Anyone here still using 35mm film?

[Andy McK]

It's going to take me so long to get me a DSLR, but I still have a brace of 35mm film camera's

I have a Minolta 7000 and Practika BC1.

Moreover, my Tal 2 has a M42 mm thread on the focuser at the focal plane, so I'm going to have a crack

I've ordered an adaptor for the Minolta.

Also, I've been looking at the Fleabay prices of 500mm f8 mirror lenses, might try just bolting the camera to my 2M mount

So, anyone here still bother or has everyone gone to DSLR

Andy

[The Sailor]

I still have a number of film cameras, some casette and some 35mm, have toyed with the idea myself but would have to setup a darkroom and get the film at a low price. Went into digital in '97 with the Casio QV-10 and then onto the Kodak DC260, still have both but rearly use them

Jim

[alan potts]

I still shoot the odd roll, I have a couple of OM 2n's and a couple of lenses, it's real photography. Most can get Pro results by shoot 500 photos and showing one from a digital, in my view a lot of the skill has gone out of photography.

Alan.

[Phil Fargaze]

I used my Pentax ME last year on holiday. I havn`t got a digital SLR so it felt good to get back to having control of the aperture and exposure. I had the images put onto CD, but wasnt too over pleased with the quality, maybe prints would have looked better. I did a few night shots which were a bit grainy, so I might have been better off with ISO 200.

In fact, while I think of it, I might give it another go at the Kelling star camp in a couple of weeks.

[Davey-T]

Got my old Spotmatic out last "summer" full of enthusiasm to give it a try, enthusiasm is wearing thin now by the time I get the weather to use it the film will have gone off Dave

[EBXL5]

Showed the image that I use as my user ID on here to loads of folks, hardly anyone can remember what they are! To think they used to be such an everyday item.

[alan potts]

I have only just over 18 months back got rid of my Mamiya 6X7 RZ lenses and body, I priced it up on UK prices and put it on the market here, wrong, I could have sold it 10 times. How ,why, I just don't know, I couldn't even find a place to develope the E6 process here. Something makes me think they know something I don't .

Fabulous quality when using Velvia.

Alan

[scarp15]

Yes, whilst I mainly use my Panasonic Lumix, I still occasionally use a Nikon F75 SLR film camera.

I enjoy taking transparencies and own a wonderful 1970's Leitz Pradovit slide projector. I enjoy a traditional slide shows, which becomes an event and is quite cinematic. 35mm slides have a great sense of depth and luminosity.

Unfortunately a local camera shop, that supplied second hand 35mm SLR's and was possible to get slides processed at reasonable cost went bust recently.

[Phil Fargaze]

A slide show! That takes me back a few years. My dad had loads of his photos on slides. It was always a special time when the projector and screen came out.

[Andy McK]

I honestly think a lot of the "majesty" has gone from photography, QI fact, since Mr FoxTalbot invented photography, all the photographs that have been taken over the years, 60% of them were taken in the last 10 years

In the Steelworks camera club (access to lab kit) My mentor, "Windy" (dont ask) said "out of a roll of 36, I'll get 38 good 'un's"

I had a slightly different style, out of 36, I hope to get 3-5 good un's. I used to say, at the meet's "well I'm a perfectionist" but the truth was, either the shutter was a stop or two out, or the focus.

but when I did get a good one, a kind of "ping-shudder-thump-fizz" would go the my body, I just "felt" it was a good shot.

I moved onto Medium format (15 on) with my Mamya 645. The contact sheets alone were a joy to behold (and pass around as snaps). The beauty I found was, medium format just slowed everything down

and because you only had 15 on a roll, you measured twice, cut once.

Was going to take it up at, college etc. but I decided to go with IT in the end.

Anyhoo,

Reason I asked, I'm going to have a bash at astrophotography with my minolta, there is still a suitable type of film available from 7day shop (£13 a roll)

I just wondered is there anyone still using film for the heavens or has it been given up as a bad idea ..

Andy

[earth titan]

A slide show! That takes me back a few years. My dad had loads of his photos on slides. It was always a special time when the projector and screen came out.

I remember slide shows... My dad used to make a night of it - much as we used to pull his leg about it!

Typed by me on my fone, using fumms... Excuse eny speling errurs.

[TonyD]

I have one of these and these knocking around in my office downstairs. Picked them up on the Bay of Fleas for a few hundred sovs about seven years ago but never managed to get the time to get it going.

Will I ever get it going, or should I sell it on?

