What is your choice - best camera + lens?

[POINT OF VIEW]

Surprising

Surprising

I must admit I’m surprised that film cameras are ahead of digital 20 to 1. This is no way a scientific survey but when you look at comments I think the overwhelming concerns are reliability. This is interesting when everything you read in most popular photo magazines, try to give the impression that film is quickly becoming a dinosaur. It may be that most contributors to this thread are seasoned photographers and that is the reason we see such a large group favoring film. If this thread was left in the M8 digital thread where I first posted it, the results may have been more evenly balanced.
The fact remains film is not disappearing any time soon. This brings up many subjects and questions that could fill pages as to why main stream photo magazines are ignoring film camera subjects. The main question I have is why the manufactures ( I’m referring to major Co. - Canon, Nikon ) are not developing new film cameras?
One reason I am faithful to Leica is, for a small company they still are trying to make a decent film and digital camera. It just accrued to me, they may be the only company left trying to stay in both digital and film camps.
I’m just rambling here trying to make some sense of why photography has become so complicated. Bill

 

[lewis44]

Now it's an M7 0.85x and either the C-Sonnar or Version IV Summicron 50mm but I still get a real thrill out of my Nikon F2, w/DE-1 Prism and 50mm f1.4 lens. Just picked it up and got sentimental for the good old days

 

[M. Valdemar]

Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 with kit lens. Until something smaller and lighter came along, then I would get the newer one.

The nostalgia for film on this forum is not representative of 99% of the public at large.

 

[tbarker13]

I'd like to say it would be a film camera. But if forced to choose, I'd go with an M8 and 35 summicron or 35 uc hexanon.

 

[PlantedTao]

another film camera:
xpan with 45mm

 

[whitecat]

Ok, an Olympus OM4T and the 24mm PC lens.

 

[Steve Litt]

Epson RD-1 + 40mm Cron

Regards
Steve

 

[M. Valdemar]

PS: In the 1980's, during the heyday of pre-corporate-buyout "Banana Republic" catalog (which was absolute marketing genius), they sold romantacized surplus clothing to people who would go on imaginary world travels in their dream life.

"The Untearable British Army Overnight Sack, made of oiled canvas, for those rugged nights in the base camp at the foot of the Himalayas"

Nobody who bought the stuff ever went on a trek anywhere, but they fell for the ad copy, the romantic notions and the dreamy illustrations.

Like the "Leica that will never need a battery". Ha ha. How many of you are EVER going to be so far into the wild bush that you can't find a battery? Like one RFF member in 10,000, if that?

The Billingham bags? The "Art and Artisan" bags. Ha ha. Merchandising.

Film isn't "simple". It takes a huge, resource-eating industrial base to produce film and the chemicals, machinery and papers needed to develop it. It's not harkening back to some "simpler" time.

OK, you like film, but lets not fetishize it.

 

[vincentbenoit]

M6 0.58x with 35 'cron IV.

Vincent

 

[Sam N]

PS: In the 1980's, during the heyday of pre-corporate-buyout "Banana Republic" catalog (which was absolute marketing genius), they sold romantacized surplus clothing to people who would go on imaginary world travels in their dream life.

"The Untearable British Army Overnight Sack, made of oiled canvas, for those rugged nights in the base camp at the foot of the Himalayas"

This sounds like the J. Peterman catalog from Seinfeld.

Now that I'm posting in this thread, I might as well stay on topic:
5D2 prototype (probably exists, right?) and 35L.

 

[M. Valdemar]

J. Peterman ripped off the late 1970's, early 1980's Banana Republic catalog, which was FAR superior.

Larry David co-opted the whole thing for Seinfeld. It was funny, though.

.

 

[Al Patterson]

For rangefinder, the CL and 40mm Summicron-C, although "the one you have with you" came into my mind first...

 

[pesphoto]

Whatever Im holding in my hands at the time......

 

[aizan]

with the coming deluge of ff dslrs in the fall, i'm crossing my fingers for a ff pentax with built-in IS. i'd get a 35/2 biogon zk for it.

 

[Olsen]

The best camera/lense?

Hasselblad SWC905 (Carl Zeiss 38 mm 4,5) - or the 135-system equaliant; ZM 25 mm 2,8. I don't have the 21 or the 35 mm, but I can imagine that these are among the finest lenses ever made. I have always found Carl Zeiss glas very impressive. High resolution, high 3D-like contrast, and the ones I have, drawing streight lines.

I also have a Leica 35 mm 2,0 Cron which impresses me with some of the same qualities typical of Carl Zeiss.

Still: The lense I use the most with my M8 is the WATE. Resolution and contrast is superb - very Leica-like, but it is too extreme to draw streight lines and it is slow.

 

[FPjohn]

M3 + DR Summicron

yours
FPJ

 

[jplomley]

RF: M8 + 35/2 Biogon

LF: Arca Swiss F-Field + Rodenstock 135mm APO Sironar-S

SLR: Canon EOS 1v-HS + 70-200/2.8 L IS

 

[thomasw_]

Flip a coin between these two combinations:

MP 0.85 + 50/1,4 Summilux ASPH

MP3 + 35/1,4 Summilux ASPH

 

[Tom Diaz]

The combination I currently use most often is an M8 plus a Noctilux. However, that's partly because I don't own a 35mm f/1.4. If I had to slim down to just one lens it'd probably be a 35mm Summilux. The Noctilux is wonderful but is too long on an M8 to be my only lens for everything.

 

[Don Parsons]

What a cool thread!

What a cool thread!

My choice would be a Pentax MX w/winder and a Pentax SMC 35mm f 2.o lens.

Too me, it just feels right.

don