Shooting film again

Did get the bug to start shooting 35mm film again. So I resurrected my old Minolta’s and lenses and started shooting again, and it’s been fun. Than I started thinking about using my canon lenses on a film eos camera. That could also be lots of fun. Today I found a Canon Rebel G film camera for twenty bucks. It looks like brand new and all seems to function very well. It even has autofocus and if the lens has IS, that will work also. For twenty bucks, it felt like a win.ߙ°ߙ°ߙ

Great announcement. What do you do with film rather than shooting?

I feel bad or guilty that my Canon EOS Elan II E is in the closet.
A lot of great memories back then.
I might put my 35mm skills to the test with my newest lenses.
But the expense and lack of film and developing ruins the idea.

I still have my Minolta SR-1 with lenses and Ricoh 500 from 60 years ago. Both in a period leather camera bag. Bought them in Japan when I was stationed there.

Lou

A while back I resurrected my Canon EOS A2 and Mamiya 645 to shoot strictly B&W film. Fun to return to analog.

Actually thinking about building up the darkroom again, too.

I have a Canon F1n, New F1 and T90 along with number of New FD lenses just sitting around. Many accessories such as power winders for the F1s and a motor drive for the New F1. Speed finders for both F1s also.

There are some things that I miss with these cameras (the simplicity, especially the full manual of the F1n, the exceptional workmanship in building these fine cameras) but a lot I don't. My 80D is super fantastic, light weight and a pleasure to use. My New FD lenses (no "L" lenses) are pretty good but heavy and all manual focus.

I don't know where I would get film developed these days, I don't trust anything local. The last time I had film processed locally (form an air show shoot) they scratched all of the negatives and it appeared the development solutions were out of date. Ruined them all.

Photo from bergmen's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1090410)

bergmen wrote in post #19236027
I have a Canon F1n, New F1 and T90 along with number of New FD lenses just sitting around. Many accessories such as power winders for the F1s and a motor drive for the New F1. Speed finders for both F1s also.

There are some things that I miss with these cameras (the simplicity, especially the full manual of the F1n, the exceptional workmanship in building these fine cameras) but a lot I don't. My 80D is super fantastic, light weight and a pleasure to use. My New FD lenses (no "L" lenses) are pretty good but heavy and all manual focus.

I don't know where I would get film developed these days, I don't trust anything local. The last time I had film processed locally (form an air show shoot) they scratched all of the negatives and it appeared the development solutions were out of date. Ruined them all.

Gallery photo (hosted):
posted by bergmen originally in forum: Canon Digital Cameras

Dan

Pretty cool Dan. I picked up a couple of canons this spring to go along with my Minoltas. Pretty much just shooting B&W. Will be doing my own developing and scanning.

I went back to film a few months ago, about 15 years since I shot film. I had my beautiful Canon A1 CLA'd then bought a Pentax 645 to shoot 120. Love to be shooting film again (I shoot digital on assignment). I just bought a Canon Elan from a camera shop Friday, it was $50 w/ the kit lens. I causally mentioned how the lens won't get much use as I have 8-9 very good lenses & some L glass. I just assumed it was a "kit" but he took the lens off & sold it to me for $35. Very weird shooting my 24-70mmL on a film camera.

The cost of everything film has gone up quite a bit, but there are ways to help. I bought the changing bag, Patterson tank, chemicals, sous vide, & an Epson V600 scanner (this was the highest price) for just under $500. Sending a roll of film to the lab for development & lowest res scan is $12 for 35mm & 120/620 (because I shoot some old cameras). This is a fair price as far as market goes, but still can add up. Once I got over the fear of developing at home I could afford to shoot more film. The last batch of color chems I bought this week cost $29 total w/ tax, free shipping. This is enough chems to do approx. 25 rolls, which is around $1.20 per roll, exactly 10% of lab fees. Plus there is no return shipping to pay. Also, I'm scanning myself at high res instead of relying on the cheaper, low res scans from the lab (the lab fees increase by $3 increments per res increase, $12, $15, $18). Even the lab's $18 high res scan is lower res than I scan with my Epson.

