Review: Camp Snap CS-8

The Camp Snap CS-8 doesn’t care about frame rates, bit rates, or whether your footage is stabilized to unerring levels of steadiness. It doesn’t want to replace your iPhone or compete with your mirrorless camera setup. What it offers instead is something far simpler and more deliberate: the feeling of shooting video for the sake of it.

Much like Camp Snap’s point-and-shoot still camera from 2023 (the company’s only other major product), it’s a throwback to when cameras didn’t think for you and when you didn’t expect to review the images you just captured until later—sometimes much later.

Inspired by the Super 8 camcorders introduced in the 1960s, the CS-8 is unapologetically retro in both appearance and function. The body is mostly plastic, with faux-metal detailing and leatherette texture meant to evoke the mechanical era rather than mimic it convincingly. It’s chunky and solid in the hand, albeit in a distinctly toylike way. If you’re looking for authenticity, you’re not going to find it here: There’s a fake cold shoe up top and imitation screws at the base of the pistol grip. But that’s not the point—this isn’t Kodak’s $5,000 Super 8 revival but rather a $199 camera meant to live in the real world and get passed around at parties, slung into backpacks for day trips, and used without a second thought.

Lights, Camera, Action

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen

There’s no screen, no playback, and no Delete button. Here, what you shoot is what you get. The settings and options are stripped back, with one dial for selecting aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, 1:1, or 9:16) and another for the video effect. These include standard color, monochrome, and three lo-fi filters, including one that simulates the grainy, jerky look of 8-mm film.

I found that last one, labeled Analogue, was the star of the show. It drops the frame rate to 20 fps (it’s 30 fps with the other modes) and sprinkles in digital scratches, resulting in footage that’s imperfect in the most deliberate way. The rest of the filters feel a little flat by comparison, though the monochrome setting can conjure up its own punchy charm in the right lighting.

Using the CS-8 is refreshingly physical: Power it on by flicking a dial, press your eye to the rubber-cupped viewfinder, and squeeze down the trigger to record. There’s no focusing to worry about here. The 8X zoom is handled with buttons labelled “W” and “T” for wide and telephoto, though it’s digital-only, and resolution drops off quickly when you push in too far.

The viewfinder shows an appropriately cropped preview along with battery status, but it’s not especially friendly to anyone who wears glasses. If, like me, you use specs, expect to see only part of the frame unless you’re squeezed up uncomfortably tight. It’s not a deal-breaker, but I did find it a constant irritation rather than part of the uncompromising retro charm.

Recording with the CS-8 feels more intentional than it does with a smartphone or a modern point-and-shoot camera. Here, you can’t be distracted by the footage you just shot, because you can’t see it until you get home. You can’t delete it until you get home, either. There’s no temptation to reshoot the same five seconds 10 times in search of something “perfect.” Simply shoot your scene, then move on. It’s a welcome break from videoing something on your phone, then immediately checking to make sure it looks right; here, you feel like you’re capturing a moment rather than curating one.

Storage is quite limited out of the box, but expandable. There’s a 4-GB microSD card tucked behind a panel, which’ll get you about 30 minutes of footage. Swap it out for something larger (up to 128 GB is supported) and you’re good for up to 16 hours. Battery life offers roughly 30 minutes of continuous recording, and the camera charges via USB-C.

There’s no wireless connectivity, no app, and no overcomplicated companion software to worry about; getting files off the camera means plugging it in and dragging them over to your computer. It might have been nice to have some built-in way to join all your clips into a single, shareable file, but I found it easy enough to do so using DaVinci Resolve.

Pull That Trigger

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen

Image quality is, predictably, not going to compete with a modern-day mirrorless camera or even a midrange smartphone. Videos max out at 2880 x 2144 resolution at 30 fps, but the bitrate is low, stabilization is nonexistent, and the mono audio is functional at best. You’ll also hear the distinct sound of the trigger being pulled in almost every clip, reminding you that this is a camera with mechanical quirks, not a precision tool polished to perfection. The CS-8 captures exactly the kind of video you’d expect—it’s not clean, smooth, or cinematic, but it’s got character.

And character is the point. The CS-8 doesn’t set out to be “good” in the traditional sense. Rather than promising professional results, it’s designed to be fun. For kids, it’s an easy introduction to video without the distracting noise and clutter of modern camera features. For adults, it’s a throwback to a simpler time, encouraging creativity over quality. Its flaws are largely in service of the camera’s philosophy. It wants you to treat video as something casual and spontaneous, not something to fuss over or optimize. And that approach can be surprisingly freeing.

Priced at $199 (early adopters can grab it for $149), the CS-8 sits in a strange but appealing niche. It’s far from a necessity—you already have a smartphone in your pocket capable of outperforming it. But it knows exactly what it is: a playful and nostalgia-drenched tool for making memories that feel like memories the second they’re captured. You don’t buy this camera to create “content;” you buy it to capture moments without overthinking the whole process.

In that regard, the Camp Snap CS-8 is a success. It’s not a video camera that’ll appeal to everyone, but for those who can fully get on board with what it’s going for, it’s worth the price.