Did you ever shoot film professionally?

Just was wondering how many on the board grew up shooting only digital and how many shot film. And if you shot film lets have a little fun, do you remember what your first 35mm SLR was?

Ok, I'll start, yes been shooting professionally since 1982. My forte with film was black and white, I really did not care for color till digital came along, and still prefer B & W. My first 35mm SLR was a Canon ftb....

While I have sold quite a few photos over the years, I cannot classify myself as a professional photographer.

My first "serious camera", a 35mm SLR, was a Miranda F which I purchased in 1965 if I remember correctly. A few months later, I went to a Miranda G after dropping and smashing the F. A year or so later, I got the two Nikon F cameras which I still have today.

My 20D is my first and only DSLR, though I started using a Canon G2 point-n-shoot before getting the 20D.

I cut my teeth on film.
Started at school with a Minolta something or other that I commandeered off my dad.
Well, he wasn't using it and posession is 9/10th's of the law.
The first camera I bought was in about 1983 and was an Olympus OM-30 with Tamron 80-210 and 35-80 zooms and 500mm F8 mirror lens (loved the donut bokeh that it produced). All the lenses were manual focus too.
The word bokeh wasn't even being used in photography at that stage - it was just called background blur.
The lenses used the Adaptall 2 system of mounts which enabled them to be switched between makes of cameras.
You simply bought the mount for whatever brand of camera you had.
When I started getting published in about 1990, I ended up getting an OM-10 and OM-20 as back up bodies and still used them after I got a Nikon F3 as my main body in about 1993.
I used that with the Tamron lenses until going digital in 2004 when all my film gear got stolen.
Spent a fortune - literally thousands of dollars - on film and processing in that time.
As an example, in 2002 I spent in excess of $8000 in my local photolab on processing.
For me, thanks to digital, since 2004 I wouldn't have spent $4000 in total in a photolab.
It's no wonder photolabs are disappearing of the face of the earth at a rapid rate.

Sorry...this wasn't meant to sound like a "Back in my day" post.

I too started out on film. I had a Minolta SRT 101 outfit with a 35mm WA, normal 58 mm 1.4 and a tele 135 mm also have a rangefinder Petri 7s and a Yashika 120 (sp) and a few instant print polaroids. No way to avoid being tagged an old fart having started photography in the 50s.

My first 35mm camera was a Konica Autoreflex T, soon after I bought a Nikon F and traded the Konica for a Mamiya C33 MF camera. The vast majority of professional work I did in those days was with a 4x5 Crown Graphic which belonged to a photographer I worked for.

I began shooting with film using a Brownie camera when I was 7 and later moved up to a twin lens reflex before discovering 35mm with a little Konica C35 rangefinder. I enjoyed the less bulky 35mm format and purchased my first SLR, a Nikon F, back around 1974.

Over the years, I bulk loaded my own B&W film and did my own darkroom work. Eventually I shot more transparencies than anything else as this was the preferred medium for my target market, the printing and publishing companies to which I sold one time reproduction rights on many images.

Photography is my passion, however, it always been a side source of income.

Not enough poll options. No choice for "i shoot both now" or "started with digital and switched to film" or "started with digital but shoot both now".

It's too bad you can't tie the poster's age into those questions somehow. My first 35mm was a cheapie thing called a Zenit. It had a ring on the lens that you had to open up to focus and then turn it back down to whatever f-stop you chose.

I have done a couple hundred weddings in film but I never did them in 35mm. When I decided to take on the first wedding my wife and I invested in medium format which had much better quality than the Canon F-1 I had by then. Over the years we used and I still have the Pentax 6x7, Mamiya RB67 ProS and a Pentax 645. We would supplement the wedding shots with some 35mm but it was never a primary camera for any commercial job. Even when I started digital I didn't use them as primary cameras until I got into the 1 series and the best lenses.

I will still use the medium format for some jobs and it nice to take them out for fun as well. The only down side is that pesky processing charges.

Fast Fredy wrote in post #10636616
Not enough poll options. No choice for "i shoot both now" or "started with digital and switched to film" or "started with digital but shoot both now".

I agree, never thought about that, is there a way for me to edit the poll to include those?

Started out with a Canon A1 in the 1980's while in high school.

I got my first camera, a Pentax sp1000, in my late teens.

Worked in commercial photography on and off from around '80 to around 2007 using 99.99% film. 4x5, meduim format and 35mm

Just two weeks ago I got my first dslr

Professionally, hmmmm. In the early 1960's, as a kid, I was playing around with a Polaroid, Can't remember the model, it was a hard white body. I sold one picture from that camera at a motorcycle rally. Happened to grab a picture of a guy on a motorcycle who was in the air sideways braking his arm when he landed. He bought my photo for a few dollars.

A year or two later, took and sold pictures at the school prom using a film 35mm of my dad's.

My first owned dslr film camera was a Konica I bought second hand from a fellow airman in the Air Force. This would have been about 1966. I like that camera a lot but had it stolen.

Went to Nikon film cameras starting with nikkormats. Did some semi-professional work, weddings, studio portraits, etc...This was in the 70's & 80's.

Kind of got out of photography until a year or two ago with my first DSLR, a Canon XSI. Not shooting professionally, just hobby for now.

I was not a professional, but I did start taking pictures with film.

I'm a late starter so in '96 I had a Pentax consumer SLR and eventually went to a pair of PZ1P before getting into MF and LF gear. I have shot on film from 35mm to 8x10. I still think MF is likely one of the best formats around. Lots of detail with the convenience of a SLR.

I never shot film professionally, I was always hired to shoot people. But, those times in my life I can't really talk about, classified and all that.


Film?? Film you say?? Good God, if I had to use film I wouldn't be in photography. That's too much work, too much time, and too much aggravation for me. I prefer the quick and simple, lazy way out, digital. Plus I'm too damned stupid to know the first thing about film, I would probably have a hard time just trying to cram the film into the camera.