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Just wondering if any members enjoy shooting with film cameras. It's a hobby I picked up about a year ago after finding an old Minolta X-7 with two lenses at the thrift store (I'll post some pics later). It shoots great and I really love the way that you're not really sure what the picture will look like until its developed. Any other film camera buffs out there?
i have a nikon fm and i enjoy using it.
It may be fun when i have lots of time to stop and compose the perfect picture, it takes a while a full manual camera to set everything up so i dont take it with me always.
Then again i do get the best pics ever when i slow down and take my time so maybe i will take it out with me more often.
Yeah I agree. I'm pretty quick at focusing and setting the shutter speeds now. The only digital camera I have is the one in my phone so for trips or other purposes, the minolta does its job well.
I carry a Minolta CLE and two Leica lenses in my camera bag along with a digital Nikon D40. Not that the Nikon is bad, but technology advances suck the value out of even high-end plastic digital cameras.
Digitals are good, but have no soul.
While I don't shoot with film anymore, I think it's a great way to enjoy "slow photography". You can read a bit more about that here: The slow-photography movement asks what is the point of taking pictures? - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine
I also moderate the Photography subreddit over at photography It's a place to discuss the tools and techniques of photography. We've got a bunch of helpful links and welcome people asking questions about how they can better use their equipment, or how to achieve certain types of shots, etc. It's not a place to post your own pictures, so it's usually pretty free of clutter and you can find interesting stuff easier. Come check it out!
Cool site aeon, I'll definitely be spending some time there. Yeah Hawkeye, there is just something too impersonal about some digital cameras. What they do is great, and I'm sure once I have the money I'll purchase a nice digital SLR, but I'm sure I'll keep the film around.
I Love film. As one of the previous posters said Digital Lacks soul. I shoot film mainly with a Minolta Maxxum 9, but I also use Old pentax's and Russian range finders. The older glass is just superb. I use a digital SLR quite a bit for day to day stuff. (cost effective and instant results, darn good pictures too) But, My best and most important pictures have always come from film. I have boxes of pictures of my kids that maybe someday their grandchildren may look at and enjoy. Where will my digital images be in 100 years ? Film is slowly dying, Kodachrome is dead, medium format almost dead, Polaroid dead, all being replaced by easy to delete digital. It's too bad,,,,, memories will be lost.
I shoot medium format B&W film, develop and print it. I use a digital camera for snapshots and color. Recently sold off 35mm film cameras and lenses. Used the money to buy straight razors and accessories. Check out APUG.com for forums and information on analog photography.
I've several film cameras, from 6x6, through 35mm all the way to large format pinholes - despite many thousand dollars spent on stuff, never found the money for a decent lens for the 8x10 beast.
I used to shoot so much that I bought TMax in bulk rolls and load my own cartridges. I've a freezer full of 6x6 and 35mm film that I'm yet to develop.
Absolutely love to shoot film, although I also own a few digital cameras.
Right now I think I have a couple of Minoltas, two or three Cannons, A Kiev66, and a couple of old large format no brand beasts.
Hell yeah.
If the moderators don't mind a bit of cross-community posting, I've been rather active at the Analog Photography Users Group (apug.org).
There are other sites, such as largeformatphotography.info and rangefinderforum.com plus a few forums left over at photo.net, and Fuji's own choose-film.com, but my other home is APUG.
I shoot with a Nikon FM2m, a Mamiya C330, a Contax IIa and an Agfa Isolette II, depending on my mood, what I'm doing, or the amount of gear I feel carrying around.
Despite what everybody will tell you, it's still worth having fun with film. Freestylephoto.biz has lots of great materials, and so do BHphotvideo.com, Adorama.com. Get your gear on KEH.com and start shooting!
This is my portfolio: http://www.apug.org/forums/portfolios.php?u=6132
Nice pictures MHV! I particularly like the two of Calgary, my home town. Were these shots with a digital SLR?
Just read the little bit where it says you use film and print by hand.
Aeon, The shots of the quintet are sweet. Thanks for sharing
I'm a little over a year into my 3rd sojourn w/ a lens. I stubbornly resisted digital, but now use for fast action in events. 'Makes me covet an F6 for getting the speed with film. Now the D76 is mixed & waiting to marinate some film, w/ a 100' bulk roll supplying the habit. So much for trying to avoid slopping chemicals again.
