Something a little odd about being exactly my age, is understanding that super 8mm cameras were made for people who don't know what they're doing.
When you're talking about something that's gonna cost about a hundred dollars for a little more than two minutes of footage, you'd expect the cameras and the lenses to be things that the operator can, and should, have control over.
That's not the case.
Until you're ready to drop more money than I did on my 16mm camera, you're basically getting a camera that was designed to be used by any idiot who doesn't know what a t-stop is.
I still love the format, and I plan on using it a lot.
It's still odd that, to this day, most of these cameras are full auto, while most of the people who want them want as much control as possible.
My last 8mm camera only ran at 18fps.
The one I have coming this week was three times the price just to get 24fps.
The new Kodak super 8 camera, that I really wanted to get when it was announced five years ago, is now $5K and makes no sense for me to buy.
My CP-16 is less than half the cost.
I know that there are 8mm cameras that are fully manual -- I've worked with them.
They're just oddly expensive and hard to find.