Kodak to produce 8mm film camera

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It's great having you guys combing the world for news. All I have to do is keep tuned in at DVXUSER to stay up to date.
 
Cool! I think this is more of a marketing thing saying that we are back.

What they disparately need to do is make some new film scanners for the lab market (for stills), nothing has been improved for almost a decade. Film is making a come back in the stills world but scanning is still the weak link.
 
I love that they are going to include a digital copy with your film processing. The question is, what will the quality of that digital copy be? Are we talking a 2K/1080p scan?

If I were in their shoes though, I would have made an new standard. Super 8 is great, but it's an old format most people haven't bought into. If they have, they probably haven't spent a ton of money on cameras. If they're building a new camera anyway, they don't really need to support the legacy gear. I would keep the frame height of super 8 but make the film a little wider to produce a 16:9 frame that is more compatible with modern TVs and digital cinema. Plus it would be just slightly higher resolution which would work better for a 2K/1080p scan while still being smaller than 16mm.
 
roxics said:
I love that they are going to include a digital copy with your film processing. The question is, what will the quality of that digital copy be? Are we talking a 2K/1080p scan?

If I were in their shoes though, I would have made an new standard. Super 8 is great, but it's an old format most people haven't bought into. If they have, they probably haven't spent a ton of money on cameras. If they're building a new camera anyway, they don't really need to support the legacy gear. I would keep the frame height of super 8 but make the film a little wider to produce a 16:9 frame that is more compatible with modern TVs and digital cinema. Plus it would be just slightly higher resolution which would work better for a 2K/1080p scan while still being smaller than 16mm.
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Agreed. 16:9 is the only thing that doesn't get petter boxed and is the frame ratio that will define this generation of motion imaging. Maybe 50years from now everyone will go back to 1.33. But nothing wrong with keeping up with the times. 16:9 has never really been all that exciting of a frame for me, but it is the current standard, and that is good enough for me.
 
If you look at the specs on the Kodak website they indicate that there is some form of maximizing of the frame, so perhaps they carved out ever micron they could in order to get to a larger frame. But either way, this is such pure folly it's hard for me to take seriously. I wouldn't think such a product would have much life for a Kickstarter company, much less an old school chug-along factory company like the shell that is Kodak. How many people will be employed on this particular ongoing endeavor, a dozen?
 
Mitch Gross said:
If you look at the specs on the Kodak website they indicate that there is some form of maximizing of the frame, so perhaps they carved out ever micron they could in order to get to a larger frame. But either way, this is such pure folly it's hard for me to take seriously. I wouldn't think such a product would have much life for a Kickstarter company, much less an old school chug-along factory company like the shell that is Kodak. How many people will be employed on this particular ongoing endeavor, a dozen?
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You make it sound like options are bad, haha. I like this as a archival medium. I can't say i prefer shooting on film, but there is a lot to be happy for the option, even if it makes red mags look cheap.
 
My thoughts are that if they keep the same frame height but make it 16:9 you can still pull a 4:3 image out of that if you desire without losing any quality. You can also more easily get to a 1.85:1 (or wider) image without degrading the quality as much as doing that from a 4:3 frame. I mean isn't that why 16:9 was chosen to begin with, to be a middle ground between TV and cinema?

I know it sort of defeats the purpose of being this vintage film format that is backward compatible and it does complicate things a little more because Kodak would probably still have to keep producing Super 8 film for those that still want the classic version. Although they don't have to. I mean even I still have two working super 8 cameras and a projector. But I didn't spend a fortune on them (two I inherited and the other I bought for $10 at a flea market in the 90s) and I've had them for 20 years. So it's not a big loss to me if Kodak brought out a 16:9 super 8 format, cancelled the old format and made me buy a new $400 camera to use it. In fact I'd probably be more likely to shoot that than these cameras, because I just can't bring myself to crop that 4:3 frame that is already so small to begin with. You're already spending so much money to shoot that film, then to throw away the top and bottom of the image and blow it up even more to fill out a 16:9 or wider frame. You're basically shooting super 6mm at that point.

Plus if this is being pushed to a new generation even younger than myself, they probably don't even have those cameras and projectors like I do. Which is why Kodak is making a new camera. So they're starting from scratch anyway and are more likely to go to a digital transfer than a print. So a projector isn't needed.

It also makes more sense if these are hybrid digital/film cameras like it sounds like they are with their digital viewfinders and SD card slots. So if you can record that digital signal, awesome. If it can do 1080p 16:9 recording from the digital sensor, you've now got a camera you can switch between film or digital. If that's the case that price looks incredible. I assume they're probably using a smartphone camera sensor for that digital viewfinder due to similar size as super 8 and the abundant availablity of such sensors at a low cost. Most of which can do at least 1080p these days even in the cheapest models.
 
I could be enticed by a wider strip of film. Super 12mm with a 16:9 aspect ratio? S8 gives kodak a no retooling appraoch since they already have the tools to make it. I can't see them investing in retooling. Though, i would love it. Maybe a 16mm strip with a shorter frame for 16:9, rather than an entirely new film strip.

Either way, would be weird to have a medium that wouldn't have a native projector to go with it. As much as i would love such a format, it seems unlikely. I am all for it if they go that route though. Because letter boxed 8mm is pretty grainy, as to be almost unwatchable. But using 16mm lenses on a wider 8mm film could be a solution, not having native lenses would be a minor inconvenience.

the 'new' camera is an old design, and may already have a been a production model. That could make manufacturing a bit cheaper, i would assume. But i am completely uninformed there, so i apologize for implying anything there.

i like the idea of a hybrid camera. I hate relearning ergonomics. Just takes me out of the moment. Would be nice to have a camera that can do both. But this is all fun to talk about. The reality is kodak is making 8mm. Don't know if i will ever use it. I want to though.
 
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James0b57 said:
Maybe a 16mm strip with a shorter frame for 16:9, rather than an entirely new film strip.
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That would be Super-16. 1.66 native frame, which is very close to 1.78 (16:9).

Super-8 image area is 4.01mm tall by 5.79mm wide, yielding an aspect ration of 1.44:1, a frame slightly wider than 4:3 (1.33:1). But that width is limited on one side by a magnetic strip for single-system sound (I believe it was 18 frames behind the picture, if memory serves). So if the magnetic audio stripe was to be removed there would be ample room to expand to a proper 16:9 frame or even a DCI spec 17:9 frame. I don't know the exact dimensions of the audio stripe but it's certainly big enough. I suspect that this is exactly what Kodak is planning.

I'm a guy who shot widescreen 2.39 on Super-16 in the day, with various published tests partially sponsored by Kodak. They may well be out there on the Interwebs somewhere). Mathmatically and in testing there was no advantage to shooting S-16 with an anamorphic adapter and then optically converting it in post over shooting spherical S-16 and cropping the height of the frame. Even the "anamorphic look" wasn't present enough and generally lost in the optical correction. So yeah, I'm a lover of old and oddball film formats and have had my share of shooting with the stuff and even working with Kodak on such projects. I just don't think that this will be a particularly good business venture for the struggling enterprise that is Kodak, but I could be wrong.
 
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roxics said:
I would keep the frame height of super 8 but make the film a little wider to produce a 16:9 frame that is more compatible with modern TVs and digital cinema.
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That's what they did.

Kodak's specifications say it is Max 8. Max 8 is basically what you call for, developed by a company called Pro8mm a decade or so ago. Its aspect ratio is 1.58:1 (about 14:9).


So you can crop it to 16:9 or make it even wider with anamorphic.


Film has a look that is still hard to beat, at least if you buy the latest Kodak Vision 3 stock at ISO 50 (yikes)


A disadvantage is that the 50-foot rolls will give you a whopping 2.5 minutes of record time. Also you're back to double-system sound. But the proposed camera has crystal sync, and I guess you could even use your phone to record sound.


I just wish they had designed a better-looking camera, something like the Beaulieu 4008.

Candy-Red-Beaulieu-4008-Pro8mm-Camera.jpg
 
Mitch Gross said:
...So yeah, I'm a lover of old and oddball film formats and have had my share of shooting with the stuff and even working with Kodak on such projects. I just don't think that this will be a particularly good business venture for the struggling enterprise that is Kodak, but I could be wrong.
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I get where you are coming from now. You are probably right.
 
Inlike the tonality of s35 film and higher. Some of that seems to get lost in the smaller formats. I have still some beautiful things shot on 8mm. Maybe with 4K on the verge of mainstream, it will be nice to shoot in a format that is more about form and less about detail. I remember how different it was to compose in SD than 4K. You just didn't have to factor in texture, unless it was an extreme close up. So, even though i am not into retro, there are some things that draw me to film. Even 8mm.
 
I wounder if the camera is using a pellicle mirror for the digital sensor. Its a 2 way mirror kind of like what sony uses for there STL cameras.
You would lose some light if this is what it is using.

I don't think this was meant to be a hot seller, they get some press and it will help out a few labs that still do 8mm. I doubt that Kodak will be doing the lab work in house, they would probably partner with labs around the world.
 
I think it would be fun for specific projects, perhaps a music video or maybe a wwII themed short film, that sort of thing. Even shooting the kids at the beach would make for a great nostalgic looking archive but of course the average person would rather break out the smart phone than go to the trouble and expense of shooting 8mm film. It's great to have an option like this if you want it for a specific project and you have the time and resources to use it.
might be a great look for an indie horror movie. For el mariachi Robert Rodriguez did not shoot sync sound. Instead he had the actors repeat their lines while he reorded them at the end of the days shooting. The actors were able to repeat their performances accurately enough that the sound synced up pretty well. It's an interesting approach if you wanted to go for a retro style project.
2.5 minutes is plenty for most takes if you are shooting a narrative. You'll spend some time changing film and have to get used to something like a 3 to 1 shot ratio rather than 10 to 1 or more that some digital film makers shoot now so you can keep cost of film devleopment and transfer down.
 
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The camera is expected to be 500 to 750 dollars. Very reasonable compared to current digital cameras on the market and everything needed to shoot digital like batteries and recording media. But at 50 bucks a pop for a 2.5 minute film cartridge that ads up quick compared to downloading media cards and reusing them. A 90 minute movie would cost roughly 5,400 dollars if you shoot 3 to 1, that is you get 3 takes for each scene not counting slates, etc.
 
Film is pretty much dead in my little world. All of the higher budget clients I work with are being shot on Alexa or F65. And I can't imagine lower budget clientele having the money for film when the folks that used to demand 35mm film shoots are now shooting digital. I also do a bunch of quick turn commercials where time is of the essence. Bottom line.... I can do an 8mm film look digitally. No it's not the same, but for a budget TV commercial nobody watching at home is going to notice the difference.

* I think somebody should post a poll here so Kodak could get an honest opinion from end users on whether or not folks will buy a new camera and shoot 8mm.


On a side note... I have a stack of undeveloped 16mm Vision 500T & 250D of Pres Bill Clinton surveying tornado damage from a doc I was shooting years ago. I just might have to get it transferred before all the labs & such blow away for good.


All the best!

Dave
 
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