After an nearly 40-year hiatus, Kodak Tremendous Eight is again. Sure, the makers who popularized the cinema movie format have lastly dropped at market a brand new Tremendous Eight Digital camera enhanced for the digital world, after the undertaking was first unveiled at CES in 2016. 

I’ll guess the brand new Kodak Tremendous Eight Digital camera spikes loads of curiosity – it’s merely not the form of tech we see hit the cabinets in 2023. And for a lot of within the trade, together with all-time nice film administrators Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Patty Jenkins and Steven McQueen, Tremendous Eight is cinema. There’s even a film, Tremendous 8, devoted to the romance of the format. I cherished it.

To paraphrase a few of their phrases, “(Tremendous 8) made me fall in love with cinematic storytelling”, “It taught me how valuable a picture is and might be” and “There’s at all times a way of discovery with the format”.

We’re now in a digital movie world, so the place does Tremendous Eight slot in? From a product improvement perspective, naturally, any new-to-market conventional movie digicam must evolve. Kodak has rolled out key upgrades in its 21st century Tremendous Eight Digital camera, together with a 4-inch vari-angle LCD display and ‘Prolonged Gate’ video recording. Nonetheless, it’s additionally an extremely costly bit of substances, above and past the projected record worth when it was first unveiled in 2016, and pricier than a few of the finest mirrorless cameras for any funds.

A brand new Tremendous 8

On the skin, the Kodak Tremendous Eight Digital camera is fairly acquainted, with a boxy kind issue, C-mount interchangeable lens (it comes with a 6mm 1:1.2 lens which is a full-frame equal 35mm lens roughly, and can work with any C-Mount lens), plus pistol grip and high deal with. Nonetheless, it’s additionally radically totally different. 

There’s a 4-inch LCD vari-angle display to compose your pictures and permit you for the primary time to see facet ratios utilizing an overlay, navigate menus, and see digicam settings. It’ll file audio through a 3.5mm enter onto an SD card (and you may monitor audio ranges on the LCD). You’re not fastened to a 16:9 facet ratio both, with ‘Prolonged Gate’ recording by an 11% bigger body that features 14:9 ratio, so your output can higher match trendy shows. These are options we take as a right in at the moment’s digital cameras, but it surely’s all new for the Tremendous Eight format. That is Tremendous Eight made straightforward.

Sadly there’s oversight, too, particularly the usage of a micro USB port for charging. From 2024, there might be an EU commonplace for all telephones, tablets, and cameras to make use of USB-C connectors, and never micro USB. This might show an issue ought to Kodak want to roll out its Tremendous Eight Digital camera to a wider market.

Total, that is an thrilling upgraded and enhanced Tremendous Eight expertise… at a value.

The worth of nostalgia

The Kodak Tremendous Eight Digital camera will launch first within the US, costing $5,495. When it was first introduced in 2016, the projected price was between $400 and $750. Clearly, there’s extra happening than inflation. 

Within the image beneath there’s what’s contained in the pelicase; digicam, 6mm lens, pistol grip, a Kodak Tri-X movie cartridge, plus equipment. Every cartridge incorporates 50 ft of movement image movie, which is equal to round three minutes of file time, relying on body fee – the Tremendous 8mm Digital camera can shoot at 24 and 25fps, plus over and below crank at 18 and 36fps, one other thrilling new function. 

There are plans to make the digicam out there in different nations, and you may register your curiosity on the Kodak web site through the Signal To Purchase choice. 

Feedback in regards to the new Tremendous Eight Digital camera vary from impressed to dismissive. In the end, there’s no getting round simply how costly it’s, as somebody famous on a digicam discussion board, “the worth of nostalgia”. At $5,500 with out factoring in the price of movie and if it is advisable pay for it to be developed, this looks like an unique product, banking on being totally different sufficient in 2023 for folks to contemplate it. In any case, it’s pricier than many of the perfect video cameras at the moment. 

Romantics will say that there’s one thing about Tremendous Eight that may’t be replicated digitally – you need to attempt it. The brand new digicam additionally considerably modernizes the capturing expertise of the much-loved movie format. Nonetheless, the world has additionally moved on. Can Kodak justify such a excessive price?  I might love to present the Kodak Tremendous 8mm Digital camera a spin, however with the worth hike, one thing tells me I will by no means get the possibility. 

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