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BS: Film cameras
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Subject: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 16 Jun 20 - 06:49 AM I (again) discovered my old film camera the other day and wondered what I might do with it. This time round, I decided that rather than putting it back in a drawer, I’d try a black and white film. I ordered a couple of reels of Ilford HP5 (at which point, my camera decided to break but, undeterred, I found I was able to get a very similar but slightly older Pentax MZ-50 online for £50) and have taken my first 24 pictures and put them in the post for processing. I await the results… I already think this attempt will prove to be a whim. I’d forgotten the (to me) frustrations of using film from having to think more about what you are doing to not getting the instant gratification and don’t suppose that I’m going to find anything magical in the results that would prompt me to try again. That and in reality I’m pretty limited in when and where I can get out… (And the only pictures I am taking fairly regulary are snapshots with my Pentax Lumix compact which I have set up so I can upload to my PC which sends them to my inkjet printer for 6x4 photos. Dad can’t get out at all and mum can’t manage some parts and it’s quite nice to have something to pass around to show what I’ve been trying to do or what is growing. But I’m rambling… and need to get on topic...) In spite of my own doubts about using the film, I am curious as to whether any here are using film. Perhaps for specific purposes like black and white or for transparencies, perhaps medium format, perhaps developing ones own film, etc. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Jun 20 - 12:37 PM Black and white film costs the moon these days. I sold one of my older film cameras a number of years ago and the guy who bought it was really interested in the little filters I included with it. I wish him well; I regretted for a few minutes selling it, but then, I was never using it and it was just sentimental that it was my first camera, given me by my dad. Someone is actually using it now. As it is, I hardly use my big digital camera any more, it's all the phone. There are uses for film, and when I was taking photos I mostly shot slides. In this day and age I'm considering using an extension tube setup to make a way to reshoot those slides with the digital camera so I can have the images digitized without spending a small fortune or buying a humongously expensive flatbed scanner. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: leeneia Date: 16 Jun 20 - 01:32 PM My husband and I like to photograph birds. Man, there are no photographs as beautiful as those we took with an automatic camera and slide film. It was a Canon EOS Rebel, and you got the bird in the frame, clicked and whammo! it took the picture. The resulting image was true and beautiful. Now he was an expensive camera that takes forever to get the picture, by which time the bird has moved. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 16 Jun 20 - 01:51 PM Having spent too much of my 20s and 30s working in stifling darkrooms, I'm glad to see the back of film.. Even though my Nikon gear went rapidly from sensible investment, to near worthless... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Bill D Date: 16 Jun 20 - 02:45 PM I had 2 Olympus OM-2s, with many lenses and flashes and cords and filters...etc. Was getting into developing my own B&W and Ektachrome slides. Digital came out, and I finally bought a small Olympus-2000, thinking it might be fun to 'play' with. I...umm.. never pushed the button on a film camera again. My mind went to my trip to Alaska in 1975, when I shot maybe 25 rolls of slide film... and paid for processing. Yes, it took a few years before digital came near what one could do with film, but I was not doing professional work, and I have SO many memories that I could not have afforded staying with film. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Dave Hanson Date: 16 Jun 20 - 02:59 PM I've still got 2 Nikon 35mm bodies and sever lenses I cat get rid of. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Donuel Date: 16 Jun 20 - 03:21 PM Now: top panasonic Lumix Then: big ol Olympus, 1930 Kodak fold out camera and even a Brownie in the box with all the assesories including flashbulbs. Why keep them? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 16 Jun 20 - 06:13 PM I've had three Lumix cameras and have had to abandon every one of them because of dust specks getting on to the sensor. It happens when you switch the camera on and the lens pops out. The partial vacuum thus created sucks dust in through the tiny gap between the lens and body. The fix is so expensive and untrustworthy as to be not worth doing. I'm increasingly with Maggie on the camera phone thing. The quality is great for ordinary snaps that you'd want to keep. Most times, my iPhone 6S is the only camera in my pocket. The only cavil is that there's no optical zoom. I particularly miss that with videos. For that reason, on special occasions or on holiday I also have a little Canon Ixus 285HS. It takes lovely videos and can zoom smoothly to 12X if you want it, and it has wi-fi which means I can easily transfer pics to my iPad and thereafter to the Cloud. The pics are pretty good too, but on the whole they're no better than my iPhone pics. I'd love to go high quality and I appreciate that the digital SLRs have bigger sensors and great lenses, but I just can't hack the notion of lugging a camera around that will weigh me down. Any stuff that I cart around has to pass the will-it-fit-in-my-pocket test. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 16 Jun 20 - 06:15 PM I hasten to add that I meant Lumix compact cameras. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Jun 20 - 01:48 AM There was a time my 1980s/early 90s Nikkor lenses were still partly comparable with Nikon Digital SlRs.. But I was no longer working in photography and couldn't justify the expense. Some Fuji [if i remember correct] DSLRs also accepted older Nikkor lenses, but even though less expensive, still too much cost for me. Besides which, working too long in photography had killed my enthusiasm for continuing it as a hobby... I also find my smartphone camera to be a perfectly adequate tool for everyday use, keeping instant record of misc stuff needing to be documented.. eg, today, reaching down behind the TV stand to get a clear image of how I wired all the gear together over the last 20 years... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: gillymor Date: 17 Jun 20 - 04:30 AM I use a Sony a6000 mirrorless w/ a 55-210 zoom and a 1.7x teleconverter for shooting mostly birds and other wildlife, it's great for shooting out of hand (no tripod) while hiking as the zoom is stabilized and the whole rig is pretty light. Having the ability to edit and share my images on the computer adds a whole other dimension of fun. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 17 Jun 20 - 05:36 AM It’s not really going the way I’d hoped it might go ie. someone(s) still using film for some purpose(s).but it’s all good stuff… a couple of comments regarding some bits I’ve read. SRS. I didn’t think the £4.50 for the 24 exposure B/W film that bad but it’s all cost and by the time I add on development, printing (6x4) and return postage, the total cost comes to nearly £20. The slide films I looked at were more expensive, around £18-£20 for a 36 exposure film. I’d not heard about the Panasonic Lumix compact sensor dust problem but there is a bit about it on the Internet and one of a few diy fix videos is Phone use is not really for me. I started off enthusiastically with my first mobile phone and even wrote an app to enable me to send print jobs to my Linux CUPS print server as I could find nothing suitable on the play store at the time and wanting to print snapshots a large part of the motivation but I never wound up using my phone much for anything. Also I don’t know why as my compact camera doesn’t have a viewfinder and I usually manage with its screen but I found my mobiles very hard to use in bright light, the Lumix does take far better pictures than either my Samsung Ace 2 or current Wiley Fox Swift 2 can plus its natural aspect ratio is 3:2 which is what I want for my 6x4 prints. But I know it works the other way for a good number of people, I guess particularly for those with high end phones. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 17 Jun 20 - 05:39 AM Opps, messed up the link for a diy sensor clean on Lumic compacts. I'll try again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Rapparee Date: 17 Jun 20 - 09:03 AM I don't think we even have film camera in the basement storage. We loved the ones we had, but moved to digital and have rarely looked back. For some things film is superior in quality, but now the cost is prohibitive for general use. But Polaroid-type cameras are making a sort of come-back -- Fuji and others are making them. We use our SLR-type for "fine work" (my wife photographs quilts) and the phone for the rest. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Jun 20 - 09:54 AM In my final proper job in photography in the mid 90s, I was camera assistant and darkroom technician in a London industrial studio.. I was working with large format fine grain 10x8 sheet transparency film in dark slides. Image quality was astonishingly good, but only mega wealthy corporate clients could afford the price. Digital was only establishing as a viable potential alternative.. I just googled out of curiosity, and large format film is still available, though I'd be surprised if it's still manufactured now, or for much longer if it is...??? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 17 Jun 20 - 10:18 AM Apparently Ilford have an annual slot where they take orders for more unusual film. See here for example. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Mrrzy Date: 17 Jun 20 - 10:56 AM What I liked best about film cameras was the occasional accidental double exposure. I remember a shot of a rather ghostly Grandfather in a Chambersburg armchair floating up a West African river in a dugout canoe, and one we called Our Lady of Graduation where one graduating sister's face under its mortarboard floats delightedly above a crowd shot of another sister's graduation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Jun 20 - 11:27 AM I can't be the only person who recalls the bad old days when you sent off your roll of 36 to Boots, waited several days, paid your big mazumas, only to get back your set of snaps to find that only one or two were any good... If you sent off the negs for reprints (more big mazumas, especially if you wanted enlargements or cropping) you were lucky if the technician hadn't added a bit of bumfluff to the negs to ruin your snaps via speckles or hairy streaks...When affordable digitals first came out the pictures had a sort of weirdly clinical and artificial quality about them. So much better now, and you can delete, try again, take ten in a row, choose the best and delete the rest, do your own editing, get 'em up on the Cloud in no time, send 'em to your beloveds straight away... Film? Those weren't the days! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Jun 20 - 11:28 AM Cheap too... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Jun 20 - 11:41 AM Digital definitely contributed to making me redundant, but I was sick of working in photography by then anyway... But I do understand and appreciate other folk's love for the arcane alchemy of olde world picture making... A bit like the 21st century teenage hipster fad for audio cassette tape Obviously, I still have some remaining interest and nostalgia.. One of the most enjoyable jobs I ever had was working in an Industrial Museum, making prints from antique glass negatives.. The image quality could be revealingly high quality fine and detailed... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Jun 20 - 12:36 PM That was the worst part, getting the roll back and realizing the exposure was wrong for the entire roll, or some other setting was off. You know right away if the digital shot is correct. The trouble from the early years was that they were so small that it's difficult to use them now unless you play some games with converting and enlarging and recapturing photos. The film cameras had expensive bodies and lenses, as do digital, and if you look at full-frame mirrorless cameras you're looking at the down payment on a modest house. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Jun 20 - 01:01 PM "That was the worst part, getting the roll back and realizing the exposure was wrong for the entire roll, or some other setting was off." Totally off-topic, but this reminded me of a time when I set my little minidisc to record a whole four-hour session in the pub. I couldn't fit a whole four hours'-worth on, so I set the recorder going at the start and pressed pause at the end of each bit of music, cutting out all the chit-chat. Only thing was that, consistently for the whole four hours, I'd paused all the music and recorded all the chit-chat...not a single note of music. Some very incriminating blokish stuff on there...I did the honourable thing, threatened blackmail then deleted it all... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Jun 20 - 01:44 PM I first dabbled with Photoshop on a part time college course circa 1991. I thought digital photography was pixilated shite compared to film. Similarly, TV movies shot on video looked crap compared to film. Later I despaired when Digicam movies began to be released to cinemas.. BUT... The quality eventually improved so significantly, that now Digi movies are the norm and indistinguishable from real film. Making movie Production cheaper and more accessible to independent diverse voiced artists... Ok, a minority of major Hollywood directors do still stubbornly insist on shooting film.. Fair enough, if their bankable names ensure budget is available for their vanity whims... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: PHJim Date: 18 Jun 20 - 10:01 AM I still have 2 Miranda SLRs with interchangeable lenses, an enlarger, trays, contact box and a bunch of other developing stuff in my basement gathering dust. Boy, the change from film to digital happened very quickly. Most of my photos these days are taken with my cell phone. I own a Nikon digital SLR, but the phone's so small and easy to carry around that the SLR spends most of its time in the case. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 19 Jun 20 - 05:48 AM On mistakes and disappointments (of which I'd agree that we all have had with film), dad (post stroke) developed a habit of moving the camera as he pressed the shutter button. Mum had been taking him to take pictures of Norfolk churches missing from his postcard collection but what he thought he’d taken and what came back when the film was processed were usually quite different. We thought a digital camera which enabled him to review and try again as needed would be of help and got one (2MP Olympus C-2 which I think still works) mostly for his use. I don’t remember dad following up with that but it replaced mums 35mm point and shoot. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: lefthanded guitar Date: 20 Jun 20 - 11:52 PM Interesting thread . It was news to me that the Panasonic Lumix collects dust on the sensor. Daunting b/c I was planning to buy a super zoom model-looks like the one pictured here. I haven't had this problem with my other digital compacts (Olympus and Nikon) and was planning to upgrade to the new lighweight LUMIX. Does anyone else have experience with this brand- I appreciate that YouTube link btw- as it made it abundantly clear that I would not attempt that cure for dust by taking apart and reassembling a camera with my three or four thumbed approach to small objects . Any other camera suggestions catters ? I am looking into superzooms that are lightweight - like Ieeneia I photograph birds . Btw I totally agree with leeneia about film-newer cameras are so overloaded with functions you usually have to flip three or four menus / buttons before you take a photo - by then the bird has migrated across the county. With the old film cameras it was a quick snap and you were done. Quality of slide film still seems the best to me too - despite how much digital has greatly improved. I remember I had a friend scan a photo I took on slide film of a mountain range with a tiny clump of daisies in the foreground ledge I was standing on. Everything from the flowers at my feet to the distant peaks was sharp - and anazingly. as we went in closer to view the flowers - even the veins on the leaf were tack sharp. But as much as I 'd like to encourage everyone to give grand old film another try- I went digital about ten years ago and hwve't done any film work since . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Jun 20 - 12:05 AM There are some smaller Sony cameras (with the Zeiss lens) that look very nice. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 21 Jun 20 - 04:58 AM I hadn't intended to demonise the whole Lumix range. The ones I had dust issues with were the models TZ5, TZ7 and TZ10. |
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Subject: RE: BS: film cameras From: lefthanded guitar Date: 21 Jun 20 - 06:17 PM Thanks Steve. The model I was planning to buy is the ZS70- has a zoom that goes from wide to supertelephoto. Light and easy to use with some nice features. Reasonably priced too! Would be just what I need for birds, and then I can go to wide angle for landscapes. BUT the zoom lens looks just like the one on the picture here. Makes me wonder and worry - especially since you've had trouble with three Panasonics- not a good record . Sony may be a good substitute - does anyone else have experience with the LUMIX model I mentioned ? Or any other superzoom compacts - any brand ? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: gillymor Date: 22 Jun 20 - 09:17 AM Left Handed wrote: "Btw I totally agree with leeneia about film-newer cameras are so overloaded with functions you usually have to flip three or four menus / buttons before you take a photo - by then the bird has migrated across the county. With the old film cameras it was a quick snap and you were done." I don't agree with that, there is a steep learning curve with some of these digital cameras and all those features can be intimidating but once you get your settings right you can just turn it on and shoot. I've probably used considerably less than half the features available but I've found my Sony mirrorless very easy to operate and I'm learning more about it all the time. After about 4 decades of using a Nikon F (which I got as a high school graduation present) and Nikkormat lenses I got a Nikon L840, a digital with a built in zoom and it gave me some surprisingly good images. When I wanted something better suited to shooting wildlife while hiking but still pretty light I decided against a DSLR and went with a Sony a6000 mirrorless with a 27-50 lens and a 55-210 zoom that came in a package from Beach Camera through Amazon, along with other goodies, filters, cleaning devices etc. I used this site to pick it out, which makes it easy to compare various cameras- https://cameradecision.com/ There does seem to be one drawback to the Sony, there aren't a large variety of lenses available for it, at least there weren't when I bought it 7 years ago but I added an Olympus 1.7 Teleconverter to it and am happy with the results. It works very well for what I do. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: gillymor Date: 22 Jun 20 - 09:22 AM and I know I'm getting away from the topic, Jon, but that's the way things seem to develop around here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 22 Jun 20 - 02:12 PM We gotta face reality, film for as long as it still survives, is now a minority specialist niche interest.. I'm all for encouraging and helping folks who want to try it, but they'll need deep enough pockets to be prepared for potential costly disappointments... Actually, it might be fun for keener hobbyists to try recreating the earliest DIY pioneer photographic process experiments. Providing none of the chemicals are now prohibited for sale to the public...??? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Donuel Date: 22 Jun 20 - 03:04 PM I don't know about dust but I killed a LUMIX in its off mode when I spilled a sweet liquer on the lens area. I love the slo mo video mode. Gilly and pfr sound like a real photographers |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Steve Shaw Date: 22 Jun 20 - 04:00 PM Well I killed a Lumix by dropping it and breaking the rear screen. It was still useable but I couldn't see properly what I was supposed to be taking a picture of. The quote for a repair was £150. A new model would have cost £170. Because of the dust on the sensor, I ditched it. I could have claimed the repair on my contents insurance, but the bloody excess was £100, and the dust specks wouldn't have been covered anyway... The system had me by the short 'n' curlies... