CES 2016: Kodak’s Super 8 film camera is not so crazy after all

Kodak is celebrating 50 years of making Super 8 film at CES 2016 with a new movie camera. Now it would be easy to write this off as some kind of lame retro headline grabber, but Kodak is deadly serious, and so are the A-list Hollywood filmmakers who’ve expressed their support on the Kodak website, including JJ Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino for starters.

“While any technology that allows for visual storytelling must be embraced, nothing beats film. The fact that Kodak is building a brand new Super 8 camera is a dream come true,” says Abrams.

Kodak Super 8

Kodak Super 8

But how does it work?

Super 8 film comes on 50ft (15m) cartridges, each capturing around 3,600 frames of film. The Kodak camera shoots at 9, 12, 18, 24, or 25fps – at a ‘cinematic’ 24fps, that gives around 2 minutes and 30 seconds shooting time.

The cartridges are completely light-proof and contain their own take-up spool. When you’ve finished filming, you take out the cartridge and send it off for processing.

But where can you get Super 8 processed?

Kodak’s planned this from the start. “You buy it, shoot it ship it. We process it, scan it, deliver it”. Kodak’s aim is to combine the ‘magic’ of analog with the convenience of digital, so what you get back is a password to retrieve your digital scans from the cloud.

Kodak Super 8

So no, you don’t have to learn how to use splicing kits and all the other old analog editing paraphernalia.

Analog meets digital

The camera itself merges analog and digital, with a 3.5-inch articulating digital viewfinder. It doesn’t offer the sophisticated metering and autofocus systems of a DSLR or mirrorless cameras, but it does have a built-in exposure meter and it can detect the film speed automatically when you insert a film cartridge. You get manual iris (aperture) and manual focus control.

Kodak Super 8

The lens choice is a fixed focal length 6mm f/1.2 Ricoh lens, or an 8-48mm zoom – the camera uses C-mount lenses, a common analog movie camera format.

There’s an integrated microphone and a top-handle grip for waist-level filming. A pistol grip attachment is also available.

Pricing has yet to be officially confirmed, but early indications are that the camera will arrive later in 2016 at a price somewhere between US$400 and US$750 (about £275-£515/AU$570-AU$1,070), and that the all-in price for Super 8 film cartridges, processing and digitization will be US$50 to US$75 (about £35-£52/AU$72-AU$107).

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4 Comments
  1. Reply Mozelle Nienow January 10, 2016 at 7:51 pm

    This camera has no resolution, there is no lines, dynamic range etc. because… the camera has no sensor inside. Maybe you should take a look at for example this: http://motion.kodak.com/KodakG

  2. Reply Dr. Cortez Fritsch January 21, 2016 at 2:44 am

    How unbelievably sneery and arrogant. People all over the world still use analogue stills cameras when they could use technically "superior" digital ones. They listen to vinyl records when they could listen to clearer digital reproductions. This is art and not everything has to be rational.

  3. Reply Reynold Feil January 31, 2016 at 8:32 am

    Rather than speculate on the quality, let us ask Kodak what the resolution is, as well as other important parameters, such as ISO and zoom range.
    By resolution I mean actual optical resolution – the actual number of lines that can be resolved over the field of view.
    I would not buy this without a spec.
    Nor would I use terms like "stupid" or "arrogant" without any data.

  4. Reply Annamarie Dach January 31, 2016 at 11:49 am

    How unbelievably stupid. What's to say the system they scan the film to digital on is any better than the image sensor on camera systems like the A7sii or FS5?
    "Nothing beats film" , umm except you've still got a digital conversion in there, so you're not truly getting "film". Just an unnecessarily convoluted method of producing digital video.
    And the latest sensors have hit the 14 stop dynamic range that the nostalgists have been hanging onto as the last remaining point in films favour.
    Also good luck convincing anyone new to film-making to use 2.5 minute canisters.
    And finally I can't wait to find out the price per canister and do the math on how many 2 and a half minute minute reams I can buy for the price of a decent Sony or C300. 'Buck all' is first guess.

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