The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

Mr Perceptive said:
Using something like Gold200 (which in 120 is surprising close to Portra 400 in colours) at typically £9 a roll then development at £5-6, means that MF can be down to just over a £1 a shot if you scan yourself (the economies of a £300 scanner become apparent and it soon pays for itself, I shot 32 rolls of 120 last year, and it averaged out colour+B/W at about £1.20 a shot)

I’ve given up with 35mm film as IMO I need expensive film stock and expensive glass to get the results that I need and a s/h M6 plus 35mm Summicron at £4-5K just isn’t going to happen!!!!
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I did look into a decent scanner for negatives, but I don't shoot nowhere as much 120 as you. So it would take me many years to get my cost back (then there's the converting them and software etc - I pay £23 for dev and tiff scans on 120. I think it's £22 for the same on 35mm.
 
I wouldn't like to go back to using an AF 35mm SLR again as they just too limiting for me now but using an MF RF for a day or taking some pictures with my old Kodak Instamatic again would be fun but not something I want do long term.

I've started to get into panoramas in the last couple of years and the other day when we went to Roseberry Topping I took 16 single shot pictures and over 100 to do panoramas. I think doing a film panorama is beyond me so that's another reason not to go back to film.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Using something like Gold200 (which in 120 is surprising close to Portra 400 in colours) at typically £9 a roll then development at £5-6, means that MF can be down to just over a £1 a shot if you scan yourself (the economies of a £300 scanner become apparent and it soon pays for itself, I shot 32 rolls of 120 last year, and it averaged out colour+B/W at about £1.20 a shot)

I’ve given up with 35mm film as IMO I need expensive film stock and expensive glass to get the results that I need and a s/h M6 plus 35mm Summicron at £4-5K just isn’t going to happen!!!!
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Cheapest I found Gold 200 was £35 for 3 rolls, which I did buy the other day. I’ve thought about buying a scanner for all of my parents (and mine) family and holiday photos as the prints are stuck in the loft doing nothing, in fact because they’re stacked on top of each other some have stuck together. It’s just the thought of it, it must be extremely tedious feeding the negatives in one by one.
nandbytes said:
I personally don't understand why people still bother with film even if it was free.
Have shot plenty of film back when it was the only option and I'm glad we have digital now.
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I really enjoy the manual aspect of it, manually focussing on digital cameras with peaking, zoom etc is just not the same. I even like the clunky shutter and winding the film on, it’s far more of an ‘experience’ than shooting digital.
 
snerkler said:
Cheapest I found Gold 200 was £35 for 3 rolls, which I did buy the other day. I’ve thought about buying a scanner for all of my parents (and mine) family and holiday photos as the prints are stuck in the loft doing nothing, in fact because they’re stacked on top of each other some have stuck together. It’s just the thought of it, it must be extremely tedious feeding the negatives in one by one.

I really enjoy the manual aspect of it, manually focussing on digital cameras with peaking, zoom etc is just not the same. I even like the clunky shutter and winding the film on, it’s far more of an ‘experience’ than shooting digital.
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Gold in 35mm is more grainy than Gold in MF (IMO) - and it’s more expensive in 35mm 36exp than a roll of 120 (but you do get more shots!!)
 
snerkler said:
Cheapest I found Gold 200 was £35 for 3 rolls, which I did buy the other day. I’ve thought about buying a scanner for all of my parents (and mine) family and holiday photos as the prints are stuck in the loft doing nothing, in fact because they’re stacked on top of each other some have stuck together. It’s just the thought of it, it must be extremely tedious feeding the negatives in one by one.

I really enjoy the manual aspect of it, manually focussing on digital cameras with peaking, zoom etc is just not the same. I even like the clunky shutter and winding the film on, it’s far more of an ‘experience’ than shooting digital.
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I just photograph mine. The results are good enough for screen viewing and I've printed some out much larger than the original prints and they still look ok.

The original is soft too... and tiny.

1-Inside-2.jpg
 
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woof woof said:
I just photograph mine. The results are good enough for screen viewing and I've printed some out much larger than the original prints and they still look ok.

The original is soft too... and tiny.

