Adam Trahan: Canon 310XL Super 8 Film Camera

I have shot at least 30 rolls of Super 8 film, almost 50 years ago. In high school, I dedicated a lot of time to film, both 35mm color, b&w and Super 8. I had zero interest in film beyond capturing our escapades skating, surfing and snowboarding, we called it snow surfing back then. I had a Kodak M2 and an account at a local lab. It was relatively inexpensive, a lot of people shot Super 8 and 16mm movies. My M2 was small and compact. It fit in the glove box of my car or my daypack swallowed it. I could grab it and go. GoPro cameras were not invented yet. The first commercially available digital camera was available in 1986. Go Pro Hero cameras not available until late 2004. I graduated high school in 1979 and had started shooting in my sophomore year. My last Super 8 roll was produced in 1986. I took the camera with me on a flight in my hang glider.

I wasn’t interested in Hollywood, it was just another camera to capture moving pictures. I had a projector and would play our movies at parties and sometimes project as a backdrop at my friends punk rock gigs. It was classic fun shooting film. I had inherited this love of Super 8 from my grandfather. He had owned an operated a movie theater, grill and snack shop in Trimble Tennessee prior to its devastating fire and moving his family west to Phoenix to start over. He was a renaissance man, literally morphing into a cowboy out west. My grandfather influenced my movie making and photography. He had a camera with him at key points in the family’s life. Always at Christmas, big family trips and at our cabin in the Pinal Mountains near Globe, Arizona.

My return to movies is purely nostalgic in that I loved everything about it. I knew I wanted a Canon camera. Or that’s what I thought until I researched it just now. My favorite Super 8 film camera was owned by my surf and skate buddy. A non-housing waterproof Super 8. He took it out in the surf and with us as we surfed the powder at Snowbowl. It turns out as I searched for a “Canon waterproof Super 8” Canon did not make one so I searched “waterproof Super 8” and that returned only one camera, the Eumig Nautica. As I looked at the returns and searched the images, that was it. But I had already purchased the 310XL.

If I was so concerned about replicating my experience, I would be writing about the Eumig, I’m not. I bought the 310XL based on its f1 lens. A great lowlight choice that is ultra compact and I bought it from Out of Focus camera shop. I’m supporting the local guys.

Anyway, I took the camera home and cleaned it. I checked all the functions in the shop prior to purchase and each one checked it. I cleaned and rechecked and everything all checks out. I read the manual, oriented myself to the controls and started researching my first roll of film, I chose Kodak Vision 50D, a color negative ECN-2 processed film stock. Kodak says, “A low-speed, daylight-balanced color negative film (ISO 50) with fine grain and high sharpness for bright outdoor use.” There are a few film types available but I’ll write my experiences on a dedicated film page once the process unfolds a bit more.

So for now, this is where I am at.Im deciding now how I going to script the movie. There are two methods to choose from, in camera editing, shooting the movie chronologically and projecting (or pressing play) on a digital version or, editing the digital movie version. My previous experience is with a splicer. My old movies are all kinds of spliced editing. That process is no longer needed unless the focus of what I’m doing this for returns a completely old school experience of projection, wait, that process is not going to happen on this film stock. It will take the E-6 processed Ektachrome 100D. Lots of options, a whole lot of mistakes can be prevented by researching this stuff beforehand. Looks like I’ll put movies together by editing on my computer. I can still do projection as I have a Kodak Super 8 projector. Note to self, start looking for a classic old school movie screen.