recommend any manual SLRs

Placebo

ive been noticing on ebay the price of manual SLRS seems to be quite low, around the 100$ range, i was wondering if it would be worth it to experiment a bit, the medium format ones seems to be a bit expensive, so i take it the rest are 35mm.
Anyway would anyone recommend any ?
My friend keeps telling me that Manual is always better than digital, not actually sure but doesnt digital slrs have complete control over apateur and shutter speeds aswell?

just looking to take very highly contrasted pics. Or should i be looking at lomo LCA for that trype of thing?

thanks

Dimy

All Digital SLR's have full manual control, so don't worry about that... the discussion about Digital vs Analog is a never ending story, but Digital is winning over Analog, most professional photographers made the switch and are shooting more digital than analog nowadays.
Analog bodies are far cheaper than their digital counterparts though... so if you're tight on budget experiment with a analog SLR first (although you'll spend a fortune on developing film I suppose...) :rolleyes:

Thirdfox

Nikon (one of the leading camera makers) have announced that they are ceasing production of new film cameras... shows how digital has really dominated photography nowadays...

I have a Seagull (Minolta) 300EF.... but as Dimy said film is horribly expensive to develop...

mloc

getting a cheap second hand film SLR mightn't be a bad idea. Film is a pain in the ass to develop tho, and theres no instant review available, so you won't know what you've taken until its developed.

Still, it's capable of some amazing output, so maybe have a look for an old second hand SLR in good condition.

Placebo

how much to films actually cost.
ive been put off digital, snap snap snap, some people even upload all their practice shot, you dont give each shot the time you would give a filmc amera,
besides its more authentic [even retro?]

its like having a cd or vinyl.

thanks for the replies

mloc

cost depends on quality really. film varies in price from 5-20 euro a roll. for 24 or 36 shots, usually.

I agree that digital offers the ability to shoot without taking as time as not to "waste" a shot, but that can be an advantage sometimes.

With either format, what really matters is the shot, at the end of the day. I've a photo on my wall that was taken with a piece of crap film camera back in the 70s. It's the ability of the photographer that matters, at the end of the day.

dalk

Hi...

The only thing i will say about digital versus analog, is that good quality analog equipment is now dirt cheap. The price difference is enough that you would have to burn through a lot of film to close the price gap.

Cheap manual (but not bad quality) good 35mm slr? €100 or less off of ebay...

Pentax k-1000. Full manual only, cheap, plentiful and built like the proverbial brick house. Lots of lens available too. Kinda the classic photography students camera.

Olypmus OM-1 (full manual) & OM-2 (some elctronic exposure control). Very nice cameras. Very compact. Very good quality lens available. I like them.

And something else to consider. A very compast 35mm rangefinder with a fixed fast f1.7 40mm lens. Think i might pick up one of these myself.

Canon CANONET GIII QL17

Just a few choices as there are a lot of cameras out there...

Fajitas!

I'm shooting 50/50 digital to film at this stage, film is annoying to develop, and expensive, but I often prefer the effects I get off it, especially with 120mm film.

You could easily get a nice SLR for about the €120 mark, or go up/down on that.

Check out Ebay, plenty of them there.

As for recommending any, I use a Canon 1000Fn, lovely camera, good weight, and it's big enough for my hands. The newer models are quiet nice too though, the 300 and 500.

They'd be a bit pricier than €100. If you were looking for that price bracket, the minolta or phoenix would suit best. Both are fully manual, down to the last.

Benster

I use a cheap-ish Nikon F80 film SLR and that lets me do anything I want to get a picture, full manual control as wellas full auto and it's one of Nikon's better low-range SLRs. You'd easily pick one up on eBay for your budget.

However, I have noticed more and more of thier high-end film cameras like the F5 appearing there for less than half their RRP as more professionals trade up to digital. You could pick one up for around the €500-€600 mark and have a VERY solid, well-built camera that will last you for years.

