Posted: 8/19/2006 12:52:09 AM EDT
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I use to be in photography big time, going back to 1976. My collection consist of Nikon F's, a couple F2's, one is an F2AS, mint shape, three F3's and a couple FM's and over thirty Nikkor lenses, 18mm to 400mm. All equipment in mint shape, in bags in my closet. My questuion: are manual focus film cameras a thing of the past? Should I dump, get pennies for this high dollar collection and start with digital cameras? I use to shoot K-64, is this still available...I have not picked up the cameras in over 15 years, have not even looked at the film available at the photo shops Thanks, 77Bronc |
| Wow that is alot of stuff. Many would disagree with me here, but I would say dump it all except a film body and a lens or two and go digital with the newest lenses. Some of the old lenses are still very good and you might want to consider keeping a couple of the exceptional ones. If you do decide to sell off your equipment, would you consider selling me a Nikon FM (Sold mine a while ago and miss film a little)? |
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I sold my film goodies about 5 years ago. I don't even have a high end camera and I am very pleased with the quality I get from a camera I can throw in my pocket. I will be shopping for something nice around the holidays. Probably a Canon 8M or better. I sure blew a bunch of $$$ on developing in the past....... 
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Sweet!
Manual focus film cameras are indeed a thing of the past. For some time I was hoping for a manufacturer to build a decent quality digital back for my F3, but I guess only me and you and a dozen other people would actually be interested in such a thing. Everyone lives and dies by AF, now. I certainly appreciate AF, but I love the feel of my old F3 and the 35-105mm lens that normally lives on it. Anyway, you'd get a whole lot of pennies for your old gear, and I agree with the idea that you should keep your best film body and a versatile set of lenses. You never know when you'll get the hankerin' to shoot some film. The proceeds from those sales will more than pay for a midrange digital body and a lens or two for you to play with. If it turns out you hate digital, just sell it off.
Good ol' 64 is still available, as is 25, and if you want to spice it up, Velvia is still hanging in there, too. Probably not for long, though. I had burned out on the hassle and expense of film, retiring my gear until the first "affordable" digital SLR body became available. Then I got back into it. I gotta say I love digital: the digital darkroom, no wasted film, AF, not reloading film every 36 frames, etc. Try it out.  Alpine |
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Manual cameras are still as valid today as they were when they were made, it's just that features like autofocus and autoexposure have made it a lot easier for any gumby in the street to get decent results with an SLR camera that pretty much does everything for itself except press the shutter button. It is possible to use manual lenses on dslr bodies, but apart from the obvious point of not having autofocus, there's also the point that auto-metering/auto-exposure will not function correctly with manual lenses on a dslr body. It's not big deal, you can compensate by setting the exposure/metering to manual mode on a dslr body and adjust the exposure that way, as if you were pushing/pulling the exposure on film. The nice part about this is you can experiment with exposure on a dslr and not waste any film. Don't like an exposure? Just delete it from the memory card and try again. Pretty much all dslr's come with basic software for PC's and Macs that let you download the pics to the computer and make some adjustments to them, so under/over exposed pics can still be salvaged to some extent. I'm not a Nikon person so I can't say if any of the lenses you already own will work on a current Nikon dslr body, but if you have some above average lenses it would certainly be worth investigating. If you talk to a sales person or contact Nikon about using your lenses with a dslr, remember to ask about any issues with metering with manual lenses on different dslr bodies. I'm under the impression that some Nikon dslr bodies handle metering through manual lenses better than others. Also, get those lenses out of the bags and check them for internal mold/fungus. I've ruined a couple of lenses over the years because I stored them in padded bags inside a closet for extended periods and mould/fungus grew inside the lenses. These days all my cameras and lenses sit on a shelf in the corner of the livingroom, not to show them off to anyone but to prevent the conditions that allow mold to occour. |
| I get the concept of the digital back, but they are horrendously expensive. There are also still alot of very high quality film cameras out there. How hard, and or profitable would it be to retrofit a digital insert that takes the place of traditional 35mm film? All remains the same except the insert and the digital components are contatined in the insert. Then for downloading, the insert is removed and attatched by USB to the computer. It seems there would be a good market for such a system? Any ideas? |
