What do you do with a film SLR these days?

[Smith]

I don't use it, I only digital cameras.  It's a Minolta X-370n and apparently they don't sell for squat these days.  Whaddya do with them?

[jefnvk]

Send it to me.

I dunno.  I use mine.  Can't afford one of those fancy digital ones, despite friend's promises that it will pay for itself within a few years.

[Standing Wolf]

I've got two Nikons keeping a corner of the gun safe from feeling empty. I haven't even thought about using them since I bought my digital Nikon three and a half years ago. It paid for itself in less than six months.

I doubt the film models are worth much any more.

[P95Carry]

I still have my old Pentax S1A bodies and a slew of lenses - seems a waste but can't believe they'll sell.

Only film camera I managed to sell was my Minolta Autocord - and then not for big money.

[thebaldguy]

I bought a really nice Canon 35MM SLR five years ago for my girlfriend. It too sits in the safe. We have taken hundreds of pictures with our digital camera in the last three years. I wonder if that SLR will ever be used again?

[mtnbkr]

All I use is film.  My sole digithing is used for ebay snaps.  I average a roll or two of film a month (I've gone through 10 in a week before).  Since time's the constraining factor for me, digital wouldn't pay for itself because I wouldn't shoot much more than I do now.  On top of that, the equipment cost more and I'd have to buy more software and hardware to fully realize digital's "benefit".  Except for the digital SLRs, digital cameras are too slow to catch unpredictable kids.  That fact alone is what drove me back to film.

Chris

[Harold Tuttle]

in about another 2 years, 35mm film is going to become like hens teeth

once the majority of people switch to P&S digital cameras,
the big development houses will shutter and getting quality
development/printing will be like finding good black & white work today

the professional 35mm market has been a boutique supported
by the mass consumer sales of 400asa 24 & 36

[m1911owner]

BaldGuy, the lenses for your GF's Canon should work nicely on a current-generation Canon DSLR, such as an EOS-20D or 30D (or 5D or  1Ds, but those are big $$$).

Other than that, they're pretty much are ready for the museum wing, along with your buggy whips, paper collars, vacuum tubes, and Super-8 movie cameras.

Don't feel too bad--I've got a Bronica GS-1 medium format setup that's going the way of the Dodo Bird.

[cfabe]

The huge shift to digital photography really leads me to wonder if I will have albums of photos and negatives to pass down to my kids. Digital storage needs a lot more refreshing, very easy to forget about until it's too late. Even having prints made of digital, I'm not sold that it's as good as film prints.

[Harold Tuttle]

i was in the home office of Tom Abercrombie last week looking at artifacts from his career.

all of his select images were in plastic boxes that were labeled with the name of the country he was working in.

i started to wonder what the archive of a digital photographer might look like in 20 years.

[Winston Smith]

Attention, I will take anyone's film SLR off their hands, if they don't want it. I've been working off borrowed cameras for a while now but I've put some good images out there, and have gotten some into a literary magazine. But I just had to return the last borrowed camera, so here I am... camera less... think of the children...

Here's a one of the last shots from that camera, taken in Izmailovsky Park, Moscow, Russian Federation:




and there's my best photos on my flickr account if you need further convincing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/haschenfeffer/sets/72057594099162911/


EDIT: Film is infinitely superior a medium. It just looks better. It's much more organic and provides for weird happy accidents like this:



Me in the selfsame park.

[Art Eatman]

What to do?  Take pictures.  By and large the print quality is better.  The tradeoff is convenience over quality.

As usual...

Aw, yeah, I know.  You can buy the sort of paper that lets your computer put out good pictures.  Yeah, you can crop your pictures and play with the size and all that.  And it's a hassle to find a developer, do the travel there to get stuff developed and again there to pick up the packet.

If I compose before I shoot, I don't need to crop.  In a small town, dropping film off is no hassle, and it's a chance to socialize with the folks who do the work.  I've gotten free work in return for letting them have a picture or two from a roll.  And I don't use up my time screwing around on a computer when I can be doing something either useful or remunerative.  Anything really worth while, I can scan in off a print and have enough quality for others to enjoy it from email.

IOW, I have film and digital rigs, and each has its place.  If it's an important shoot, I'll use film.

Art

[mfree]

Film is capable of things that digital imagery can't do, at least not for a while. The resolution is still immensely better especially with slow films (smaller grains), and I'm pretty sure you can still shoot higher speeds with film than you can with digital, though that's catching up.

But the one thing film does that CCD or other electronic imaging tech can't do is take a LONG exposure. The imaging electronics are simply too unstable, they heat when active and start making random noise.

Give this thought too: My Nikkormat FTn has one battery, and it runs the light meter. It lasts from a few years to over a decade of general use because of the way Nikon engineered the on switch. No batteries otherwise, for any function, not even the timer, and if you're good (I'm not) you can memorize the lighting requirements and not even use the meter. It'd be the perfect trail camera if it wasn't 4 pounds of solid brass

[m1911owner]

What film are you guys using??! I'd love to try out some of this film that's better than digital.  Everything I've seen says that digital passed up the best fiilm in quality about three years ago, +/-, and hasn't looked back since.  Pros are selling off their Hasselblads and buying Canon DSLRs because they get better image quality with the DSLRs than with Hasselblad.  The latest Phase One and Leaf backs even outperform 4x5 view cameras in raw image quality.

