Toronto. Hayes Urban, a designer in the South-Western USA, thinks we can. His idea is to make a digital version of Kodak’s ubiquitous Super-8 film cartridge, allowing the many Super-8 film cameras to live once again.
I remember his concept being proposed by others a few years ago, but for the 35mm film cassette. The cassette would contain the power and electronics while the sensor would sit on a “tongue” that positioned it in the aperture exposed by operation of the camera’s shutter. This innovative idea never managed to get off the ground before digital cameras drowned out the old film cameras.
In this case, Urban notes that there are many high quality super-8 cameras and lenses while the Kodak film cartridges are no longer made making the remaining stock both costly and fast disappearing. His digital cartridge would include a 5 mp sensor suitable for recording 720p HD video as well as sound on a plug-in SD card. Any super-8 film camera which could use the standard cartridge could used this digital one instead. Have a look at his web site for more information.
Thanks to George Dunbar for pointing out the Hayes Urban web site to me.
