Would you do it again?

[Holmz]

If you were starting from scratch and needed a camera....
What would you do for a Film camera
and what would you do for digital camera
And why?
And which would you choose film or digital?


For instance at the moment I am looking a Digilux-3, RD-1, M8 and an IKON.
(I shoot slide film in LF - but rarely, and the wife's point-n-shoot sucks.)

Since I have no lenses (only LF), Should I look at dSLR.
I doubt I'll be taking any sports or bird watching photos, so I don't absolutely require a dSLR.

If I get the IKON I need a projector, but then can show slides.
The down side is that processing would require slides to be sent away, but slide film can get cooked if I have it out and about as the temp gets over 40 C (110F) some of the time. (It's really true! - I know this for a fact)
The up side is that the pictures would probably be better.

I am leaning towards digital.

Digilux-3 would be good as the wife could use it (who seems calm, but whose pictures look like a palsey sufferer took them), the only downside with that, is the f2.8 doesn't do low light so well. But she could take a picture with it, where as a manual camera would not work.

M8 has lens over the pixels and more of them pixel things too. But it also costs more than the RD-1 and the controls are not any better.

Film seems to have a lot more capability.
On the computer screen - there are a finite number of pixels.
So how does image quality of digital stack up on prints?

I would like to hear some thoughts... (Or do dSLR Nikon, Canon...)

 

[tripod]

I prefer a hybred workflow: film + scan and print. Good stuff gets put into an enlarger.

 

[RF-Addict]

To me, the only thing that matters is the final print. I, like many here, use both a pure digital workflow with a Canon 5D and a hybrid workflow with various Nikon SLRs and Rangefinders and a scanner of course. I used to be a wet darkroom only guy until last year when I realized that for color I could do much better with an Epson printer and Photoshop. It would take me hours in the wet darkroom to achieve what I can do in 20 minutes in PS. I much prefer the colors I get with the Epson than any wet print.

As for B&W, I still use the wet darkroom - I also develop my onw film, B&W C41 and E6 - makes life easier and more flexiblem plus I don't trust any of these labs anymore.

So what should you do? Only you know. Either way you will have to make some significant investments. If you go hybrid you'll need a decent scanner. In any case you'll need a color calibrated decent monitor - otherwise your prints will be pure guess work.

Digital has the advantage of immediate gratification - which on the other hand is also a negative - there's something about souping your own film and waiting with anticipation what the results will be.

 

[Al Patterson]

If I had the cash, I would buy a Zeiss Ikon film camera and a Canon 5D digital. I currently have a CL and a 6 Megapixel Samsung DSLR, so I don't NEED to change.

The main reason for the film camera is I still like to shoot B&W, and am too cheap to buy Photoshop and the various plug-ins to convert digital shots to B&W. And yes, I know that there are digital cameras with B&W modes, but I'm going to wait a while before upgrading my kit.

 

[moonwire]

Everybody would give you a different answer. For film I'd get a nice rangefinder, and for digital I'd get a sweet compact, such as the GR-D. If I could only keep 2 cameras, that's what I'd keep. Oh, and a Holga (but that doesn't really count).

 

[eli griggs]

If I had the means to start over today, for 35mm stuff I'd go with a pair of new Leicas, a MP and a M8, as well as a IIIc or 'f' with a small mix of new and old lenses, LTM to M adapters, filters, etc.

I'd like the ability to shoot digital, within the scope of my current interests and still have basically a one bag set-up. When I need to use digital, the equipment would be at hand, all the while keeping film the mainstay of my small camera work.

I don't feel the need for the long lens gear I used years ago with 35mm and 6x6 SLRs and what I want to photograph generally doesn't require an investment in that sort of capacity.

The wet darkroom is very important to me and I would upgrade my current kit, but I'd also like a quality set-up for scanning and printing digital to complement wet work. Both analog and digital can and do work together and using both is just another aspect of everyday photography.

Cheers

 

[Roger Hicks]

Mono: film, easily, and a wet darkroom.

Colour: digi.

Which of course means an MP and an M8. Which, happily, I have. Now all I need is another of each...

But I'm not sure it's possible to put myself in another's shoes. After all, I've been using film for 40+ years, which installs an inevitable bias. How would I feel if I were 16 again?

One thing I WOULDN'T do, knowing what I know now, is what Eli suggests above: piddling around with obsolete/obsolescent cameras and lenses. That was fun 40 years ago when they were cheap and it was all I could afford, but now, I'd rather just take pictures. That's not attacking his viewpoint: if that's what he enjoys, great. It's just saying that I've been there and lost interest.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[craygc]

Im only interested in mono so it would be film and a hybrid workflow ...digital capture just doesnt do it for me.
20/20 hindsight would have me go straight to high-end rangefinders in both 135 and medium formats with good glass. The amount of money I feel Ive lost playing with expensive SLRs and sub standard lenses is the main thing I would have avoided

 

[ruby.monkey]

Starting from scratch? Film for mono, probably digital for colour. I'd skip the Voigtlander R3A (great camera though it is) and go straight to the Leica M3; I'd pick up a Pentax K10D instead of the K100D (trading extra bulk for the better viewfinder)...


and I'd still wind up buying far more knackered old oddities than I'd ever need, and not regret a single one of them. 😉

 

[oscroft]

Starting from scratch I'd start with a Leica M6 and an Olympus OM2n for serious photography, and a cheap digital for unimportant snapshots, photos for eBay etc

 

[kipkeston]

It comes down to time. I make enough time to enjoy film. If I had no time, I'd be digital. Time time for film, it'd be the M6, a 35, a 50 and 25. If I only had time for digital, it would probably be a D3 or 5d

 

[Roger Vadim]

A 5D with a couple of primes, and for B/W -what I mostly do nowadays in my wet darkroom (FUN!!) a Mamyia 7II - plus an old Speed Graphic or Technika;')

The onny thing different would be not to have 6 Nikon SLRs and all the lenses.

