Educate me on film roll SLR's.

[Bill Smith]

Originally Posted by aizan

there is so much bad information in here, i'm not even going to start.

all i'm going to say is that film cameras look better.

Agreed.

 

[Huntsman]

Originally Posted by Bill Smith

The two subjects in this digital vs film debate is obsolesence in both cameras and much more problematic is the files themselves. Do you want to drop $1800 for a decent body every three to five years? If you have a compusion to keep with the pace of camea evolution, it will cost you. Second Image files are much more temporary with digital compared to film. I remember listening to a program on technology called Spark on CBC Radio One, one person close to the subject of image storage conservatively estimates most of the digital images shot now will be lost within five years due to deteriorating storage media, format changes, computer failure. I am not looking forward to hearing soccer mom's screaming when they can't access photos of their kids they forgot to print. Now I am coming at this with a bias, I shoot film, mostly black and white, I develop and print at home. I have shot digital for a community relations project providing photography for the Industry Association Website and Facebook page, for editorial work, digital is great. My beef with digital is the images are too perfect and lack character. I like the look I get with my hand made black and white prints made from negs I created in a Leica M3 (one of the coolest cameras made) or my Nikon F (The other coolest camera ever made). I do it for fun, film photography is safer not cheaper than drugs and it gets me away from the computer. check out my photoblog: http://funwithcameras.blogspot.com decide for yourself.
Obsolescene is planned in this day and age. You submit only if you want to. I bought my first digital camera, an Olympus E-10, in 2000. I only replaced it last year, which was a pretty good run -- I still shoot it. And if most of the digital images that are taken are lost, it's still an order of magnitude more images than would have existed otherwise (since every other soccer mom is clicking away these days). But honestly, what's changed? Casual users who don't take care of their images often lose them, pros take care of their slides and their negs and don't lose them. Nothing's changed, except that there are a lot more images (if digital) in the hands of the former, casual users. A pro shooting digital will back up his files, and he will upgrade his media as appropriate. In which case he will never experience degradation (as occurs with all films at different timescales) though loss is always possible (though frankly, much less likely -- he will back up offsite so fires floods and theft will not affect him, though global thermonuclear war still could).

My beef with digital is the images are too perfect and lack character.

Now this sounds like a beef with the photographer, not the medium. People love what they love, and that's important, but it's also important not to back that up with bad information or reasoning. ~ H

 

[blackplatano]

Just to clear something up, Nikon is not truly backwards compatible. Pentax (post K mount) are the only true backwards compatible cameras out there.

Google it.

 

[Nantucket Red]

Originally Posted by blackplatano

Just to clear something up, Nikon is not truly backwards compatible. Pentax (post K mount) are the only true backwards compatible cameras out there.

Google it.

Though I'm not the greatest fan of Ken Rockwell, he's done his Nikon homework. One of the great things about Nikon is forward compatibility. Backward compatibility is also good but less important because some of the optics that are not backward compatible with the newer cameras became obsolete years ago. In any case, the Nikon system is pretty well optimized for any lenses you really want to use

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Huntsman

Obsolescene is planned in this day and age. You submit only if you want to. I bought my first digital camera, an Olympus E-10, in 2000. I only replaced it last year, which was a pretty good run -- I still shoot it. And if most of the digital images that are taken are lost, it's still an order of magnitude more images than would have existed otherwise (since every other soccer mom is clicking away these days). But honestly, what's changed? Casual users who don't take care of their images often lose them, pros take care of their slides and their negs and don't lose them. Nothing's changed, except that there are a lot more images (if digital) in the hands of the former, casual users. A pro shooting digital will back up his files, and he will upgrade his media as appropriate. In which case he will never experience degradation (as occurs with all films at different timescales) though loss is always possible (though frankly, much less likely -- he will back up offsite so fires floods and theft will not affect him, though global thermonuclear war still could). Now this sounds like a beef with the photographer, not the medium. People love what they love, and that's important, but it's also important not to back that up with bad information or reasoning. ~ H
I need to start doing this. My photos sit on a raid 1 array, so they're protected against HD failure, but they're not protected from getting wiped out by a virus or a fire. Just looked at pricing though and i'm better off getting a small removable hard drive and sticking it in my safety deposit box at the bank b/c I don't want to spend $20+/mo. I won't do off-site backups as frequently, but if I copied files over once a month, i'd still keep 99% of what I didn't want to lose in the event of a theft/fire.

 

[hypersonic]

Three brilliant 35mm SLRs. If you can find one one in excellent condition, any one of these three is a great choice.

Nikon F3 I have owned one since the late '80s, it is outstanding in every respect.

Canon F1 (new F1) This camera was overshadowed by the Nikon F3, but it actually offers more features than the Nikon.

Olympus OM-4 totally underrated ....but a truly fantastic little camera.

 

[A Y]

I loved those film cameras that could still work without any power, like the Olympus OM-3 and the Nikon FM2, and had really fast (for that time) shutter speeds. The titanium versions of both cameras were even cooler.

--Andre