New Kodak Super8

[plasticman]

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Projected to lose $3.49 on each share this year. 2016 growth is expected to be negative 9%.

Seriously Alan, your hatred, negativity, trolling is really getting out of control. One of the rules of this forum is that members should be allowed to enjoy their hobby without the sort of sick, obsessive trolling that your diatribes and sick hatred turn into. This is a positive announcement about a new film product, but you just can't control yourself. 

I genuinely feel sorry for you.

[jaapv]

It has nothing to do with an aversion to film. It is about Kodak attempting to revive a format that was little more than an amateur convenience sized movie format that never was able to produce quality results. The reaction would be the same if they tried to bring out a 110 format film camera system with a digital superstructure. Now if they were attempting to revive Kodachrome it would produce a totally different response, certainly by me and most probably by Alan. Heck, I would be the first in line to dust off my M6.

 

About enjoying your hobby, I am pretty sure that you are not making any Super8 movies, nor intend to do so. I seriously doubt that there is one forum member in that category.

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[AlanG]

Seriously Alan, your hatred, negativity, trolling is really getting out of control. One of the rules of this forum is that members should be allowed to enjoy their hobby without the sort of sick, obsessive trolling that your diatribes and sick hatred turn into. This is a positive announcement about a new film product, but you just can't control yourself. 

I genuinely feel sorry for you.

I guess I can't see every film announcement as positive. BTW how are you enjoying Ferrania chrome?  Yes any day now...

 

I probably haven't posted in a year. That png file didn't show up but is a chart of Kodak's stock price since it emerged from bankruptcy. You can look it up. I just can't come up with any way to see how this helps the company.

 

FWIW I actually went to film school and used to own a 16mm Bolex. I still have 3 Bolex 8 and Super 8 cameras and a Bolex projector and film editor. I don't need this new camera to shoot films.  And Super 8 was replaced by video long before digital photography came to be. So bringing it back is really swimming against a strong stream.

Edited January 10, 2016 by AlanG

[StS]

Please follow this link, if you are interested in an interview with Kodak's Brand Director explaining their plans. She says, that the primary market will be indeed film students.

 

Since I'm very much a stills man*, my personal approach would be to get a film stills camera (guess my preferred brand ) to study the correct exposure and behaviour of film.

Having only comparatively short strips of film would certainly require good pre-planning**. I could see a task for students to produce a short film, where only one canister of Super 8 is allowed Time will tell, how this will take off.

 

Stefan

 

 

* A member of my sports club produces films for TV. He asked me, how I liked the video capabilities of my Panaleica. I had to admit, that I messed up my first "short film" by having it in portrait orientation...

** ...which should especially helpful for someone, who wants to work for the BBC, since they appear to have one of the strictest schedules I know, exactly one hour for each show.

Edited January 10, 2016 by StS

[plasticman]

Come on Jaap - if Alan came out of the woodwork with his unrelenting, bitter diatribes about Leica digital cameras instead of film he'd have been banned by the mods long ago. He already caused one useful and informative film user to leave the forum (I can share some details with you privately if you're interested). But generally this sort of relentless trolling simply drags down the forum as a whole, and I'm very very surprised and disappointed to see it tolerated through all these years. 

 

The great thing is that I now realize there are fewer and fewer people actually listening to the haters these days - at first I worried that some people might be negatively influenced by the trolls. But recently I was mentoring a bunch of students at a place here called Hyper Island - and the kids using cameras were all using film (by this I mean, there were 2 categories: iPhone Instagram users, and film camera users). Right now I have far fewer worries about Kodak than I had a couple years ago. But I understand the increasing popularity of film again must really annoy the haters.

[NJH]

Ignoring the tit for tat amongst a couple of members I too struggle to understand this product, I could see it as a loss leader way of getting young film makers into liking film such that when they become established directors themselves they want to continue shooting with film. Its seems Kodak's strategy with this product going all the way down to 8mm, its akin to trying to get digital photographers to like film by giving them a 110 camera loaded with nasty consumer c-41 film. Maybe guys like us are way off the mark and the whole young and trendy lomo crowd will buy into this thing.

[plasticman]

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The funny thing is most members of this forum would need to be 40 years younger to understand the appeal of film. 

[AlanG]

Ignoring the tit for tat amongst a couple of members I too struggle to understand this product, I could see it as a loss leader way of getting young film makers into liking film such that when they become established directors themselves they want to continue shooting with film. Its seems Kodak's strategy with this product going all the way down to 8mm, its akin to trying to get digital photographers to like film by giving them a 110 camera loaded with nasty consumer c-41 film. Maybe guys like us are way off the mark and the whole young and trendy lomo crowd will buy into this thing.

 

I think that Kodak is taking very little chance with this product as it probably did not cost much to produce. In return they get some publicity and maybe a bit of increased Super 8 film sales for a while. However in the greater scheme of things, kodak is sinking fast again and really needs some better ideas.