Maybe drop in a lttle Kiev/Contax with 50mm Sonnar for that vintage look.

One needs as many cameras as suits - or shoes if you are a woman😉

tough question.
-Michael

 

[amateriat]

A toughie here; I bought my current system (a pair of Hexar RFs, plus 28, 50 and 90 M-hex glass), all brand-new, six years ago, and positively love it. If I had to do it all over again, I'd...do it all over again, but I'd mostly be forced to buy used (and, in the case of some of the gear, ironically end up paying more for used gear than I did buying new). If we're talking buying strictly-new, I guess that would mean a pair of ZI's and a trio of nice Zeiss glass (28, 50 and 85...'course, I'd go for the 50 f/1.5). There's always the odd fourth lens to speculate over, but the two-body-three-les combo has served me very, very well, and eliminates the need to thik about what to pack...it all stays in the bag, ready for whatever.

Before the Hexars, I was thinking hard about what to do after deciding to ditch my AF SLR system. I thought seriously about digital for about three days; somehow wisely ascertaining that the dSLR market would be something of a frustrating moving target for years to come (we're talking January 2002 here), I rejected that option...everything I didn't like about SLRs any more, but worse. For the same number of days the following week, I thought about a Bronica RF645. I decided that my heart was with 35mm, as it had been for the previous 28 years. Hence the Hexies.


- Barrett

 

[merlin]

If you were starting from scratch and needed a camera....
What would you do for a Film camera
and what would you do for digital camera
And why?
And which would you choose film or digital?

If I could reboot back to my younger, more mountain-goat days, I'd have a 5x7 view. Don't regret for a minute 50 years using M cameras, but when I stepped cold-turkey into 8x10 ten years back I found I loved the 'thing' of LF like nothing else. A physical problem forced me to give the big boy up about a year ago and I fervently wish I'd gotten into large format much earlier in my photographic life, when I could carry cargo.

Of course there would be an MP for me and a brainless digital for my smart wife ... or is that a smart digital for my brainless wife?

 

[bmattock]

Would not do a thing differently. Film for B&W and medium/large format, digital for color and what very little paid work I do now, and lots of old cameras and lenses that sell for nearly nothing now, so I can play with them, because I enjoy it. Scan the film, no darkroom needed for me anymore.

About the only regret I've had is that so many of my film negatives from the 1970's and 1980's are in 110 format and hard to scan. They were taken with a Pentax Auto-110 so they're about as good as 110 gets, but still 110.

If I could, I'd go back in time and tell my idiot younger self to keep using the Canon FX and not to fall for the lure of the Pentax Auto-110 pocketability...

Circa 1982, Okinawa, Japan:

 

[bmattock]

Well, the 110 in your pocket was much more useful than the Canon in a bag at home.

True that.

 

[Dogman]

If I were to start out today, from scratch, with a blank slate and enough funds to properly set things up, I would choose a Leica MP for my film camera and whatever the APS format Canon or Nikon DSLR was currently the top-of-the-line for digital.

Holmz, you mentioned shooting slides so I presume you are not particularly interested in black and white. If that is the case, I would simply forgo a film camera and jump right in to a DSLR from Canon or Nikon, either full-frame or APS format--whichever you prefer, there ain't enough difference to care which brand.

I'm primarily a black and white shooter, process and print it myself in a chemical darkroom. I think it looks better than digital black and white, either scanned negative or camera sensor-based. But for the small amount of color I do, it's no contest--digital is the winner.

I've gone the route of scanning slides and color negatives but the image from a digital camera looks cleaner to me and requires less time in front of a freakin' computer than messing with scans. I hate that part of digital photography so the less I have to do it, the better I like it. I'm even thinking of buying my wife a digital to replace her P&S that she uses for trips.

I have dozens of rolls of 35mm color film in the freezer that will probably never get used.

 

[Avotius]

If I could start it all over it would be pretty simple for me. I would want a large format camera with 2-3 lenses. I would want a Leica MP black paint with a 28mm asph elmarit-35 asph summicon-and 50mm Zeiss Planar or Leica 50mm Preasph summilux. Also as for Digital, I would want an M8 but also would want an SLR. Probably a nikon d300, its a sweet package, also a older Nikon like a f2 or f3 and a mess of primes.

Buuuuut....since I got a Voigltander Bessa r2a and a canon 20D and no large format camera I will have to make do.

By the way, I like my canon dslr, its very nice, but I wish I could use "vintage" old style lenses on it for that unique contrast curve and effect that you just cant get out of photoshop sometimes....also there are zeiss lenses for the nikons. If when I bought into my dslr before and I had known before hand a little better about the nikon system I probably would have chosen it over the canon, but if I had to do it all over again....

 

[Holmz]

All good input - thanks!

I was very disappointed with the last set of pictures I took. An almost even distribution of leaks in the film holders, old/cooked slide film with the good slides having generally poor lighting - which I knew at the time...
But I did go through the older shots and felt a bit better.

Years ago I had signed up for a night photo course at the local school after they assured me that their enlarger would do large format.
But it didn't...
So that was a waste of time, as all I could do was contact prints.

So I told the wife I was thinking about buying another camera...
She said what about that "point-n-shoot 35mm", which I said, "I hadn't seen it in years".
About an hour later she found it!
So I'll use that for a while with Velvia.
For now.

 

[GeneW]

If I were starting from scratch I'd go strictly digital, with something like a Nikon D3. But I grew up using film cameras and still love them, so I'm willing to use them. I also like film better for B&W.

Gene