The new Kodak Super 8 camera

[Lee Mannering]

Well news of the forthcoming new Kodak all singing and dancing Super 8 camera seems to have dwindled to zero without it even making its usual appearance at the CES Las Vegas show, Kodak does seem more interested in its new Android TV and its digital retro instant camera than anything S8 at the moment.
The new camera showed great promise with a 16:9 aperture and interchangeable lenses but a few years on Kodak says the unit is still in development which is a little disappointing. Some of us did register to order it but as we have seen guide prices have notched up each year to date $3000 with a muted shipping date of 2020...again.

As much as I delight in my Super 8 film making I can see a time when 100D reversal is withdrawn probably with them just offering negative with a scanning option. Grim but a possibility certainly with no sign of the new camera commitment.

We shall have to see how it goes, but if the release date of the new camera is scrapped again this year I think we can safely say the camera is a dead end.

[Mike Newell]

Too busy saving the world with their newly awarded $765 million pharmaceutical contract. Back from the dead but more likely to be producing pills and vaccines than film stocks and cameras I’m afraid.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin...hat-kodak-deal

[Adrian Winchester]

In the circumstances, it looks like the initial announcement was far too early. They can't change that now, but if it is still alive, occasional updates that clarify what has caused the delay would be a vastly better strategy than hoping no one has noticed how much time has passed, since it was expected to be on sale.

[Paul Adsett]

IMO this new camera, if it ever comes to market, will be an extremely hard sell at that price, There are far better used S8 cameras on the market at a fraction of the price.
I wonder if Kodak will be packaging their pills in little yellow boxes?

[Graham Sinden]

The big question is "What will you be able to use first, Kodak's new camera or Crossrail !!"


(for those who don't know, Crossrail is a new trainline running across London east-west. It was supposed to be open 2018 but due to delays will now not open until 2022 but even that date will probably change given our recent history in building projects .)

Graham S

[Dominique De Bast]

Does anyone know if the sales of filmstock go well or not ?

[Shane C. Collins]

I hope the new Ektachrome sticks around a bit longer. This new film is amazing,when shot correctly, and projected! It's my favorite reversal to date. unfortunately this new generation of Super 8 shooters are obsessed with negative stocks, and transferring directly to digital. They are missing out on the fun part about Super 8 and that is projection. No film transfer will ever look as good as the camera original up on the screen. There's a Super 8 community over at Reddit that I frequent quite a bit. I try to interject the pluses to shooting on color reversal film. I usually get shot down by the negative Super 8 crowd oh well.

[Lee Mannering]

That's the thing with Super 8 reversal film you are cutting glass and a one off product. Shooting with negative is fun having recently filmed some myself but having scanned it then rendered it on the digital time line you really have no idea what the accurate original look of the negative stock was. We used to call that the fiddle factor over here and many take advantage of just that.

Enjoyed filming with 64T over the years, Kodachrome of course and latterly 100D which can look really colourful. The bottom line is , you really have to be passionate about film to be spending around £75 for a finished two and a half minute film at 24FPS my preferred filming speed for the last 30 years. Needless to say I always prepare a shooting script for everything so as not to make any errors and have a clear vision what I hope the end result will be.

[Brian Fretwell]

As for Crossrail I believe, as usual, it has been the new signalling system that has been the main reason for the delays as with other London Underground signalling upgrades. The late finishing off of installations of other equipment in the tunnels has limited test train running to check it.

I wonder if it is the electronics Kodak are putting into the new camera that have caused most of the delay on that too.

[Edward Nicielnik]

I have a Canon 1014 xl Pro 8 Max 8 not made anymore

[Dominique De Bast]

Prince Rainier of Monaco with a super 8 camera (a Beaulieu). The 1pm news of French national tv (channel 2) aired today a sequence ) already shown a few months ago) about Grâce Kelly. The narration is made by someone taking the voice of Alfred Hitchcock with his British accent when he spoke French.

[Shane C. Collins]

Lee I can definitely see the pluses to shooting on negative film. Any large film project benefits from this stock. Editing, etc would make using Super 8 easier. But I'm a purist I guess LOL. Having jumped on the film wagon back in 2005 I was a late arrival. I just like the look of film projected. It is expensive but when your only shooting maybe 4 or 5 rolls a year for vacations, etc it's not a problem. I choose to shoot my home movies this way because of the look number one, but also because these films will outlast other digital formats if stored properly. My son will be able to view these movies decades from now assuming the projector still fires up LOL. It's a legacy I will pass down to him when he's of age to understand. So for now I'll continue to shoot as much Super 8 color reversal. Hopefully enough Super 8 shooters keep buying Ektachrome. At the moment Hollywood is probably not shooting as much film do to COVID and that's got me worried. Hollywood keeps this format alive with use of 35 mm for example.