Single Photos: Photo Images by Doug Roberts Photography - photo.net
The 2nd shot of the grouse is NOT a crop. It was a 20 min. session w/ a local grouse that has adopted the neighborhood. Over the time, he/she was an avg. of 13" from me, pecking me once & charging into my head twice w/ wings a flurry.
Thx for sharing Aeon. Keep creating.
Yes I shoot film still ...I always get these odd looks at x mass time when I use it. They call me OLIN MILLS. I have a Minolta 101 from 1965 that someone gave me for 10 dollars and a bunch of lens to go along with it.
I have some of the lens that are used for real close up pictures like bug and flower parts. I don't use them if your interested let me know. It would be good to find someone who may get some fun and use out of them. I hate to see them sit and not be used, The glass is great.
I have a digital camera, I have never developed a picture off that camera. I am not real technology gifted.
Have a great day
Jeff
I primarily shoot digital, but I have an obscene number of old film cameras floating around. I do enjoy shooting film and have a darkroom setup for processing and making prints, B&W only. It's a different kind of feeling when shooting film, especially the bigger sizes; I love 6x6 and I have a 5x3 large format camera with a few lenses that is fun to use, as well.
Hey, Moonshae. Naturally, you can see the curvature of the earth between my skill & any of the masters, but Ansel Adams regularly used a polaroid - as a test/confirmation of what his experience & intuition told him. Enjoy your digital. If you come across an image you want very high quality and a large size print - use your digital results to tell you how to get the shot w/ medium format. Then sit back & enjoy a poster-sized print you're very proud of.
I used to shoot film and like Moonshae have a number of SLRs and Rangefinder cameras sitting around in a bit of a collection as a result. I shoot digital now exclusively and it is fine for my end use of the file which is having prints up to 11x17 done for the home and posting on the web. I think Ansel Adams would have enjoyed the heck out of digital photography considering how he printed the same scene in many different ways. He seemed to like to experiment that way.
Bob
I still shoot film too. I love it. I have a Nikon f5 it's a beast of a camera.
Attachment 210249
I shoot film from time to time and use an old Retina IIa.
Two Leicas (since the 1960s; IIIc and IIIf) still in sometime use; another VERY small 35mm shirtpocket clamshell rangefinder, almost as brilliant (in some ways) as the Leicas, an Olympus XA used until my nose wore most of the paint off the back, retired in the drawer; and an SLR subminiature system complete Pentax 110 SuperAuto - film now a problem for the undedicated (me) but too original and too cute to part with. :D
Always wanted a Baby Rollei and a nice Hasselblad but never got to it. I love film, still; used the four above all over the world.
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http://www.guidafotousato.it/4-STORI...110%20piu1.jpg
Those screw mount Leicas were a pita for me to load unless I cut a leader for them. Liked the Canon P better for that reason plus the thumb wind and nicer VF. Liked range finder cameras quite a bit including the Nikon S2, Contax II and M4/M4P Leicas too.Quote:
Originally Posted by MisterMoo
Favourite SLRs were the Nikon FM/FE series and the F2. Continued to use some of the older manual focus lens on the D700 after I stopped using film. In some ways I liked using those older film cameras more compared to modern digitals but time marches on. I guess it is like the experience of using a SR compared to a cart, that sort of thing mostly.
Bob
My wife keeps reminding me that she needs her own freezer because all of my film and paper are in the house freezer. I keep reminder HER that the reason we got that freezer was for the film. To many cameras to list Leica's, Nikon's, Minolta, Rollei, Mamiya, etc...
That reminds me that I really should chuck some cardboard boxes of film out to make room for some meat. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by guitstik
Bob
NOOOOOooooo, send them to me. I do a lot of work with old film and coffee based developers.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
My wife has a couple of canon f1 cameras, one well used and the other mint. Hard to find anywhere that develops film any more let alone buy film. Part of the problem with the digital age, not many people print their photos. Even worse, we had a hard drive fail a few years back, lost about 7000 photos.
Pretty much the same where I live regarding film and developing. There is a 2 plus week turn around because film is sent out for processing in most places. I don't print much any more either. Yea, the one golden rule is back up your digital files and back up the back up. Hate to hear some lost all there files. Last I looked the Canon F1 was a collectible camera and was highly regarded as a working camera in it's day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grazor
Bob
Just tried to get a roll of film developed. 13 bucks! Plus an extra 5 if I wanted them printed!! What a rip!! My go to place closed down and now it seems I'm out of places to develop nearby.
'Just makes me giddy - all of you that have some of the most iconic cameras of the last 100 yrs. I still covet an F6 (and a Mamiya 6, and a ...)- to get the speed of my digital & the quality of film. Cost is the pita for me w/ processing. For Med. format ('blad 500 c/m), I get high res scans - about 80mb/shot - and about $2.77/shot. So you can see why I use the digital or 35mm until I get pretty excited about something. 'Finally forced back to B&W & dunking my own. You just KNOW an enlarger will be next. I do have a couple of labs nearby. One is fast, one is good. I keep asking the good shop to offer a discount on getting both prints & scans - as an incentive to print. They feel strongly about having prints, but there's issues to solve - financial & storage-wise for having that many prints. As is, I got a Tb drive for just photos. I'm probably naive & will need several Tbs to hold them soon.
'Just makes me cringe to hear of losing those old shots. Even the masters will recount images they took decades ago & suddenly thought of how to make them dazzling.
I'll be spending time w/ my old friend I bought new in the mid-80's - FE2 that just delivers every time.
Thx for talking 'bout your photo fetish. This'll be my 3rd time back into it.
That's why I have always dunked my own plus the fact that I have pretty much a full darkroom lab with two enlargers and a 6' sink. There are still places to get film, paper and chems on line.
Yes, that is true. You can still get all that stuff but the choices are/were getting very limited and in some cases hard to source locally. Add to that most people are not willing to go to the effort to build and equip a full darkroom capable of processing C41, B&W and slide films. Not a thing wrong with being dedicated enough to do all that but for the vast majority of picture takers it was/is easier to go digital.Quote:
Originally Posted by guitstik
The shaving community is similar in that a very small group use SRs. Even within that small group of SR users not all want/have a full blown workshop for restoring razors or want to necessarily learn to hone.
Bob
Gentlemen: I am just getting restarted in film having inherited my late Uncle's Kodak Retina IIa. Have purchased a dozen rolls of various film from B&H and am now toying with the idea of converting a corner of my garage cum man cave to a darkroom for developing B&W pics.
To that end, where would you suggest I go to find the necessary equipment and more importantly what would you advise me to get for a decent set-up?
Furious, That Retina is serious medicine. There were a few lens Kodak used or had made, but all were good & one was a schneider.
For darkroom, I've picked up my stuff from craigslist. Most things are dirt cheap. The Durst enlargers are good, but more popular in Europe than here. I got a Beseler 45. That may have been a mistake. 'Not 'cause it isn't good, but its ginormous - a space hog.
There are several photo threads on just darkrooms on apug.org (analog photography user's group). Membership required to view galleries. The guys there have been good to this geezer.
You can have a serious amount of fun.
One for the Halloween season. Attachment 217220
I know this is a little outdated but just to build on what pinklather said: Look for a photo club and photographer networking group in your area. I'm sure there are some people in those groups that are still shooting film. Film photography is a wonderful pursuit. But you will save yourself a lot of time, expense, and frustration if you an mentor with someone a bit. Regardless, try and stick with one film, one camera, one lens, one developing process, one printing process, etc. until you really get your arms around it. The best rewards from shooting film come from know how your image will look in print the moment you press the shutter. This is kind of a golden age for film photography in that there are mountains of analog gear available for dirt cheap, but there is still a wide (and some say growing) support community for those pursuing this interest. If you like black and white, and if you are interested in shooting film but don't want to get into darkroom print, consider just processing your film (i.e. creating negatives) and then scanning those or having these scanned for you. Getting the equipment and chemicals for that is actually pretty cheap.
'Been busy. A couple from the work. Attachment 226781Attachment 226782
Serious - wanted to let you know the Mrs. got me a Kodak Retina IIIc for Christmas. 'Every bit as good as they say.
