Which Film SLR Should I Get?

I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm only 17 and i've grown up shooting film, i taught myself on a full manual film slr. Just this past weekend i was at my brothers wedding and i ended up leaving the 20d in the car and i shot 5 rolls of tmax100 B&W. You have to respect where everything digital came from and understand it.

Thats just me

zach

like I said... I think it will always have a market, it will just be a much more narrow one.

I hear the newest line of Epson inkjets do a pretty fine job a printing B&W. I haven't seen output yet myself... but I am looking forward to getting one soon.

Exactly.

Just because you may respect the photographers in the 1860's who used 11"x14" wet glass box cameras to document epic events like the American Civil War doesn't mean you have to go out and shoot with one of those cameras. Film's day has passed, just as the day of wet glass coloidal suspensions is gone. Respecting the past doesn't mean you have to live it.

I have no problem with historical buffs who want to relive the past, but I wouldn't recommend antquated equipment to someone who is just starting out.

I just think alot of photography now has lost it's art and feel to digital. Many people now, who may the only time they shot film in their entire lives shot through a P&S, diposable or a basic 35mm every other family has got interested into photography with only using digital cameras. Whats lost is the photographing of a scene in which you take home three negatives each marked N-1, N, N1, N2..etc etc, process, spend a good amount of time making the perfect print, mixing up smelly ass chemicals for toning and finally mount the photo..it's extremely satisfying spending hours on one photo and actually doing all the work physically to get a print that will last *almost* forver. your hands and sweat actually went into the photo....

i mean, whatever happened to polaroid transfers...the joy of driving home after picking up slides and looking through them while driving...oh well i could go on forever...bottom line is i'll never go fully digital...as for the OP..I would EOS 1N, 3 or something along those lines if you can afford it..

Worst post ever.

My EOS3 w/ 24-105 IS loaded with TriX is hardly an artifact for the historical buff. There is no digital equivelant. My F1 w/ 24mm 2.8 SSC is an amazing combo I use for IR... according to you, it is an antiquated piece of the past not suitable for a beginner? Excuse me while I laugh at you. HA HA. And again-- HA HA. What a stupid statement.

Don't you have the latest greatest shiny new toy to rush out and buy or something?

Digital, which I shoot a ton of for pleasure and profit, has CERTAINLY sucked the soul out of photography. The necessary skill level has been lowered considerably, and the wealth of idiotic opinions regarding any equipment over 1.5 years old is astonishing.

I was speaking to the kid that works in my local camera shop the other day-- guess what? He's been shooting B&W with an 8x10 view camera.
I know lots of folks who won't give up the movements of their monorail camera, or the quality and size of their Leicas (myself included). Despite what this board will have you believe, the Rebel XT doesn't make all prior cameras obsolete.

For the serious photographer, digital is but one tool in the shed. It absolutely boggles my mind to hear someone I assume thinks they're into photography to speak ill of 11x14 wet glass plates. It's like a wannabe guitar player dissing 50's Fenders as "too old", or an american car enthusiast dismissing a 59 Cadillac as having "impractibly large tail fins".

Think about that 11x14 wet plate process, from start to finish, and compare it to an XT, PictBridge, HP deskjet workflow. The artistry is what's dying.

That civil war photographer had more knowledge and skill in his pinkie... well... before he froze to death.

That kid didn't say you had to go out and shoot with an 11x14 glass plate. He said you needed to respect it. I couldn't agree more.

Now can we go back to arguing the merrits of the 50mm 1.8 vs the 50mm 1.4?

pretty much!!

I own an EOS 5 and rate it very very highly
Solid performer.

Let me see here - you've just trashed someones comments because they believe digital is "where it's at" and that film is "antiquated", and you then dare make a comment that digital is the cause of the loss of art and feel to photography? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Either medium is highly capable of providing high quality, artistic, feeling images in the right hands.

