Kodak to market new consumer S8 camera, fall 2016

[Carl Looper]

4K scans of Super8 are excellent and anyone who argues otherwise is either actually blind, and/or just pragmatically so.

If Kodak are offering 4K scans it won't be, of course, anything to write home about. It'll just be some auto algorithmically graded scan. Just something your average punter looks at and finds acceptable (or indeed hipster awesome). I doubt the deliverable will be the raw scans, or equivalent. I imagine it will be some internet ready format (you tube, vimeo etc). Indeed it will probably just go direct to social media, where your source otherwise lives in the cloud - never occupying your personal hard drive at all. Fully automated. Everything taken care of for you. That's the future.

Indeed one day there will be Kodak robots that will go out and shoot the film for you. And watch it on Facebook for you, if you don't, yourself, have the time to do so.

For serious filmmakers (or comedians as well) I doubt the Kodak scan deal will have much to offer. We will want the raw scans (or equivalent) so we can take such into DaVinci, After Effcts, etc and do something with such. Make it pretty. Show off.

So I suspect the Kodak scan deal need not affect any of our Super8 4K creative/business ideas we've been otherwise entertaining, researching and developing prior to the Kodak announcement. We can compete with Kodak. Do a better job. Only because we're addressing a different market - addressing more experienced filmmakers - those after something a bit better than one click direct-to-facebook solutions.

American Capitalism. It's such a fascinating quixotic beast.

[Perry Paolantonio]

Sure, it has a myriad of other manual adjustments, but they aren't necessary for a RAW capture.

 

Ahh, but they are. Start throwing extremely dense neg at it and see what happens. Or underexposed reversal, or a contrasty print.

 

It only took five minutes to train one of our folks on the ScanStation, too: Thread it, click "Load Film" selecting your film type in the process, and if it's negative, click Calibrate Base. But it takes months of use to understand how to make the scanner produce a good image with anything that's not perfect negative. This is not a failing of the ScanStation, it's because of the way image sensors work. You have to make adjustments for certain situations, and you have to go through the film to look for the extremes (like the camera being pointed at the sun, which will rapidly expose fixed pattern noise due to the lack of light hitting the sensor). If you don't compensate for that up front you get a bad scan. Again - not specific to the scanstation, all scanners have to do this and the Cintel is no exception.

 

Sure, if you're only scanning perfectly lit film shot in a controlled environment, you might be able to use it as you've described. But those situations, in the real world, are exceptionally rare.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Perry Paolantonio

[David Cunningham]

There are plenty of cheap telecine options for Super8 from workprinters, flashscan, even sometimes old Rank machines or Bosch Telecine machines.

 

Yes. But the results from those machines are terrible compared to high end machines, even in ideal conditions.

 

Maybe we aren't talking about Super 8 now tho?

 

Freya

[Tyler Purcell]

Hey Carl,

 

I don't think Kodak will be forcing Australian's to ship their film to New York.

[Carl Looper]

Hey Carl,

 

I don't think Kodak will be forcing Australian's to ship their film to New York.

 

Of course not, but given Kodak's brand power, developed over a hundred years, it's very easy for them to grab hold of the customer's imagination and run with it.

 

Where was all the excitement around the Logmar camera? None whatsoever, other than a few early adopters like myself. But stick a Kodak brand on it (which is more than just a sticker of course) and the whole equation changes. It's that irrational force called "brand loyalty". A completely bogus but nevertheless effective and compelling power.

 

Anyway, it doesn't affect me personally ( I work in a completely different area) but it does affect (or could affect) some of those with whom I work. Not their creative work as such, but their income.

 

The thing about Australia (as much any other country of similar population) is that we don't have a large population. We're on the outskirts of the marketplace. We can't experiment in the same way as big capital can because we don't have the numbers of potential customers to do so. If the film scene is a little fragile in the US, it's far more so here!

 

But of course, that's just reality.

 

I just think that Kodak should talk to the various small players around the planet and collaborate with them - share some of their brand power around - good for them as much as everyone else.

 

C

Edited January 10, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Mark Dunn]

Hey Carl,

 

I don't think Kodak will be forcing Australian's to ship their film to New York.

When Kodachrome processing ended in the UK in the 90s, you still wrote "PO Box 14, Hemel Hempstead" on the envelope but it went to Lausanne. I suspect that in the major markets they'll have a domestic forwarding address again.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Mark Dunn

[Tyler Purcell]

Hey Carl,

 

Super 8 is a low-cost, non-commercal/consumer format, we've had many discussions on how the film stock isn't made right, how the magazines are only 2 minutes and some change long and how nobody makes a truly silent camera. Logmar's nearly $6000 USD entry price, pushes it into the territory of some serious commercial cameras. For instance, I bought an Aaton LTR-54 Super 16mm camera, 6 prime lenses, Zeiss Super 16 zoom, tripod, complete audio kit and all the accessories necessary to shoot a feature film for LESS then a Logmar camera body. I've seen complete Arri SR3 HS Advanced kit's go for less then $3000 USD.

