what makes one camera better than another?

lexie

lexie

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keith
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i know that with dslr's that the price of the camera is due to things like sensor size, resolution, build quality, technical advances it features etc, etc. but what makes one film camera better than another? they use the same medium, by using the same process to transfer the image to it. so is it down to things like the build quality differences between top level and entry level bodies, addition of af and how sophisticated it is?
because of the relatively process of writing to film does the addition of quality glass make a more noticable improvement to film slr's, without all the jiggery-pokery of the digital equivalents?
 
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I'd start with personal preference. The lenses are still the most important component in the system.
 
Well, depends what you want.
The F6 has much better autofocus than the Nikon FM3a, for example ;)
Metering accuracy would play a big part (Once again, the Multi-Matrix Magic of the F5/6 being far more infallible than the centre-weight of the OM2n), build quality of course, the brightness of the viewfinder received much more love back on film cameras too. Film-plane-flatness is also an issue, obviously if your film isn't perfectly flat you're going to see field focus issues.

So specifically for AF:
Accuracy, speed, operation, ability to track etc

AF and MF:
Ease of loading, reliability, mirror lock up, cable release, self timer, Viewfinder brightness, build quality, metering modes and metering accuracy, battery life and battery availability, functionality without batteries, availability of spares / accessories

That's all I can manage before a cup of tea.
 
At the end of the day, a film camera is a light-tight box that holds film at one end and has a hole at the other to attach a lens (or just has a teeny-tiny ikkle hole which does the same job) Some move the film back and forwards quicker, with more precision. Some have ways of ensuring the right amount of light gets in onto the film, others require a more thoughtful approach or require additional hardware to do the job.

They have lots and lots of ways that they can go wrong and ruin a photograph, but very few ways that they can actually improve one. They're probably at most the third most important part of the image taking process, the second being the lens on the front, and the first being that nut behind the eyepiece.

That said, you're never going to convince me that a Practika MTL3 is a 'better' camera body than my EOS-3 :LOL: - unless we're in a future where there are absolutely no 2CR5 batteries anywhere in the world of course!
 
The situation with film cameras is much the same as with DSLRs - they all do the job - it's features and build quality which you pay for and obviously what lenses you use makes a huge difference regardless of the quality of the body.

Flagship models were aimed at pro users and built to taker continuous heavy punishment and abuse day in -day out, as well as still operate in the most hostile environments where many cameras would just die.

Two obvious examples are the Nikon F3 and Canon F1 which operate in temperatures down to -32 degs Fahrenheit and less, and as high as 104 degs Fahrenheit., as well as operating in conditions of severe humidity. In other words on Mount Everest, in Death Valley, California, or the most steamy tropical rain forest. You may not go to any of those locations, but the camera is built to operate in those environments so there's a bit more to it than snob value. ;)
 
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CT said:
Two obvious examples are the Nikon F3 and Canon F1 which operate in temperatures down to -32 degs Fahrenheit and less, and as high as 104 degs Fahrenheit., as well as operating in conditions of severe humidity. In other words on Mount Everest, in Death Valley, California, or the most steamy tropical rain forest. You may not go to any of those locations, but the camera is built to operate in those environments so there's a bit more to it than snob value. ;)
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Ah - but so are the Zenit 112, 212 and 312 :D
 
Ambermile said:
Ah - but so are the Zenit 112, 212 and 312 :D
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OK - I'll take youir word for that Arthur. :D

There was an F1N on fleabay recently which was as battered an old wreck as I think I've seen - hardly any paint left on it, and some serious dents in the prism and and elsewhere on the body. It had been used by a sports photographic agency for over 20 years, covering every sport imaginable, and used at every Olynmpic Games during that period. I can't imagine many people wanting to buy it, but apparantly it was still working flawlessy.
 
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TopBanana said:
Only in clubs and these forums - most people would ask "why isn't there an LCD screen on the back?!":LOL:
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Kids do that as well, I used my Spotmatic F to photograph a 5 day cub scout camp and for the first day or so the cubs were asking 'why can't I see it now? Wheres the screen on the back?'. Some of them didn't even know what film was! I ended up explaining how it worked and everything, how films developed, printed etc. They actually seemed quite interested.

