Choices

[Hans Berkhout]

For a variety of reasons I have to discontinue film based photography. Moving into digital offers choices; photography with an iPhone or photography with a digital camera. I'm interested in picture taking, printing occasionally.

What would you do, advise, any comments/suggestions?

 

[Vince Lupo]

For a variety of reasons I have to discontinue film based photography. Moving into digital offers choices; photography with an iPhone or photography with a digital camera. I'm interested in picture taking, printing occasionally.

What would you do, advise, any comments/suggestions?

Guess it depends on the kind of work you like doing. I wrestled with that too for personal work a few years back — what I did was buy the Hasselblad 907x with the CFV II 50C back (in 2020). This way I have the ability to use the digital back with the modern AF lenses on the 907x body or I can mount it on my 1000f and use all my vintage lenses. Great thing is that it produces very large RAW files that can make beautiful prints. And if I did want to shoot the occasional roll of 120 I could just put a 12 back on the 1000f. So the best of both worlds.

 

[kxl]

As already said, depends on what you want to do.

To me, shooting digital equates to versatility, and perhaps nothing is quite as versatile as a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC)--Nikon, Sony, Canon and Fuji are the market leaders. I currently have a Nikon Z6 III, on which I shoot native Z-mount lenses and adapt M-mount and M42 mount lenses. Additionally, I can also adapt a whole host of other lenses from various SLR mounts.

 

[Tim Murphy]

For a variety of reasons I have to discontinue film based photography. Moving into digital offers choices; photography with an iPhone or photography with a digital camera. I'm interested in picture taking, printing occasionally.

What would you do, advise, any comments/suggestions?

Dear Hans,

The first thing I'd suggest that you do is review what film cameras and lenses you own. As an example, if you have Nikon lenses, you can buy a modern Nikon digital camera that allows you to use most Nikon film lenses manually. If you are a Pentax user, modern Pentax digital cameras are among the best cameras for using older lenses. If you own another brand of lenses most mirrorless cameras allow you to use manual focus lenses from almost all camera mounts with the appropriate adapter. It might be manual focus only, but aperture automation is pretty much a given with adapted lenses.

While you do that, consider what you like to photograph. If you are a mostly 24 to 105mm user there are a number of digital cameras, from P&S cameras to pro bodies where you can find something that fits you uses.

Lastly, if you access to camera stores and retailers that sell used gear consider getting something used to start out. You don't necessarily need a 50Mpeg camera to get started.

Good luck in your search!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[Dogman]

I'm not comfortable using my iPhone for photos. I have to have a camera. Others are fine with camera phones. So my answer is "depends". Sorry about that.



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[JeffS7444]

Do you already own a phone equipped with a decent camera, and is it your constant companion when you leave home? If so, that seems like a logical place to start.

 

[Archiver]

How much does the shooting experience factor into your photography? There are very few people who would consider the physical experience of iPhone photography to be enjoyable. Convenient and mostly easy, but not enjoyable. For that, you'll need a camera that tickles your fancy.

As others have said, consider what kind of photography you did with your film cameras, and also what you would like to do that your film cameras could not. Your mention of an iPhone suggests you might want something pocketable or at least easily carryable, so size might be a factor.

What level of image quality do you want? Do you have a rough budget for a digital camera? Do your film cameras have lenses that could be easily used on a digital body?

 

[Hans Berkhout]

thank you all for input, will think things over........