Camp Snap CS-8 Review: Simple Video Capture

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 wish to substitute your iPhone or compete together with your mirrorless digital camera setup. What it provides as a substitute is one thing far easier and extra deliberate: the sensation of taking pictures video for the sake of it.Very like Camp Snap’s point-and-shoot nonetheless digital camera from 2023 (the corporate’s solely different main product), it’s a throwback to when cameras didn’t suppose for you and if you didn’t anticipate to overview the photographs you simply captured till later—generally a lot later.Impressed by the Tremendous 8 camcorders launched within the Nineteen 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 moderately than mimic it convincingly. It’s chunky and stable within the hand, albeit in a distinctly toylike means. Should you’re on the lookout for authenticity, you’re not going to search 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 moderately a $199 digital camera meant to stay in the true world and get handed round at events, slung into backpacks for day journeys, and used with no second thought.Lights, Digital camera, ActionPhotograph: Sam KieldsenThere’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 side ratio (4:3, 16:9, 1:1, or 9:16) and one other for the video impact. These embrace commonplace 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 fee to twenty fps (it’s 30 fps with the opposite modes) and sprinkles in digital scratches, leading to footage that’s imperfect in essentially the most deliberate means. The remainder of the filters really feel slightly flat by comparability, although the monochrome setting can conjure up its personal punchy attraction in the suitable 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 file. There’s no focusing to fret about right here. The 8X zoom is dealt with with buttons labelled “W” and “T” for broad and telephoto, although it’s digital-only, and backbone drops off shortly if you push in too far.