The Camp Snap CS-8 doesn’t care about body charges, bit charges, or whether or not your footage is stabilized to unerring ranges of steadiness. It doesn’t need to exchange your iPhone or compete together with your mirrorless digicam setup. What it gives as a substitute is one thing far less complicated and extra deliberate: the sensation of taking pictures video for the sake of it.
Very like Camp Snap’s point-and-shoot nonetheless digicam from 2023 (the corporate’s solely different main product), it’s a throwback to when cameras didn’t assume for you and once you didn’t anticipate to overview the pictures you simply captured till later—typically a lot later.
Impressed by the Tremendous 8 camcorders launched within the Sixties, the CS-8 is unapologetically retro in each look and performance. The physique is usually plastic, with faux-metal detailing and leatherette texture meant to evoke the mechanical period relatively than mimic it convincingly. It’s chunky and stable within the hand, albeit in a distinctly toylike method. For those who’re in search of authenticity, you’re not going to seek out it right here: There’s a pretend chilly shoe up high and imitation screws on the base of the pistol grip. However that’s not the purpose—this isn’t Kodak’s $5,000 Tremendous 8 revival however relatively a $199 digicam meant to stay in the actual world and get handed round at events, slung into backpacks for day journeys, and used with out a second thought.
Lights, Digital camera, Motion
{Photograph}: Sam Kieldsen
There’s no display, no playback, and no Delete button. Right here, what you shoot is what you get. The settings and choices are stripped again, with one dial for choosing facet ratio (4:3, 16:9, 1:1, or 9:16) and one other for the video impact. These embrace customary shade, monochrome, and three lo-fi filters, together with one which simulates the grainy, jerky look of 8-mm movie.
I discovered that final one, labeled Analogue, was the star of the present. It drops the body price to twenty fps (it’s 30 fps with the opposite modes) and sprinkles in digital scratches, leading to footage that’s imperfect in probably the most deliberate method. The remainder of the filters really feel a bit flat by comparability, although the monochrome setting can conjure up its personal punchy allure in the appropriate lighting.
Utilizing the CS-8 is refreshingly bodily: Energy it on by flicking a dial, press your eye to the rubber-cupped viewfinder, and squeeze down the set off to document. There’s no focusing to fret about right here. The 8X zoom is dealt with with buttons labelled “W” and “T” for large and telephoto, although it’s digital-only, and determination drops off shortly once you push in too far.