I'm fairly new to Super-8 myself, and the reason 'I' chose to shoot my films on super8 instead of on minidv were:
a) I wanted to learn film, and cinematography. I wouldn't have been able to do it with an affordable minidv camera, and 16mm is too expensive.
b) Super8 can achieve DoF. Granted DoF in Super8 is deeper then 16mm or 35mm, but its much shallower then what minidv could offer you (consumer cameras, not th pro cameras with 35mm adapted lenses). I think a shallow DoF is what really seperates the minidv "home video" look from the shallower DoF film look.
c) It's film! And you get manual controls on cameras which gives more more control over the look of your film.
snaggs wrote: Do people normally start with Super8? I'd imagine you would waste alot of film until you learnt the Cine craft. As a photographer Im often amazed at how Cine photographers manage to take shot after shot framed beuatifully at 24 shots per second! Do most people learnt with a MiniDV before graduating to Super 8?
Your patience is appreciated
Daniel.
I found super 8 about a year ago when I was going through an experimental stage in my stills photography. I was shooting a lot of different films stocks and doing a lot of home processing and printing.
I became inspired to learn cinematography and knew from the start that film had the look I wanted and video was something else entirely.
Like still photography, you have to shoot a lot of film to learn the craft.
The good news is that Kodak is now selling Vision 2 Negative film, which is certainly the most forgiving film ever packaged for super 8. It is much easier to get good balanced results with color negative than it ever was with K40. We will miss K40s beautiful reds and dark shadows though...
If you buy a super 8 camera do your self a favor and buy a good one. The good ones are fun. The cheap ones aren't.
miniDV may be ubiquitous, but it's still quite costly for even a decent camera. you can go a long way into S8 -- including the costs of a S8 camera on ebay, film, processing, and telecine -- before you match the cost of a decent 3-CCD camera.
for example, last year i bought a (very) used sony trv-900 on ebay. i believe the cost after shipping was around $1k. i bought a broken nizo 801 on ebay for $70 and "fixed" it... leaving me $930 for film fun before i'm up to the camera cost for the sony.
i enjoy both film and dv and think they both have their place... but if image quality were my only point of comparison, the pictures from my nizo win hands down.
(to take the argument a step further: buy a cheap bolex H-16 and shoot 16mm and there's no quality- or resolution-comparable DV solution without mortgaging the farm...)
rmichel wrote:This is a stupid thread, THE guy is a TROLL! You know the people that go to a... ex. a Knitting group and post "knitting, who does that shit."
Troll #1 rule - question the rational of the group in question.
I did read it, and its still a stupid thread.
What happens is people start defending what they do...Oh better DoF or grain resolution, its nosense. Do people here shoot for strickly technical reason? I don't
I also shoot dv, why?...because I want too.
Look, if anyone is interested in super8, there are a lot of sites out there where he/she can find answers. But know your trolls
rmichel wrote:Troll #1 rule - question the rational of the group in question.
I did read it, and its still a stupid thread.
What happens is people start defending what they do...Oh better DoF or grain resolution, its nosense. Do people here shoot for strickly technical reason? I don't
I also shoot dv, why?...because I want too.
Look, if anyone is interested in super8, there are a lot of sites out there where he/she can find answers. But know your trolls
I'm just glad I didn't run into you when I first posted on this forum about Super8... I might have left and never looked back at this site or super8 again.
I"ve seen recently both a newspaper photographer and a wedding photographer both using digital - I think it best not to not to over romaticise film but recognise it has a specific place for interested amateurs and professionals alike.
For those for whom quicker is better and cheaper (news photographers in certain circumstances and wedding photographers in most cases) digital will undoubtably prevail.
rmichel wrote:Troll #1 rule - question the rational of the group in question.
I did read it, and its still a stupid thread.
What happens is people start defending what they do...Oh better DoF or grain resolution, its nosense. Do people here shoot for strickly technical reason? I don't
I also shoot dv, why?...because I want too.
Look, if anyone is interested in super8, there are a lot of sites out there where he/she can find answers. But know your trolls
Hi Ray,
I'm not sure what to say about your "Troll" phobia. To be honest, I have no clue what you are even talking about. This forum is generally open to all forms of questioning regarding the format. Open questioning is what forums are about.....right?
snaggs wrote:
2. Please dont kill me for this. But Why Super 8? Wouldnt a 3-CCD Mini-DV cam outperform these? Or is it for purely artistic reasons?
From one who just watch: I would say, is the difference between having your portrait in a painting and in a photo. The second is easier, the first has class ;-)
By the way , i would also prefer a 3-ccd mini-dvd cam because it makes life easier (but not interesting..)
Hi Steve,
If you have no clue, then why are you bothering?
It's not a phobia, just calling them like I see them.
and yes, its open which why I'm posting. Am I infringing on you? Steve...are you Troll?
I don't think the original poster was trolling. Trolls are usually much more inflammatory. I get the same questions all the time from my friends.
But here's an analogy: some people still paint with oils and watercolors. Yet you can achieve similar, faster results with some kind of painting software for free (the Gimp is free) if you're willing to buy the computer. But nobody questions those who choose to paint with oils. Oil painters might like the feeling of creating something with their brushes, even if it is a little more difficult than moving the mouse. And I'm sure they get tons of satisfaction when they look at their creation hanging up in their house. Maybe more so than using software and printing it out on your inkjet. And don't oils look really nice? Subtle, deep, rich, full-of-texture?
Now getting others to see your creation might be a little more difficult. So take a digital photo of it and send it out to everyone on your email list. Best of both worlds, I think.
Now I'm not criticising the original poster (on the contrary, I hope s/he joins our elite cadre of impractical cinematographers), but I've never heard anyone question an oil painter on his decision to not go digital.
I don't think the original poster was trolling. Trolls are usually much more inflammatory. I get the same questions all the time from my friends.
No, man the best trolls are the ones that are manipulating you without you knowing, remember, the troll is usually a bored IT person. The reason I called it was because the thread was less than a day long and going on two pages. It looked like a troll thread.
Sure, the outside world will question you interest in using this arcane equipment when there are better choices, right? super8 is freaky.
What would happen it this was a Mac forum and the post was about why Macs?
