The perfect beginners camera? Does it exist?

[Muckymuck]

Just thinking about when I started and all the trial and error got me thinking what a complete novice who just wants to find out what it is like and get a half-decent image would find useful in a Super 8 camera, and the following features spring to mind-

- Fixed focus lens.
- 18 fps.
- XL shutter.
- Auto exposure.
- Takes 25, 40, 64, 100 and 160 ISO film speeds (so can use Ektachrome 64T bought from the local independent camera shop).

Out of interest, does any camera exist with this very specification? I know of plenty which do most but only take 40 and 160 ISO.

If so these would make good gifts for video users who might be converted to the joys of Super 8 as they couldn't get it wrong and give up at the first try!

[T-Scan]

Canon 512XL

[ECNtoo]

i think youll find that video people getting 18fps and fixed focus will get pissed off with the lack of focus and weird frame rate. they will then attribute those 'weird' features with super8 and dump the idea

[Rusty]

I think the Kodak Instamatic M2 is user friendly. It has everything you listed except for the automatic exposure and xl shutter.

Rusty

[Evan Kubota]

I agree with most of the previous posters... the 'features' you mention are more like limits leading to the cliched look. My list:

battery operated
accurate exposure metering with full manual mode
24 fps required
quality lens
durable/reliable (excludes the French ones)

[super8man]

Eumig Viennette - 18/24fps, override of ASA by +/- degrees, nice lens (same as Nautica), no focus required, solid, not too light, just right grip and feel.

Check it out...

[Super8rules]

Aside from the few high end models of the mid to late 70's, most Super8 cameras were specifically made to be "the perfect beginner camera" and marketed to the average Joe to capture family life and vacations, just load, point and shoot. They were the video cameras of their day.

The generation of today who have discovered super8 seem to want cameras to do more than they are suppose to do.

That being said, I would recommend any Bell&Howell.

[Angus]

Like most other things in life...cameras have been dumbed down...because, for reasons I shall never fathom, average Joe believes he cannot operate a "proper" camera.

So..though a 70's super 8 camera was designed to be easy to use, by today's standards it has so many knobs and manual adjustments that average Joe would freak...."MANUAL FOCUS! HOW DO I DO THAT?"

As I always say....I may well be a genius...but if I could do it at the age of four or five then the average adult can...

[woods01]

Canon 512XL

Funny you'd pick that, today I was in the supermarket and flipping through
one of those cheap celebrity photo mags (In Style, In Line, I forget) and
in the front section are pictures of David Arquette and Corteny Cox and
their kid. David is clearly holding a Canon Super 8 camera possibly the
512xl.

[AMAT0R]

Quarz 1 x 8 S2. It's the russian camera with spring-driven motor (good thing for beginners to not shoot too long and boring sequences). Auto exposure TTL with manual speed setting, manual exposure also available. Lens 1:1,8/9-38 mm. Reflex; focus setting through the micro pyramides. You can remove the lens and then you have fixed focus lens (about 12 mm). This last function was very nice, when someone from my friends want "to film me" and I didn't want to hear "I can't set the focus!" and didn't want him to make the endless zoom-ins and zoom-outs.

[bakanosaru]

Canon 518 SV

(Not fixed focus or XL shuttered but meets all the other requirements.)

[vidwerk]

Quarz 1 x 8 S2. It's the russian camera with spring-driven motor (good thing for beginners to not shoot too long and boring sequences). Auto exposure TTL with manual speed setting, manual exposure also available. Lens 1:1,8/9-38 mm. Reflex; focus setting through the micro pyramides. You can remove the lens and then you have fixed focus lens (about 12 mm). This last function was very nice, when someone from my friends want "to film me" and I didn't want to hear "I can't set the focus!" and didn't want him to make the endless zoom-ins and zoom-outs.

Correct me if im wrong. Is asa setting dial,
-2 = 200, -1 = 100, 0 = 50, +1 = 25, +2 = 12.

vidwerk.

[Muckymuck]

That has always been my understanding of the Quarz. I can't remember where I read it though. Probably by searching the forum archive. Presumably this means in daylight (i.e. with filter out).

So the exposures would be perfect with

Vision 200T, Tri X, Plus X, Ektachrome 100D, Velvia and Vision 50D

and would expose Kodachrome 40 1/3 stop under Ektachrome 64T 1/3 stop over which is within acceptable limits?

What button batteries does this camera need?

[AMAT0R]

Quarz 1 x 8 S2

Correct me if im wrong. Is asa setting dial,
-2 = 200, -1 = 100, 0 = 50, +1 = 25, +2 = 12.

vidwerk.

Yes, indeed. I only not remember at the moment, if setting between 0 and -1 (and others) is also possible. When not, E64T would be exposed as 50 ASA (difference about 1/3 f stop, not to recognize).

Regards

Jan

PS. In that camera switching on -off the 85 filter is only manual.

[vidwerk]

That has always been my understanding of the Quarz. I can't remember where I read it though. Probably by searching the forum archive. Presumably this means in daylight (i.e. with filter out).

So the exposures would be perfect with

Vision 200T, Tri X, Plus X, Ektachrome 100D, Velvia and Vision 50D

and would expose Kodachrome 40 1/3 stop under Ektachrome 64T 1/3 stop over which is within acceptable limits?

What button batteries does this camera need?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR44_battery
The dead batteries in my camera are LR44 B76. According to wiki, have a voltage of 1.5v. I'm pretty sure the meter is busted. I read somewhere that they go pretty easily.

vidwerk.