[DaveS]

If it's contact prints you want try 10x8. That really slows you down and makes you think, even shooting B&W, 'cos you know that after making the exposure you've got to develop the stuff, shuffling wet, slippery negs in trays in pitch darkness. so you think, "Is this shot really worth it?"

Mind you, the tonality in a contact print off a pyro-developed sheet of 10x8 FP4+ on Selenium-tones Oriental Seagull has to be seen to be believed.

[DaveS]

TBH and coming back OT it was using a DSLR that got me back into astro again, comparing what my 5D could do at iso 1600 with what I used to be able to get with Ektachrome 400 pushed to EI 800.

I think, that while 35mm film is still very viable for "normal" photography, for astro, even for very basic camera+lens+tripod digital wins. And I say this as someone who was totally anti-digital for years.

[billhinge]

I've still got a couple of old Nikon & Leica 35mm cameras, I've nostalgically thought about film once in a while but it sounds too frustrating for me, I don't think I would have the patience and could be expensive in developing as I don't do my own processing

But I wish you well and would love to see some 35mm film pics

[kev]

Ive got an ME-Super... stil got two rolls of XP1 somewhere!

[Gina]

I used to do all my own developing and printing including colour but 4 hours in a hot stuffy darkroom to produce a handful of decent prints I found rather irksome later on. Digital is so much easier, quicker and cheaper And you could never do what PhotoShop can do with chemicals.

[TonyD]

And you could never do what PhotoShop can do with chemicals.

I was always very wary about using the chemicals, too. I did Chemistry A level and I hated the practical - especially when the teacher said "don't get that on your skin, it's carcinogenic!" Oh the halcyon days (daze?) of the 80s.

[NGC 1502]

I still love my old Pentax SL (it's a Spotmatic without a built in meter) and I have a collection of Weston Master exposure meters for nostalgia. But sadly I haven't put a roll of film through it for about 5 years, digital is just too convenient. Often I just want a couple of pics, with film I'd need to shoot a whole roll (or waste most of it).

When I bought my first camera in 1973, a Praktica Nova 1, I can remember the hot debate in Amateur Photographer as to the merits or otherwise of having a built in meter or a separate one.

Future hot debates : - zoom or prime lenses, motor drive or not, autoexposure or manual, autofocus or manual, etc, and of course the BIG ONE, film or digital.

On Cloudy Nights forum, there is a section on film astrophotgraphy.

Regards, Ed.

[DaveS]

I was always very wary about using the chemicals, too. I did Chemistry A level and I hated the practical - especially when the teacher said "don't get that on your skin, it's carcinogenic!" Oh the halcyon days (daze?) of the 80s.

He he, I was never happier than at the bench (Using the term loosely) carrying out a complex organic synthesis. My first real job was in an industrial lab making flavour / fragrance chemicals. I regularly carried out azeotropic esterifications in refluxing benzene .

In my darkroom I developed film in home-brew PMK, the most significant component of which is Pyrogallol, which has significant toxicity, but gives negs with beautiful tonality.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I still have a pair of Contax cameras and Zeiss lenses. Hard to beat except in low light, where CMOS and CCD sensors just shine compared to film. I once worked out that my 1.4/85mm at F/5.6 combined with Kodak Technical Pan film work out to 150 Mpixel. Now that's high resolution

[TonyD]

I once worked out that my 1.4/85mm at F/5.6 combined with Kodak Technical Pan film work out to 150 Mpixel. Now that's high resolution

Intriguing - how did you work that out Michael?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Intriguing - how did you work that out Michael?

I just did the math again and it works out 118 Mpixel. The combination could resolve 185 line pairs/mm, which equates to 370 pixels per mm (you need at least that to resolve that spatial frequency (Nyquist sampling theorem)). A 24x36mm surface then has

24x36x 370² = 118,281,600 pixels

[E621Keith]

Are we talking about film photography in general, or using film for AP?

I still shoot film occasionally for general photography, but it has been at least 6 years since I last use film for AP. Nowadays, It's strange I need to explain to people why they can't see the image in the back right now and how I need to take the film to a photo lab for development before they can see it. It's even stranger when many of those people are older than me. I thought surely they would remember films, digital only displaced film 10 years ago.

Mention of Kodak Tech Pan brings back memory. When I started this hobby, I used to dream about owning a Hypertisation kit somedays. Nowadays, those kit are useless collector items.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I only used Technical Pan film for landscape. By developing it in Technicolor LC you got a very fine result, with Ansel Adams-like resolution and subtlety in grey tones. People often asked if I used medium format or 4x5" cameras. Even blown up to 50x70 cm you could not really find any grain.