_This_ is the best time for film

[kully]

It's my first anniversary of getting into film and RFs this week.

I realised this on the way to work this morning and looked back on the different cameras and film I have used in that time, the learning, walking about taking photos and starting my photo course.

It made me rather happy, actually, I have no idea how "great" film photography was 10, 20, 50 or 100 years ago but I'm not stuck with one camera because that is all I can afford, film is cheap and there is no end to the amount of knowledge on the internet.

And there is digital, for those moments when I would have utterly cursed the process required to get a latent image to a print - so I hardly ever get angry with film.

Some lovely old camera shops have gone, but I don't miss the more common snotty, elitist staffed ones which completely put me off photography eight years ago.

So, today, this week, summer or year - until it gets worse - I can't think why there has not been a better time for people using film.

Can you?

 

[dazedgonebye]

The only time I ever have is the one I'm living in now.
This is the golden age of whatever I feel like doing.

 

[FrankS]

And lots of used film gear is selling at garage sale prices. Not all though.

As the consumer public moves to digital, those left working with film will be considered special. The marketing word typically used here is "classic".

 

[dazedgonebye]

And lots of used film gear is selling at garage sale prices. Not all though.

I'm currently wishing Mamiya RFs would become seriously undervalued. 🙂

 

[kully]

Of course, any time is the golden time... Unless you're in negative equity and lost your job I suppose.

Ah well.

Manny - the 1000ft roll is sitting under a cupboard at home, I'm waiting until Monday to decant it in the Uni. darkroom and shoot some rolls. Hopefully I will have tested it for the Paris meet.

 

[mervynyan]

not quite, imho.

film price have raised in recent years, so does the development and printing costs, not to memtion disappreance of local pro-labs.

new high-ends like leica and hasselblad are selling at even higher price than 2 or 3 years ago, when I first got into Leica.

although nikon got F6 update 2 years ago, it is marginally better than F5/F100, and canon hasn't improved any high-end film slrs for last 5 years.

med to low end 35mm simply do not retain resale value, i don't want to buy them at any price unless I can collect a complete system (such as Contax N). mf and lf are not cheap neither, an average new system is over 2k to start.

anyway, if you are hard-core, you will stick with it.

 

[monochromejrnl]

recently sold an unused F100 and battery grip and replaced with with older mf slr bodies... to be exact Minolta X700 and XE-7 (cousin of the R3) with 28/2.8 and 50/1.4 lenses for about one third of what i sold the F100 and grip...

finding amazing deals in MF SLR land... esp. older minoltas which are at least as good if not better than their Canon/Nikon/Olympus counterparts but without the premiums... Pentax K mounts are good value but seems like they still cost more than the Rokkors - perhaps due to the demise of the later and K mount compatibility with the current generation of Pentax dSLRs...

 

[dmr]

I think the combination of 1970s glass and 21st. century film is hard to beat!

We have some fantastic color films out there now, and the price, when translated to 1970s dollars is miniscule. Back then the "High Speed" Ektachrome, the fastest color film you could get, was 160. Kodacolor-X was 80.

Now we have 400, 800, even 1600 color film that has great color rendition and tolerable grain even in the higher speeds.

 

[nightfly]

Right on.

Don't forget Cosina Voigtlander. When else could you get brand new, wonderful optics for so cheap? I mean while lens for lens I'd probably rather have the Leica equivalent, CV is like half the cost of used Leica at virtually any focal length you want and they keep updating their line and coming out with new cameras and lenses all the time in response to the market.

All the films I like are still dirt cheap at B and H despite having gone up a bit recently and I can scan and print my negs in the comfort of my apartment rather than renting darkroom space (which sadly is harder to come by). Personally, I love it.

And thanks to Ebay and KEH film cameras of all types are cheap and plentiful, particularly if you're not committed to the big name. I wish I liked SLRs because 70's SLRs are so cheap now.

 

[mpt600]

Film camera prices are tumbling. Good! I just bought a Bronica ETRS for £100, body, lens, back & wlf. Last year they were unaffordable to me. I'll keep my film camera's to the bitter end, simply because I'm just having far too much fun with film at the moment. Freinds tell me I should just convert to b&w in photoshop, so I try to explain the subtle (or not so subtle) differences between Tri x, FP4+, Delta 400 etc. etc., and still we have so much new colour film to play with. Film's here, film's doing ok, film'll be here for some time, I think.

 

[GeneW]

Without even trying, we're the new hip, in-thing 'retro' look. TGFF...

Gene

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Words to live by

Words to live by

The only time I ever have is the one I'm living in now.
This is the golden age of whatever I feel like doing.

How true, Steve...

Chris

 

[dadsm3]

Without even trying, we're the new hip, in-thing 'retro' look. TGFF...

Gene

I wonder when we start to get the chicks......

 

[amateriat]

I'm currently wishing Mamiya RFs would become seriously undervalued. 🙂

MF rangefinders, along with Leicas, appear to be a "lagging indicator". 🙄

OTOH, a Nikon M4 seems temptingly affordable to me. Regrettably, the 28mm f/2.8 PC-Nikkor I'd prefer to mate with it has not follwed this downward-trending quite as much...

But, yeah, it's a great time for film. Buy. Shoot. Scan. Print. Repeat.


- Barrett

 

[350D_user]

Recommended reading:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/digital-to-analog.shtml

A damn fine read, and one to throw at those that spout on about the alledged ability to cover up mistakes with digital cameras.

 

[amateriat]

although nikon got F6 update 2 years ago, it is marginally better than F5/F100, and canon hasn't improved any high-end film slrs for last 5 years.

Well, look at it this way; here are the most-recent top-end film SLRs:

Canon EOS 1v

Nikon F6

Minolta Maxxum 9

Pentax MZ-S

One common thread running through all four cameras is that, on close inspection, the things are already over-engineered; name a desired feature (or an undesired, un-asked-for feature), and it's likely that at least one of the above cameras already has it. Which, ultimately, became a problem for the above four companies, one of which has already thrown in the towel entirely: what the hell do you do for the next act? And how many people can you convince to drop your last effort for your newest, when they find little reason to do so?

This is why digital is so hot now, although I think the eupohoria will be relatively short-lived. Every digital camera, like most every personal computer, seems to carry with it an air of tentative satisfaction, "subject to disappointment without notice", moreso than in the past (and hardly limited to the usual photo-geek suspects in terms of influence). In terms of film SLRs, the best there is, and likely ever will be, is out there right now, and, in a few cases, ridiculously cheap. I might take advantage of the cheapness of Nikon F4s for the sake of some special architectual work I'd love to do with a wide PC lens. But I've largely left SLRs and moved to RFs for the bulk of my work.


- Barrett

 

[dnk512]

Thank you for the link toyotadesigner!