The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Are you still shooting 35mm film?

bensonga

Well-known member
Gary, I see no mentioning of an RTS III or maybe a humble RX in your writeup above :ROTFL:

Oh, and congratulations with the F6. It's the best :)

Yes, yes...I know I should have included a few others in that list. :facesmack:

I decided a few years ago that I needed to set some limits on the scope of my 35mm camera collection, so I've "limited" myself to cameras and lenses from these three. I mostly use the lenses on DSLRs now, but still enjoy shooting with the film cameras now and then.

However, like Jack, if I am going to shoot film and actually want the results to be worth the effort, I'll go with a larger format...in my case, medium format.

Gary
 

robertwright

New member
Just to keep the GAS flowing. Canon EOS 1n and T3 are recent purchase, Hassy is going out the door today to a new home courtesy Ebay.
 

trioderob

Member
"The best digital cameras far out perform the best film cameras - but only in the hands of a good photographer."

that's total nonsense - I challenge you to prove it
 

bensonga

Well-known member
The best digital cameras far out perform the best film cameras - but only in the hands of a good photographer.
Doug Peterson
Trioderob -- It took me awhile to find this original post. It's helpful for all of us if you would use the Quote reply method when you want to quote and reply to a previous post.

I'll leave Doug to reply to your comment, if he wishes to do so.

Speaking of 35mm cameras only (since that's what this thread is all about), my personal experience is that the best 35mm DSLRs do produce "superior" images to those from 35mm film. That's my own subjective and personal experience and why 99% of my 35mm format shots are with a digital camera, not a film camera. I have no "proof" to give you. Obviously, your results may be quite different.

Gary
 

chrism

Well-known member
I visited the shelves of cameras at the weekend, and brought out my wife's long neglected Pentax SF-1 from the late eighties. Did you know that undiluted Kodak stop bath is really good at removing corrosion from terminals that have 25 year old dried battery juice on them? It really works, and now so does the camera. I'll have to run a film through it next week and see how it does. Auto-focus that slow and noisy doesn't count as cheating, does it?

Chris
 

bensonga

Well-known member
I would like to know which 35mm film camera i should buy, any recommendations?
First question: Are you already invested in 35mm lenses from a particular system? Leica, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus etc?

To me, that would be the determining factor. There are good 35mm film cameras from almost all of the companies.

In the meantime, my recommendations for the 35mm cameras I own:

Leica: R8/R9...but an R6.2 is a great camera too.
Nikon: F6 or F3HP...but the F5 and F100 are good as well.
Canon: The EOS-1V or 1V-HS....absolutely.

I left off the 35mm rangefinders, since I don't own one.

Gary
 

Professional

Active member
First question: Are you already invested in 35mm lenses from a particular system? Leica, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus etc?

To me, that would be the determining factor. There are good 35mm film cameras from almost all of the companies.

In the meantime, my recommendations for the 35mm cameras I own:

Leica: R8/R9...but an R6.2 is a great camera too.
Nikon: F6 or F3HP...but the F5 and F100 are good as well.
Canon: The EOS-1V or 1V-HS....absolutely.

I left off the 35mm rangefinders, since I don't own one.

Gary
I don't have any manual 35mm lenses, i only have 35mm DSLRS or say digital cameras, Canon, also one digital MF, but i have only MF and LF film cameras, so that i don't have 35mm, but i bought a panoramic adapter kit to use in Mamiya 7II and that will make it to use 35mm films as panorama, and not sure if one of my Holga cameras is able to use 35mm after modify, both are MF format.

I was going to go with Canon EOS-1V as it is still available as brand new and i have Canon digital lenses, but i have one friend told me that Leica is the best 35mm film camera to have, so i was thinking if this is what i shout get, but, i know that my love is for MF and LF all the time, and i am planning to buy Fuji RF that is small enough to use it for street or travel, then i will feel that i will never touch 35mm film again.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
My last hurrah with film was with a Leica MP LHSA, Nikon F6, Hasselblad 203FE, Hasselblad H2F, and the Mamiya RZPro-IID. Prior to that, just name a good film camera and I probably had it … I'd be embarrassed to list them, it'd stress the band-width here.:eek: Without a doubt, my past favorite was the M by a huge margin … with a loving nod to the 203FE, Contax 645, and Contax N … all sporting the Zeiss optics I preferred.

Sort of the pinnacle of each format for my uses. A product of the love/hate, angels/demons, can-do/can't-do relationship I've had with film for more decades than I care to admit to.

The proof of my denial that film's dead to me is that my Zone VI equipped wet-darkroom is still intact, my fabulous Kaiser MF enlarger sites fallow in storage, and I am waiting for our town to have their annual hazardous waste pick-up to shed the last of my aging chemicals. That denial cost me a lot also … I had at least $3,000 in film in my garage freezer energy hog, which I got rid of leaving the film to go bad (a parent's illness distracted me from such mundane things as selling it roll-by-roll). Even had the last run of Verichrome in copious quantities that I loved for wedding work.

