I hadn’t heard of the revival of the Super 8 Camera until I saw some CES pics of the new hybrid film/digital device.
The camera itself loops pretty cool, reminds me of something that would show up in the retro-faux-futurism of Star Wars (the best commercials for blue milk are holo-filmed with it!).
But that and the announcement that Kodak is bringing back Ektachrome has me worried: development of film requires some nasty chemicals and by-products that can’t be easily reused. I thought we had moved beyond that stage in visual media.
As noted in a separate DPR piece:
Kodak’s decision to raise the film from the dead is directly related to a recent increase in demand for analog film. Yep, you read that right. So does this mean that film photography is about to start down a similar path of revival as we’ve seen from vinyl records, which are currently selling at a 25 year high? We sure wouldn’t mind.
I wonder if we are going to see more darkrooms pop up. As for the Super 8, apparently that will remain a professional/high-end hobby endeavor:
Cartridges must be mailed back to Kodak for development, and the price (TBC) will include film development, scanning and uploading to the cloud.
Vendor lock-in is a huge red flag for me, but I am hardly a photography enthusiast; my overly expensive camera was purchased because it is high enough quality for shots, and also had slow-motion video capture. I am definitely not the target audience.