Posted on 05/31/2018 1:15:07 PM PDT by Red Badger
“...but I don’t miss it.”
That is how most film camera experience stories end. I don’t miss it either.
Big problem is finding a place locally to develop 35mm film. If you do find a local place, odds are it will be out of business in 6 months to a year.
I sold an SX-70 Sonar on ebay maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I had owned it since around 1980 and was just trying to get rid of it.
I was pleasantly surprised when a guy with a Japanese sounding name bought it for just a tad over $100.
I used to develop my own B&W prints but that was long ago. You are right about finding a place to develop color 35mm film.
Dang! We threw ours in the trash!.....................
Walmart and Walgrenns carry plenty of 35mm film and 5 day turn around processing. It is making a come back.
Still got an ol’ EOS Rebel in a kitchen cabinet. Poor thing has probably rusted in place.
Try eBay or Craigslist. May be worth a few bucks......................
A pro photographer can’t get rid of his nice 35mm and medium formats.
I took a photography class as part of TV program in the early 90s. I loved working in the dark room.
I switched to Panasonic a couple of years ago.
An affordable 4k body was the reason. I miss the 100mm fixed macro.
Sometime I will get one for the GH4.
While telephoto lenses are great, I have several there is nothing like being able to crop a small area in a shot and blowing it up like it was shot telephoto.
I don't have to wait go get my pictures back, I don't have to send them off. I can review in camera or in the computer and print them myself if I want. If I do happen to take a shot where the white balance is off or perhaps my exposure was a little high or low I can put the raw file in Photoshop and basically re-shoot it. If a picture has information in a shadow area, with over 14 stops of dynamic range I can pull the shadows out, that was one of the biggest problems with film, if it was lost in a shadow it was simply gone.
I love my D810. I have a whole slew of nikon speed lights, or flash units, I almost never use them, I get good color depth and pretty good DR at 6400 ISO or even higher. The grip with it's extra battery gives me up to 7 FPS which is not a sports camera but it isn't slow either.
I don't expect to ever really think of the good old days of film because today the film is cheap and I can take all the pictures I want. In the old days in college where I worked for the school as a photographer I could easily go through a couple 36 exposure rolls a quarter of a basket ball game and with the medium format a few rolls a game. Today I can take several hundred shots and as long as I get one good one I'm happy and it doesn't cost a cent more to take all the extras.
dont worry, will make a comeback as a retro thing ...
I have several older DSLRs. They are adequate but I sure would like to have a newer one.
My Nikon and Sony have six and ten meagpixels. I could live with the six or ten but the dynamic range as you point out is no where near what some of the newer ones are.
I actually have 5 Nikon N90s bodies. They will probably never be used again. I do still like them. I still like the single large AF sensor. I found it much easier to use than the multi point ones.
You can go to Ebay and there are just gobs of 35MM cameras for sale. A number of them with full kits and lenses and the prices are insane.
I still have a Canon super8 movie cam somewhere....
My brothers and I also developed our own B&W prints with Kodak chemicals. My Dad on the other hand made his own chemicals. I have his German Welta brand, 120, bellows camera on display, right next to my foot long, aluminum, Pickett slide rule
I still have my Nikon FM2 camera. On the whole, I do better with my $90 pocket camera. If I want to take 100 shots in 10 minutes, I will. I’ve thought of going to a digital SLR, but most of my pictures get trimmed down to 1000 pixels wide and posted on the web. Or sent to friends, who open them on their computers.
I do miss the SLR aspect though. And metal bodies.
The FM and FM2 and the FE and FE2 were some of my all time favorites. I too still have an FM2. Also an FE which was probably more desired than the FE2.
Actually I collected probably around 60-70 film cameras in my lifetime. They are basically just taking up space but I can’t bear to just give them away.
I thought a few times about seeing what Adorama would give me for the N90s bodies but probably not worth the trouble.
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