[mtnbkr]

Oh really?  Go here http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d200/d200-vs-4x5.htm and check out the "Image Quality" portion.  That's with 35mm film, not medium or large format.

Ken Rockwell is anything but a film purist.  In fact, he's more a digital person now.

The reason for pros moving to digital based one what I've heard is not image quality but convenience and customer delivery expectations.  

Chris

[m1911owner]

Well, yah, compared to a Nikon D200.  That's not even a full-frame camera.

The images captured by the Canon EOS 1Ds are better in virtually all aspects than 35 mm film with the same lenses.  The EOS 1Ds Mark II with L series lenses is in nearly all cases better than any medium format film system, including 6x7 systems.

The 39 MP medium format backs from Phase One and Leaf, used with the latest Rodenstock Digital HR lenses, are similar to or better than 4x5 film.  (These backs are so new that the jury is still out, but the early reports are as I state.)

[mtnbkr]

The 39 MP medium format backs from Phase One and Leaf, used with the latest Rodenstock Digital HR lenses, are similar to or better than 4x5 film

You've seen this firsthand?  I ask because I haven't seen any digital output that was better than formats larger than 35mm.  At the 35mm level, it's a tight race, but for pure image quality, I haven't seen anything that would make me drop film for digital at the MF or larger level.  The pros I know of that are dropping film for digital aren't doing it for image quality, they're doing it for convenience.  Even in the photography club I'm a member of, the folks using digital admit it's for convenience and better control and not because the raw images are better.

All that said, image quality is the least of my issues wrt digital.  

Chris

[Brian Williams]

I am just getting back into Film, I just won an Olympus OM-1 to replace the one I sold for college milk money.  I have been using digital for the last few years, I have always prefered film , just did digital for the ease of looking at my pics.

[mtnbkr]

Brian, I sent my OM-1 to Camtech for an overhaul last summer.  It was definately worth it.  The OM-1 is my favorite camera.  Unfortunately, it's not my most practical one, so it doesn't get used as much as my Nikon.

Chris

[m1911owner]

MtnBkr,

I've been carefully following the subject, waiting for the cost curve to cross my "available funds" curve.  (I'm seeing an EOS 5D in my intermediate future .)  I've seen "actual pixels" images, compared with drum scans of film; I don't know if that counts as "firsthand."

There's a lot of info about various film vs. digital comparisons at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/

Understand that my response to the "film better than digital" statements is in terms of the best film vs. the best digital.  If that's not what one is comparing, you can always find some example of one that's better than some example of the other.  Obviously, an EOS 1Ds digital camera is better than a grocery-store disposable film camera.  And equally obviously, a Hasselblad is better than a $100, 1.5 MP digital camera with a plastic lens.

The digital cameras I'm talking about aren't cheap.  A Canon EOS 1Ds MkII is around $7K-$8K, plus a few $K more for L series lenses.  A system built around a Leaf or Phase One 39 MP back is around $50K.  But for those $$$, you're getting image quality that is limited by the quality of the (very, very fine) lenses, not the sensor--If they made better lenses, you'd get even better images.  (Possibly not possible in the case of the Rodenstock HR lenses, which are basically right at the diffraction limit right up to maximum aperture.)

For working pros, those numbers are within reach.  If a pro is spending $100 a day on film and processing shooting a Hasselblad, he can recover the cost of an EOS 1Ds MkII in about 80 workdays.  The Leaf/Phase One/etc. setup is a lot even for working pros, but still in the range that Leaf and Phase One are selling a lot of equipment.

When you get into the $1K-$2K, partial-frame cameras, yah, you just might be able to get better quality with film.

[Guest]

Donate it to a college and deduct a healthy percentage?

[jefnvk]

But the one thing film does that CCD or other electronic imaging tech can't do is take a LONG exposure. The imaging electronics are simply too unstable, they heat when active and start making random noise.

True that.  Me and my friends do a bit of nighttime shooting, and when we do, their film cameras come out.  One of them has a D70, and also its film equivalent prety much for that reason.

[lee n. field]

Can't afford one of those fancy digital ones, despite friend's promises that it will pay for itself within a few years.

It's like what they say about handloading ammuntion.  Without the cost and bother of film, I shoot a lot more.

[jefnvk]

Can't afford one of those fancy digital ones, despite friend's promises that it will pay for itself within a few years.

It's like what they say about handloading ammuntion.  Without the cost and bother of film, I shoot a lot more.

The only thing is, I wouldn't be shooting more.  I would be shooting more of the same thing.  Instead of one or two pics of something, I would have ten or fifteen.  The actual number of subjects wouldn't go down shooting with film, just the angles and such.

[Smith]

Wow, you guys really went off on a tangent.  This is a Minolta 370 we're talking about, not a Haselblad or however you spell it, and it wasn't film versus digital.  If I look on Ebay I see that the  ~$400 setup I have is now worth about $30-50.  No one wants a manual focus lens, no one wants a manual everything film SLR camera.  Everyone wants a D70.

This fine piece if engineering (and it IS a good camera, despite it not being a medium or large format) is now worth less than what it cost to make it, I think.  I HATE to toss it...but it's not even worth enough to Ebay it.  I doubt a college would even want it, as I'm sure they're all doing digital now too.  This sucks.