Anyone still use them?
I don't take a lot of photos, but I picked this up on ebay tonight -
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321147422776?_trksid=p5197.c0.m619&autorefresh=true
Seems cheap enough for a quality bit of kit.
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How easy is it to get the films developed these days?
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Good luck.
My photography skills are such that using a phone to take 500 and then throwing away 499 rubbish ones is making me look almost adequate.
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Loads of online processors, cheap too.
The trouble i find with digital cameras is I never get round to printing them and end up losing most. Besides, a 35mm film camera makes you look like you know what you're doing, provided you're not with someone who actually does of course.
Last edited by: Robin Regal on Thu 27 Jun 13 at 22:03
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Similar here re printing but occasionally an offer comes through and I select the 100 best prints from my recent stuff and get them printed. Don't think it's more than £6 or £7 at most.
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One of my ongoing projects, my FiL handed me a nice Canon and Zenit SLR cameras - I have a stock of B/W films and I have the start of my old developing kit to process my own negs. Work has stalled the project but I may investigate over the winter again. The Canon lenses work perfectly with my DSLR Canon - In fact I took one of the zoom lenses by accident on my US trip. The photos turned out a lot "softer" than it's modern counterpart manages - far less "digital" in quality - which is a good thing....!
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>> US trip. The photos turned out a lot "softer" than it's modern counterpart manages -
>> far less "digital" in quality - which is a good thing....!
But what do you do with the things? Stuff them in a a drawer in the packet? in an album on the shelf? Do they ever get looked at again? Years later if you do they have faded anyway.
Unless you are good enough to exhibit all you have done is created dead history.
Digital photography is now mostly about the media. it is displayed upon. The ease with which one can share that fabulous shot. Not about the physical media or eve its quality
For example. Hunstanton sunset, shot on Tuesday night with an iPhone, uploaded just now as I write this note.
i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt148/know_wun/IMG_1422_zps89ce26e0.jpg
Photography is now all about that instant universal access. physical film cant cut it in that respect.
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Not used it for ages, but I've an Olympus OM1-N and a shed load of lenses. Incredibly satisfying to use and makes one think far more about the shot than most digital cameras do.
I believe college courses on photography still require the use of film cameras.
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>Not used it for ages, but I've an Olympus OM1-N and a shed load of lenses.
Best all-round 35mm camera ever made.
I p/xed my OM1 for a new OM4ti - it was a mistake.
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>> How easy is it to get the films developed these days?
>>
There's no problem getting film processed. I take mine to Boots, and they're ready in less than a week. Alternatively you can send them away to somewhere like Truprint. tinyurl.com/opejnof
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I've a nice Minolta, c 1970. Fully mechanical, a joy to use, which had been my father's. Takes far better pictures than iPHone/point-and-shoot digital camera.
But
1) Film is expensive
2) It's not instantaneous
3) It's difficult to share the pictures.
4) Who wants a drawer full of pictures when you can lose the whole lot with a click of the mouse...
5) It's a bulky piece of kit.
So where before I'd have taken one carefully composed picture, I take a load of them with a view to choosing the best, never get round to sorting them out, and eventually lose the lot. Fantastic, that's progress that is.
How you can take a decent picture with an appliance held at the end of an arm I don't know. But I guess today's generation will have known nothing else...
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I have several 35mm cameras, but haven't used them in the 10 years since I first bought a digital. I was taught B&W photography, printing and developing as a young teenager by my late and much-loved uncle Eric. He had little money, suffering from asthma since a child and not strong enough to work - until Fisons bought out Intal. In his eulogy, I included.....
"Nowadays, with the development of digital cameras and computer editing, everybody is a photographer – of sorts; but back in the 1950s and 60s, photography was a black art performed by wizards in darkened rooms.Eric’s darkroom was the pokey little kitchen of Holly Cottage.
The first essential for a darkroom is running water, and lots of it – but Holly Cottage didn’t have running water so it had to be drawn from the well in the garden and bought to the ‘studio’ in buckets. Eric would sweep aside the jars and tins and other kitchen stuff from the table and set out the trays used for the different stages of printing; then the cover would go up at the window to keep out any trace of daylight.
Centre-stage was Eric’s home built enlarger. The light box was a war-time rationing dried milk tin which contained the light bulb and a high-quality Wray lens – one of the few things that he’d had to buy. It moved up and down on a wooden stand, about 4 feet tall. To counter-balance the light box, it was attached to a length of cord that passed up and over a Meccano pulley wheel with an old iron attached to the other end of the cord.
With this wonderful contraption, Eric printed family photos, photos of village activities and pictures for exhibitions and competitions with Camera Club; and, I understand that he was pretty successful in those competitions as well. Sadly, as photography moved on through 35mm into the digital age and became easier, Eric seemed to lose a degree of interest – that inventive spirit wasn’t needed any more........"
When I went off to college to study phytopathology, I was allowed the absolute luxury of using the electron-micrography suite to develop and print my photos!
My son completed a degree in fashion photography and is now a freelance cameraman and sound recordist. Whenever he goes on an Arctic assignment, he takes an old NikonFM2 because, he claims, they don't rely on a battery which can be affected by cold temperatures.
Last edited by: Haywain on Fri 28 Jun 13 at 09:36
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The other day at a car boot sale I saw a mint and boxed - looked completely unused - Pentax K1000 for 3 euros. I walked away, having not long ago given 5 euros for a mint Canon AE1P to give my son to replace the one we bought him nearly 30 years ago. But even he has now made the big change.
O tempora! O mores!
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Uncle Eric could have been my late father in law, Harry.
He made all the same equipment, and also a wonderful print dryer/glazer.
He was also a wonderful man. Thanks for reminding me.
8o)
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"Uncle Eric could have been my late father in law, Harry."
Perhaps they both read 'Hobbies Weekly'. I used to see copies lying around when I was a nipper; provided you had a fretsaw and a screwdriver, you could make anything! :-)
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Golly!
Someone else as old as me!
8o)
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I have an Olympus clamshell fixed focus 35 mm with a bolt-on flash gun. I now keep this in my car in case of an accident but I don't have accidents and it hasn't been used for years. It may be a classic and think I will try to flog it on eBay.
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Maybe if it's original XA, which had a proper rangefinder and is a true design classic. Also cost the equivalent in today's money of over £500 in 1980ish. Wanted one; couldn't afford one.
But Olympus later made cheaper lookalikes, including a fixed-focus model that I think they called XA1. Even my easily-impressed teenage self could tell this one was over-mouthed and under-trousered.
Yashica T4, anyone? Now that was a capable little camera.
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Ebay is full of quality SLRs that cost a small fortune before digital, now going for pocket money prices.
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The pro's have gone digital, no more need be said. The only ones who haven't claim its "art"
Edit, if they are shooting in and printing monochrome, it is art.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 28 Jun 13 at 17:39
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>>>Ebay is full of quality SLRs that cost a small fortune before digital, now going for pocket money prices.
Quite true and there are also other cameras such as 35mm rangefinders, certain SLRs and their lenses that still make good money. I've sold quite a few already this year in the course of business.
Find it odd as I'd struggle to be bothered with film these days... even if that perfect digital camera still proves elusive.
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We've got a couple too. I used to use them for work. Got a hell of a lot of tiny, often unidentifiable contacts in colour and monochrome, and a few big prints too.
A good SLR with a good lens can take pictures of almost supernatural clarity and lambency... think early Fritz Lang or any of those great silent-movie era cinematographers... even when it's just a fluke in the hands of a non-photographer without much of a clue... and sometimes a pro snapper for one of the big agencies would run one off a big print or two while shut in his hotel bathroom or whatever dealing with his own day's output. I've got a few like that, on rough-edged big sheets of shiny or matt photo paper just torn off with a grumbling noise by the snapper (they are a very tough, jostling breed but all hacks together innit? A sometimes uncomfortable esprit de corps, occasionally though an earner or lifesaver so to speak...).
One of my oldest friends was a Fleet Street snapper and later famous, and notorious, sixties figure known for his photos among many other achievements. But I can't revitalise the film cameras and get him to help because he doesn't do it any more and has Parkinson's, poor old boy. I've got big prints of his photos of William Burroughs and assorted musicians which I still haven't framed (given framed copies of his iconic Stones photo to one daughter, Louis Armstrong to another and Allen Ginsberg to the third...I paid for those too, at the special rate of course, but the ones I've got are presents).
I have been very fortunate in my life.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 28 Jun 13 at 18:56
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>> Anyone still use them?
>>
>> I don't take a lot of photos, but I picked this up on ebay tonight
>> -
>>
>> www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321147422776?_trksid=p5197.c0.m619&autorefresh=true
>>
>> Seems cheap enough for a quality bit of kit.
>>
LOL I'm not going to be able to retire on the proceeds then if I sell the tatty SF7 I've got in a drawer. ..or the Pentax ME-F or MZ5n for that metter. Bought a nice mint, boxed 1970s era Minolta 35mm rangefinder in a charity shop the other week for 4 quid. Still got a fair bit of 35mm film, mostly B&W, but new batteries for some cameras (like the Minolta) are a problem.
Taught myself B&W, E6 and C41 processing 30 years ago, still got the gear somewhere, and I have a proper 35mm film scanner, so must have a bash sometime.
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Come to think of it, lying around here somewhere is a mint condition 'Honda Accident Assistance Kit' in a rather nice bright red bag. It came with the Prelude and I thought for ages it was a first-aid kit. When I finally got round to looking in it I found a brand new fixed-focus 35mm compact camera with a film in it, a notebook, a pencil and a tape measure! I wonder what would happen if I took a few pix now and got the film processed? It must date from 1998 I guess.
Supermarkets around here still take 35mm for 3-day processing but, being France, the 3-day bit might be a little ambitious - and processing over here always did cost an arm and a leg.
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35mm Film Cameras - No FM2R
