[Jenny List] has been reverse-engineering and redesigning the Single8 home movie film cartridge for the modern age, to breathe life into abandoned cine cameras.
One of the frustrating things about working with technologies that have been with us for a while is the proliferation of standards and the way that once-popular formats can become obsolete over time. This can leave equipment effectively unusable and unloved.
There is perhaps no greater example of this than in film photography – an industry and hobby that has been with us for over 100 years and that has left many cameras orphaned once the film format they relied on was no longer available (Disc film, anyone?).
Thankfully, Hackaday’s own [Jenny List] has been working hard to bring one particular cine film format back from the dead and has just released the fourth instalment in a video series documenting the process of resurrecting the Single8 format cartridge.
Unlike Super8, which stacks the feeder and take-up reel one atop the other, Single8 adopts the traditional side-by-side approach, giving us a physically wider form-factor while using the same size of film stock (which is still available for Super8) and retaining the removable light-proof cartridge idea.
There are differing opinions on which is the “superior” format, as each has pros and cons, but what is certainly true is that Single8 cameras are readily available at very low costs because of their obsolete status.
We think it’s fascinating to see the development of Jenny’s design and the iterations that take it from being a workable FDM-printed prototype to resin-printed parts that are nearly identical to the original models, including features such as automatic ISO selection through shaped cut-outs in the cartridge shell.
Of course, once you’ve shot the film, you may need to digitize it, or maybe you’d prefer to project it with an LED upgrade to a classic projector?
Impressive stuff!
I find it interesting that we think we have things that are complete. Eg a camera is a device that takes pictures.
But what we really have are components in a system. Eg a camera is one component in a complex manufacturing, distribution and processing system supported by lots of human employees and infrastructure. The whole system is what allows you to make a film. Not the camera.
The systems eventually go offline and leave the devices behind. It feels sad to see a capable device that isn’t being utilised, but the device was never really capable in the first place. It was always the entire system.
That makes it all the more impressive when we see individuals like Jenny doing the work to bring the systems back online like this. Great work!
A great description of your average smart home device on the market today.
These two articles about 8mm video have made me realize how obsolete the format is. Video quality seems to be somewhere comparable to be in between 240p and 360p, which would put it somewhere around the cheapest “modern” toy camera’s. I also had a look at the cost of the film. According to the Kodak price list a roll of 8mm film costs EUR37.05 and it is good for 100s to 200s (Yes, seconds) of video, depending on framerate. So shooting an hour of video at 18fps costs: 37.05*3600/200 = EUR 666.9 And unlike digital media the film is not reusable, and it takes hours to days to develop and review the film before you can be sure it even worked.
Maybe there is some sort of charm or nostalgia in it for some people, but I do not see the point. Especially if you go though the “digitizing” step at the end, just starting with about the cheapest phone you can get makes a lot more sense.
On the positive side, It also makes it clear how much progress has been made in the electronic gadgets in the last few decades and how extremely cheap mass produced electronics has become. Phones shoot higher resolution video and they end up in a drawer or get recycled. (Which is quite sad in itself, but that is another topic).
I guess there is some value in documenting it and preserving some of the equipment for museums, and even keeping it running, but beyond that?
I think the costs will motivate you to think at least twice before you take the shot and thus you end up with a more interesting shot.
With my phone i have hours of meh quality movieclips on the device, but never watched it again. With analogue film the incentive is much higher and watcjing it more pleasurable
…thus you end up *missing a lot of good shots*.
Back when digital cameras first became good enough to edge into the space occupied by high quality film cameras, the pro opinion on them began to swing. “If I didn’t have a digital, I would have missed this great shot, and this one, and this other one which got published in Nat Geo.” Just paraphrasing what I recall from a camera magazine article wherein one pro photographer discussed how digital was close to displacing film. The image quality was *almost* there while the sheer convenience was making it an easy choice to grab the digital and photograph everything that looked interesting. With no need to think about using up film frames the opportunity cost of possibly missing good shots later due to lack of film was gone. Any shot that was lackluster or just bleah could simply be deleted.
There’s that. “Just delete it.”
Then there’s “sort 6000 photos of a wedding reception.”
A professional photographer and an amateur (friend of the happy couple) each made several thousand pictures.
Most are waste – 90 percent (or more) are uninteresting things in uninteresting settings photographed in uninteresting ways.
Most of the good pictures were made intentionally – set up with the photographer(s) directing people and staging the shots.
The rest of the good pictures came when the photographer(s) “stalked” a group and shot individual photos as the people interacted, basically waiting for some person to do something interesting.
The vast volume didn’t help. It made picking photos for the album far more time consuming.
If the photographers had stuck with staging and “stalking,” there’d have been far fewer photos but with a far greater “signal to noise ratio” – and maybe they’d have gotten more of the interesting “candid” shots since they would have been observing more and shooting less.
There’s something to be said for not worrying about having used up all of your film too early.
There’s also something to be said for being selective in what you photograph.
I agree that volume is no substitute for quality, especially on gatherings such as a wedding. But I can’t imagine 8mm video being a preferred format for filming a wedding either.
On the opposite side of usability, you can run a dash cam for hundredths of hours, just for the odd chance an accident happens, or you become the victim of road rage. In such a case you need the volume just to have a chance to capture the important few seconds.
