How many still use 35mm SLR Film?

trishw78

I was reading some of the posts in this forum and I was wondering do many people still use 35mm film camera's or has everyone gone digital.

bovril

I still own a 35mm film camera and I still have some film (which is probably out of date by now). I always keep meaning to take it out and use it and put to use all the things I have learned since I went digital but I never get around to it. For me at the minute I only shoot digital.

magicbastarder

i do; mainly slide and b&w. i have a DSLR too, but i find i use the film cameras more.
partly because i have a fridge full of film, 90% inherited, and partly because i find working with film more rewarding.

unreggd

I'll prob be usin it loads again when I go back to college


But for personal/work use theres just no point when I have my 350D

City-Exile

For me personally, film was expensive & impractical. Digital photography has revolutionised sports coverage. Give me Photoshop over a wet darkroom any day.

thefizz

trishw78 wrote:

I was reading some of the posts in this forum and I was wondering do many people still use 35mm film camera's or has everyone gone digital.

Judging by the choice of film currently available, I'd say there are plenty of people still using 35mm film and I would be one of them.

minikin

run some through the machine every so often, last time was about a month ago... an uplifting experience, you forget the buzz of looking at a well exposed neg knowing that it's down to you rather than photoshop...

magicbastarder

got a roll back yesterday of delta 3200. the grain is only glorious.

deRanged

I just ordered a new 35mm slr yesterday!
I already have one, and love using it. I've just started messing with a Holga too, and bought developing kit so I can try that out too.

My 400d is feeling a bit left out i think

Hugh_C

Still have an old (1980s) Yashica and a fabulous Zeiss Ikon Colora (1961) that I use on a semi-regular basis, generally for BW on Ilford. Mostly I use my Nikon D70, but as others have said, sometimes you just can't beat the grain.

The camera that gets lest use round the house is the Canon Digital Ixus P&S which asn't been out for ages. Poor yoke.

magicbastarder

i have seven cameras, of which one is the DSLR; three olympus 35mm bodies, a hasselblad, a rolleiflex TLR, a holga, and the DSLR.

ThOnda

Only films cameras in my drawer. Didjital one only implemented in mobile.

peter1892

I still use 35mm for B&W (all colour is on digital now). I prefer 35mm B&W to digital, and I like working in the darkroom every now & again

magicbastarder

we should have a film-only photo thread. it can be called 'proper photography'.

trishw78

magicbastarder wrote:

we should have a film-only photo thread. it can be called 'proper photography'.

Lol.

You have all restored my faith. After the mini-war I had with a certain shop over the way my negatives were hacked up I think I'll revert back to exposing my own B&W film again. I might as well I have all the appropriate equipment I'll just have to buy the chemicals.

I'm still considering buying a DSLR for the colour work any names or cameras I should avoid like the plague

Benster

Yes, film still used, mostly only B+W as the cost of colour development was horrendous when I used film only. I use "proper" B+W film, not the C41-process stuff you can leave into a chemist to get dev+printed.

I would love to have a go at medium format B+W as well.

B.

City-Exile

magicbastarder wrote:

we should have a film-only photo thread. it can be called 'proper photography'.

And how exactly do you propose to get your film-only photos onto a thread? Unless of course you mean cotton thread!?
Heaven forbid you'd actually digitise your "proper" photos & post them on the internet.

Zombrex

While I love digital still nothing beats film, so when ever I have the time I shot on black & white using my old Canon

The issue is the time to develop it and to book a dark room, so I tend to save it for special projects that I don't need in a hurry.

magicbastarder

City-Exile wrote:

And how exactly do you propose to get your film-only photos onto a thread? Unless of course you mean cotton thread!?
Heaven forbid you'd actually digitise your "proper" photos & post them on the internet.

i'd describe them in great detail.

City-Exile

magicbastarder wrote:

i'd describe them in great detail.

Have you tried the creative writing forum?