As for film, buy it all on-line. Shops charge rip-off prices and I'd only buy from a shop if I was really stuck.

http://www.7dayshop.com is where I get mine. Colour and b+w are around the STG£1.30 mark, better colour film liek Velvia is about STG£2.50 or so (as opposed to €15 in some Dublin shops).

hth.

B.

peter1892

I bought a Canon EOS 300V last year - cheap kit (less than €200) & got the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens for it as well. My idea was to have compatibility with a DSLR in the furture.

It's a great little camera, I've gotten some really good results with it. It has full manual modes, priority modes and a load of program modes (which I never use).

The cost of developing film can be expensive, but I usually get the films developed, contact sheets done & CD's produced rather than getting everything printed. So that's about €9 for a roll of 36 exposures.

beans

I'll second the vote for the Olympus OM System. I'm currently trying to get my hands on a well-priced OM-2n(SP) which has spot-metering capabilities. There's one on Ebay currently with a 'buy it now' price of 180€, but you should be able to get an OM-1 or OM-2 for closer to 100 or less

There's an OM-40 up there on ebay also, looks like it could be a good bargain

ender ender

Hi, if you're looking for high contrast pics, just cross process. Get slide film and ask them to process it in negative chemicals. The results can be unpredictable but you can get some lovely high contrast stuff.
Try not to go with a Lomo, they charge ridiculous prices for basically cheapo cameras, and you can achieve the same effects with any film camera

Placebo

ender ender wrote:

Hi, if you're looking for high contrast pics, just cross process. Get slide film and ask them to process it in negative chemicals. The results can be unpredictable but you can get some lovely high contrast stuff.
Try not to go with a Lomo, they charge ridiculous prices for basically cheapo cameras, and you can achieve the same effects with any film camera

hey thanks all for the recommendations,
[offtopic]
but i got slide film for my lubitel, and i asked them to cross process it,
1- they just enlarged my negatives the first time !
2- second time they just printed the NEGATIVES.
3- i asked and she said it cant be developed cause i asked for it to be cross processed

so like now i have negatives on photo quality paper, thats ridic ? there not even square shape [normal 20/20 is square -afaik]

major wtf

[/offtopic]

so im just like

ender ender

Where did you get it done? I trawled the city, and the only place that would develop and print cross-processed was mcg digital on george's street. That said, I haven't got any done there yet, I only got my camera back from the repair shop yesterday, so I'll probably drop a few rolls in next week...

Fajitas!

Find yourself a new developer.

I'm quite lucky as far as I'm friends with mine, so I get what I ask for... But it also helps that most of the staff that work in the shop have done a course in photography!

I'll stand up for Lomo though, fair enough, they're cheapo cameras, but they're not advertised as much else, and they're still pretty cheap. Good aftersales service (I had a problem with my fisheye, and they went out of their way to fix the problem, and gave me free film in goodwill) The site is pretty good too. They do have some unique cameras too, like the ones with 4, 8 and 9 lenses.

Placebo

my friend has a lomo LCA, some of the results are absolutley amazing.

the place i went to [3 times on the same roll] is Fuji Film on lower abbey street, its so big u cant miss it.

Fajitas!

I've heard Gunns are the best for that kind of thing. I use Mulligans in Waterford...might be a bit out of your way! lol!

ender ender

Sorry, don't want to slag off Lomo too much, their toy cameras i'm sure are fine, i just think lc-a's and smena's are a rip (I've bought one myself).
By the way mcg don't do x processing anymore, they've had lots recently and it screws up their chemicals

dalk

As regards second-hand film cameras...

I just received a slightly beat up looking (but working perfect) all black Nikon Fe2 and a Nikon/Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens for the princely sum off about €125 all in of ebay...:D (There is an aperature priority mode, so not all-manual like the thread title).

Haven't had an SLR since my last one was nicked about 5 years ago. Its built like a brick and will be my go-anywhere without any worry of breaking or anyone wanting to steal camera. I think it will be used for black and white fun...