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Shaw

Greetings,

Is any difference in the camera for shooting 8mm vs super8mm film. Could I shoot both with the same camera?
 
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2 different films and cameras are used. 8mm is pretty dead and processing would be alot of $$$. Here is something from a site that I pulled...
Q. What's the difference between Super 8mm and Regular 8mm film?
A. Regular 8mm film is 16mm wide and perforated with large holes on each side of the film. There are twice as many holes in 8mm film as there are in standard 16mm movie film. The trick is that only half of the film is exposed in filming; the film is then turned over after the first 25 feet and the other half is exposed, for a total of 50 feet. The film is then slit after processing.

Standard 16mm film will not work in 8mm cameras due to the lack of the extra perforations. But Regular 8mm film will work in 16mm cameras in case you were wondering…

Super 8mm film refers to a standard 8mm wide strip of film that only has sprocket perforations on one side. The holes are SMALLER than those for Regular 8mm. Correspondingly, the actual film area for Super 8mm film is larger than that for Regular 8mm - a full 50 percent larger! Hence the industry term of "Super" is added to the name.

There is also Super 16mm where the film is still 16mm wide but one side of the sprocket perforations are removed and the film exposure area is enlarged to take advantage of the extra space. Other "Super" formats are also possible. The main concern when "Super" sizing a film format is film registration. Without the dual support offered by two sprockets, larger film formats tend to wobble more than the smallest "Super" film - Super 8mm.

Finally, many Regular 8mm cameras offer the standard speed of 16 frames per second while Super 8mm cameras have a standard film speed of 18fps.
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Hope that helps you out. :)
 
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And don't forget about single 8. Fuji still makes single 8 film, and you can get Fujica cameras on ebay. I'd stick with super 8 though, much easier finding labs, etc.
 
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There's a local shop here in the twin cities that does telecine at what looks to me to be pretty good prices, and from their sample footage looks like decent quality too. They also do scratch removal and cleaning (for an additional charge of course) but it looks like a good outfit: www.cinesound.net

"The ONLY Super8 film Telecine in the MidWest. Pristine 35/16mm transfers also on the Marconi Telecine. MagSync/Edgecode/KeyKode/Dailies. Transfer to any video format."

Good news for us Midwesterners ;)
 
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Shaw said:
Greetings,

Is any difference in the camera for shooting 8mm vs super8mm film. Could I shoot both with the same camera?
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Actually there is one camera that I know of that will shoot ALL 8mm formats with the appropriate backs.The Elmo Trifilmatic features a removeable back where you can buy backs for super 8,single 8,regular 8mm and I think even DS8.I've seen a few of them on ebay from time to time.
 
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Will Vincent said:
There's a local shop here in the twin cities that does telecine at what looks to me to be pretty good prices, and from their sample footage looks like decent quality too. They also do scratch removal and cleaning (for an additional charge of course) but it looks like a good outfit: www.cinesound.net

Good news for us Midwesterners ;)
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I've sent a lot of Super 8 and 16mm to Cinesound with good results. Their Marconi telecine can zoom in on part of a frame, which can save footage with boom mics intruding. They also have a B&H regular 8mm filmchain which produced stunning results with some old WW2 footage last year.
 
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