8mm Forum: Sound for 8mm

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Posted by Damon Griffin (Member # 5603) on October 11, 2016, 07:18 PM:

Hello All,

New to this forum and relatively new to 8mm. I'm planning on purchasing a camera, but I'm making sure I've got my bases covered first. One important thing for me is sound. Is there a brand of 8mm camera anybody would suggest buying for simultaneous sound recording? Keep in mind that I am not talking about recording sync sound on to the film--I mean a camera that is not so loud live recorded sound would pick it up for dialogue, room tone, etc.

(On the subject of sync sound record cameras; I've been given to understand that it isn't possible to process this kind of film stock for 8mm anymore. True? If not, then I might consider this, but digitally recorded sound is fine for me).

Posted by Barry Fritz (Member # 1865) on October 11, 2016, 07:46 PM:

You would have better luck with super 8 film. I believe regular 8 sound cameras and projectors are pretty rare. Not so for super 8.

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on October 11, 2016, 09:15 PM:

You might want to wait 10 days or so before making a purchase decision. Last January Kodak announced that they would be coming out with a new line of Super 8 cameras this Fall. There hasn't been much news about these cameras since, however last week Kodak posted on Facebook that they would be making an announcement of some sort October 20th. Some have speculated that it's about the cameras but there's a good chance it isn't.

But if it is, these new cameras would capture sound on an SD card and they feature "Crystal Sync" which helps keep the film speed at a constant rate making it easier to sync sound that's been recorded externally.

Aside from a potential new offering from Kodak, the only other new camera that I know is the Logmar which also has Crystal Sync but is quite expensive. There are companies like Pro8mm that will add Crystal Sync to certain existing cameras. Some later model Canons and the Nikon R8 and R10 are highly rated Super 8 cameras but I don't know how quiet they are.

I haven't done any sound recording myself but from what little research I've done, short clips of 30 seconds or less are fine without Crystal Sync. Some cameras will do better than others and you might have success with longer clips. Use a clapperboard at the beginning and end of each clip.

Good luck !

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