View attachment 481037
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TBH I'm not sure how much quicker it would be taking photos of them, might be even slower by the time you've lined them up etc. Plus a lot are glossy finish so there's reflections to worry about.
 
snerkler said:
TBH I'm not sure how much quicker it would be taking photos of them, might be even slower by the time you've lined them up etc. Plus a lot are glossy finish so there's reflections to worry about.
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Yes, it's a faff but I haven't got a scanner. Doing a few treasured ones now and again when the light suits and I have time is ok for me and actually maybe quite therapeutic :D

P1100765.jpg

I'll be doing more of these this year as Mrs WW is off to look after her mam so I'll have plenty of free time.
 
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nandbytes said:
I agree, it's technically far superior and gaurentees better hit rate.
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I don’t think peaking does, it’s hard to see where the critical focus is, especially with large DOF. Magnify is probably more accurate but the fly by wire focus rings just feel a bit vague and disconnected for me. YMMV (y)
 
The fondle factor and the involvement is one reason why I've used MF lenses. I use the magnified view, zone or hyperfocal. I find peaking only really works at wide apertures like f1.x. I'd rather use MF lenses than film again. One thing about the Sony 40mm f2.5 is that I find MF with it quite nice. It hasn't got the metal build of an old Rokkor or a new Voigtlander, it's not as good looking and it doesn't have the optical character but it's better for MF than some others.
 
woof woof said:
The fondle factor and the involvement is one reason why I've used MF lenses. I use the magnified view, zone or hyperfocal. I find peaking only really works at wide apertures like f1.x. I'd rather use MF lenses than film again. One thing about the Sony 40mm f2.5 is that I find MF with it quite nice. It hasn't got the metal build of an old Rokkor or a new Voigtlander, it's not as good looking and it doesn't have the optical character but it's better for MF than some others.
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Yeah it's probably the process of taking the shot rather than the format the image is captured on that I prefer, although being brutally honest I do still prefer the aesthetics of film. That being said you can get 95% there with editing these days.

Going back to me desire for an M camera (digital), I'd get the analogue feel without the cost and drawbacks of film. I'd have to get through quite a few rolls of film to match the price of a Leica though :lol:
 
snerkler said:
Yeah it's probably the process of taking the shot rather than the format the image is captured on that I prefer, although being brutally honest I do still prefer the aesthetics of film. That being said you can get 95% there with editing these days.

Going back to me desire for an M camera (digital), I'd get the analogue feel without the cost and drawbacks of film. I'd have to get through quite a few rolls of film to match the price of a Leica though :lol:
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One thing that I notice now is with film the colours are often not natural. We see examples of this with digital pictures in the threads here when people are (presumably) using film modes and the colours again are sometimes way off. For me that's ok now and again for the odd picture but I don't want that all the time. I love the look of old photos but some of that look is created by time and I don't really want my digital photographs to look like that now and all the time.
 
woof woof said:
One thing that I notice now is with film the colours are often not natural. We see examples of this with digital pictures in the threads here when people are (presumably) using film modes and the colours again are sometimes way off. For me that's ok now and again for the odd picture but I don't want that all the time. I love the look of old photos but some of that look is created by time and I don't really want my digital photographs to look like that now and all the time.
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I can’t think of a film where the colours are truly natural, there’s always some sort of cross processing. I quite like that, but it’s not right for every occasion.

The ‘issue’ I have with modern digital is you can sometimes see the digitisation with certain scenes/subjects. I think architecture in particularly can almost look computer generated (which I guess technically it is). I think this looks more unnatural than the false colours of film. YMMV (y)
 
snerkler said:
I can’t think of a film where the colours are truly natural, there’s always some sort of cross processing. I quite like that, but it’s not right for every occasion.

The ‘issue’ I have with modern digital is you can sometimes see the digitisation with certain scenes/subjects. I think architecture in particularly can almost look computer generated (which I guess technically it is). I think this looks more unnatural than the false colours of film. YMMV (y)
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I can't say I see that. With my MFT Panasonic G1 I sometimes got an unreal looking effect especially in difficult or poor light but not so much with my A7 series cameras unless when the light is very poor. I think overall I like a more natural look as a starting point.
 
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