Choosing bad video quality

[kye]

There's a counter-culture online of (young) people shooting with early digicams etc, and the way they talk about it is that they're going for an alternative aesthetic to the clean modern digital look that's now in every smartphone and has become the 'default' look.

Personally, I've been pushing how small a video camera can be, and it has brought me to the same place - deliberately choosing very poor video quality.  

I've been using the Kodak Charmera for travel, which is the size of a construction-workers thumb, because it's so small no-one really takes it seriously when shooting in public, and also because it doesn't attract thieves etc (unlike a large ILC or new smartphone).  But I'm also resurrecting my old Lumix point-n-shoot for roughly the same reasons.

I've started to think of the Charmera as a sort-of modern Super-8 camera - a much smaller and lower quality camera for amateurs.  If you apply some film emulation then it can take away some(!) of the digital nasties but I'm guessing some people will prefer the unmodified low-quality digital look.  In a sense it's a 'worst of both worlds' situation as it clips like digital but also has the low resolution of film while simultaneously looking sharp and harsh - applying the film emulation rectifies some of these issues to create a hybrid with some limitations of both looks.

Here are some stills, both ungraded and also graded with a modified version of my Super16 film emulation, and some sample footage to get a sense of the motion (it's truly terrible).  However, the more I use this camera and look at the footage the more it grows on me.  I can't say I like it, but as I get used to the look it strikes me more as a look rather than deficiency.

Here's a warts-n-all montage of some shots I took.  I was mostly walking around while rolling, but at 45mm FOV with no stabilisation it's pretty jittery anyway considering it weighs about 30g / 1oz so has almost no weight to prevent micro-jitters.  If this was a real edit I'd smooth over a lot of the rough edges like sound pops and clicks etc, but this is a realistic look at how it performs.  The issues do lend it a certain charm (like in the name!) I think, and it's the imperfections that give something character, so logically this must have a lot of it!

I'm still constantly thinking about how to get better results from it, but being so small it's hard to modify the setup at all without drastically diluting its biggest advantage - the size.

Anyone else experimenting in the very shallow end of image quality?

[MrSMW]

Super cool.

The only thing that I don’t like is the lack of stability, so I guess I like ‘the look’ more than anything.

I’d never use any ‘retro’ camera myself, but I like the concept and idea of it.

Keep pushing Kye!

[mercer]

I actually kinda like it. Don't think it needs it, but you could easily add some sprocket holes to one side and some hair/dust/grain and I think it would pass for a bad digital 8mm film look... the micro shakes just adds to it.
 

Could use those shots as transitions in your edits.

[MrSMW]

13 hours ago, kye said:

Anyone else experimenting in the very shallow end of image quality?

I meant to also say not as such, but I am (always) looking at ways to introduce character into my files over adding anything in post.

I am currently in the process of considering a new photo camera and in doing so have mused over so many options and one of the options is going low megapixel.

When I say low, I mean around 12mp and still FF, so not quite loooooow quality.

In fact not ‘low’ quality at all, but more ‘character’ and by character, I’ve been thinking about the most challenging year in my career which was when I spent most of an entire season shooting weddings with a single OG Fuji X100 with it’s fixed lens, single card slot and 12mp sensor.

That thing was slow as fuck compared with what came later, never mind more current models, but the files…

They were the closest SOOC to analogue I have ever come across.

A few years later, I bought a used one to check that I had not imagined it and yup, that magic was still there.

But could I go back?

To that specific camera?

Hell no, but I would recommend it to anyone who likes the idea of shooting film who wanted to stay digital.

I have thought about getting another and whipping it out to do some ‘artistic’ stuff but as a hybrid shooter spinning enough plates already, decided against and instead looking at other options to achieve ‘character’ the principal one being glass.

The only issue with that really is character mostly comes with older glass and that doesn’t tend to autofocus or does so very badly adapted with one of several manual to autofocus adapters…so that’s not working for me…

The best I have come up with so far then is the Sony ZVE-1 (12mp and fantastic AF) with the Thypoch 24-50mm f2.8 (internal zoom!) that they say has rendering between a modern clinical lens and a cine lens and has a coating that seems to lower contrast and invite flaring.

It could be the 2026 version of the 2011 Fuji X100 that would not be utter madness to shoot as a one & done…

And it does video!