Choosing the right Super-8 film for your movie

What is the best film to use for Super-8 movie making ?

This is a question we get asked often. There are a few things to consider to make the right choice, so it is worth taking a few minutes to understand the different options and get things right.

What are the characteristics of each Super-8 film ?

The main differences between Super-8 film types are:

• Colour or Black and White
• Negative or Reversal (whether it can be used in a projector or not)
• Sensitivity: how sensitive the film is to light
• Colour balance: whether the raw film is expecting Daylight, or (slightly orange) traditional indoor lighting known as Tungsten light

What Super-8 film types are currently available ?

Over the years many Super-8 film brands have come and gone but luckily Kodak has manufactured Super-8 film continuously since the 1960s. The types currently available (as of 2023) are:

Name	Basic description
Kodak Vision 3 50D	Colour film, balanced for Daylight. Low sensitivity.   Good film for shooting outdoors in bright conditions.
Kodak Vision 3 200T	Colour film, balanced for Tungsten light. Medium sensitivity. For shooting indoors or outdoors in a wide variety of conditions.
Kodak Vision 3  500T	Colour film, balanced for Tungsten light. High sensitivity. For shooting indoors or outdoors in a dull conditions.
Kodak TRI-X 7266	Black and white film, reversal (can be used in a projector).   For shooting indoors or outdoors in a wide variety of conditions.
Kodak Ektachrome 100D Color Reversal	Colour film, reversal (can be used in a projector). For shooting outdoors in a wide variety of conditions.  This film is best suited to purists - it offers the best colour reproduction, however it is the most expensive of the film types and is not very tolerant of incorrect exposure settings.

 Note that the D or T in the film name indicates the colour balance D = daylight, T = Tungsten.

How do I choose the right film ?

The easiest way to choose is to ask a few questions:

• If black and white, then you only have one choice – Kodak Tri-X.

If not, then:

2. Do you need to use the film in a traditional movie film projector, or will you view / edit the movie on a computer ?

• From the 1960s to the 1980s (before the introduction of home PCs) all Super-8 movies were viewed on a home projector so the film was processed to create a positive image. Nowadays most people get Super-8 film processed and scanned into a digital file for viewing on a computer or phone. For this, the film image can be a negative or positive image.
• If you want to use your film in a traditional Super-8 projector then you only have 2 choices: Kodak Tri-X (black and white) and Kodak Ektachrome 100D (colour).

Note that you can still view these on a computer too if you get your film processor to scan them to a digital file.

Most people currently want a colour movie and don’t want to use in a projector, so that leaves the 3 Kodak Vision film types.

There are 2 features that differentiate these Kodak Vision films:

• Sensitivity – how sensitive the film is to light
• Colour balance – whether the film is balanced for daylight, or indoor (artificial) lighting

So the final question to ask yourself is:

3. What are the lighting conditions for your shoot ?

• Whether you are shooting your film in daylight lighting, or indoor lighting
• Whether you will be shooting in bright daylight light, or poor light

 This will determine your choice:

Camera settings for the right colour balance

Whichever film you choose, you will need to ensure that your camera settings are correct for your film. Depending on the camera and the lighting situation the settings will be either automatic or manual.

This is a concept which is fairly specific to Super-8 and it is important to get the settings right.

In short, Daylight and Tungsten lighting have a different colour balance (Tungsten lighting is more orange). So, Tungsten (T) balanced film expects light with a slightly orange / brown shade while Daylight (D) balanced film expects natural white light.

If you get the camera settings wrong for your film then your movie colour will be incorrect.

Here are two examples of correct / incorrect colour balance:

Correct colour balance                                                                     

Incorrect colour balance

The second example has a brown effect (caused by Daylight film being used with the incorrect camera setting).

All Super-8 cameras have a built-in internal filter (called an 85A filter) that switches in / out of the light path.  The basic rules for this filter are:

You will need to check your camera instruction manual (or our info below) to confirm how to operate the filter on your Super-8 camera. Some cameras will automatically remove the filter when a Daylight film is inserted, while on other cameras this must be done manually.

If your camera manages the filter automatically then situations A and B are handled automatically (the camera will recognize the film type and switch the filter accordingly). You will only need to remove the filter if using Tungsten film indoors under Tungsten light.

If your camera does not manage the filter automatically then it will set the filter on by default (which is suitable for situation B) and you will need to remove the filter manually for situations A and C.

How to manually remove the 85A filter

Each camera manufacturer has a different way to remove the filter and the following are common:

Any questions ? Please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@classiccameras.com.au.