DonkeyStyle \o/

I keep hearing people going on and on about the grain... what's up with that?
You think years from now people will be reminiscing about "aah lovely CCD noise, so authentic".
I'm sure there's something I'm missing here.

magicbastarder

i've no sull size scans knocking about, so most of the pics i have taken on fast film would have lost a lot of their graininess due to resizing, so the impact of the grain is somewhat lost.

as to why i think it looks good; i suppose that's just taste.

trishw78

I do like messing about with film. pushing and pulling is always interesting

Cabaal

Trish, move to the dark side get a DSLR...mwhahaha
You know you want to

Roen

Gave up on film entirely, gave my last working film camera away (a mamiya 645) last year.

Hope it's being used more than I was using it.....ahem, you know who you are!

TelePaul

Yeah but it's expensive for me to get developed and that puts me off; also my dslr gear is much more high end.

mtracey

35mm on Nikon FE and 120 on Pentacon and Ilford Super Sporti. All B+W

Fajitas!

Have a good few film cameras. I still play around with them, but primarily use digital.

You're right Trish, pulling is always interesting...

Rojo

Fajitas! wrote:

You're right Trish, pulling is always interesting...

ha ha ha


I use film, but not as much as I'd like to...! Nothing beats the darkroom for me - it's like magic seeing your photos appear on paper.

leinsterman

... Just purchased a "new" second hand EOS3 film body from B&H to replace my old EOS500 ...

I love shooting film ... but only do black and white because I can develop and print these myself .. and I like to be completely involved in the end to end process from shooting to printing ...

... anyways isn't sending film to a lab for developing is cheating ??? ... (actually I don't really believe this ... but if those gombeens who claim that using CS3 to develop images is cheating are to be believed then the same must be true in film... so getting someone else to print for you is cheating ... right:(:confused:???)

I have to confess to using a bit of digital in the process ... I scan all my negatives and make contact sheets on a computer before deciding what to print ... is this cheating too ?? ... who cares ???

trishw78

Cabaal wrote:

Trish, move to the dark side get a DSLR...mwhahaha
You know you want to

I will be visiting the darkside eventually, but I'll keep my trusty film camera.

I decided recently to go back to developing my own film because of the hack job a certain company did on cutting the negatives 2 or 3 of the negatives are now completely useless.

dalk

leinsterman wrote:

.. anyways isn't sending film to a lab for developing is cheating ??? ... (actually I don't really believe this ... but if those gombeens who claim that using CS3 to develop images is cheating are to be believed then the same must be true in film... so getting someone else to print for you is cheating ... right

Exactly. Don't kid yourselves. Unless you people are using a polaroid pinhole camera, you are cheating. Even then I'm suspicious and can't be sure that you haven't been manipulating the image somehow. Stutters, lenses, filters, different developers, pushing/pulling, multigrade paper... BAH! All superfluous and ALL Cheating! Cheaters!

(I am of course joking. The flipside of the photoshop discussions).

ThOnda

Unless you use handmade pinhole camera...
http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/dirkon_01.html

Cabaal

You could put some coloured film/plastic over the front of the handmade pinhole camera, then you'd still be cheating.

Anyway its all evil and the work of the devil, we all know taking pictures of people steals there souls!!!

thefizz

What has all this crap got to do with the original question?

magicbastarder

if you want those of us who have already answered the original question to keep repeating our answers, you may find the thread becoming slightly boring.

trishw78

Cabaal wrote:

Anyway its all evil and the work of the devil, we all know taking pictures of people steals there souls!!!

Just noticed my last post was the devils number. :S

on a similar but different note anyone know where I could perhaps borrow a Medium format camera saw one on ebay for £35 I was a little bit sus of it.

