Old Film Cameras

[edger]

I still have some old film cameras, but I can't rationalize the cost of doing film anymore, and digital is so bloody convenient.
Having said that, I still love my old Pentax, Nikkormat, and Canon cameras, and particularly my vintage Russian rangefinders. I have a Kiev 4a ( Contax copy) and a 1941 Fed 1d that has KGB markings in Cyrillic lettering. The last was one of the last made before the Germans invaded and took over the factory. They are interesting and well made cameras and fun to drag out occasionally to fondle and enjoy their history.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I recall the feeling. Fortunately, I was doing sports photography at the time digital was almost equal to film. With 1 in 5 or 10 being a shot I wanted, film was out of the question.

Now that it's far more capable than film, there's no question. I have only the slightest fondness —nostalgia is more like it—for chemicals and darkrooms.

 

[verporchting]

Many great hours spent with a Canon and Pentax 35mm.

Good times! Way too much of a PITA now and I love digital photos. Especially love the convenience of an iPhone camera but still, it was a grand hobby back in the day!

 

[edger]

There was something tactile, for me, in the way film cameras felt in the hand, and the mechanical smoothness that the best possessed. Digital, maybe with the exception of the Fuji x100 series, feel insubstantial to me. Relates to the "hand feel" of certain pipes over others.

 

[ray47]

For most of my 25 yrs of being a Crime Scene Investigator I used Canon 35mm. When I switched to Canon Digital the last 5 yrs of my career there was no looking back. I loved the digital so much I bought me one for my personal use.

 

[agnosticpipe]

There was something tactile, for me, in the way film cameras felt in the hand, and the mechanical smoothness that the best possessed. Digital, maybe with the exception of the Fuji x100 series, feel insubstantial to me. Relates to the "hand feel" of certain pipes over others.

The same for me, I've had a darkroom for at least 50 years, but it's been at least 6 years since I've shot any film. I still have quite of few cameras ranging from 35mm half frame to a 4x5 Speed Graphic. I'm also a fan of the Fujifilm X series and have a couple. A bit pricy but nice cameras!

 

[Dadzmad]

Some days I miss using film cameras and my B&W darkroom equipment but the phone cameras have gotten quite good and I always have it handy. What I see as the downside is that much casual digital photography will be lost quickly as the years go by. There won't be the experience of finding an old misplaced casual photo that was insignificant at the time but turns into a treasure years later.

 

[instymp]

Some days I miss using film cameras and my B&W darkroom equipment but the phone cameras have gotten quite good and I always have it handy. What I see as the downside is that much casual digital photography will be lost quickly as the years go by. There won't be the experience of finding an old misplaced casual photo that was insignificant at the time but turns into a treasure years later.

I still get a couple of digitals printed out. Nothing like "Prints" to me for the special ones.

 

[olkofri]

Someone gave me this Pentax almost 5 years ago:



I shot quite a few rolls of film with it, most of them B&W which I had to develop myself using the bathroom as a dark room. I even paid to have the shutter adjusted as the top speeds were out of sync (they still are, so much for the adjustment ? ).

I also acquired a Cambo 4x5 sans lenses or plates that I wanted to use with digital for product photography, but never really happened. I think I need to put it back on ewwBay. Photography is basically dead now, digital or otherwise.

 

[donjgiles]

Photography is basically dead now, digital or otherwise.

Please don't tell my boss this...

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yep, I recall. Definite plus on the hand feel of a good film camera. I hung a 70-200 lens on mine, usually on a monopod; hand held, it felt substantial enough.

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

If I remember correctly, my first SLR, bought in Seattle during the summer of '72, was a Fujica ST701. I added a 200mm prime lens to go with its 50mm. It was stolen at some point during the time I was on my second ship.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Yeh, the price of film isn't too bad if you are into refilling the cartridges yourself and you have a darkroom. But, unless you are taking pictures for an art show, who cares about any of that nowadays. I have cameras strewn all over my smoking room. I even still have a few unopened boxes of Magic Cube flashes. And, books and books of negatives taken in college... back when my line was "Hey baby, can I photograph you naked.... and you can take your clothes off as well."

 

[edger]

If I remember correctly, my first SLR, bought in Seattle during the summer of '72, was a Fujica ST701. I added a 200mm prime lens to go with its 50mm. It was stolen at some point during the time I was on my second ship.

I lost a camera case full of Canon stuff to organized parking lot thieves while watching the movie Soilent Green(sp?) back in the '70's. Maybe that's why I don't like EGR!?

 

[edger]

I tend to use my Fuji digital in monochrome (b&w). With film you "saw" in color through the viewfinder, but with digital you can compose in b&w. Nice feature.

 

[sablebrush52]

I resisted going to the dark side of the force until I was satisfied that the quality of digital imagery was sufficiently developed as to offer an acceptable alternative.

In the course of doing my work I've shot with a wide range of cameras of various sizes and configurations, Graphflex, Speed Graphic, Sinar, Rollie, Hasselblad, Contax, Leica, Olympus, Pentax, Nikon, and Canon. All great picture takers.

That traditional experience has been completely relevant to working digitally. I often turn off the auto functions and work manually. I like to have control of depth of focus, depth of field, and the like.

 

[edger]

I resisted going to the dark side of the force until I was satisfied that the quality of digital imagery was sufficiently developed as to offer an acceptable alternative.

In the course of doing my work I've shot with a wide range of cameras of various sizes and configurations, Graphflex, Speed Graphic, Sinar, Rollie, Hasselblad, Contax, Leica, Olympus, Pentax, Nikon, and Canon. All great picture takers.

That traditional experience has been completely relevant to working digitally. I often turn off the auto functions and work manually. I like to have control of depth of focus, depth of field, and the like.

I completely agree. With film you had lens perspective, shutter speed, and aperture to deal with while shooting. Everything else, more or less, was post processing. With digital it seems you have more decisions at the front end. Hard for me to get used to, but certainly a boon to creativity.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

Love digital, particularly the ability to use software to clean up the images. No loading film, no developing or waiting for it to be developed and no additional cost. What's not to like?

 

[anotherbob]

if you would have told me that my Pentax would be a very nice memento someday I would have thought you were crazy. Man when I got that camera digital was still such crap. You got like five grainy pictures that you could store on a computer which wouldn't even hold as many pictures as my flip phone can. I miss having access to a dark room. Best class I took in high school was photo arts and not just because that blue folder allowed you to sneak out back for a smoke and not just because the dark room was the only place you could be alone with one of your girlfriends and actually be allowed to lock the door but it was also just a great class period.

 

[mso489]

I didn't realize until I started to use digital how much my enjoyment of photography hinged on the whole film shooting experience. I certainly see the advantages of digital and I keep trying to continue using it, but in fact, it has all but killed my enjoyment of photography. I like the smell of film, the darkroom work when I did that in my teens and twenties, the loading and advancing of film, the sound of the shutter, and in those cases when applicable, the wait for the film to be processed, which allowed me to rethink my photo shoot before seeing the results, which could be disappointing or thrillingly better than expected. With digital, everyone is a photographer with their phone, and shoot like crazy and so get some good pictures. That's good! You can even shoot in black-and-white, though now it is just an affect and not much a living genre. But the joy in photography, for me, is much diminished, a frail shadow of how it felt with celluloid. I'd be interested if celluloid came back, like vinyl records, but I think digital has it outgunned, I'm not sure what the appeal would be for people not experienced with it in the past. Someone will do it, for art's sake, but whether it will be available at a moderate price for us old celluloid guys, I doubt. Someone will get a Ford Foundation grant to do it, to much ballyhoo at the New York City galleries.