Camp Snap had a bit of a successful run recently with the 103B, a basic digital photo camera that mimicked the styling of disposable film cameras of yore. You know… those compact rigs that used to make for excellent travel cameras. We still don’t understand how that thing became so popular. While we ponder that, the outfit just released the Camp Snap CS-8, a digital video camera designed to look like Super 8mm retro camcorders.
Unabashedly taking inspiration from the Kodak Super 8, the camera reprises the original’s one-handed form factor, allowing you to shoot videos while holding your camera in a pistol grip. Like their previous photo camera, it embraces old-school design by having no playback screen, forcing you to stay in the moment and pay attention to every frame you’re recording.
The Camp Snap CS-8 straight up looks like a vintage Super 8mm camcorder, reprising all the hallmark elements of those classic devices. You get the pistol grip handle, the recording trigger, and all sorts of vintage style controls and indicators, such as dials, rockers, and gauges. It’s a total nostalgia bait for folks who like vintage camera designs. Specifically, it uses dials for the power switch, the aspect ratio selection (1:1, 9:16, 16:9, and 4:3), and the vintage filter selection (black and white, faded sepia, grainy analog, washed retro tones, and standard film), while offering rocker buttons for zooming in and zooming out. For the indicators, it uses an analog-style gauge to show battery levels and SD card space. It’s pretty weird.
There’s no word on resolution, although reports from one publication (Hollywood Reporter) that have had an opportunity to play around with the camera say it can shoot up to 4K 30fps, depending on the aspect ratio selected. The camera comes with a 4GB card, by the way, which, the outfit claims, can only store up to 30 minutes of footage at that resolution and framerate. You can, however, swap in a bigger SD card, since it supports up to 128GB, which can hold an estimated 16 hours of footage. It also has a built-in mic for capturing mono audio, which means you’ll probably want to record sound using something else, since that’s not likely to be good.
The Camp Snap CS-8 requires you to pull the trigger the whole time you’re recording, by the way, since letting the trigger go will automatically stop the recording. The next time you pull, it will start a new MP4 file. Once you’re finished recording, you can take the SD card out and put it in a card reader. Alternatively, you can connect the camera via USB-C to access the SD card like an external drive.
As you can imagine, this is a camera aimed at the younger crowd, who probably enjoys the novelty of vintage designs while still enjoying digital video comforts. The available aspect ratios, in fact, are tailored for the popular social platforms, with 9:16 for Reels and TikTok, 1:1 for Instagram, 16:9 for YouTube longform, and 4:3 just to have that classic camcorder setting.
David Chen
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