Film cameras dead?

[Trevoreast]

Re: Film cameras dead?

Trev - is that a question?

Yes, thanks for your reply.

Trev

[mogthecat]

Re: Film cameras dead?

No, they are just resting. I have about a dozen rolls (35mm and medium format) to develop from the last year - colour gets sent out and B&W developed at home, although don't shoot much colour now. I'll get around to it soon. I tend to shoot film for a change, but not often these days.

Regards

Gid

[Trevoreast]

Re: Film cameras dead?

This thread has twisted and turned and is very interesting. I'm just musing upon the subject with no specific agenda or direction.

I love older film cameras the more basic, the better. I like how they are built and how they are controlled. For convenience it has to be digital - sadly.

Maybe the popularity of "looky likey" digital rangefinder type cameras, suggests many people long for a better engineered, more simplistic camera. Sometimes I wish canon would strip out all the cup holders, camcorders and other gizmos and build a simple 'pure' camera. Then again, the gizmos are very handy :-)

A few weeks ago; a mate asked me to test and write a description of a bag of camera kit someone gave him.
The camera was an old Pentax ME with a pentax 50mm 1.7 and a Kenlock 200mm 3.5
Were Kenlock lenses highly or reasonably well regarded, or just another cheaper, compromise 3rd party lens ?

The lenses were in excellent nick, having been filtered from new. there was even was a vivitar 2x extender, flashguns shutter release cable etc etc...

The camera was pretty basic even by the standards of it's day, there was no auto wind, I kept forgetting the wind the film, I found myself laughing and swearing (good naturedly) at this.
What I initially thought was very limiting about this entry level Pentax is that, basically only works in AV mode.

When I got the film fuji ISO 100 back I was shocked to see that the thing had got the metering spot on on 95% of my snaps. Is all this talk of complex new pattern metering systems/ in the latest DSLRS mainly hype ?
　
I managed to resist the urge to buy the bag of bits, but only just ! :-)

Trev

[colin C]

Re: Film cameras dead?

"Were Kenlock lenses highly or reasonably well regarded, or just another cheaper, compromise 3rd party lens ?"

Very much the latter. Vivitar Series 1 and Tamron SP were top of the independents. Even the now highly regarded Sigma were way down the list. Interestingly, with Tamron and Vivitar, you bought the lens and then a dedicated mount for your body. Therefore, if you wished to change allegiance from say Pentax to Olympus, you could still retain your existing lenses and just change the body mounts to Olympus.

"What I initially thought was very limiting about this entry level Pentax is that, basically only works in AV mode."

Most bodies were Av then. Canon's was the AE1, but unusually, they also had the AT1 which operated in Tv mode. Canon's top of the range was the A1 which operated in Av, Tv, and P.

"I was shocked to see that the thing had got the metering spot on on 95% of my snaps."

They were pretty accurate in their day, once it was determined that an 18% greyscale would cover 90% of shots. However, there was also around 7 stops of lattitude on colour film and the labs could still squeeze out a decent shot if you got it wrong ............ up to a point.

Colin

[Trevoreast]

Re: Film cameras dead?

Thanks for the info Colin,
I am more used to seeing ones with the AV on the Lens and the shutter speed on a dial on top of the body rather than just AV controllable like that pentax.
I've never gone to the trouble of finding out the history and dates of the old cameras I've looked at - so I'm not even sure were that pentax fits into any timeline.
When did on board metering start to appear in cheap 35mm cameras (roughly)?
I don't see much difference between recent film eos cameras and eos digital.
With me the fascination is the way the old ones are designed. Maybe I have a 'thing' about the sound and feel of the clicking dials.
Or maybe it's that the 'photographic triangle' is more 'in your face' or maybe it's because they are tools that require some basic photography knowledge to use effectively.
Dunno... I think I'm in danger of becoming a vintage camera collector, if I'm not careful.

[korky]

Re: Film cameras dead?

slide and print film can be found on ( 7 day shop )

[Gary - Fulham]

Re: Film cameras dead?

Maybe even deader now!

[Trevoreast]

Re: Film cameras dead?

The next group of photographers to feel the impact digital revolution we be Medium Format shooters.IMHO
With a 36 Mega pixel digital camera for £2600, the writing is pretty much on the wall.

[MX5]

Re: Film cameras dead?

The next group of photographers to feel the impact digital revolution we be Medium Format shooters.IMHO
With a 36 Mega pixel digital camera for £2600, the writing is pretty much on the wall.

A mate of mine with a pair of Pentax 67's is thinking the digital dawn is looming for him. But will we really miss film ...................

[Glenn]

Re: Film cameras dead?

But will we really miss film ...................

I know I would, although film isn't about to die and the writing is definitely not on the wall, especially with the recent resurgence over the last few years :)

[Gary - Fulham]

Re: Film cameras dead?

I see that Kodak have now discontinued all their slide film. At least Fuji are still hanging in there. For me, I am sure film will still be available (if not further developed in technology) but the processing will become an issue.
Gary

[MX5]

Re: Film cameras dead?

Well you can always process film at home. The chemistry (e.g. ID11) for B&W is very simple and for E6 Colour slide is fairly straightforward as is Colour negative (C-41). I did all this years ago. You then have the option of scanning the film (demi-digital) or going on to print yourself. So not impossible ... but time consuming ... I can still recall the smells. Being a chemist back then I was able to make my own chemistry from the raw components ... rather than pass money to Patterson, Ilford, Kodak et al.

Did I read that ADOX (a Phoenix from Agfa-Gevaert) had started making Agfapan & Isopan again ???

[briansquibb]

Re: Film cameras dead?

The next group of photographers to feel the impact digital revolution we be Medium Format shooters.IMHO
With a 36 Mega pixel digital camera for £2600, the writing is pretty much on the wall.

MF are upto 80mb+ digital backs so I would guess they will continue to get more and more mp

[Trevoreast]

Re: Film cameras dead?

MF are upto 80mb+ digital backs so I would guess they will continue to get more and more mp

Yes but those cameras are beyond the reach of the average person in the street, not a problem for successful studios though. :-)

[briansquibb]

Re: Film cameras dead?

Yes but those cameras are beyond the reach of the average person in the street, not a problem for successful studios though. :-)

TBH the cheapest MF are beyond the average user. Even the Pentax is £10k