Is film dead ????

There was an idea kicking round at the turn of this century :), that an American company was trying to develop a digital “cartridge” incorporating sensor, memory and batteries, which would fit inside the back of any 35mm slr by taking up the space usually occupied by the film cassette and the spool of exposed film.

This would have converted the 35mm slr to a digital camera at a stroke.

Interesting idea which was touted round between 1997 (ish) and 2000, but never appeared because, i believe, of ongoing technical difficulties and the falling price of digital cameras making it progressively unfeasable to produce at an affordable price.

As you can now get an eos 400 body for £375, i dont think we will ever see such a device come to market.

😮 Blimey chaps,i thought i would have been hung up by my wotsits saying the “F” word !!! It’s good to know i’m not the only one who loves the old way.Digital is wonderful,easy and of course a lot cheaper once the initial outlay is done and dusted…..buuuut i still enjoy the old clunk of my Nikons plus the feeling i am still having to work at the photo’s i am taking.Thanks for the advice on film supply,long may it live on.I do now have my films transfered on to disc when i get them developed at my local freindly printers so i still have the joy of sharing pictures on the net but it just takes a little longer…….but they are worth it ! My F3 was a camera i always hankered for from my early days of Zenith EM’s through to Pentax ME Supers,i now have that and absolutly love it,i use it more than the FM2 which i bought brand new,but they are robust old things and i have no worries of using them in rough situations and in all weathers.I also love the look on some people faces when you load the film up,it must be alien to a lot of photographers nowadays 😀

Phixer .thats where I purchased my Mamiya kit…Ffordes of Beauly, very good advice to be had from them .

I occasionally use a pre-WW1 Kodak.
Wonder how many digital cameras will still be usable when they are over 90?

This was one reason I got the Nikon FM2n. The only non-mechanical thing on it is the light meter and you can always get a hand held meter if that fails.

Coincidently I had lunch yesterday with an old pal who has spent a lifetime in photography and now lectures at uni on such matters. We both love using digitals for the convenience, but we were both already fairly computer savvy and had all the appropriate gear needed to handle digi-pics. He has a poster that the uni did when he presented a paper on photography as art, it is about 5ftx3ft and the fine detail is incredible. It was shot with his EOS1n RS (which I have since bought off him) on 35mm slide. To achieve that quality in digi you would need 30 grands worth of Hasselblad and something like a ‘Leaf Aptus’ back with 126meg per file 😮 .

BUT- give it a couple more years and who knows?

I occasionally use a pre-WW1 Kodak.

Wonder how many digital cameras will still be usable when they are over 90?

Adrian
(reactionary old fart)

Put one of these little beauties in your hand sans lens and compare it with say a Sony Alpha body then you, like me will not be sanguine about the similar longevity of that latter, especially under similar conditions of use. I suspect that most SLRs of recent years (excepting the like of the Dynax 9) will be similarly challenged.

I know where you are coming from but weight does not equate to “longevity”!
The Dynax 9 in my experience was an expensive piece of rubbish. My cameras take a lot of bashing about during my travels and my Sony Alpha has already out lived the Dynax 9 which has a very flimsy mirror box.

I think digital is a great replacement for slides but I still prefer wet film for prints.

I some how think that film will be with us longer than Jessops.:diablo:

Hasn’t it just.
As I can’t afford a decent DSLR at the moment, at least I could replace my knackered SRT101 with a newish bit of kit c/w lenses, for 8% of it’s original purchase price (I found the receipt in one of the boxes)

I still have a pair of SRT101s which work, including light meters (accurate too as tested against a Weston Master V and Gossen Sixtomat flash).

One has a problem with a rising wind-on lever but still functions. Considering their history surviving heavy weather and tropical conditions whilst on aircraft carriers and use on smaller vessels such as yachts and dinghies and sea shots of the kids playing on foam boards in south of France surf they have lasted well. But then the first cost me the best part of £200 in 1968 (which equates to around 3 grand these days) but the quality spoke for itself, and still does. Put one of these little beauties in your hand sans lens and compare it with say a Sony Alpha body then you, like me will not be sanguine about the similar longevity of that latter, especially under similar conditions of use. I suspect that most SLRs of recent years (excepting the like of the Dynax 9) will be similarly challenged.

So good were those SRTs that about ten years ago I decided to improve my prospects by investing in selected new and secondhand lenses of the MD fit which proved useful when I purchased a couple of second hand X700s. These are Minolta cameras (which in the early 1980s I drooled over the brochures for) which can still be found and which will still accommodate any MC fit lenses you have. Ivor Matanle wrote an article on the Minolta SR series about 5 years ago in AP, which was of some value. On his advice I bought a second hand 45mm MD Rokkor lens which he had described as being one of their best. Sure enough it was. I passed one of the X700s on to my son when his Olympus APS effort failed (no he didn’t ask my advice before he bought it) and he was astonished at the sheer quality of the pic’s he obtained with the X700 and 45mm Rokkor.

