Which Camera do You Use?

[Bealman]

Not at all. I love the philosophy!   

[MalcolmInN]

I dont think anyone would want to "return" to them days, no, but I can see that it would sit alongside our modern hobbies for various reasons.
Also for those who have not done it it would be something new, interesting, to learn/play with ?
Film was only expensive if you shot off dozens to get one good one ! Only the news hounds did that. Processing was only expensive if you got someone else to do it for you. My Grandad was doing his own about 1900 +/-, Dad was doing his own colour '30s, so was I 50s till not long ago, and daughter similar including "Photography in the Arts" at Uni !
None of us made a penny at it, all had/have other careers.

[d-a-n]

It's a tradition, digital gives quick results and easy photoshopping etc , but
film can give very high quality if used with skill. Film isn't dearer than digital,
a common misconception. With digital you need a computer, software,
memory cards,batteries, and if you make prints the cost of printer, paper
and ink.

So true.
You can just buy a digital compact or bridge and take some mediocre images but to really compare film to digital, you need to look at a high end enthusiast digital set up. This might be a Canon 7D2 with 17-55 lens and a 70-200 f/4 which would put you at about £2100 with cards and then a further expenditure of £500+ on a computer, £300+ on a decent monitor to edit with and £120 a year for adobe creative cloud editing software (well, you've spent all that cash on the camera, why skimp on what you need to get the very best from your images!) total expenditure is about £3260. After three years, the camera body is worth £400 and the lenses £750 so they've depreciated by around £950. The computer and monitor is now worth around £600 and due for an upgrade because the cloud based editing software has been updated and requires more RAM and processing power. The cloud based edit software was rented. You lost £360 there. So the total cost of three years of high-end enthusaist digital is about £1500. Without printing anything.
My 1970s Canon F-1 set up would cost about £600 as it's collectible and it will hold it's value but you could buy a similar Minolta set up for about £200. Optically, the FD lenses are not far behind the EOS lenses I use for work (I've used them on a 5D3 for comparison.) Last year, I spent £250 on film, developing and printing about 20 rolls of film. Over 3 years, that'd be a total expenditure of £1350. And the camera is still worth £600 so only a real cost of £750.

[d-a-n]

I dont think anyone would want to "return" to them days, no, but I can see that it would sit alongside our modern hobbies for various reasons.
Also for those who have not done it it would be something new, interesting, to learn/play with ?
Film was only expensive if you shot off dozens to get one good one ! Only the news hounds did that. Processing was only expensive if you got someone else to do it for you. My Grandad was doing his own about 1900 +/-, Dad was doing his own colour '30s, so was I 50s till not long ago, and daughter similar including "Photography in the Arts" at Uni !
None of us made a penny at it, all had/have other careers.

The learning curve is a great point, you'll learn so much more about how to get a great photo if you shoot manual digital, think about what you're doing and develop the negatives (or even just inspect them) to see why it did/didn't work. A compact camera on idiot mode will mean you it keeps making the same mistakes for you, even if you shoot off a zillion frames hoping to choose the best one. With film, you draw on your experience to get it right in the first or second try without generating a digital rubbish heap which you need to spend ages trawling through.
In my experience, the 'bad old days of film' were experienced by people who didn't have much success with film.

[MalcolmInN]

PS.
Pinhole cameras can be played with in all sorts of boxes,
a pinhole on a DSLR is tame by comparison.
I once turned my whole house into a pinhole camera (with a ('focal') length of 30ft) and photographed sunspots with it

Try Solargraphs - Sun in a can
if you can do that with a digital you are a better man than I GungaDin Analemmas yes, solargraphs no.

eg. random off the interwebby :
http://www.chrismacan.com/gallery/solargraphy/solargraphy.htm



http://xyzon.nl/solargraphy/



http://originalhamsters.com/photography/pinhole.php

[Agrippa]

Weird.....!  I'm hoping to pinhole in the next few days...

[MalcolmInN]

Weird.....!  I'm hoping to pinhole in the next few days...

excellent,
as long as you dont do an 'Alice' and disappear down it :-)
On a dslr or in a coke-can ?

One thing that has not been mentioned, reciprocity failure, any other amateur astronomers here ?
I wouldnt want to go back to hypering film with hydrogen or nitrogen, nor freezing etc&etc to get long exposures, with all the consequent dificulties of an accurate drive mechanism.
Digital is brill for that, shoot off dozens or hundreds of relative short exposures then stack in software, amazing ! We can now do with our humble little telescopes what Mount Palomar had difficulty with.

By the way folks, I dont think we should get too elitist about all this, if it is a wee camera phone or a refurb plate with ginormous bellows, we all take our pleasures in our own fashion, n'est-ce pas ?

[Mr Sprue]

You know what I was going to give my old EOS 100 away but after seeing those films I'm tempted to buy a film and give it another go!

Just one thing though, do shops still sell 35mm? 

You should! Supermarkets and simple photo places like Max Spielman will sell basic colour print film like Kodak Colourplus and Fujifilm Superia which will be overpriced at £4-5 a roll (superia 200 should be about £2.50 a roll). Jessops and high street independent camera shops may also carry a bit more of a selection and whereas Jessops might be overpriced, the local could be surprisingly reasonable. The big boy places for film like Calumet will price competitively and will be able to get stuff in with 24 hours notice, however, my local Calumet (Manchester) doesn't keep a full stock in. Online, you have Amazon, WEX and 7 day shop and they offer the best value but you may want to shop locally - where are you in the South East?
For both my professional and personal film developing, I use ds colour labs as I know their chemicals are kept fresh, their lab is clean as a whistle and the chap who I always speak with is very knowledgeable http://www.dscolourlabs.co.uk/film_neg_services.cfm - post them your negs and for £7.50, they'll print and scan them to disc and return it to you first class.

Hi d-a-n many thanks for your advise, believe me I am really tempted now to rekindle the old 35mm, I don't know why but there is something unique in viewing photos through a magnifying glass to view the captured scene that almost appears to be in 3D! 

[Webbo]

Methinks I've landed in a nest of film aficionados on a photography forum.

Getting back to photographing model railways and the first post on this thread, it seems to me that all images posted on the NGF are in digital format whether they are taken by digital cameras (the vast majority I expect) or the few that are digital renditions of photographic prints or slides.

Webbo

[Agrippa]

Yep, I'm sure that the vast majority of pix posted on the forum are digital or
non digital images on historic websites converted to digital like pix of
of class xxxx at Clapham Junction in 1956 or whatever, but there are
still a few who like using film for personal use,not necessarily for
railway photography.

[Webbo]

Yep, I'm sure that the vast majority of pix posted on the forum are digital or
non digital images on historic websites converted to digital like pix of
of class xxxx at Clapham Junction in 1956 or whatever, but there are
still a few who like using film for personal use,not necessarily for
railway photography.

That's cool. I've been a film photographer too for many more years than I've been taking digital photos so I do appreciate why film photography continues. And yes, film does provide a somewhat different aspect than digital. One of the most magnificent photographers to me is a guy named Edward Sheriff Curtis who photographed indigenes in North America more than 100 years ago. I wonder though if such photos could be replicated in digital. I suspect the answer is yes, but I'm not certain.

Webbo