I find digital far more convenient, and my photography has improved by a fair bit I personally think. I can see the image, check composition, roughly check exposure, sharpness, DOF to a limited degree via the camera's LCD screen. No more expensive processing and film costs. I've shot something like 4,000 shots since January on a D60 and 1D - let's see how much that will cost:

4,000/36 = 166 rolls approximately (24 exposures)

at $6 a roll for something like Fuji Superia 400, that's:

166*6 = $996

Now, let's factor in film processing and developing (1 hour lab processing, average cost of $14.95):

166*14.95 = $2481

That's a grand total of:

$3477

Of course, now I have to either pay for someone to scan it to digitalise it, or buy a flatbed scanner, or preferably a film scanner. Let's go with a film scanner here, since it generally provides the best quality, and scans the negs, that's around a grand or so. So, our grand total is already up to approximately $4500. That's for 4 months shooting.

Do I have to count waiting time for processing of film? Lack of control over the quality of the processing of the image?

The more you use your camera, the better you generally get. Digital allows this to happen at a much cheaper factor than film ever did, or ever will. And the quality of digital is just as good as film. Only a purist will be inanely arguing this argument today. I'm not saying film is extinct, it isn't. Some people prefer it, for a variety of reasons. But, in reality, digital is here to stay, and the film sector is only going to get smaller and smaller and smaller until it finally does go extinct.

I have a solid example for this argument - Vinyl LPs vs CDs. I personally belief that Vinyl LPs vastly outperform digital mediums in every respect other than low end reproduction and absolute noise floor, and possibly dynamic range (depends on the recording). Digital is reasonably good, a lot more flexible, and cheaper to produce (does this start to sound familiar to digital cameras by chance?). Try and pick up Vinyl LPs now of top 100 stuff. It's damn hard. Worse, the quality control of vinyl pressings has now dropped so badly as to make it not even worthy of consideration. Thin pressings, poor vinyl quality, no more half speed masters etc. Digital has now advanced to DVD-A (all but dead I do admit), and Sony's new 24bit digital system (sorry, can't remember what it's called, I have no interest in it). Vinyl LPs went from market dominance to extinction within 5 years and most people couldn't really care about that these days. The same argument has been used in this scenario as what some are using with the film/digital argument - Vinyl has soul in the music, digital is cold and sterile. Digital is more convenient. Sound familiar? In the end, I use both Vinyl and digital because I enjoy both mediums. I personally think that Vinyl sounds better, and I've done numerous tests of LPs/CDs which I believe validate my thoughts, but I don't trash digital (or compact cassette for that matter, but that's another story...).

chekone11 - you might not like ScottE's comments, but at least respect them - he's entitled to his point of view. When you look at the degree of complexity and inflexibility that a large format camera offers, digital is certainly cheaper and far more convenient. And as I said earlier, a competent photographer will get a good image out of any medium.

I've used a film SLR for nigh on 20 years now, with a 1n as my primary camera since 99. I'm certainly not the world's best photography by any means, and nor do I make any claim of that type, but I honestly feel that the advantages of digital photography have helped me improve as a photographer. And there are many who would agree with me here, more so than that would disagree I suspect.

Cheers,

Dave

PS I use a Systemdek IIx900 with a Rega RB300 tonearm and Lyra Clavis Mk I cartridge setup for my Vinyl addiction - worth a couple of grand.

chekone11 wrote:
Worst post ever.

My EOS3 w/ 24-105 IS loaded with TriX is hardly an artifact for the historical buff. There is no digital equivelant. My F1 w/ 24mm 2.8 SSC is an amazing combo I use for IR... according to you, it is an antiquated piece of the past not suitable for a beginner? Excuse me while I laugh at you. HA HA. And again-- HA HA. What a stupid statement.

Don't you have the latest greatest shiny new toy to rush out and buy or something?

Digital, which I shoot a ton of for pleasure and profit, has CERTAINLY sucked the soul out of photography. The necessary skill level has been lowered considerably, and the wealth of idiotic opinions regarding any equipment over 1.5 years old is astonishing.