Developing at home has become so easy & saves so much money. Truthfully, the hardest part of home developing is getting the film on those damn reels!! By far not an expert but will (try to)answer any questions you might have.

I bought the glass first, originally to adapt to my eos-m. Then I saw how cheap the bodies were, back around 2013, so picked a few up. I would shoot a roll once in a while, but spent a lot more time with digital. I started developing and then, randomly came into an amazing deal from a studio photographer for his entire Bronica set. After going medium format, that's when I started committing more time and $ to analog than digital. Now I have a set of E6, C41, and a few BW chems under the sink. Developing at home does save money, but also sucks up A LOT of time.

If you're into B&W shooting, you can do film fairly cheap these days with home development. There's recipes for simple at home B&W development that costs pennies basically. Then just get a scanner as the only high cost item besides your camera/lens and you can shoot fairly inexpensive film too.

Very best,

Kinda the same with me. Been shooting digital for a newspaper for about 10 years (could not even imagine what some of my co-workers went through back in the day shooting film for the paper). One of our photographers has been here so long, he covered JFK's funeral.

Loved pulling out my A1 again, but a couple months later I bought a Pentax 645 & now love shooting 120. I also love shooting slide film, it was the my test roll for the 645. I've never shot slide before 2 months ago & I love it. I think the my slide stuff will still go to a lab. Home development is a bit time consuming but I have a routine that makes it easier. I plug in the sous vide, set it for 108 degrees, then go do something for an hour. The real time for me is the scanning. I scan at a fairly high res (because, why have a good scanner & scan low res?) & this takes some time. I put in two 35mm strips (12 photos) & that takes about 15 minutes. The other day I developed 2 rolls (36 exp) & it took an hour and a half to scan. The financial situation I'm currently in leaves me no choice but to develop at home. I could send my film out, I would just have to shoot much less. When developing & scanning at a lab you are paying 2x or 3x the cost of the film itself. When I was shooting film, color developing at home was difficult & expensive. Now, if you can run a stopwatch & read a thermometer, you can develop film. The fact that they have B&W down to a "monobath" is amazing to me.

Yes, thank you. I'm not huge into B&W, just used to shoot a lot of it because I could develop at home. Now that I can do color at home my B&W shooting will probably drop drastically. There is another thread here about shooting film & there have been some home recipes shared there, such as caffenol. I think the chemicals are cheap enough to afford without needing to roll the dice on a homemade recipe (not the recipe that might be at fault, but me screwing it up somewhere along the way). The Cinestill monobath is $20 & I believe you get 15 rolls out of it. As lilkngster has mentioned, it can be time consuming & making my own developing solutions will only add to the time. Plus I'll be shooting more color now anyway. The color chemicals are even more cost efficient. The Cinesill C41 kit cost (on sale now) $26, and yields as much as 25 rolls of film.

I did pick up the Epson V600 scanner. Very hard to find in stock. B&H had it in stock for about 3 hours one day then it was gone. Epson's website even said "out of stock". I typed in my zip code on the Epson site & did a 150 mile radius search. Only one popped up it was about 25 miles away, I called to make sure it was there, then jumped in the car. It was a bit of an upfront investment, $225.

This is the Elan I picked up the other day. The second photo is all the cameras I've pickup up, completely torn apart, cleaned, then re-assembled. All five of them currently have film in them.

Pigpen101 wrote in post #19236269
This is the Elan I picked up the other day. The second photo is all the cameras I've pickup up, completely torn apart, cleaned, then re-assembled. All five of them currently have film in them.

Hosted photo: posted by Pigpen101 in
./showthread.php?p=192​36269&i=i72775917
forum: The Lounge

Hosted photo: posted by Pigpen101 in
./showthread.php?p=192​36269&i=i155564274
forum: The Lounge

Very nice collection of cameras you have. Great that your cameras are loaded and ready to go. Nice looking Elan. I am happy with mine so far. It felt like a bonus to be able to use backbutton focus on it.ߙ