Oddly, one of the most missed aspects of my film age was the tactile feel of winding a M or V camera. Something reassuring about that physical connection to the camera. Sort of "There, that one is done" sense of incremental accomplishment to it. Of course, the other is the magic of a print appearing in a tray:bugeyes: while enjoying the inner Sanctum of the darkroom where no one dared enter when I was working.

I was an early adopter of digital … a 3 meg Canon and whopping 16 meg Kodak Proback that could shoot any ISO as long as it was 100.:rolleyes: Mostly to facilitate commercial work where time was of the essence. Slowly that digital cancer spread, feeding on my inherent laziness. After trying a number of scanners to bridge film and digital, I secured the mighty Imacon 949. That helped me come to the aesthetic realization that if you shoot film, then the analog process should be carried all the way through to making silver-prints with an enlarger. Facsimiles always involve some sort of compromise IMO.

By then the digital cancer had reached my brain.

I stopped waxing poetically about film. Truth be told I had longed for the immediacy of digital well before it was even commercially available or a known alternative. I blew through an enormous amount of Polaroid film and even had a Pola back for one of my Mamiya 7-II cameras (the other loaded with film).

I never enjoyed the nail biting process of handing over my precious color film rolls to a lab, and a few too many times getting the phone call that they had screwed up. Costly for a commercial assignment redo, a un-retrievable disaster for a wedding gig. Film lost in the mail happen one too many times also … whole vacation memories gone forever. If there was to be a fug-up I wanted it to be my fug-up, not one out of my control.

Darkrooms sound romantic, but often were just pure drudgery … and stinky. I am on a septic tank, and the process of protecting that became an enormous task. Drying and flattening silver prints was a precarious task where one dimple meant hours of repeating the whole process.

Today, we have many shimmering silver prints placed all over our home. A testament to a bye-gone age of hand-crafted beauty that has it own separate set of visual charms. To this day I admire and celebrate well done analog prints as a highly disciplined art form of its' own.

I then dedicated myself to the digital process and relentlessly digging deep into its' own set of visual attributes. Having been deeply involved with the dark-room helped a lot because I knew what I was looking for … not to duplicate, but to exploit what digital could offer as a new aesthetic discipline. So far it has been very rewarding and fulfilling … and the most unendingly expensive thing I've done in the name of art.:facesmack:

- Marc
 

jlm

Workshop Member
i too have an Aristo zone VI head on a motorized lift Bessler fitted for 4x5, nice little Schneider Componon 150...in a box, set up back in '74
 
Last edited:

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I don't have any manual 35mm lenses, i only have 35mm DSLRS or say digital cameras, Canon, also one digital MF, but i have only MF and LF film cameras, so that i don't have 35mm, but i bought a panoramic adapter kit to use in Mamiya 7II and that will make it to use 35mm films as panorama, and not sure if one of my Holga cameras is able to use 35mm after modify, both are MF format.

I was going to go with Canon EOS-1V as it is still available as brand new and i have Canon digital lenses, but i have one friend told me that Leica is the best 35mm film camera to have, so i was thinking if this is what i shout get, but, i know that my love is for MF and LF all the time, and i am planning to buy Fuji RF that is small enough to use it for street or travel, then i will feel that i will never touch 35mm film again.
If I had Canon lenses, I would go for the EOS-1V. I have Nikon lenses, so I use an F6. It's my favourite camera :)
 

bensonga

Well-known member
The EOS-1V is a terrific camera. I bought mine from Fotografz/Marc and then I added the PB-E2 power drive booster.

The last and best Canon 35mm film camera. I didn't know they were still available new. I think you will enjoy it.

Gary
 

Texsport

Member
Lots of reasons to shoot 35mm film, besides liking the cameras. The lenses listed are all also used on m43 for double the effective focal length. The Zoomar 1000/8 is also used on Rittreck 66.

Panoramic
XPan, Widelux

FD Lenses
Canon T90 + Canon FD lenses

Action & Sequence Photos
Nikon F5

Wildlife
Olympus OM4/OMTi+ OM 350/2.8 lens
Canon EOS 3 + Canon 70-300/4-5.6 IS (EOS 3 Eye controlled focus)

Bokeh
Nikon F4/F5 = Nikon 135/2.0DC
Exakta VX + Biotar 58/2

Macro
Various cameras + Vivitar 90/2.5 & Vivitar 70-180/4.5 Flat Field

Texsport
 
Last edited:

Godfrey

Well-known member
Haven't shot any 35mm film in a while. As soon as I use up the last couple of shots in the Polaroids (I have the last frame or two of Cyanograph in the SX-70 right now, and another frame to go in the SX-70 Sonar), I'll load either the Nikon F, the Leicaflex SL, or the Leica CL.

I tend to shoot digital and film the same way ... very sparingly ... and with a 35mm roll of film it takes forever to get through 24 or 36 shots! I get impatient.
:)

G
 
Top