When exactly did Super 8 "disappear?"

[BolexPlusx]

The critical thing is what happens in a couple of years when the last of the auction cameras and all the spare parts for them has dried up.

Right now Super-8 is enjoying a rebound. Kodak recently said Kodachrome-40 sales have tripled and with E-bay on the scene, there are probably more cameras for sale than there were 15 years ago. If you watch forums like this you hear about new people joining in all the time, and many of them are younger than 20.

When the population of old cameras starts getting thin, will somebody step forward with a newly manufactured machine to take up the slack? We can't all shell out a couple of thousand for a Beaulieu and I've heard that even the Quarz is new old stock. Certainly a new camera wouldn't fly right now when you can get some really nice cameras used for less than $100, but that just can't last forever.

That's the day that Super-8 will either live or die.

[pauls opinion]

"Kodak recently said Kodachrome-40 sales have tripled"

Didn't know that..since when?? Where did you get that from. Very promissing, great!

Paul

[Roget]

My father bought a Canon AF-514xls in 1981 to replace a failing 20-year-old Bolex Regular-8 camera. Over the next five years or so, we took several epic family vacations. We never had any problem finding film at K-mart.

During this time span I made a couple of "real movies" for extra credit in science class at school. (If you must know, they featured an Indiana Jones knockoff fighting the terror of pollution.) The first, made in 1982, was on K-40. By the time I got around to making a sequel in '86, only Ektachrome 160 was available on the shelves.

We switched to 8mm video in '88 or '89. I remember around this time Super-8 film became impossible to find--except at Christmas. It was probably gone for good by '90 or '91.

Flash forward to 2002, where I recently took a vintage Canon 814 and a few rolls of Tri-X on a weekend trip just to see how it would all work. Can't wait to see the results.

What comes around, goes around, I guess.

Roget

[traderrik]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by S8 Booster:
[QB]Just adding a few Hi- (low?) lights.

I bought my first s8 cam + gear from a friend in 1980. He dumped the S8 in favour of a HUGE 2 piece JVC Cam / corder (=back pack size) offering the poorest image quality I ever saw.

~~~~~~~

LOL, I actually owned one of those JVC dinosaurs, having bought it when when they first came out (yes, I'm older than dirt [img]smile.gif[/img] Coincidentally, just this week I've been transferring some of the videos I shot with it of our kids, to DVD. And you are correct - *very* poor quality (not to mention that the VHS tapes are 21 years old.)

I would not take anything for the memories in those videos, of course. But my Super-8 sound films taken a few years prior give me more pleasure, even though their quality isn't all that great, either. But that's the shooter's fault, not the format or equipment!