I was speaking to the kid that works in my local camera shop the other day-- guess what? He's been shooting B&W with an 8x10 view camera.
I know lots of folks who won't give up the movements of their monorail camera, or the quality and size of their Leicas (myself included). Despite what this board will have you believe, the Rebel XT doesn't make all prior cameras obsolete.

For the serious photographer, digital is but one tool in the shed. It absolutely boggles my mind to hear someone I assume thinks they're into photography to speak ill of 11x14 wet glass plates. It's like a wannabe guitar player dissing 50's Fenders as "too old", or an american car enthusiast dismissing a 59 Cadillac as having "impractibly large tail fins".

Think about that 11x14 wet plate process, from start to finish, and compare it to an XT, PictBridge, HP deskjet workflow. The artistry is what's dying.

That civil war photographer had more knowledge and skill in his pinkie... well... before he froze to death.

That kid didn't say you had to go out and shoot with an 11x14 glass plate. He said you needed to respect it. I couldn't agree more.

Now can we go back to arguing the merrits of the 50mm 1.8 vs the 50mm 1.4?

Just because you use Tri X or infra red does not make it the ideal tool for a beginner. In my honest opion, the beginner is better served leaning with modern equipment that make the technical aspects easier, before branching into more difficult branches of photography.

Digital is not sucking the soul out of photography any more than advances such as auto-focus, auto-exposure, zoom lenses, 35 mm film (it's just damn movie film!!) single lens reflex camera and roll film did. All had their critics at the time they were introduced but photography has survived and kept its soul, thank you.

Certainly film still has its uses. So far I am not aware of any practical camera that can match the capabilities for image quality of a large format view camera. The technical abilities of aspects such as rise, fall, swing and tilt have not been matched with a 35 mm camera, nor have the resolution and eveness of tone.

The original poster asked about a back up film camera for his digital. I have done that, and I have ended up with a mixture of film and digital images to work with. Believe me, life is simpler if you stick to working with one medium at a time for the simple reason workflow is easier to handle. That does not mean that there are not times when you need some film shots for a specific purpose.

At no time did I speak ill of practitioners of 11x14 wet plate photography. I said we should respect them, they are part of the roots of our craft. I just said that just because we respect them doesn't mean that every photographer has to go and learn the craft of preparing, exposing and fixing wet plates.

By citing your 35 mm cameras as examples, you have shown that you too appreciate the conveniences of technology that is built into those cameras. Now don't try to force the inconveniences of the technology of your generation on the students of the next generation. That is not de-valuing your (and my) generation, just reconizing where most of the next generation is headed.

I hope some of the next generation will learn and appreciate the capabilities of the film and plate cameras of my generation and that of my parents and grandparents, but for the most part their future is going to be in the digital world and they should master that first.

I have seen too many young people buy limited capablility 35 mm SLR camera in order to take a photography course. For most of those students the film camera gathers dust after they finish the course and start using digital. Most didn't learn anything they could not have learned with digital in the first place and the film camera was only necessary because that is what the teacher was comfortable with.

Wow, sorry to hijack the thread back to its original intent - apart from special uses for the film camer, I am eyeing one just to get Full frame capability back!! Its a lot cheaper to get a good 2nd had film camera than trade up to a 5D.

What is full frame capability? When I first got a 1.6 crop DSLR, I missed any lens capable of providing the super wide images I could take with my film camera. Now that the 10-22 has been introduced I am fully capable of taking all the pictures I could take with film, plus more capability at the long end of my telephoto lenses.

There is no more capability at the long end with a 1.6 crop camera Scott - I really wish people would get this right. You get NO extra magnification or pulling power, you're simply seeing a crop of the full frame image, the lens focal length is identical, and the FOV is identical. This, along with the # of MPs is the biggest fallacy that Digital SLRs show.

Dave

Let's not start this circle again too. There are lots of other threads that have already demonstrated you would need about a 21 mp full frame image to get the same resolution on a cropped image that you get with an 8.2 mp 1.6 crop camera. That camera doesn't exist, yet. But it will within the next year, if you believe the rumors.

However, shortly after that we will see a 10 or 12 mp EF-S camera so the cycle can continue.