 

As for you Plasticman, I don't believe I have ever posted a single derogatory comment about your attitude or personal attacks. I simply post objectively about my opinions and try my best to explain my reasons for reaching them. I can't see how criticizing a Kodak Super 8 Camera as being irrelevant in the larger market should affect Leica or Leica users in any way.  Leica neither makes Super 8 cameras nor film... probably for good reasons.  If anyone has an axe to grind about film it seems to be you.

Edited January 10, 2016 by AlanG

[jaapv]

Come on Jaap - if Alan came out of the woodwork with his unrelenting, bitter diatribes about Leica digital cameras instead of film he'd have been banned by the mods long ago. He already caused one useful and informative film user to leave the forum (I can share some details with you privately if you're interested). But generally this sort of relentless trolling simply drags down the forum as a whole, and I'm very very surprised and disappointed to see it tolerated through all these years. 

 

The great thing is that I now realize there are fewer and fewer people actually listening to the haters these days - at first I worried that some people might be negatively influenced by the trolls. But recently I was mentoring a bunch of students at a place here called Hyper Island - and the kids using cameras were all using film (by this I mean, there were 2 categories: iPhone Instagram users, and film camera users). Right now I have far fewer worries about Kodak than I had a couple years ago. But I understand the increasing popularity of film again must really annoy the haters.

I am puzzled by the term "haters" - yes, some members prefer digital images, just as some prefer film. Having an opinion, even a strong or negative  one, on an inanimate object does not translate into a personal emotion like hate, nor do I see this on the forum.

In the same vein, I struggle to see how an opinion  on an artistic medium can be seen as a personal attack.

[jaapv]

I would caution members about making personal attacks - and taking things personally. This forum is not a place to have private fights. As for film or digital, this is not APUG nor a purely digital place. Leica makes both film and digital cameras. Here we coexist, despite differences in taste.

[AlanG]

FWIW film sales makes up a pretty small percentage of Kodak's revenue today. For all I know they might have a reasonable plan for film. But the company overall is not doing well and how that may impact the future of Kodak film is yet to be determined.

[plasticman]

Jaap - your response is disingenuous: Alan can be guaranteed to appear in every thread that spreads good news about the use of film, and without exception for (at least) the last three or four years, he tries to contradict whatever good news has initiated the thread; exhaustively gathers whatever scraps of bad news he can counter with; writes long and (apparently obsessive) diatribes about anything negative to do with film-use which he can even vaguely connect with the original topic; and generally does his best to be a dispiriting and negative influence on the Film section as a whole.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the point of the forum is for us to share knowledge, enthusiasm, viewpoints - and by all means people can disagree with each other. But when one person has a persistent history of sowing discord on the forum by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion*, then I feel it's fair to call that trolling. 

 

If there wasn't a totally predictable and repetitive pattern I'd think it was ok. But the sheer persistence, the time and energy that Alan dedicates to finding the tiny nugget of gloom buried in every single bright announcement... 

 

In any case, I was no way talking about "film vs digital" - I'm way past that old discussion. I can see for myself - at least in Stockholm - that film is having a real and enthusiastic revival, at least among the younger and maker crowd. This isn't about that in any way. In my comments about the moderation of people like Alan, I meant that if there was someone coming to the forum (who as far as I know doesn't even own any Leica cameras?) whose only contribution was to rubbish Leica's digital cameras, and generally try to dispirit Leica owners in every way possible, who twisted discussions in each and every thread about how Leica would soon be going out of business or that other camera makers' products were better, whether or not those points were relevant to the thread discussion - in my view that person would have been banned long ago.

 

Anyway, sad to see that yet another piece of positive film news has been turned around into negativity again.

 

 

*guess where I got this description.

[AlanG]

FWIW I'm glad Plasticman is here and appreciate hearing his views about film. However it seems others here questioned the usefulness of this new camera way before I posted. So why pick on me since I'm just following up?

Edited January 11, 2016 by AlanG

[Guest]

I agree with your post.

 

About the two issues above: silent camera works were very important before computer meaded suppression. One approach is to have the camera run with a dummy tape to get the camera's sound signature to subtract from the output.

 

Time codes have interesting solutions. One that impresses me is the dot-pattern used by livecribe's stationery. It is virtually impossible to find a repeating pattern even if you concatenated all the pages possible; the pages would combine to be larger than the area of Europe. By printing codes in the film the SD card could synch the film to sound without a clock.  And it would be inexpensive.

 

Pico, TC coding was, and is, still imprinted frame by frame on film cameras, notably Aaton cameras who's resident genius Jean-Pierre Beauviala invented the system sometime in the late 1980's, though Arri came up subsequently with their own system too. Aaton code ensured that syncing with TC recorded audio was seamless, it worked like a charm, still does. I once shot a job where we exposed over 150,000 feet of S16 film on a two camera shoot in many different locations and conditions using this system and the audio and film were synced in realtime during transfer without any problems at all.

