Can anyone recomend a really good 35mm camera?

[Cruz Family]

I know 35mm !
We have digital but need a new 35mm as well.
Any recomendations for a camera that will take really good pics? TIA, Melissa

 

[0bli0]

are you looking for point and shoot? or a SLR?

 

[Cruz Family]

are you looking for point and shoot? or a SLR?

The old (and broken) Cannon I have is an SLR and the pictures were wonderful, so we were thinking about getting another SLR. But, we know very little about cameras and if a point and shoot would be better we would be open to that. Thanks, Melissa

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I wouldn't recommend a film camera unless it was for a special reason. It might be useful for IR photography or astrophotography. Or if you want to mess around with film for artistic or nostalgic reasons.

A modern DSLR will actually take better pictures than a 35mm film camera. If you take many pictures, it will even do it cheaper.

 

[Cruz Family]

I wouldn't recommend a film camera unless it was for a special reason. It might be useful for IR photography or astrophotography. Or if you want to mess around with film for artistic or nostalgic reasons.

A modern DSLR will actually take better pictures than a 35mm film camera. If you take many pictures, it will even do it cheaper.

I know I am in the minority here but after using both I just do not like digital. I love taking pics developing the film and just seeing what happens. I hate seeing and criticing (sp?) each shot. When I look back at all the pics I have of my two boys it is just awful to think how many of those I would have deleted because its not perfect. I know its strange but that is just me!

 

[Master Mason]

I know I am in the minority here but after using both I just do not like digital. I love taking pics developing the film and just seeing what happens. I hate seeing and criticing (sp?) each shot. When I look back at all the pics I have of my two boys it is just awful to think how many of those I would have deleted because its not perfect. I know its strange but that is just me!

Why deleate them... you just burn them on a disk and save them forever. I deleat nothing, as you never know when your going to need or want something.... especially with all the stuff you can do in photoshop..

 

[handicap18]

A modern DSLR will actually take better pictures than a 35mm film camera. If you take many pictures, it will even do it cheaper.

I know quite a few professional photographers who will dispute this up and down till the end of days.

In fact I was talking to a buddy of mine this past weekend who is a pro. He just bought the Nikon D80, but it's really only because his editors and clients want things faster and bigger (file wise). He told me straight out that it will be a long time before digital can compete with film, especially if you look at medium and large format, but even 35mm. I've also heard this same arguement from other pros.

Personally, I much prefer digital SLR to film SLR. But I don't know as much about the technical side of it.

That being said, film SLR camera's are very inexpensive today. If you had a canon previously, then you'd probably want to go with the most updated version of the Canon EOS Rebel. I don't know about specific models or anything like that, but I have seen prices around $200 for consumer level film SLR's at places like Ritz Camera. I usually search amazon.com first to get an idea of whats out there, then compare prices at other places after that.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

For medium and large format photography, there are still advantages to film. For general purpose 35mm photography, anyone that thinks that film is superior is just a luddite.

There are a lot of pros with a lot invested in knowledge of the film world. They hate to let that go. I remember long lectures from draftsmen talking about how CAD was inferior and ruining things.

If you hate working with PCs and are more comfortable messing about with strips of film, that's OK. There are still people that like rotary phones. Just don't expect to be taken seriously when you claim that the old way was superior.

I hate seeing and criticing (sp?) each shot.

You don't have to look. You don't have to delete.

When I look back at all the pics I have of my two boys it is just awful to think how many of those I would have deleted because its not perfect.

I see the opposite problem. The last pre-digital trip I took was three weeks. I shot about 50 rolls of film. That works out to about 50-60 shots a day. It was expensive (about $400 for film and developing). Even at 60 shots a day, I was conservative with my shooting.

With digital, on a typical trip, I shoot a couple hundred shots a day. It costs almost nothing for the extra shots. When I shoot people, I typically fire off a 2-3 shot burst. If I look at the photo and see that I've blown it, I can still take another shot.

I look back at old photos and rue the fact that the only shot I got of some special moments was marred by photographic mishap - wrong exposure, motion blur, people blinking, etc. With digital, that happens far less often.

