JPEG, OVF and a manual lens. Recreating the film experience

KoNickon said:
Another EM10 user here -- first version. I have several adaptors -- Nikon F, Leica M, a couple of others -- but generally I stick to the M4/3 Zuiko lenses. The kit 14-42 is really excellent for my (JPEG) use. I have the 45-150, 30 macro and, most recently, the 30/8 "lens cap," which I used just this morning. Now that is just a fun, freeing, lens, and the image quality is fine. Since it's zone focus, it provides the closest thing to the manual focus experience.
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The 15mm f8 body cap lens is the one lens from Olympus I do have. And you are right, it is a great snapshot lens. About 6 months ago I also picked up a Pergear 10mm f8 simi-fisheye. The Pergear site had it on sale for $55 with free shipping and didn't charge sales tax. That sale was for the M4:3 mount only and was gone the next day. There was/is? a whole thread here on the 15mm f8 body cap lens with lots of images. I think Ko.Fe. has one and shoots a fair amount with it in B&W.
 
zuiko85 said:
I think Ko.Fe. has one and shoots a fair amount with it in B&W.
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Actually I did much more in color. It is great, next to no flaws lens on E-PL1. I used it even for family pictures.
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But GRD III took over from it in 2021. As more compact camera.
 
zuiko85 said:
The 15mm f8 body cap lens is the one lens from Olympus I do have. And you are right, it is a great snapshot lens. About 6 months ago I also picked up a Pergear 10mm f8 simi-fisheye. The Pergear site had it on sale for $55 with free shipping and didn't charge sales tax. That sale was for the M4:3 mount only and was gone the next day. There was/is? a whole thread here on the 15mm f8 body cap lens with lots of images. I think Ko.Fe. has one and shoots a fair amount with it in B&W.
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Right, I said 30/8 but in fact it's 15mm.
 
ptpdprinter said:
As far as I can tell, the "film experience" consists of loading and unloading film from your camera. Everything else is the same as digital. Of course, if you process your own film and make your own prints, then it is an entirely different matter.
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Not quite -- the film experience means waiting to get your pictures back and seeing that you blew focus or exposure, or you didn't frame it right, or (if it's an older camera) something failed on you without warning and you didn't find out until you see the results.... Oh, and you just shelled out close to $20 to see those results. :)
 
For me using an M digital is as close as I can get to the M6 film experience because of manual focusing and the same rangefinder/viewfinder. When I added the Viso I thought it ruined the experience. I don’t like mirrorless cameras for the same reason. It’s true I have had a lot of disappointments shooting film due to something not working right for example a faulty shutter I didn’t know about until after I processed 50 rolls of film or pure negligence and false economy on my part for using old D76 from a month before. The list goes on. Perhaps I will always shoot raw because of those experiences.
 
Rayt said:
For me using an M digital is as close as I can get to the M6 film experience because of manual focusing and the same rangefinder/viewfinder. ...
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Just a thing that did not work for me.
I used and loved my M6 a long time. The digital Ms until today are thicker and I did not get the same feeling.
Until today the best digital M for me is the R-D1.
To avoid slapping mirrors for a long time there where nothing than rangefinders or viewfinders.
But new technolgies came up and I get used to EVFs and tilting displays.
 
When I want the 'film experience' I set my camera to the lowest ISO it will go, put on a manual lens and set the mode dial on M instead of AUTO.
This slows me down to the point I usually end up with a better than planned image and it's fun too.
I never shot a lot of film like most here have. I don't miss the mirror slap of my Nikon FE or SR-T's either. Now that I'm not as steady of hand, I think I'm happy to have IBIS at the ready too.
My biggest problem, most days, is deciding which camera to use.
 
Interesting thgread, thanks for starting it.

For many years the Leica X1 was m only digitl camera and with its 36mm equivalent lens and and OVF without chimping the way I used it was similar to shoot film, even more when I forced myself not to change iso within a sessio, minimum 36 frames. But still different.

Now I use the M10 without much chimlping (I do sometimes!), with no overshooting, I dare to say in the way I did when shooting film.

But the experience, the feeling is still different. What for me makes shooting film a nice experience is what happens after: the need to process the film with an "unknown" result. The emotion when you first look at the film (if B&W just developed) or the prints from the lab if colours.

Another important factor is to know that with film in most of cases you have a limited number of frames to cover your subject. Of course you can bring so many films with you to feel more free, but I don't!

