A super 8 ca,mera for the complete novice?? advice...

[tbip2001]

Hi guys, Im new to the forum, and new to film making. My head repeatedly tells me to go Minidv, at least for the begining, but my heart wants to use Super8.

Ok, my question is, If you were gonna buy a camera. what model would you aim for??

Thats probably a broad question, but lets narrow it down and say, What is my best bet in terms of readily available colour film ??(I dont want to spend hard earned money on a camera, only to find out the film I need has been discontinued!!)

So what is a reliable, high quality cam, that supports 25fps, and has colour film stock still in production??

Thanks guys
tbip2001

[BolexPlusx]

Why choose! Go with your head and your heart!

I have a mini DV cam as well as a whole stable of Super-8 cams. Each technology has its strengths and weaknesses and neither is a true substitute where the other is at it's best.

Sometimes both Super-8 and DV come along and operate at the same time, and come home with entirely different results. For an example, my wife, my son and I recently went to a railroad museum for the day. I shot black and white of the steam powered train, and she shot video of us riding on the train. I came home with the beginnings of a vintage looking railroad film to be projected 5 feet tall on the screen, and she came home with the family home movie to put on the tube. We were standing right next to each other much of the time, and you can hear the Minolta's gears grinding away on her sound track here and there, but different perspectives, different techniques and different equipment gave distinct results.

As for a camera to choose, the end of Kodachrome-40 makes that decision more complicated than it should be. The Minolta I've stated above will expose the 64T properly only with an internal tweak. (Won't do 24 FPS either)

Given that, I think your best answers will be found here:

http://super8wiki.com/index.php/Supe...in_old_cameras

and here:

http://home.pacbell.net/mnyberg/super8mm/super8_35.html

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ February 03, 2006 10:11 PM: Message edited by: BolexPlusx ]</font>