Still they all loved playing up to the camera and nicknaming my camera 'flashy camera' because of the hugh Vivitar 285 that I had mounted on it a lot of the time.
 
TopBanana said:
Only in clubs and these forums - most people would ask "why isn't there an LCD screen on the back?!":LOL:
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A young teenager saw my 5x4 on its tripod in my kitchen and said "That's a huge screen there. Can I turn it on?".
 
i didn't realise how much of a fervent interest there was for old film slr's till i joined this forum, and i'll be honest it's surprised me by the responses it's brought in. there doesn't seem to be the same brand rivalry that the digital world 'enjoys', but i may be wrong lol. thanks to everyone who's replied already.

top banana, thanks for the link to your thread, there's some good info in there.

i doubt that i'd need anything as robust as the top of the range canons or nikons that have been mentioned though. i'm just trying to get a feel for what i should be looking for because it's all been a bit confusing to begin with.

what would people recommend as a good starter film slr out of all the major brands? canon, nikon, minolta, pentax etc?
i currently have a sony so minolta would be the obvious choice, but talking to a keen togger in work he recommended canon which i'd be open to. a camera and lens can be picked up cheaply enough so anything's a possibility really.
 
Go Minolta. Got one you can have for the postage if you like. Choice of a couple actually...
 
lexie said:
what would people recommend as a good starter film slr out of all the major brands? canon, nikon, minolta, pentax etc?.
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ok I'm biased as I've owned a Canon A1 for "ages" [1984?] and love it
the range of FD lens is large and cheap on eBay

now people will say for the same £££ you can get a Canon T90
better..? maybe ...but pick up an A1...magic

I have a Nikon F3 as well - but buying a 28mm lens last week put me in the poor-house............:thumbsdown:
 
another way of choosing ... find the best lens you can get at a bottom basement bargain price .. then find a body to mount it to (y)

after all - the lens will make all the difference
 
I go purely on condition and how innterresting it looks, I really don't get how some are worth £200-300 and others £2-3
 
lexie said:
what would people recommend as a good starter film slr out of all the major brands? canon, nikon, minolta, pentax etc?
i currently have a sony so minolta would be the obvious choice, but talking to a keen togger in work he recommended canon which i'd be open to. a camera and lens can be picked up cheaply enough so anything's a possibility really.
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I think Minolta is the obvious and best choice - quality throughout their range of AF SLRs (even back to the 7000 which was the world's first fully automatic SLR system). In my opinion Minolta also made the best general purpose film SLR in existence - the Dynax 7 (did I mention that I have one...?). With your Sony lenses you will have a usable set up straight away, and of course any Minolta gems you pick up will work on your DSLR, too.
 
Reliability, features (if that floats your boat),quality of components.
Thats for bodies of course, lenses speak for themselves.

There is a couple of other factor's for those of use going back to film.

1 - The " I always wanted one of these but couldn't afford it" factor
2- The "hello old friend, I've missed you" factor.

With medium format I'm definitely heavily using 1, with 35mm I plan to use factor 2, though have just used factor 1 for one purchase last night, (a minox).
 
One other relatively small point of differentiation, though it may play a part in deciding how you take your photos, is the shutter construction on a body.

For speed, 1/500 sec limit isn't unusual in MF and the rangefinder world. 35mm SLRs seem to crank up to 1/1000 and 1/2000 fairly commonly and the 90s generation would go to 1/4000 or 1/8000. It certainly opens up the opportunities for using your f/1.8 lens wide open in full daylight, which would be impossible without resorting to an ND filter.

This, and a blistering FPS rate would probably be more a concern of sports shooters back in the day when they were using film. Flash sync speed (in its turn largely dictated by the shutter design) would obviously be more of an issue for people working with lights than people like me who tend to work with available light (duh! :)).