If I can add one personal experience a few years ago I went with my wife for a two weeks holiday on an island (Ischia) in south Italy where we had never been before. It was not intended to be a photographic journey and I decided to bring with me only my Polaroid and 8 pack of films which means a total (8x8) of 64 exposures available foe 14 days. I found it very liberating, sometimes thinking in advance what I to shoot in the day if landscape or people, or any other subject in order to be sure when back home to have all what interesting (to me) covered. And even if with the not in that time perfect film I was never sure of success each time I pressed the shutter at the end I brought back a decent selection of pictures which later I transformed in a minibook, but this is a different story.

My conclusion: simply it is nice to have choices, I like to use film and I like to use digital. And yes, sometimes I like to recreat the film experience with digital using only OVF, not chimping, no changing iso between frames and perhaps waiting a few days before downloading the files in the computer!
 
robert blu said:
Interesting thgread, thanks for starting it.

For many years the Leica X1 was m only digitl camera and with its 36mm equivalent lens and and OVF without chimping the way I used it was similar to shoot film, even more when I forced myself not to change iso within a sessio, minimum 36 frames. But still different.

Now I use the M10 without much chimlping (I do sometimes!), with no overshooting, I dare to say in the way I did when shooting film.

But the experience, the feeling is still different. What for me makes shooting film a nice experience is what happens after: the need to process the film with an "unknown" result. The emotion when you first look at the film (if B&W just developed) or the prints from the lab if colours.

Another important factor is to know that with film in most of cases you have a limited number of frames to cover your subject. Of course you can bring so many films with you to feel more free, but I don't!

If I can add one personal experience a few years ago I went with my wife for a two weeks holiday on an island (Ischia) in south Italy where we had never been before. It was not intended to be a photographic journey and I decided to bring with me only my Polaroid and 8 pack of films which means a total (8x8) of 64 exposures available foe 14 days. I found it very liberating, sometimes thinking in advance what I to shoot in the day if landscape or people, or any other subject in order to be sure when back home to have all what interesting (to me) covered. And even if with the not in that time perfect film I was never sure of success each time I pressed the shutter at the end I brought back a decent selection of pictures which later I transformed in a minibook, but this is a different story.

My conclusion: simply it is nice to have choices, I like to use film and I like to use digital. And yes, sometimes I like to recreat the film experience with digital using only OVF, not chimping, no changing iso between frames and perhaps waiting a few days before downloading the files in the computer!
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Thanks Robert for the nice story!

Of course limitations are great, but there is fine line between enjoying photography with them or stressing out about not bringing enough film :). I am glad it worked out well for you.

I opt to restrict my "film shooting experience" moments during "safe" photowalk outings :p
 
The best part about film cameras is the simplicity; so little to worry about and not much to master.

I have, alas, a very nice digital camera with an excellent lens on it but it also has dozens of little buttons all over the place and picking the thing up means checking them all and that means finding a shady spot and the time to go through all the settings and hope they've not been changed by mistake. Taking the camera out and switching it on can be difficult because of the button clusters...

I once had a digital camera as easy to use as the Olympus XA's but - alas - it's only 2 megapixels and Smartmedia cards are a bit fragile.

Worse still how long will the M9 (a paragon) last, will I be able to get batteries and so on.

Regards, David
 
While I have no desire to shoot film again, I admit to missing film cameras. As David, above, and others have stated, their simplicity was a wonderful thing. But they weren't simple to me to begin with. I bought my first 35mm camera without knowing what the numbers on the dials meant. I was 23 years old and I felt like a complete idiot. Learning to use that camera turned out to be fun. When I bought my first digital, it was frustrating...not fun. But I finally became comfortable--took about a year. Before long, all I was using was the digital. Still miss using the Nikon F2 and the Leica M6. Don't miss film.
 
I agree with both of you about simplicity. It can really change the shooting experience. For that reason I modified my X-Pro1 and it has worked wonders for me. Fuji has become better at their designs since then and all X-Pro3, X-E4 and X100V are on the simpler side. Of course nothing beats the Leica M-D but Pixii comes close.
 
olakiril said:
I agree with both of you about simplicity. It can really change the shooting experience. For that reason I modified my X-Pro1 and it has worked wonders for me. Fuji has become better at their designs since then and all X-Pro3, X-E4 and X100V are on the simpler side. Of course nothing beats the Leica M-D but Pixii comes close.
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Any camera with flip out screen beats M-D and Pixxii for take it easy, but maintain access if needed without overpaying.
In fact it is common trend by now. Why scratch exposed for no reason screen which became more like a rudiment with EVF...
 
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