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Kodak resurrects Super 8

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Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#151

Post by leejo »

lectrick wrote: post #132
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nothing else, it's a stylistic choice. Choosing how a film should look, the colours and tonality etc, is a creative process and has aesthetic and therefore subjective goals. You can't really say which one is 'better', only that they're different.

Everything you described is at least theoretically digitizable.

This is the best thing i've read on the whole film vs digital debate: http://www.fototazo.com/2015/04/the-meaning-of-films-decline... # TLDR: most film advocates claim all the wrong reasons for shooting film, and i say this as someone who is primarily a film shooter.

The most compelling reason to shoot film is because it gives you access to a range of camera and lens technology that is impossible to replicate with digital without significant compromise in quality and/or shooting style.

Nolan shoots on IMAX cameras with modified Zeiss lenses that give an extremely shallow depth of field (witness some of the scenes in The Dark Knight Rises).

Tarantino shooting on Super Panavision 70 could not be replicated on digital without extreme cropping of a wide angle digital source, which would change the depth/perspective, or stitching (difficult if impossible in motion picture shooting). See also panoramic cameras: Fuji 6x17, Hasselblad X-Pan.

Large format and even medium format, because the available digital backs have not yet reached the size of a full 6x6 negative. The digital back manufacturers claim they are "full frame" but when used on actual full frame 6x6 cameras they are anything but (this is not a resolution/quality argument, it is a "oh, my 100mm lens is now actually cropped" argument).

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#152

Post by stinos »

salmonet wrote: post #107

Came across a tweet about the Sony MiniDisc Recorder/Player going for hundreds and even thousands of dollars on Ebay. Nostalgia apparently sells. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m5...

WTF I had no idea.. I have multiple models, including MZ-RH1 and MZ-RH10, lying around in mint condition. I also have a bunch of Nintendo 'Game&Watch' series. From a quick look on ebay I could sell all of that for well over 1000$. Look ma, I'm gonna be rich :]

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#153

Post by mobiuscog »

nitrogen wrote: post #114
SwellJoe wrote: post #111

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries tha…

It's the same thing as using Polaroid cameras with Impossible film, or vinyl records. It's to find some tangibility in an era of intangibles. The low fidelity is the point.

Absolutely - the lack of anything tangible in the modern digital world is a huge problem, and slowly people are realising this.

Humans aren't designed for a 'virtual' existence - the technologies may be very useful and empowering in many ways, but they shouldn't take over life and reality.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#154

Post by 72deluxe »

bambax wrote: post #149
salmonet wrote: post #107

Came across a tweet about the Sony MiniDisc Recorder/Player going for hundreds and even thousands of dollars on Ebay. Nostalgia apparently sells. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m5...

That's amazing. I have one that works absolutely flawlessly; I still need to transfer what I have on those disks before I try to sell it, but then... Why would people pay that kind of money for this?? Do they need it to play their old disks? Wouldn't it be cheaper to have them transferred to another media by a lab?

My brother has a bunch of MiniDisc players and recorders. I do not understand why. He refuses to get an MP3 player or use his phone but will instead record audio in REALTIME from CDs etc. to MiniDisc. He says the battery life is really good. The psychoacoustic modelling on the audio is not, however!!

He even bought a multitrack minidisc desk. Apparently it was going cheap. I understand why - with 4 tracks of audio, it'll record 15 minutes. No good for long jams.

I do not understand the fascination with it at all. Even an old Tascam portastudio or the modern equivalents that record to SD card would be better.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#156

Post by cornholio »

hellofunk wrote: post #142
SwellJoe wrote: post #111

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries tha…

Is it really an issue of image quality? Because while the qualities are different, analog media has its own character. You have to do quite a bit of image manipulation in digital to get that "super 8" look, and it isn't always that convincing. Same with black/white photography vs. digital -- the way a digital chip reacts to light is very different than the way chemicals in film react, and some film stocks have a rang…

At first it might seem like a fad, but "character" is essential when making art. You are trying to reach another human being, not simply deliver the best image possible, so her past experiences, memories, the fact that she grew up watching grainy movies at the local theater, will all interact and elicit a certain emotional or instinctual response. It's not that analog is better, is that your audience reacts uniquely to analog artifacts, even when delivered digitally.

This, and not superstition is the reason we still have tube amps, 24 fps polyester film ("celluloid"), vinyl records and the rest. That's not to say superstition is not rampant in the professional fields, We've all seen it: gold plated wires that deliver no measurable improvements, creators that refuse to touch the same application in an (much cheaper and faster) Windows PC as opposed to the "pro" Mac version, "magic" equipment brands that "all the pros use" and so on.

It's essentially a cargo-cult: we try to emulate successful creators and get fixated on the appearances. If we get success, often time by sheer luck, we attributed to brand X or Y and spread magic thinking to others.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#157

Post by rplst8 »

drrotmos wrote: post #82
beamatronic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or unless you are Quentin Tarantino; see Inglorious Basterds (2009) to see what rich colors film can provide.

Or better yet, The Hateful Eight, in which he takes film to a new level, shooting on Ultra Panavision 70 (which perhaps counter-intuitively is 65 mm film). Other people are going digital, but Quentin Tarantino seems to be busy taking film to the next level instead :)

The "70" in Ultra Panavision 70 mostly refers to the projection system. As projected in the the theater, it uses 70mm film. During the filming process a 65mm stock is used. The extra 5mm was for the optical soundtrack.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#158

Post by Jgrubb »

SwellJoe wrote: post #111

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries tha…

Friend, analog audio is not hipster bullshit. Running through vacuum tubes and transformers, printing to tape, dumping it back into a DAW is not hipster bullshit. It's using the best tools for their portions of the job.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#159

Post by Ambroos »

exodust wrote: post #144
bprater wrote: post #62

You may have not noticed it, but the benefits of film have been going extinct this decade. Check out how many feature films are shot digitally versus on film. Unless you are Spielberg, you are shooting digitally. Currently, there are small digital cameras like the Blackmagic Pocket Camera (BMPCC) camera, under $1k, which have a capability to shoot images that are so similar to 16mm film that the average consumer coul…

Mad Men (TV series) was shot on film, it looks very nice. But I suppose it could also have been shot digitally and nobody would have spotted the difference. Maybe.

From season 5 they switched to ARRI Alexa cameras and added grain in post to emulate the film look. So you proved yourself right here, nobody did really spot the difference (and every season of Mad Men looked fantastic).

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#160

Post by snarfy »

mikepurvis wrote: post #120
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With photography, film and audio alike, it's easy to prove that digital has orders of magnitude more precision and accuracy. That's great, but it's not the whole picture. Mixing desks are said to colour the sound in certain ways, and in doing so, introduce harmonics and other sorts of imprecision that would be anathema to digital components, for which THD and SNR are paramount and utter precision is the ultimate goal…

I don't think anyone disputes that. The real question is, can a digital filter provide a close enough approximation of that colouring that going through the analogue path is no longer necessary? Are Instagram and Photoshop an adequate substitute for real life film grain? I say yes, but I'm a software guy. And I've had this argument with a serious pro audio engineer who has a Pro Tools workstation built around a Neve…

For audio, yes, digital can replicate analog to 100% accuracy. You cannot differentiate the output signal using an oscilloscope. The signals are identical. People using workflows you describe are a cult, IMO.
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