Since most of the discussion around the new Ektachrome has been on this forum, I figured it is the best place to post this question. As those who have anxiously followed this new release know, we are getting a new slide film as pretty much an afterthought to Kodak wanting to bring out an amateur movie film. I just recently read that Kodachrome was originally introduced as a movie film and was only made available in still formats a year or two later, This leads to the obvious question. Is there actually more demand for Super 8 movie film than 35mm, 120 and even sheet size E-6 film?
When I was growing up in the '60's and '70's, I don't recall anyone who had a movie camera. I even had an uncle that had one of the big old Polaroids where you had to wipe the picture with the lacquer. Given all of the expense and inconvenience to set up a screen and projector for about a three minute snippet of silent, moving images this must have always been a niche market. Obviously it was used extensively for filming news events and a great deal of the combat footage from WWII was filmed on 8mm, but that market hasn't existed for decades.
When consumer video cameras first came out in the early 1980's, people who would have never have bothered with a movie camera flocked to get them. Even the huge, ungainly ones with a separate camera and a recorder that you carried in a satchel became an immediate "must have". For anyone who wanted to record their kids, or to record themselves making kids, videotape was the obvious choice. Even before the consumer models came out, news reporting had long before gone to tape.
The consumer video recorder must have devastated the market for amateur movie film. But the film companies soldiered on and continued to produce a product for a niche of a niche of a niche market. And now Kodak thinks enough folks will shell out $70+ for film and processing to merit bringing a on new movie film. So let's do a survey. How many folks will be using the movie film and how many will be shooting slides?
When I was growing up in the '60's and '70's, I don't recall anyone who had a movie camera. I even had an uncle that had one of the big old Polaroids where you had to wipe the picture with the lacquer. Given all of the expense and inconvenience to set up a screen and projector for about a three minute snippet of silent, moving images this must have always been a niche market. Obviously it was used extensively for filming news events and a great deal of the combat footage from WWII was filmed on 8mm, but that market hasn't existed for decades.
When consumer video cameras first came out in the early 1980's, people who would have never have bothered with a movie camera flocked to get them. Even the huge, ungainly ones with a separate camera and a recorder that you carried in a satchel became an immediate "must have". For anyone who wanted to record their kids, or to record themselves making kids, videotape was the obvious choice. Even before the consumer models came out, news reporting had long before gone to tape.
The consumer video recorder must have devastated the market for amateur movie film. But the film companies soldiered on and continued to produce a product for a niche of a niche of a niche market. And now Kodak thinks enough folks will shell out $70+ for film and processing to merit bringing a on new movie film. So let's do a survey. How many folks will be using the movie film and how many will be shooting slides?