8mm Forum: Hello- Where does Super 8 come from

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Posted by Richard Head (Member # 137) on December 26, 2003, 01:46 PM:

Hello,

I have been reading this forum and decided to join, it seems such a friendly place and lots of banter.

It might be an odd question but I wondered where the "super" of Super 8 originated.

Richard

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on December 26, 2003, 02:09 PM:

Back in the '60s there was double-8 (Regular-8) that was basically 16mm with twice as many sprocket holes meant to be shot down one side, flipped over, shot down the other side, processed, slit into two 8mm strips and shown as an 8mm wide film.

Somebody at Kodak figured out that the 16mm size sprocket holes could be reduced in size and moved closer to the edge, and more of the film be made available for a larger image size. This is called "Super-8"

Regardless, any motion picture on film meant for projection is "Super" with me!

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on December 26, 2003, 02:49 PM:

I am sure I have read on more than one occasion that the late Ivan Watson, long-time columnist on ACW and Movie Maker coined the new 8mm format 'super'8 when it was first introduced.
Welcome to the forum Richard
Mal

Posted by Barry Johnson (Member # 84) on December 27, 2003, 04:29 AM:

Complete trivia this one but I thought it was clever at the time:a sales company called PM Films that resised in Beaconsfield,Buckinghamshire coined the rather nice slogan--"Into the Super-Eighties!" when collecting films was in its early years.They did some super titles too.
If only we could turn back time............

Posted by Trevor Adams (Member # 42) on December 27, 2003, 05:14 AM:

Richard,the picture frame on super 8mm film is 50% bigger than that on standard 8mm film. Of course prior to the introduction of super 8mm in 1965 "standard"8mm film was simply called 8mm-or "bootlace"! I'm pretty sure the name "super" came from Kodak.Personally,I started using 8mm in 1952.I changed to super 8mm as soon as it was available and bought a series of gimmicky cameras(!)In hindsight many of my standard 8mm flicks (taken with a Keystone Olympic K35)are superior to my super 8mm stuff!
Trev

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on December 27, 2003, 11:54 AM:

I agree with you on this one Trevor. My standard 8 films look much better than any of the stuff I took on Super 8. The reason is simple:
1) The standard 8 cameras were designed for spool loading film, and all the cameras incorporated precision stainless steel gates and pressure pads for superior film registration. Super 8 on the other hand, uses that tacky plastic cartridge from Kodak. This is why a lot of people prefer the single 8 system from Fuji, which utilised a cassette with a precision camera gate mechanism.

2) The camera lenses of most of the best standard 8mm cameras, such as the Bolex series, used prime (non-zoom) lenses. In the case of Bolex camears the lenses were superb quality Kern and Switar glass lenses. So the image sharpness and contrast was usually far superior to the plastic zoom lenses which were on nearly all the super 8 cameras.
So most of the advantage of the 50% increase in film area on super 8 was lost due to Kodak's cheap cartridge design, and the advent of mass produced plastic cameras with poor zoom lenses. (Fortunately this does not apply to Super 8 printed films, which we all collect, which are far superior to standard 8 printed films)

My standard 8 Kodachrome films from the 1950's are as sharp as a tack, with beautiful rich colors and contrast. They look like they just came back from the lab. No color fade, no shrinkage, they knock the socks off any home video's I have ever seen (My Sony 8mm videos from the early 1990's are already showing signs of deterioration with tracking problems etc, -talk about going backwards in quality!)

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on December 27, 2003, 04:29 PM:

Hi Trevor,
Yes the "Super" in super 8 did come from Kodak.

Kev.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on January 05, 2004, 03:05 AM:

Of course there is also Super 16 and Super 35 where the picture area is larger than standard 16 and standard 35.

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