Would you buy a new film camera?

This has been fascinating to read, but perhaps because I woke up far too early, and drank my coffee in order to do my guitar work, and am now coming late to the symposium— where happily it appears that no one has drunk koolaid (no new film cameras!) or hemlock (film cameras new nevermore!)

I’m among the older ones here, and even a good night’s rest resets only my mental or emotional age, so the game of imagining a new film camera runs up against obstacles similar to those my mind/body feel their way through daily. Ultimately it’s better to reset the interior camera obscura and adjust it to the technology you take into hand, or as Paul Klee put it (more or less) ‘you must adjust yourself to the contents of your paintbox.’

Earlier this year I horse-traded a pile of film-things, some lovely and desirable, for an M10 Monochrom. If at this point in my life it gives me several years of the images I want and can get from it, then it is the best thing I can have on a wrist strap while my arm and hand and eye still communicate well with one another.

Maybe, though, if the Impossible Neo-Retro dream does get brought to mechanical life in the coming decade, and I could have IT by liquidating the Rolleiflex, the MF Fujis, the Klasse S and Hexar RF and my other digitals (possibly by then weirdly collectible themselves), and enough of us are here to enjoy complaining about it, I might even throw more cash at it.

This of course has more to do with how I might change in my 70s and 80s than whether Leica restores the M3 (Nikon the F, somebody the Contax G with better VF, etc.) or whether some kid genius with 3D printing happily surprises us.

In the meantime, neither koolaid nor hemlock for me. (My Klasse S is in the bag with the M10M, too.)
 
I had the Fujifilm Klasse S and W, they were supposed to be the premium be all end all P&S of all time. In my opinion, not true. Well built, yes, good looking, yes, but the auto-focus was a real leap of faith. You point and shoot and hope what you wanted to capture was captured. Until the film was developed you didn’t know. Anyway, I sold them.

The Contax G2. One of the most beautiful cameras I've ever owned. I had the 28mm, 35mm 45mm and 90mm lenses. A flawless camera. There was only one problem for me - it was boring as a film camera. Basically it was like a digital camera that used film. It nailed every shot. But then unlike a digital camera you had to develop the film and you got exactly what you wanted to get. No challenge. In the end I sold it.

There is only one film camera that might wake me from my film camera hibernation and that is the Zeiss Ikon RF. But, I’m not actively looking for one. Digital medium format is my new frontier.

Sad but true.

All the best,
Mike
 
robert blu said:
So my question to you film lover would you really buy a new film camera if it should hit the market? And how much would you be ready to pay for it?
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I would pay up to $2000 for a brand new 4x5 inch Chicago-made Deardorff view camera made with mahogany wood.
 
I have a number of very nice film cameras, so really have no need for a new one. A new camera would need some compelling feature to pry open my wallet. That said, I'm really not very feature-oriented. My two cameras that are loaded right now are a Nikon F2 with plain prism, and a Leica M-5.


I look at the M-P occasionally, but really what it adds to the M5 is a 75mm frameline, which I would very much like to have, and I guess, that new camera smell.
 
If Ricoh can sell the GR III for $900, they should be able to offer a film version for even less. I'd jump at that.

John
 
rhl-oregon said:
This has been fascinating to read, but perhaps because I woke up far too early, and drank my coffee in order to do my guitar work, and am now coming late to the symposium— where happily it appears that no one has drunk koolaid (no new film cameras!) or hemlock (film cameras new nevermore!)

I’m among the older ones here, and even a good night’s rest resets only my mental or emotional age, so the game of imagining a new film camera runs up against obstacles similar to those my mind/body feel their way through daily. Ultimately it’s better to reset the interior camera obscura and adjust it to the technology you take into hand, or as Paul Klee put it (more or less) ‘you must adjust yourself to the contents of your paintbox.’

Earlier this year I horse-traded a pile of film-things, some lovely and desirable, for an M10 Monochrom. If at this point in my life it gives me several years of the images I want and can get from it, then it is the best thing I can have on a wrist strap while my arm and hand and eye still communicate well with one another.

Maybe, though, if the Impossible Neo-Retro dream does get brought to mechanical life in the coming decade, and I could have IT by liquidating the Rolleiflex, the MF Fujis, the Klasse S and Hexar RF and my other digitals (possibly by then weirdly collectible themselves), and enough of us are here to enjoy complaining about it, I might even throw more cash at it.

This of course has more to do with how I might change in my 70s and 80s than whether Leica restores the M3 (Nikon the F, somebody the Contax G with better VF, etc.) or whether some kid genius with 3D printing happily surprises us.

In the meantime, neither koolaid nor hemlock for me. (My Klasse S is in the bag with the M10M, too.)
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A Contax G with a better RF...that resonates.
 
Nope. I just bought a Leica R3 with a 50mm Summicron-R and a 28mm Elmarit-R. Don't need one now.

With best regards.

Pfreddee(Stephen)
 
Yokosuka_Mike said:
....<snip>

The Contax G2. One of the most beautiful cameras I've ever owned. I had the 28mm, 35mm 45mm and 90mm lenses. A flawless camera. There was only one problem for me - it was boring as a film camera. Basically it was like a digital camera that used film. It nailed every shot. But then unlike a digital camera you had to develop the film and you got exactly what you wanted to get. No challenge. In the end I sold it......<snip>
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Truer words were never spoken.
So many keepers every time out, but no mystique.
A Leica M is more desirable because an M user will only need 30% of the storage space that a Contax G user has to find to store his keepers. Thus an “M” is the camera Marie Kondo recommends. Plus, with an M, you can prattle on and on about your viewfinder experience.
The predictable excellence of the Contax G2 becomes tedious in short order. Life has no spice when all your frames “come out”.
 
Yokosuka_Mike; [I said:
The Contax G2. One of the most beautiful cameras I've ever owned. I had the 28mm, 35mm 45mm and 90mm lenses. A flawless camera. There was only one problem for me - it was boring.
[/i]


There are no boring cameras.
No boring lenses.
Only boring photographers.
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That's a pretty sanctimonious thing to say, Canyongazer. Same for Larry Cloetta's sarcasm.
Someone calls a camera boring and suddenly the chap is a boring photographer. Since when was that a truism?
 
pyeh said:
That's a pretty sanctimonious thing to say, Canyongazer. Same for Larry Cloetta's sarcasm.
Someone calls a camera boring and suddenly the chap is a boring photographer. Since when was that a truism?
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It's OK Pyeh.

Firstly, I don't think Larry Cloetta has a sarcastic bone in his body. He's a straight shooter, a real man's man, one of the good guys.

As to Canyongazer's comment, whatever, it's of no real consequence. I'm sure he has his motivation for saying what he said.

It's all good. We're all RFF members. Love of photography, boring or not brings us together.

All the best,
Mike
 
Canyongazer said:
There are no boring cameras.
No boring lenses.
Only boring photographers.
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I do not agree at all. How do you choose the equipment you use? Why one brand over another? Why one focal length over another? You haven't experienced when a camera feels right in your hand and when it feels wrong? It is popular to say they are only tools, but the fact is haptics matter.
 
Yokosuka Mike, you're probably right about Larry C. Normally I enjoy tremendously what Larry says, but there I thought he was having a dig at a perfectly innocuous opinion of yours. Perhaps I misinterpreted his intent.
 
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