From obsolete to obsession: TikTok’s retro camcorder boom

Sometimes tech moves so fast we forget what made it great. We let specs take over. Or competition. Or, for camcorders like so much else, we just let phones destroy the form factor, swallow it up, and leave us with a compromised little slab that does that job – and so many others – well enough that we don't get the joy of a product specifically built for the task anymore.

Earlier this month, in a hall full of award-winning cinematographers, I was reminded just what it was to use a camcorder built for the job.

Why? I was at the British Cinematographers Show (held inconveniently near Valentine's Day unless you're literally dating cinema) and amongst exhibitors with high-end movie-making gear like Sony and Arri, was CamCo – the specialist camcorder rental outfit.

The company had seen the market for retro cameras, and had a stand filled with them.

The company says: "Probably the largest collection of camcorders for rent in the world," but why would you want to rent them? Can't you just pick up everything on eBay now?

The answer is that these aren't just props. "We're using everything all the time, so everything's working," I'm told, and modern creatives enjoy the look.

"So if they want to shoot on tape, they can still have that option" James Worsley tells me – though the team have also come up with a clever means of creating a modern backup.

The digital generation does, of course, have worries about shooting onto tape, which suffered from reliability issues even in its heyday. Many of these cameras are very definitely of the tape era – remember Mini DV? Remember VHS-C and Hi8?

Remember all those seemingly endless seconds as the tape wound itself around play and record heads, each time potentially adding a little more subtle damage to the magnetic strip, or, worse, the polyester-type material it was made of?

Thanks to the technology used by a lot of FPV drones – analog video and digital conversion – monitors that can record onto SD card exist, and can be connected to cameras too. (This kind of tech also makes for the best VHS to DVD converters)

Seeing these cameras, and their form factors, reminded me that the generations of design faced ever-improving capabilities in terms of recording. Sensors and camera systems got better, but, crucially, the means of recording did too.

All of this meant that the shapes were designed to accommodate different levels of equipment, and ever-changing equipment.

Phones and modern cinema cameras record onto infinitesimally smaller pieces of memory and that is, of course, miraculous, but I definitely felt my nostalgia flare up when I saw real handles and even tape compartments.

It's funny what you miss, isn't it? The nearest many of us ever need is the best iPhone grip.

If you're looking to browse the company's collection, then check it out CamCo's Instagram, while to rent, you should check its page on Hygglo.