For the Kodak 8mm camera to sync that way it would need to have a TC generator onboard and a photodiode to imprint a code to the film's edges, ( if there's room for that on 8mm ), simultaneous audio TC could easily be "imprinted" onto the SD card and thus both audio and video could be synced in post, but I doubt if that's worth the cost of configuring all of that into such a camera. You'd also have to have an 8mm TC code reader too for the film to digital conversion / syncing and to my knowledge there's no such thing existing. Not worth it…..

Edited January 11, 2016 by Guest

[earleygallery]

  Leica neither makes Super 8 cameras nor film... probably for good reasons.  If anyone has an axe to grind about film it seems to be you.

 

Have Leica ever made any type of film Alan?

 

Of course they DID make super 8 cameras at one point, and who knows, some may still be using them, and will be interested in this development of an 'outdated' product by Kodak.

[jaapv]

Jaap - your response is disingenuous: Alan can be guaranteed to appear in every thread that spreads good news about the use of film, and without exception for (at least) the last three or four years, he tries to contradict whatever good news has initiated the thread; exhaustively gathers whatever scraps of bad news he can counter with; writes long and (apparently obsessive) diatribes about anything negative to do with film-use which he can even vaguely connect with the original topic; and generally does his best to be a dispiriting and negative influence on the Film section as a whole.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the point of the forum is for us to share knowledge, enthusiasm, viewpoints - and by all means people can disagree with each other. But when one person has a persistent history of sowing discord on the forum by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion*, then I feel it's fair to call that trolling. 

 

If there wasn't a totally predictable and repetitive pattern I'd think it was ok. But the sheer persistence, the time and energy that Alan dedicates to finding the tiny nugget of gloom buried in every single bright announcement... 

 

In any case, I was no way talking about "film vs digital" - I'm way past that old discussion. I can see for myself - at least in Stockholm - that film is having a real and enthusiastic revival, at least among the younger and maker crowd. This isn't about that in any way. In my comments about the moderation of people like Alan, I meant that if there was someone coming to the forum (who as far as I know doesn't even own any Leica cameras?) whose only contribution was to rubbish Leica's digital cameras, and generally try to dispirit Leica owners in every way possible, who twisted discussions in each and every thread about how Leica would soon be going out of business or that other camera makers' products were better, whether or not those points were relevant to the thread discussion - in my view that person would have been banned long ago.

 

Anyway, sad to see that yet another piece of positive film news has been turned around into negativity again.

 

 

*guess where I got this description.

I think questioning the viability of a digital hybrid use of Super8 has very little to nothing to do with the easthetic appreciation of film, nor with the sway of the tastes of the in-crowd.

As it is, I agree with Alan and others that this concept appears to be less than viable.

 

Now if they had tried to translate the present-day interest in 35 and 70 movie film into a 16 mm film system, that might have been another matter.

[jaapv]

The processing/scanning service is from negative film.

Scanning family movies would certainly be of interest, I have a box full in the attic somewhere as well. Probably even the projector too, but after moving house four or five times, it might be lost.

However, do we need Kodak setting up a whole system for this? It might well be a business model for small-scale operators.

Edit: In fact, I googled quite a few services doing just this right now.

[earleygallery]

http://shop.lomography.com/en/lomokinoscopepackage

 

 

About enjoying your hobby, I am pretty sure that you are not making any Super8 movies, nor intend to do so. I seriously doubt that there is one forum member in that category.

 

As it happens Jaap, I have a Super8 camera/projector somewhere. Untouched for many years and I keep meaning to dig out the films to have them transferred to DVD - some VERY precious family memories are locked in those little reels.

 

Reading about the Kodak camera, I might just give it a whirl when they launch the new processing/scanning service.

 

As for Alan, if Super8 doesn't float his boat he could always try 35mm http://shop.lomography.com/en/lomokinoscopepackage

[jaapv]

earleygallery, on 11 Jan 2016 - 17:19, said:

http://shop.lomography.com/en/lomokinoscopepackage

 

 

 

As it happens Jaap, I have a Super8 camera/projector somewhere. Untouched for many years and I keep meaning to dig out the films to have them transferred to DVD - some VERY precious family memories are locked in those little reels.

 

Reading about the Kodak camera, I might just give it a whirl when they launch the new processing/scanning service.

 

As for Alan, if Super8 doesn't float his boat he could always try 35mm http://shop.lomography.com/en/lomokinoscopepackage

I don't know about you, but I always found the quality very disappointing - even compared to regular 8 mm. But yes, it had sound And the memories are indeed precious.

But taking new ones at a not inconsiderable price? Hmmm...

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[AlanG]

Once this succeeds I expect to see a new line of Betamax camcorders from Sony to celebrate some anniversary. I love the look from that format and plenty of directors got started as kids with video tape.