I can recommend ffordes of Inverness-shire (from whom I got one X700 and the 45mm Rokkor) and Mifsud of Brixham, but it is always good to have a look at local shop’s second hand stock although many now don’t appear to display anything not AF.

I concur with your reservations about the viability of many digital images for long term use. This is where things start to become expensive in the form of continuation of transferring stored images from one media device to another as standards move on because of technology and OS changes with backward compatibility not being assured. For example, with my investment in printers, scanners and image processing software then a change to Vista would not be welcome any time soon, unless I can be assured of continued driver support.

I was able to buy 15 months ago a Mamiya 645 medium format set of kit for £1500. It was only about 8 years old and cost around £9000 new.

A couple of years ago I was on the cusp of buying a secondhand Mamiya RB67 kit, the only drawback with it was that it had a motor drive unit rather than a potentially more useful to me larger capacity film back.

Whilst I was considering the fuller costs implications of the format change (replacing filmscanner and purchasing more glass for the camera) my dilemma was solved. Some ******** nicked it. Shame on them.

Head Zup is right, Fuji are continuing to make 35mm film, so I guess either your Jessops just happened to be out of stock or perhaps they just don’t have the demand for it in your area and have not reordered. There have been rumours that Kodak will stop producing 35mm slide film in the next two-three years, but these rumours have been going to the last few years and it’s still available. Now you have to ask yourself, what are the advantages and disadvantages of still using ‘wet’ film’? As a dyed-in-the-wool Kodachrome slide shooter for 40 years, I was reluctant to give up a ‘tried-and-tested’ format that has withstood the test of time, but in the end I had to admit there are far more advantages to digital than sticking my head in the sand and continuing with slide film. The first two words that leap out at you are ‘cost’ (none apart from outlay) and quality (far superior to other formats) and that’s only the start! My only concern is the longevity of digital images without degredation of the image over time. Something no one has tested yet!

This is one advantage of the digital revolution, it has forced these top quality cameras onto the s/h market at give away prices.

Hasn’t it just.
As I can’t afford a decent DSLR at the moment, at least I could replace my knackered SRT101 with a newish bit of kit c/w lenses, for 8% of it’s original purchase price (I found the receipt in one of the boxes)
As I have negatives 100+ yrs old, I wonder what the storage situation will be like another 50-100 yrs down the track – at least with a negative you can tell what it is and whats on it just by looking at it – hard to do with an electronic construct….

Film has its place even now

I love my Canon 400D and have not used my 35mm film camera since I got the digital…however due to the amount of gear being traded in I was able to buy 15 months ago a Mamiya 645 medium format set of kit for £1500. It was only about 8 years old and cost around £9000 new.

Sometimes I need to produce big enlargements for display use and 35mm does not enlarge that big.

Calumet also have a store in Manchester that keeps film.

See

http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/ctl?ac.ui.pn=compinfo.CompStoreLoc

curlyboy

Film Lives

Don’t worry Scudupnorth! Fuji are still supporters of film and are even reintroducing some of the popular types. Film is nothing like as dead as some would have you believe. Have a look at choose-film.com which is dedicated just to film use. Calumet have a good UK online shop which stocks a variety of film types and makes.

I’m not a luddite or an ‘arty’ – I like both formats, I have the EOS 20D and 30D (and an IXUS 850is which is a little belter) but I love working with my FM2n and have just bought a s/h EOS1n RS which is probably the peak of 35mm SLR development and a camera that I could never have justified at the original cost.

This is one advantage of the digital revolution, it has forced these top quality cameras onto the s/h market at give away prices.

Good hunting

Brian

😡 😡 No worries on nice arty pics….got to Waddington this morniing only to be told by the Police that the show was cancelled….they had only been told an hour earlier so they had a grim task on their hands turning everyone away ! Tried to go the Newark just to try and get some aviation love but gave up on that becasue the place was full of people doing the same !
Day ended at Manchester aviation park in the showers with a very pi$$ed off family !

Lets hope i make good use of what i have left at Waddington tomorrow ! Then it’s see if Santa can help out with a Nikon related DSLR in December along with a new mountain bike 😀

Forget about the mountain bike. Ask for some good lenses.

Lets hope i make good use of what i have left at Waddington tomorrow ! Then it’s see if Santa can help out with a Nikon related DSLR in December along with a new mountain bike 😀

To all practical purposes film is dead.

It will live on as an ‘art’ medium only.

Moggy