Watch: This Filmmaker Figured Out How to Shoot Super 8 Underwater
Naturally, it was a surfer who modified an old VHS underwater housing for his super 8 camera.
Joey Ready from AwesomeCameras wanted to take his super 8 camera out surfing with him, but he didn’t have a housing. Not many companies make custom underwater housings for a camera as old as Ready’s Super 8mm. His Canon Zoom 318 is over 50 years old, dating back to 1965. So what’s a filmmaker to do? Go thrifting, of course.
After some searching, Ready was able to find an old VHS housing that was the perfect size for his Canon. The housing consists of a basic plexiglass tube with a large rubber cap at the end, and a tripod plate with a button-to-trigger recording. Ready needed to make a few basic modifications to get the housing to fit his Super 8. Since the Canon 318 was designed to accept a cable release, Ready added a piece of wood and attached a cable release to make it functional. Then he could bring the camera in the ocean with him and trigger the shutter release by pressing on the rubber cap on the back.
Once his camera setup was prepped, he joined surfer Stephanie Schechter to capture some vintage images. He shot on black-and-white Tri-X super 8mm film and had all of the scanning and processing done at Pro8mm. See the results below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TuEQYNJp-Q&feature=youtu.be expand=1 site_id=26256498]
