Joy = Selling to People who are new Super 8 Converts

[Santo, Ebay Entrepeneur]

I just had the last two of the three cameras I sold on ebay picked up -- the buyers for all three cameras were all right here in Toronto! And you know what? They were all new to super 8 and completely sold on the format! I couldn't believe it.

The buyer of my Nizo S 800 was a film student who was extremely interested in combining it with his Canon 1014 xls (the guy paid $700 US for the Canon in mint condition from some place in Africa on ebay!) and literally embraced my Nizo when he took a look at it when I met him and the producer of his thesis film.

A really nice lady bought both my Bauer 715 and my collectors item Zeiss Ikon Moviflex GS8 on ebay. She's a professional DOP with many imdb credits, though she's shot primarily on video. She and a production assistant came to pick up the cameras and we talked for a good hour on "things Zeiss" and the differences between shooting video and on "the real stuff". She literally giggled with delight when she pulled the Zeiss out of its case and retrieved it from the zip-lock bag I stored it in, calling it a "perfect jewel". Then she dissed video in favour of film! An award-winning DOP shooting in video!

Needless to say, the assertions by many on this board and elsewhere that motion picture film is coming to inevitable end are ludicrous in the extreme if those people were really on film sets or dealing daily with low and high budget film producers like me, or even selling super 8 cameras to working professionals and film students alike. People in all these positions have all told me that there is no substitute for film and they prove it by what they're shooting and even the cameras they are buying. Top of the chain to the bottom.

Hell, I even feel GREAT about selling my cameras to these people!

LONG LIVE SUPER 8.

[Justin Lovell]

hey, that was me!

great camera, great guy.

just posted about how i widened the gate, and the downer about the viewfinder on the NIZO S800...

shooting some tests this week to compare image quality and exposure differences, then i shoot my short film oct 21-24 all downtown toronto on K40.

best,

justin

[Santo]

Wow, good luck! The camera produced very pleasing and steady images with K40, so I think you will be happy as long as you don't have problems with your gate modifications. It was somewhat less stable with Plus-X, particularly near the beginings and endings of carts. A film material of different thickness. But it really seemed to like K40 film stock a lot. However, the Canon has a lens coating developed in the late 70's (spectra they called it) which supposedly provides for a good match with K40, producing a different colour-cast, while the Nizo is from 1970 and, I'm guessing, has a different look. So you might end up with much different looking colour balances.

I look forward to seeing you post some impressions on here. As I have a distanced once-removed interest and am curious as to how the two lenses compare.

[MovieStuff]

Needless to say, the assertions by many on this board and elsewhere that motion picture film is coming to inevitable end are ludicrous in the extreme if those people were really on film sets or dealing daily with low and high budget film producers like me, or even selling super 8 cameras to working professionals and film students alike.

But, of course, no one that asserts film is coming to an end does so based on how many people are just discovering film now or hope to keep buying it in the future. That would be silly. Likewise, asserting the longevity of film based on the sale of a couple of super 8 cameras to excited new users would be just as miscalculated.

People in all these positions have all told me that there is no substitute for film

And I count myself as one of those people you describe. There is no substitute for film and I intend to shoot it as long as it lasts. But how long it lasts and is available for enthusiasts like you and me has nothing to do with how much we love it or how much of it we hope to buy in the future. We don't control the future of film. Corporations do. We are but leafs in a stream that is quickly becoming a swollen river on the way to adulthood as a full blown rapid of mediocrity. If the market becomes saturated with digital, despite our protests of its inferiority, and film as a result becomes too expensive to use, then the option of what we use to tell our stories becomes severely limited. Whether or not film continues has more to do with advances in the digital industry, corporate budgets and display mediums; all of which are far removed from our basic day to day concerns about the superiority of film over digital The demise of film will be in spite of its superiority over digital, not because digital is better. Industries sink to the "good enough" level quickly. What we deem as "good enough", unfortunately, has no meaning to the corporate bigwigs.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv