film fetish

Lynton

Lynton

awkward customer
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Lynton (yes really!)
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Ok,

I make my apologies here and now and I fully expect to get slated and kicked to hell for what I am about to post.

My apologies for those I am about to offend......... here we go, and again, it is not intended to offend / upset, just a question from my very inquisitive mind..

Most of the participants of this forum (90% +) have a Digital SLR of varying makes (2 being most popular, so 90+ % don't know what is truly great! :lol: - yeah ok! :help:) , with a huge range of lenses to suit everything that interests them from macro to 600mm white glass "bird on a stick" stuff.......... though seems from the "film" side of things, having a huge collection of various bodies appears to be "the norm"...... so what does one 1970's / 80's body do that another doesn't?
 
In essence not a lot.
Film bodies are basically a light tight box, end of story. OK they may have slightly different features but it's largely true. Whereas digital bodies are crammed with electronics and micro processors that have a huge impact on the final image.

It doesn't stop anyone wanting way more than one though :) My favourite was ALWAYS the Olympus OM1 series !


cheers
 
Lynton said:
.. though seems from the "film" side of things, having a huge collection of various bodies appears to be "the norm"......
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Do you mean people have lots of old film cameras or that back along people seemed to have more bodies?

If the former - it's because they are (relatively) cheap these days. If it is the latter it was because you could not switch from slide to black and white or even raise or lower the ASA at will (without changing film!) - so wandering about with a couple of bodies loaded with your favourite stock was not unusual.
 
footman said:
The EOS1 is pretty stuffed with electronics (comparatively speaking)
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Oh I fully agree. In it's day my A1 was pretty much the same. The point I was trying to make (probably badly) was that the bodies of film cameras don't effect the image in anywhere near the same way as digital bodies do, with different sensors, different software algorithms, varied compression ratios and so on.

But you're right, and it's always nice to try something new. And looking around at what you can get some superb film kit for nowadays, I might even have a go myself :)
 
I have 3 film SLR's of varying ages and the cost was a grand total of £33,they have a different feel to a DSLR and I get a lot of fun out of using them.The results once scanned in give a different feel to digital and thats why I use film in addition to digital
 
Bill Roberts said:
The point I was trying to make (probably badly) was that the bodies of film cameras don't effect the image in anywhere near the same way as digital bodies do, with different sensors, different software algorithms, varied compression ratios and so on.
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But you are comparing the body of the film camera with the sensor of the digital camera. The two are not comparable. The film or the sensor records the image. The bodies just hold the medium.

There have been some technical 'advances' in metering and focusing - but there has been for 40 years. And I'm not sure they are all that useful in the creating of pictures.
 
If you shoot them on manual, then one film camera isn't going to give you noticably different results from another.
Using them is another matter...
I own a Leica M6 rangefinder and Nikon F2AS and F5 SLR bodies and still find the Leica terribly restricting compared to the SLRs and the F2 far more clunky than the F5 - though it's still bloody good fun to play with...
I'd previously used a Pentax Spotmatic-S, a Pentax ME-Super, a Canon AE-1 and a couple of Olympus OM-1n bodies (they kept getting crunched) before finally settling on Nikons when I was about 17.

If I'm honest, then only reason I chose the Nikon was advertising - on the bacck of national Geographic there was a Nikon ad featuring a totally trashed Nikon: scuffed, muddy, battered to F*** and still obviously in full working order.
I wanted to be the man who owned that camera - to be in the places that would mete out that kind of punishment and still come back with the images...
 
Arkady said:
.... and a couple of Olympus OM-1n....
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I'd like to see them fit a full sized sensor in a OM body (with OM weight)! That would be a digital SLR worth coveting! :D

Thinks.... I wonder if you could make a mechanical electric charge device from cranking a shutter and charging a capacitor that would operate the sensor for one shot..... ?
 
Arkady said:
snip... If I'm honest, then only reason I chose the Nikon was advertising - on the bacck of national Geographic there was a Nikon ad featuring a totally trashed Nikon: scuffed, muddy, battered to F*** and still obviously in full working order.
I wanted to be the man who owned that camera - to be in the places that would mete out that kind of punishment and still come back with the images...
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So that's why your cameras were in such a ***** state!
I bet everyone else in the unit had absolutely minters didn't they? :lol: :p

more seriously... I seem to remember the same advert. It wasn't Don McCullins kit was it?

cheers
 
Bill Roberts said:
more seriously... I seem to remember the same advert. It wasn't Don McCullins kit was it?
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I think he was shot at in Cambodia and the F caught the bullet. Don't remember it being in an advert though.

I think there were several Nikon ads playing around their durability that time. A story about dropping one on the steel deck of a ship was one and keeping one in a bucket of river water was another.... Or am I muddling things up in my memory? :suspect:
 
Lynton said:
though (it) seems from the "film" side of things, having a huge collection of various bodies appears to be "the norm"...... so what does one 1970's / 80's body do that another doesn't?
Click to expand...

In escence they use different lenses, or serve a different shooting style.

For example, I have a Leica M6 to use as a small, disrceet camera with excellent low light focusing that I can comfortably handhold in most lighting conditions (except if I loaded the wrong film).

I also have an M42 mount body which was my first camera, so I kept it. It uses a massive range of lenses and is an easy to use SLR, although it doesn't get used much now

I have a hasselblad 5 series to use the blad lenses, which are amazing, and in 6x6 format which is my favourite. Great for portraits which my other 6x6 stuff isn't great for

I have 2 Mamiya 6 for light load landscape togging, again 6x6 and some of the best lenses

I have a Yashica TLR (again 6x6, can you see a patern here?) which gives beautiful colour rendition, especially with a low saturation film

Finally I have a 5x4"/5x7" Deardorff for when weight doesn't matter, which is just amazing, and great fun to use

All of the cameras (with the exception of my Practika M42 fit) are also extremely nice to look at and are on basically permanent display. That's why I have so many cameras, which all get pretty regular use. I don't understand keeping 20 odd cameras which all do the same job or take the same lenses though, thats just odd, or collecting which is a different game all together
 
OK fair enough - thanks all for taking the time to reply to what was a genuine question...

My only experience of film was Dad's ME Super. The one thing I loved about that, and wish they could do now on DSLR's is the split ring focussing thing you see through the eyepiece...

Rob's comment
I wanted to be the man who owned that camera - to be in the places that would mete out that kind of punishment and still come back with the images...
Click to expand...
cracks me up, especially thinking of the pic he posted a few weeks back of his Nikon Kit.
 
Lynton said:
OK fair enough - thanks all for taking the time to reply to what was a genuine question...

My only experience of film was Dad's ME Super. The one thing I loved about that, and wish they could do now on DSLR's is the split ring focussing thing you see through the eyepiece...
Click to expand...

google catz eye, you can get em but not for a 5dII as of yet
 
Lynton said:
...
Rob's comment cracks me up, especially thinking of the pic he posted a few weeks back of his Nikon Kit.
Click to expand...

Exactly... that's why I was winding him up about it (or at least trying to, but he didn't bite). I've nothing but the utmost respect for him... but I'd never tell him that of course, we'd never hear the last of it.
 
i have 3 SLR cameras EOS 5, EOS 3 & Practica M42 mount...
the EOS range so i can use my lenses from my DSLR and have a roll of B&W HP5 Illford in one and a roll of Fuji Velvia (or sommat like that) in the other.
 
Lynton said:
Rob's comment cracks me up, especially thinking of the pic he posted a few weeks back of his Nikon Kit.
Click to expand...

:lol: Well that was the 'works' kit, which I'm not quite so precious about as I am with my personal cameras and lenses...
I'm still not overly bothered about scratched paintwork though...
 
I still love film.......I started at the age of 13 with Cosina CSM given to me as a birthday gift, quickly onto a Pentax MX with winder (paper round money!) eventually onto an LX kit which was great, I traded that with a night school teacher for a Nikon F3 and I have been faithful since! I still have an F5 which I use for black and white on a personal project with all the models I work with and will eventually get back in the darkroom and print the results.... film still has it's place for me.
 
If you mean why film users NOW have more film bodies than they have digital bodies, the answer, IMO, is easy: money!
They are very cheap nowadays, so you can have multiple old MF lens systems.

They are also beautifull objects which D bodies difficulty are...
 
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