It’s the continuing evolution of their craft. Prior to digital, a photographer would shoot maybe 20 rolls at a wedding. 700 photos, 90% of which were crap. But the photographer is at a disadvantage. Apart from the staged shots, they don’t know what the couple will find valuable. Is it a shot of little Emma wearing her late mom’s prom dress that brings everyone to tears? Maybe it’s the last photo of Uncle Ernie just before he passed away? Or the bride is a schoolteacher and her class made the centerpieces for the tables as a present? So they try to shoot everything, and hope some of those candid photos resonate.
With film, the cost per roll is always a nagging limit. With digital, it’s cheaper to just keep snapping. Not only might you catch that glimpse of some unknown sentiment, but you might get it in a photographically interesting context. Those are the unexpected photos clients treasure. Score a few hits like that and you help establish your reputation at the local bridal shops, which is important if you enjoy things like eating and paying your bills on time.
If they wanted to eat and pay bills they should have picked a profession other than photographer.
Seriously.
It’s one of those tracks that requires a backup plan, and a backup for that.
It’s not *just* about the resolution, or the frame rate, or the cost. If those are your criteria – your sole criteria – then yes, this technology is not for you.
And that’s OK. We all have different interests and motivations.
Including phones, I own 5 digital cameras. I also own 2 analog (film) cameras. There’s pleasure in using all of them, and seeing the results. Film certainly costs a lot, so you have to be……..selective, and careful when pressing that shutter release. Exercising your skills and judgement is a pleasurable activity, and the results are the cherry on top.
Don’t forget that there are some very powerful images from the earlier generations of photography – images that we would label poor resolution, poor lighting, and/or poor focus.
It’s true. My phone’s camera is better in every way than my 8mm camera.
The attraction of 8mm for me is the aesthetic, and the careful planning of what to film.
It’s not cheap, certainly. But I’ve got digital video for most things. I do one or two Super 8 cartridges a year, and I approach them as individual projects.
Meanwhile film makers and students like them for the chance to work with real film.
>somewhere comparable to be in between 240p and 360p
It’s not a fair comparison, since film grain and noise does a number on the picture once it’s encoded and compressed through Youtube. It’s got so much random information in it that the entire picture suffers a great deal when you constrict the data rate; the same would happen if you add enough Gaussian noise to a 1080p video.
That said, if you have low sensitivity film like ISO 50 shot with plenty of light and a good sharp lens, you can get very fine details out of it, compared to ISO 800 and a cruddy camera in the dark. That’s a feature of film in general: to get more sensitivity, the silver halide crystals need to be larger, which means your picture gets more grainy and noisy.
To say nothing of how grainy film gets if you push it w development process.
That said: You need to spend a few bucks on DSLR to match B&W 35mm grain shot with good light, glass and film.
Where you’d find _good_ B&W film these days?
Nothing compares to film. Pure magik
Ah the old vs new discussion.
My opinion which is worth the digital ink it’s written with.
Today doing “things” is almost always easier and better in every quantifiable way. Digital video, digital audio, apple wrist watches and electric razors.
What has value, true value today is time. Things that take time to do are about the only things of lasting value.
It takes time to learn to fly an airplane safely. It takes time to make a mechanical Swiss watch and it takes time to shoot film. It takes time to learn to drive a Model A and it takes time to learn to shave with a straight razor.
These things have more value in a hour of effort than the heap of disposable plastic and social network posts the vast majority of society seem to think is important.
Thanks List for your dedication to this project. And HaD too.
> Things that take time to do are about the only things of lasting value.
I would argue it’s things that can be replicated that have lasting value. Other things just break down and vanish over time. That implies things that take little effort and little time to master are more valuable than things which are difficult and time-consuming to do, since that means fewer examples will survive and each copy will suffer more replication errors.
> more value in a hour of effort
Not everything that takes effort is valuable. Learning how to spit a bluebottle off the air takes innumerable hours to master, yet a fly swatter would be more valuable than your skill in the end.
One of the big advantages of film is the ability to view it with very low tech. Just hold it up to a light.
The resolution issue with cartridge based film, whether still or moving (Kodak Instamatic or 110 still, Super 8 movie), is that the film cannot be held as flat when exposed as it can in a camera with a pressure plate holding the film flat, as is used in all film cameras of any quality.
I have shot many reels of Super 8 Kodachrome and of regular 8 Kodachrome and there is a significant difference in quality between them that is not due to other factors (lens, camera, environment). Cartridge film is purely a convenience to the user and does nothing to produce quality images.
I still wish this project well, however.
And I’m worried about losing the 8mm video format…
Telling people to not bother shooting film is like telling a sketch artist to forgo using a pen or pencil or charcoal and just use a digital tablet, or telling a sculptor to forget about using clay or plaster etc and just render something in 3D via software on their computer, or telling a painter for forget using WaterColor, Acrylic, Oil etc and just do it digitally. What an insulting concept! If using film is too expensive or beyond one’s reasonable comprehension, then just go use Digital. No need to bash others about it. I’ve own some vehicles longer than 30 years, so just because they are older technology, I should dispose of them to the crusher?! It’s the same type of idiotic mentality. Digital is great, it’s fantastic and besides being a medium unto itself, it’s also a great support to most anything analog. However, I’m a human being, made in flesh in analog, not created digitally. Digital storage can also be very fragile sometimes, such as a recently died micro SD card of mine……DEAD…all LOST now. Yet….in my files, are the negatives from the very first roll of film I shot when I was 5 years old in great condition. That was over 60 years ago! Anyhow, I applaud the efforts here to keep the SINGLE-8 format going, many great cameras were made, and I just love my super tiny FUJI P-2 which fits in the pocket and can go anywhere happily.