DaireQuinlan

trishw78 wrote:

Just noticed my last post was the devils number. :S

on a similar but different note anyone know where I could perhaps borrow a Medium format camera saw one on ebay for £35 I was a little bit sus of it.

probably a seagull TLR or something ? If you want to get into medium format in a quality way (as opposed to Holgas or something similar), the best bets are the old TLRs. Look specifically for Minolta Autocords or Yashica-Mat 124(g)s. These are reckoned to be of superb quality lens wise and go for vast amounts less than rolleicord TLRs or any of the well known MF SLRs (hassleblads, Bronicas etc). I got myself a Yashicamat a year ago or so. Great fun to take pictures with and the negatives are stunningly huge. I've never really trusted the build in light meter enough to put transparency film through it though.

-edit- if you check out my flickr stream, anything tagged "yashica" was taken with it, except obviously the picture of the camera itself :-) -edit-

magicbastarder

still, you'd get a bronica ETRS for about 400 bob these days, body, lens, and back. not huge money.

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote:

still, you'd get a bronica ETRS for about 400 bob these days, body, lens, and back. not huge money.

Yeah thats pretty true actually. I always tend to discount the 645 format, 6x6 is the way to go IMO.

mathias

I still use film a lot , Velvia and B+W , I have a 300x , an old konica minolta which I rescued from the Brother who was binning it after getting a 20D , a very good aps point and shoot , and the king is a Contax 645 which I have a loan off , ( Some camera , but a bit mystifying to me at the moment , so much more to learn with MF ).

My last 2 rolls of Velvia took ages to come back , posted on here about it , so Im posting them away for processing now , cant do my own B+W's cos the missus wont have the bathroom full of smelly chemicals !

Film is getting harder and harder to keep up as a hobby , not just the expense , but the time involved as well. Having said that , I love Velvia and wont be giving it up as long as they still make it , no matter how hard it gets.

thefizz

mathias wrote:

cant do my own B+W's cos the missus wont have the bathroom full of smelly chemicals

You could get the odourless ones.

DaireQuinlan

thefizz wrote:

You could get the odourless ones.

Yeah, actually I find that developing film is pretty odour free. Having said that, I've never used stop when developing film, just a good wash cycle, so that could be a stinker.

OTOH, I've developed actual prints in my bathroom aswell. Yikes. Made worse by the fact that the ventilation in our bathroom is only on when the light is on. The lingering stench doesn't go down well ...

magicbastarder

last time i developed film or hand printed was about ten years ago, in an attic, where the ambient temperature was about 12 degrees. not easy keeping your dev at 20 degrees in such situations.

thefizz

DaireQuinlan wrote:

Yeah, actually I find that developing film is pretty odour free. Having said that, I've never used stop when developing film, just a good wash cycle, so that could be a stinker.

OTOH, I've developed actual prints in my bathroom aswell. Yikes. Made worse by the fact that the ventilation in our bathroom is only on when the light is on. The lingering stench doesn't go down well ...

I'm always surprised to hear people complain about the smell of darkroom chemicals. I just use the standard chemicals in my small darkroom and hardly notice any smell. I've never felt the need to get the odourless versions.

Infact at my last darkroom workshop, the participants (who were mostly digital users who had never been in a darkroom) were impressed that they couldn't smell the chemicals very much at all. They admitted that they had been led to believe and had a pre-conception that darkrooms were very smelly.

DaireQuinlan

thefizz wrote:

Infact at my last darkroom workshop, the participants (who were mostly digital users who had never been in a darkroom) were impressed that they couldn't smell the chemicals very much at all. They admitted that they had been led to believe and had a pre-conception that darkrooms were very smelly.

Well, this was using Agfa paper dev and ilford odourless stop bath, and everytime I slid that paper from the developer, drained it for 10 seconds, and then slid it into the stop bath, there'd be another burst of smell. Now, I don't -mind- the smell all that much, but after a couple of hours in the bathroom with no ventilation it gets a bit much. I'd say any amount of ventilation at all would disperse it with no difficulty.

Spyral

i use an f80 nikon and i have a medium format aswell. (ancient.. no lightmeter or anything.. literally a box with a shutter!)

I like illford xp2 film tis uber!