Shutter mechanics can have some other, less obvious effects - the quiet leaf shutter in a rangefinder may be more appropriate for taking photos at classical music concerts than a clunking SLR with a mirror slapping around. Quieter shutters tend to be a virtue sought out in higher-end rangefinder bodies (although they're not exclusive to them).

As always with photography, it's what you're intending to do with the camera that matters when deciding what's 'best' for you. Even with the same glass, they'll all take a picture, though whether it's the right one is another thing...
 
Musicman said:
Quieter shutters tend to be a virtue sought out in higher-end rangefinder bodies (although they're not exclusive to them).
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With my EOS5 I have to look at the frame count to see whether it's taken a picture as it's so quiet :clap: And at 5fps you could roll off a whole film without knowing it! :LOL:
 
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TopBanana said:
With my EOS5 I have to look at the frame count to see whether it's taken a picture as it's so quiet :clap: And at 5fps you could roll off a whole film without knowing it! :LOL:
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Whereas if you do the same thing on a EOS-3 and PB-E2 at 7 fps, you'd be convinced that someone just opened up with a AK-47 :LOL:
 
I have *never* understood why dijikals have artificial shutter noises... anyone?
 
Musicman said:
For speed, 1/500 sec limit isn't unusual in MF and the rangefinder world. 35mm SLRs seem to crank up to 1/1000 and 1/2000 fairly commonly and the 90s generation would go to 1/4000 or 1/8000.
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I think that's more the difference between earlier camera's mechanically controlled shutters and later camera's electronically controlled shutters.

Most older camera's I look at max out at 1/500th and only have electronics for a meter if fitted, but it seems later ones that max at 1/1000th or 1/2000th have electronics for both the meter and shutter control
 
Ambermile said:
I have *never* understood why dijikals have artificial shutter noises... anyone?
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I think it's down to some people liking the sound of that focal plane shutter. When I was doing a lot of shotgun shooting we used to say "Would we still want to shoot if the gun didn't go bang?" :thinking:

Personally I'd prefer a quiet shutter - one of the things I really like about using the G2.
 
Ambermile said:
I have *never* understood why dijikals have artificial shutter noises... anyone?
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I vaguely remember that at one point the japanese insisted on a artificial shutter noise to prevent people taking stealth perve shots on the underground trains :shrug: Though of course it could just be more urban myth / all 'toggers are perves nonsense of course.

Though on a sad note, I have to admit, my G11 has got the shutter sound customised to be a EOS-5 film shutter sample :LOL: I was actually toying with the Idea of changing it to a Coughing A-1 instead, but thought it might be tempting fate :shake:
 
Ambermile said:
I have *never* understood why dijikals have artificial shutter noises... anyone?
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That's like they're putting artificial engine noise in electric cars. So I guess the reason for both is to stop people getting run over? :thinking:
 
Probably more analogous to Lexus spending ages making the door-shut noise on their first car sound like a BMW 5 series door did :shrug: Not necessarily a good or bad thing, just makes it do what people expect it to ?
 
Ambermile said:
I have *never* understood why dijikals have artificial shutter noises... anyone?
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DSLRs still have electronically-operated mechanical shutters...that's what you hear.

Compact or camera phones have the noise because people like to hear the camera 'do' something that lets them know a photo has been taken.
 
Hey Rob, long time... surely when the shutter button goes down and the pic appears in the LCD then it's pretty much a given that a pic's been taken :LOL:

dslr's well yes, but I said *artificial* shutter noises...
 
Ambermile said:
Hey Rob, long time... surely when the shutter button goes down and the pic appears in the LCD then it's pretty much a given that a pic's been taken :LOL:

dslr's well yes, but I said *artificial* shutter noises...
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Yeah but only 'real' photographers would realise that...:D
 
As with most things , lenses , camera,s it boils down to quality and normally
quality costs, as the top brands have done the technical research and development for their products .
With film camera,s we can benefit from the Digital age that has reduced the price of most film camera,s although medium format still seem,s to command good prices .
 
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