

Carl,

 

Congrats on your Leicina Special purpose.

 

What lenses and accessories came with it?

 

I would like to provide some incentive for your Super 8 signal processing project. :) If your Leicina package is absent the ST1 controller I would like to donate my additional one. It is absent the strange German connector but I have a diagram of the pin outs necessary to construct your own if your interested.

 

The ST1 controller automates the incredible time exposure capabilities of the Leicina Special shutter. Automated opening times ranging 0.5 - 360s. Think streaking flows of lights. A Montreal film-maker put his Leicina on a rotating 360 degree gimbal, "manually" clicked through this feature whilst in motion (car) and the results are spectacular a la the trip sequence in 2001. Awesome analog stuff.

 

I have other goodies to wet the inner Super 8 engineering heart, e.g. the entire official Leitz Leicina Special technical drawings on microfiche. Right down to the screw thread pitches utilized. Including blow-ups of the funky auto-exposure Leicinamatic.

[Carl Looper]

Carl,

 

Congrats on your Leicina Special purpose.

 

What lenses and accessories came with it?

 

I would like to provide some incentive for your Super 8 signal processing project. :) If your Leicina package is absent the ST1 controller I would like to donate my additional one. It is absent the strange German connector but I have a diagram of the pin outs necessary to construct your own if your interested.

 

The ST1 controller automates the incredible time exposure capabilities of the Leicina Special shutter. Automated opening times ranging 0.5 - 360s. Think streaking flows of lights. A Montreal film-maker put his Leicina on a rotating 360 degree gimbal, "manually" clicked through this feature whilst in motion (car) and the results are spectacular a la the trip sequence in 2001. Awesome analog stuff.

 

I have other goodies to wet the inner Super 8 engineering heart, e.g. the entire official Leitz Leicina Special technical drawings on microfiche. Right down to the screw thread pitches utilized. Including blow-ups of the funky auto-exposure Leicinamatic.

 

Hi Nicholas,

 

thanks for your offer. I did manage to secure one ST1. In fact I inadvertently have three more of them on their way from a clearance sale in Canada (the three were bundled). At least I think I do. My credit card says so - but I have yet to see them. I had put a purchase enquiry in for the bundle, prior to the single one becoming available, but hadn't heard back from Canada - so rather than risk not getting any I ordered the single one. And then eventually the Canada purchase enquiry came through. Good greif - what was I going to do with four of them? However a collegue I've worked with in the past has a Leicina, so one of them is for him. I actually built a custom controller for his camera some years ago - with an ad hoc camera plug and a custom circuit (complete with timer chips). It worked quite well - obtained some great results.

 

For the current project - image processing experiments - am interested in capture of the sync pulse - for syncronising the camera to other data aquisition devices that will be operating in tandem with the camera. And while I could have built another circuit and plug I like the idea of using the ST1 instead.

 

If you've got a copy of the Leicina diagrams, would certainly appreciate that.

 

cheers

Carl

[Carl Looper]

This is like taking an Edsel and making it an electric car.

I worked for a theatre company a few years back that did outdoor performance art. I was on their documentary team shooting video of their performances.

 

The performance consisted of numerous vehicles driving around an oval and making a lot of noise and throwing flames everywhere. The work was called "Machine Wars". The really cool thing is that each and every vehicle had been collaged together from the remains of junked cars and trucks into really weird looking and evocative vehicles - think Mad Max the Road Warrior.

 

So when one says "taking an Edsel and making it an electric car" my answer is "why not".

 

Carl

[Leo Anthony Vale]

"

Anthony: No offense, but Lomo making a S8 camera? A movie camera isn't like a disposable camera in its simplicity. I'd give it a million to one odds that that would ever happen"

 

 

LOMO has made Super8 cameras in the past, including double S8 using 25' spools.

 

They were hardly top of the line, even if some had metal bodies.

 

http://www.super8data.com/database/cameras_list/cameras_lomo/cameras_lomo.htm

[K Borowski]

I think it's called 16mm and it's dead too.

 

It's not entirely dead, Tom. I have pay-stubs from the summertime to prove it. There's apparently still 16mm commercial work, and "Friday Night Lights," as well as maybe 8 or 9 other television programs to keep the format alive.

 

But I think it is down-hill. I notice that the "Dominos" commercials (one of the productions from which we got leftover cans) seem to all be broadcast in standard definition only. "Friday Night Lights" and most of the television shows are HD, but I think most of them are sticking with the format more for consistency purposes.

 

It's no use trying to argue with these guys though (not you Anthony). This has gone from mental masterbation to a big circle-jerk. Hobbyist usage is fine, but these guys are totally ignorant, it seems to professional production expectations and a modern digital workflow that 99% of all film goes through now. This sort of thing verges on religious fanaticism or a Bigfoot obsession!

 

I'd love to see one of these guys try to sell a commercial, a music video even on S8 for a 1080P broadcast. Maybe that would give them something to do, instead of throwing mud at me!

[Edward Koehler]

I'm tempted to reply to Karl... but let's not feed him any longer, now that we know what he is.