Film Camera FF

lankforddl wrote in post #10008971
He does mostly Nature and Landscape. His argument was that not even the best digital camera models can produce the print quality that film camera's can. He has been a photographer his whole life and my guess is that he's found much success with film so why change now. I suspect the he probably does the medium and large format as well (but we didn't talk about that).

Negative film far surpasses digital in dynamic range (or headroom, if you prefer). That is, you have more information stored in the shadows and/or highlights that are recoverable.

However, digital SLRs passed 35mm film in resolution long ago. 35mm film pretty much couldn't be enlarged past 11x14" without objectionable grain. On top of that, it is much easier shooting in color because you're not limited by the film's white balance. Since the guy you met only shoots outdoors, it's not much of a problem for him - he just needs overcast or daylight balanced film, or just daylight film with a warming filter on hand for overcast days.

If you want to go to film and have superior, or sometimes just the same, image quality (in terms of tonal gradation and resolution), you will need to go to medium or large format.

Anyways, to answer your question, if you want to use your EF lenses, I suggest an EOS 3 or 1v.

enlargine past 11x14 I would say can be done depending upon the film. there are a few films out there that have very little grain. it's more of the old school films that have the grain that SOME might find objectionable. though granted that is at least with B&W. don't do color yet so not sure how much grain you have with those films.

as far as white balance some of that can be corrected in post with film. if you have a good color head or a filter set you can make adjustments to the white balance there.


with film though at times is just some personality there that is just hard to recreate with digital. so even though digital might be sharper, easier, quicker, more adjustable, and cheaper in the long run I still don't mind using film or seeing film based pictures.

I remember when APS film came out. Doesn't it stand for Advanced Photo System, or something like that? Anyways, it had some convenience advantages like index prints (a photo with thumbnails of all of the photos on that roll) and I don't think you had to do anything but pop the canister in the camera... it essentially loaded the film itself, instead of having to get it manually started on the winder like conventional 35mm film.

As far as cameras go, I think it's hard to beat the feel of my old Canon AE-1 (FD Mount). It's built like a tank, and the lenses just feel smooth and precise when focusing and zooming. I'm in LOVE with the microprism manual focusing as well... to the point of thinking about getting a different focusing screen for my 1D3.

There's a couple at www.keh.com also...
http://www.keh.com …ucts/1/CE/2/792​58/WG.aspx

I had bought a second Elan7 a couple of years ago fro KEH and it looked like new.

OK, this looks like the deal of the day...

http://www.shopgoodwil​l.com/viewItem.asp?Ite​mID=6081175

If I had the cash, I'd pursue this, so I decided to let you guys in on it.

rx7speed wrote in post #10022081
...with film though at times is just some personality there that is just hard to recreate with digital.

Kodachrome comes to mind.

I have an EOS 3, great camera!

msowsun wrote in post #10007211
Canon and others produced APS-C film cameras back in the 1990's with approximately a 1.3 crop factor.

Canon EOS IX

...and there were half-frame cameras using 135 format film, such as the Olympus Pen which was popular around 1960, getting double the number of shots per roll of film.

SkipD wrote in post #10011371
The 35mm film format is not, never was, and never will be the standard against which all other camera formats are measured.

True...

msowsun wrote in post #10007211
Canon and others produced APS-C film cameras back in the 1990's with approximately a 1.3 crop factor.

I thought it was the 135 format that had a crop factor of .7.

Anyway, how about 20" x 24" as FF?

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... or, better yet, 40" x 80"?
http://wikiprophoto.bl​ogspot.com …stant-40-x-80-camera.html
http://www.washingtonp​ost.com …ssays/vanRiper/​011120.htm

Or at the other end of the scale......anyone remember disc film?

http://mightyinteresti​ng.com …c_4000_with_dis​c_film.jpg

I'm another vote for the EOS 3......fab camera, I use mine all the time

Lizzy7 wrote in post #10029933
Or at the other end of the scale......anyone remember disc film?

http://mightyinteresti​ng.com …c_4000_with_dis​c_film.jpg

I'm another vote for the EOS 3......fab camera, I use mine all the time

Or remember the Minolta 16P cameras that took a cartridge of 16mm film?
http://www.submin.com …ameras/p_introd​uction.htm
I had one of these in the late 60's. Grain was pretty noticable in an 8x10.

Or how about the Spinshot 35S slit-scan panoramic camera. It shoots 360 degrees and uses 7 inches of film (that's 7 images on a 36 exposure roll of film).

Mark_48 wrote in post #10030075
Or remember the Minolta 16P cameras that took a cartridge of 16mm film?

14x10mm format for the Minolta 16mm cartridge. 11x8mm for the Minox I once had. But the disc's 10x8mm may be as small as film formats got. Anyone know of any smaller that was available for general use?

My vote for a film camera has to go to the 1V. I probably wouldn’t mind a 3 either. They aren’t too pricey given the cost of the glass you put in front of them and the digital you might shoot along side them.

Anyways, I can tell you that I can scan my 35mm film at 4000ppi and get essentially 23MP files to work with, and at 100% they are tack sharp and may show the slightest amount of grain (technically dye cloud in colour films). I have printed these at 13x19 and they look just as good as my friends prints from a Rebel XSi. I have printed grainless, tack sharp prints in a darkroom at 11x14 as well from black and white film.

Colour balancing film isn’t too difficult in scanning either. I hope you all are colour correcting to have a neutrally balanced white and black point in your images through the RGB channels. You really only need correcting filters if you are shooting slides and projecting them as final images. Everything can be tweaked while printing (wet or digitally).

Seriously though, picking up a medium format camera will give you results that a digital camera cannot even come close to.

One photographer to check out is Jose Villa: http://josevillablog.c​om/ who shoots with a Contax 645 and a Canon 1V system. He shoots only film (Fuji 400H and 800Z). I have gotten similar colours by using the films. That is one reason to shoot film because after inverting and setting white/black points in each of the RBG channels, you get beautiful images that are very neutral but punchy at the same time. Seems they always behave themselves.

Digital has the upper hand on low light shooting though. Shooting anything faster than 400 speed film in colour does not come out so nicely.