 

[manning]

Here is an interesting article on how many pixels to a 35mm frame.

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html

 

[Anewman]

Here is an interesting article on how many pixels to a 35mm frame.

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html

But there is so much more than just pixels in the Digital vs 35mm film debate.
Even if we feel that a 35mm negative may(I said "may") out resolve digital(lets say the new batch of 10mp DSLRs), what about every other catagory?

Other than Dynamic range(which is a big one) there is no contest.

 

[Anewman]

I know 35mm !
We have digital but need a new 35mm as well.
Any recomendations for a camera that will take really good pics? TIA, Melissa

I would say you replace your Canon film SLR with a current Canon film SLR, I would also say do not pay RETAIL.

Can you say Ebay?

you might be able to find a Camera and lens for around $50.

 

[0bli0]

you can take digital photos exactly the way you do with film. turn off the display and then have all of the photos printed. but there are so many things you can do with digital. personally i think digital on a good body with a high quality sensor is as good as most film stocks, save a few. post processing and various actions are good for approximating looks from various stocks. you can even get the look from cross-processing.
btw you can do IR as well with a modified camera (or use R72 filter, although not as effective).

i had a Canon Elan 7 (and occasionally hire a 1v), but the Rebel G or T2 are good buys and have all of the features you'd expect.
you might rent a DSLR for a weekend and see what you think!

 

[Cruz Family]

Thanks for all the great advice.
I know I am a dinosaur but I still love using film. I do use my digital when I sell things on ebay and when I want to send someone a specific picture of something, etc. I guess I am not very good with computers either so that may have a little something to do with it as well. Anyway thanks to you all, Melissa

 

[GabbyMom]

I'm with the OP I have a Nikon D70 in the family and three Sony thingies, I own a Monolta z6. I still get better shots and image depth with my Nikon 6006. I'm not sure what the OP should get. IMHO Film has qualities I don't get in digital.

 

[handicap18]

Thanks for all the great advice.
I know I am a dinosaur but I still love using film. I do use my digital when I sell things on ebay and when I want to send someone a specific picture of something, etc. I guess I am not very good with computers either so that may have a little something to do with it as well. Anyway thanks to you all, Melissa

You don't need to have a computer to use a digital camera. You take as many pictures as you'd like and instead of taking your rolls of film to CVS or Walmart or where ever you get your film develped, you in stead take your memory card. You slip into the slot at the store's kiosk and hit a few buttons to have them printed. You can either pick them up later that day or within a few days. Just like film. Prices range from about 15 cents to 29 cents per print depending on where you go. At 15 cents a print that works out to $3.60 for a single print roll of 24 exposure film. Plus you don't have to keep buying film AND you can change your film speed from shot to shot, not roll to roll. On todays consumer level dSLR's you can get approx 300 exposures on one 1 GIG card. Thats about 12 rolls of film. Most 1 gig cards cost about $30 or less. Thats about $1.25/24 exposure for just filling up the card the first time. Within a short time the 1 gig card will have paid for itself compared to the cost of buying film.

I have a buddy that has a Nikon N70(film) and D70. He still uses his N70 as much if not more than the D70. He swears by a certain brand of film. I've seen some amazing pictures on one of the nikonians board that were taken with the D70. I my experience, with my D50, my enlargments look better with the D50 than my enlargements I made with pics taken with my N6006 and N70. Maybe I just used the wrong kind of film. But now I don't have to worry about what film I'm going to use.

 

[allyn]

i switched to digital and back to film at least once. but that was 5 years ago, long before affordable consumer dslr cameras, when the "state of the art" was a nikon 950.

i honestly don't understand why anyone would be interested in film these days. digital slrs are better than film cameras. you pay more up front but then "running costs" are much less.

even a cheap dslr has more resolution than most film scans, particularly if people are getting "picture cd" (not photo cd, which was very good).

here's a review by a professional photographer of film vs. a canon d30 dslr from 6 years ago. this was only a 3.1 megapixel dlsr! and it came out better than film. film vs. d30

btw, a person interested in photography could spend several days reading all of the info at the luminous landscape web site.