 

Plus, I've done the math, foot by foot, S16 is actually nearly identical to work with price wise. So why would anyone in their right mind shoot with Super 8, when they can shoot with a far superior Super 16 format? Maybe because they want a certain look, but that's a hard bargain for $6000 USD when you can buy a decent super 8 camera off ebay for $50 dollars.

 

What makes the Kodak camera so intriguing is the potential for the lower-end model to be a $499 price tag. That places the pricing below any other "modern" camera. Plus, with Kodak's marketing engine behind it, they will push the whole format into territories not explored in decades.

 

If Logmar had a spinning mirror reflex design with optical viewfinder and forgot about all that audio nonsense, just flat-out made the camera for "professional" shooting, I think they could have gotten away with a $2000 price tag and sold many more of them. However, because they were trying to be everything to everyone, because they felt people wanted to record audio in the camera and that magically LCD panels can be viewed outside in broad daylight (which they can't), the camera is too convoluted and has too many bugaboo's for the kind of person who would invest nearly $6k USD in a camera that shoots a consumer format.

 

Sure, die-hard super 8 fan's love the Logmar and I've seen some amazing images captured with it. However, I have yet to see anyone shoot a real short film or feature that looks good, sounds good and isn't more of a camera test then anything else on Super 8 in recent years. Everyone and their mom has great super 8 home movies, but why spend $6000 on a camera to get home movies?

[Carl Looper]

Hi Tyler,

 

I'm not talking about the Kodak camera but the Kodak processing deal. That has some issues in terms of small processing businesses. The Kodak camera is great.

 

Re. the Logmar camera. If it wasn't for the Logmar camera, and those who supported it (who helped finance it through adopting it), we wouldn't today be talking about a Kodak consumer camera. The Kodak camera is directly inspired by the Logmar camera. Not just from a distance but in direct consultation with Logmar.

 

There will be actual films made on the Logmar. I for one am making one. Tests are an important part of making a film.

 

C

[Matt Stevens]

I think it's entirely likely that the Logmar pushed Kodak to go for this release. We wanted to use one on my shoot in Sept/Oct. but were unable to find one to rent. Instead we shot with a Nikon R10 (which performed beautfully) a Leicina Special (courtesy of a member here) and Duall's crystal synced Beaulieu Mini 8 (the crystal sync worked, but a number of shots had huge amount of shake that will have to be corrected digitally).

 

Super8 is perfectly viable for short films, music videos and the right kind of TV or theatrical scenes if you plan it out right. I am more than pleased with how the footage we shot came out, how it feels, the mood it created and what it delivered.

 

Unfortunately I also feel that Super8 is will always be limited with how it can used due to the short capture time. Just over 2 minutes is an incredibly brief amount of time to capture images. In fact, a lot of each roll will be wasted when shooting sync sound and in the end 16mm makes more sense. Super8 is a niche. I love it. But you have to find the right way to use it. Kodak really should have created a camera that uses 100 foot carts.

 

By the way, I'm still waiting for somebody to use the Logmar to shoot a short film. I couldn't give two sh*ts about seeing more test footage. :rolleyes:

 

This is the 5 minute version of our project make specifically for Kodak's Audience Awards contest. The final short will run around 20 minutes.

 

http://theaudienceawards.com/films/revelations52236

 

Their server sux hard so if you want to see it without stuttering, use the password vimeo and go here:

https://vimeo.com/149476818

 

Edited January 13, 2016 by Matt Stevens

[Carl Looper]

A bit of testing was required to get this to have a certain look. Shadows might be a tad dark. The whites of the eyes are important and I seem to have lost that somewhat. Might be a bit too much desaturated. The skin was a bit too orange after tweaking colours so the desat helped that. Would probably need to go back to the colour balance step.

 

Edited January 13, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Matt Stevens]

Oooohhhhh. MMmmmmm.... :) Nice.

 

The image I posted was a super fast color correct by a very very cool member here. I did limited grading on my Kodak contest entry, but am anxious to finish my project and see what a true colorist can do with the material.

[Hunter O'Shea]

Matt. Let me know when for film is finished and if I can buy a copy. I loved the film and want to support it.

 

- Hunter

[Matt Stevens]

Hunter, thanks very much. I just completed my first rough cut of the full length version. Now the real fun begins. Making something out of what is currently too damn long and unfocused. :)

[Peter Hodgins]

What will the aspect ratio of the image made by this new camera be?

[Hunter O'Shea]

The available specs read 16:9 gate but no word on if there will be a 4:3 option for future/cheaper models. I hope there will be a choice between the two but I doubt it even though I imagine most consumers would opt for the wide gate. Myself included. If you're asking what the exact aspect ratio will be I'm curious as well. Same as max 8?

 

- Hunter

[cole t parzenn]

I'd opt for whatever full aperture is...