Ramblings of a photo hobbyist from the 70's...
As an old photography hobbyist from the film days finally deciding to move into the DSLR realm, after a number of months of examining options and how to build a DSLR system that at least meets the flexibility and performance of my old film system, I'm struck with how much has been lost to photo hobbyists with the 40 year gradual move from manual-focus film systems to the DSLR world.
1. Cost.
Compared with film systems, DSLR bodies and lenses are breathtakingly expensive, even accounting for inflation.
i would propose that the cost has actually gone down.
as pointed out earlier in another post..
the cost of film and dark room chemical was quite high.
it was easy for me to spend about a thousand dollars in a year for film and devlopment alone, not to mention the effects on health and the fact that bad and unusable images cost the same ad a good useable image when it come to developing and initial price of the unexposed film roll.
while a DSLR can cost a lot up front, the cost over time is way less.
also being an old film guy like me, if you shot with nikon or minolta, you can get the same body and use your old lenses which further reduce the initial investment.
DSLR bodies are considerably larger and heavier than film SLR bodies were. It has even come to the level of perversity that this size and weight is looked upon as an advantage or a status symbol. The old Nikon F was not appreciably larger nor heavier than a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic (showing my age with that brand name...) or Minolta SR-T 101, although the F could be "gripped" (F-36 motor drive) into quite a monster for the times.
Likewise, the auto-focus and IS lenses are large, heavy monsters or cheap plastic lightweights. The hobbyist lenses of the film age were light, excellent performers, AND rugged.
this is true to a point.. some manufactures are making their DSLR bodies smaller and lighter. the olympus DSLR is tiny and very light compared to other manufactures.
and the rangefinder cameras with a full frame sensor are still the same size as their 35mm counterparts.
in the medium format world, the camera body has stayed the same.
Well, "death" is overstating a bit, but since you need a trust fund to afford full frame digital, it is beyond the reach of most hobbyists, leaving us with APS-C sensors. My film camera gear included a 24mm and a 20mm prime. The 24mm was one of my most heavily used lenses. Both were reasonably priced, small, and reasonably fast. To match that on an APS-C body, I need to be looking at a 15mm and 12mm lens. None are either small OR reasonably priced, since they are in the category of extreme wide angle lenses. A 12mm prime does not even exist in EF mount. Is there a 15mm prime that is NOT a fisheye? If you have a couple of extra Grover Clevelands laying around, you can get a 14mm non-fisheye prime, but, as I said... hobbyist.
yes, the wideangle lens is affected by the size of the sensor (crop multiplication)
however, DSLRs do come with full frame sensors that have the same surface area as a 35mm.. such a full frame camera will have the same performance optically as a 35mm system.
and the cost is going down too.. aside from nikon, canon and sony make very afordable full frame camera bodies.
I realize I'm hopelessly nostalgic / living in the past, but even so, I'm having a hard time coming to the conclusion that the losses (small, light, rugged bodies; light, reasonably priced excellently performing wide angle primes, etc.) are worth it.
leica makes a very manual ff camera the m9
and if you shot medium format, you can keep your camera and just buy a digital back to replace the film..
cheers!