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 23 Jun 20 - 07:00 AM No worries gillymor and I know threads here take their own directions. Anyway, I’ll reply with another of my rambles. I’d have thought both film and digital are as easy or complicated as you want to make it? Most of the photos taken in my childhood were with a 1960s Kodak Brownie 44A which was a simple fixed focus point and shoot. I didn’t use a “proper” (I can’t think of a term…) camera until I was in my late 30s when I asked if I could try dad’s (bought second hand as a present for him but he never got to grips with it) Pentax ME Super. That brought manual focus and aperture priority to me. I took to that camera pretty quickly for what I wanted and had some nice results with it. It’s a shame the camera only had a short life with my ownership. My replacement SLR, had autofocus and as well offering settings for certain scenes had one that was supposed to gage the type of picture you were taking and set things accordingly. I think that camera spent most of it’s time in that mode. although there can be the odd time I want to set the shutter of aperture, and I can find the HDR modes quite handy. I suppose I’m in a similar state with my digital cameras, ie. they spend most of their life in some sort of “advanced point and shoot mode” although there can be the odd time I want to set the shutter of aperture, and I can find the HDR modes quite handy. I have 3 digitals btw, probably all got within 12 months of each other around 6 or 7 years ago. Pentax DSLR. This was supposed to (and I think does) give me my best quality shots and be the one I’d learn more on if I ever got that far and stuck with it. Then, I thought I’d like to take some shots from greater distances but was never going to manage the cost or want to cope with the bulk of big 35mm lenses so I got a Fuji 50x superzoom bridge camera. This is nice and light but I decided I wanted something that would fit in my pocket so I got the Lumix compact. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Jon Freeman Date: 03 Jul 20 - 05:53 AM I got my negatives and prints back yesterday. The company does say they have a very heavy workload at the moment but I think my stuff got lost in their system and if I’d asked about its whereabouts earlier that the day before yesterday, I’d have got it back quicker. I’m a bit disappointed in my results. I think I might have done a better job taking them and I also have a few and (as is common with me) there are a few where I can’t remember what I was thinking of when I took the picture. The main thing is that while there are those who will say they can tell photos taken on B/W film and digital ones apart and claim the film ones are (at least potentially) superior, I’m not one of them. I suppose I may have a go with Fuji Velvia 100 slide film which (together with the slower Velvia 50) is reputed to produce outstanding vivid colours and I guess summer time with good light and lots creatures around may be a good time to try but I’m not even ready for the cost of the film just yet. I’d also guess that something along the lines of some of pfr’s comments could be interesting one day if things turned up at a reasonable price – I’d think there ought to be scope for finding something in the realms of more obscure formats and or chemistries but there again it may need someone more dedicated than me with my passing whims to go there… Anyway, thanks all for the input in the thread. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Stilly River Sage Date: 03 Jul 20 - 09:25 AM Taking the photos is the easy part these days; tagging and organizing them is the hard part. I really like the Google Picasa software that I could use to hunt down all photos in the computer in one huge index. That went away and unless you have a copy installed in a really old computer, it isn't there to be used. I've upgraded the software that I used on the last computer (it has a television receiver installed) when the old Media Center software was retired. It offers photo organizing and I need to test it out. JRiver Media Center. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: Stilly River Sage Date: 03 Jul 20 - 09:28 AM This reminds me that I want to trim a few tree limbs near my backyard agave plant to photograph the fully-formed agave stalk and flowers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Film cameras From: punkfolkrocker Date: 03 Jul 20 - 12:20 PM Money spent on slide film may me wasted unless you intend going full on retro using a projector and screen as well... The 'superior' image quality of 35mm slide film is difficult to digitise without mega expensive 'pro' equipment... Which I heard is also becoming obsolete and scarce.. I'd definitely encourage folks to experiment with the earliest photographic processes, which required barely any equipment... .. apart from possibly hazardous chemicals, and the sun.. |
