BACK TO THE FUTURE! What to Expect From Kodak’s New Super 8 Camera.
The camera is a fascinating blend of new and old technology. While it still shoots to standard Super 8 film cartridges (including VISION 3, EKTACHROME, and TRI-X and each cartridge contains 50 feet of film, or about three minutes of footage, depending on the frame rate) it also sports a microSD card slot to record audio.
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“The viewfinder is based on an integrated video assist system, which means the image coming through the lens is bypassed and then projected onto a frosted ground glass,” B&H explains. “Then [it is] captured with an internal CMOS camera that gets displayed on the LCD. As a result, you’re actually able to see the image and compose your shots via the LCD screen even when there is no film in the camera.”
Way back in 2016, when Kodak first announced plans to go back to the future and release a new super 8 camera, the Guardian speculated on who the product is aimed at:
The analogue revival is more than a marketing stunt. Just as film-makers such as Abrams, Tarantino and Nolan still prefer to shoot on “real” analogue film, so demand for the audio-visual old-school is rebounding. Alongside Kodak’s new cameras at CES this year, Sony is exhibiting a new record player(a machine for playing vinyl audio discs, younger readers) and Polaroid is exhibiting a new range of instant cameras. Amazon, too, reports that its top-selling camera and audio products this Christmas were a turntable and instant-camera film. All of these products combine analogue “warmth” with digital functionality, which suggests that either the near future won’t be as virtual as some algorithm predicted it would be, or that we’re sick and tired of having new formats continually foisted on us.
At $5,495 (its 2024 suggested retail price, not including the film and developing charges), this is one example where being a retro hipster or wannabe rock video director mashing together a variety of formats won’t come cheap.