| Ideally, you can get a Nikon D200 or one of the D2 series camera. These models can all meter with older manual focus lenses. I'd pick the very best ones and sell the rest to get some newer autofocus lenses to go with the new camera. However, I'd probably keep at least one F3 body. |
| I sold a F3HP not too long ago on ebay and got over $400 for it, which I was happy with. I am saving up now to go to a D200 from my D100. The cost in film and developing is too high for me to shoot film nearly as much as I would like to, so digital is right for me. I would shoot some film with your existing equipment and see if the interest is still there. If so, consider upgrading at that point and if you want to deal with digital (time spent on the computer) or not. |
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Manual focus cameras are still fine. When doing serious photography, they slow you down and you have time to compose yur image and think before you press the button. The quality of the image has a lot more to do with the photographer than the camera. When I first got an auto everything camera, the quality of my shots declined in a big way. Finally figured out that it was just too easy to press the button without thinking. You own some fine cameras and optics there and these cameras will still do just as nice a job as any new Nikon/Canon/Pentax/Minolta camera out there today. They are certainly more robust. I am also still a big fan of film. Most of the digital images stored in people's hime computers or on burned CD's are going to pretty much disappear in the next ten years if not earlier. Images on film have a much better chance of lasting a lot longer. 60 year old Kodachrome images are still in excellent shape. in 60 years, all the CD's with the images stored on them will be dead. Current pojections of the shelf life of a burned CD is 5 to 10 years. Being able to recover data from a 60 years old CD will probably not be easy to do. Who will be using that old technology anyways. Nice thing about film is that you will always be able to scan the image, but you may not always be able to recover data stored on any electronic media. The only way to digitally preserve an image is to start a program of transferring the data onto newer storage devices on a regular basis. Not many people do this. Nothing wrong with digital cameras, but I think that people should really think about what they are taking the photographs for before thay decide what technology to use to capture the shot. If you are taking a once in a lifetime vacation you should seroiusly consider capturing some of the shots on film. |
Digital backs for film bodies exist, but they're pretty rare in the 35mm SLR format considering how may all digital SLR's there are on the market these days. You'd want to be extremely attached to your film bodies to prefer a digital back rather than buying a new digital body that's compatible with the lenses you already have. The only 35mm format digital back I can find a price on at the moment is from Leica, made for their R series film bodies. How does US$5,950 for a 6.6 Mpixel back for an SLR film body sound to you? If you're a pro with a big investment in top grade Leica lenses, it's probably not a bad price, especially since Leica don't make a dslr body. If you're not a pro... The largest market that exists for digital backs today seems to be in medium format and large format, so we're talking up to 22 megapixels in medium format and almost 40 megapixels in large format. How much? Depends on brand and specs, but here's a taster. Mamiya have a "digital back" for their medium format film bodies, the Mamiya "ZD Back", 22 megapixels. It's not available in the US yet, but expect it to list somewhere around US$11 thousand when it is, and I've seen other digital backs in medium format priced at $15 thousand. I don't even want to know how much a large format digital back is going to cost. |
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I’m with one of the last American Manufactures of Professional Capture Equipment. The least expensive 4x5 Backs we offer starts at 9K and end at 29k. (This is just the Digital Back without all the needed items) (Medium Format) One thing the professionals are coming to find is their older film Camera lenses are superior for focus and quality. Many manufactures have actually used "enlarger" type lenses, gave them a coating to compensate for CCD shift and stamped "Digital" on the side. Of course they also charged twice as much as the previous film lens because it was “Digital.” (Consumer - Prosumer) It all comes down to instant gratification and the concept of good enough. If you can keep and use your film lenses do so... The issue with Digital Cameras and lenses is really about “sweet spots” from lens to sensor, adaptation or lack of to new equipment and most importantly getting folks to buy new equipment. A good read for Film - Digital. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm |