Wednesday 13 January 2016

Super-8 is back

Against all the odds, Kodak - which went bankrupt as recently as 2012 - has announced that it's "reviving" Super-8 cameras and film. Kodak's got a press release from CES 16 and here's the Super-8 Revival product page. They've also lined up a load of top Hollywood directors to sing the praises of this "analogue renaissance".

It appears that the camera will have built-in audio recording to SD card. When you send off your reel of exposed film for processing, Kodak will return it to you in digital form with the soundtrack synchronised.

Returning to the Guardian article in the first link, commenters seem reasonably split over whether this is a good idea or whether it is simply pandering to hipsters. At issue: can you do something with analogue film that you simply cannot do with digital? Years ago, I'd have thought this was a brilliant idea - shooting on OFU's 8mm and 16mm cameras brought an implicit level of professionalism that mucking about with a camcorder could never have achieved. But the convenience, cost and quality of digital makes me doubt this. Should we not be spending our creative efforts on the actual creative process, rather than simply selecting a tool for the sake of nostalgia?

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