35mm, Digital or Phone?

[hobbit.]

whilst rummaging in my loft / attic today i found my old 35mm camera, its nor seen the light of day for over 20 years.

I got it down with the associated kit - flash, lenses, filters etc. i only needed to replace the internal battery for its light meter, and its good to go!!

bought some film - admittedly got my arse spanked on price, but its a test run, see if the camera body leaks light, lenses work etc. taking it out tomorrow.

i then got to thinking, having had a Sony digital thing which 'recorded' onto floppy discs, and various digital things as an early digital camera.

Then going through numerous phones, nokia, Samsung etc and having stuff on various sizes of SD card etc.

why did decent camera photography fall out of use? (cost and weight of equip aside)

theres something about adjusting ASA/ISO speeds, fiddling with focus, F stops etc and then the click of the shutter.

anyone support digital over film?

 

[jomar]

To paraphrase Annie Leibovitz, “why would I need anything other than an iPhone?”

 

[hobbit.]

To paraphrase Annie Leibovitz, “why would I need anything other than an iPhone?”

see thats the thing, apple market their stuff as for the creatives, yet its all digital....

 

[anopheles_leet]

Honestly, I think there's been a clear divide between "enthusiast" photography (i.e. something like an SLR) and "point and shoot" photography basically since the box brownie. Since the invention of electronic metering and autofocus, when a decent point-and-shoot could set the exposure for the camera without the user having to fiddle with any settings, anyone who just wanted holiday snaps for the family album stopped messing around.

There's always been a hobbyist scene for people who liked that kind of thing, though. There's a huge market for consumer-grade digital SLRs, and it's basically a requirement if you want to try taking creative pictures rather than just snaps. Again, this isn't really about digital vs film, it's about automating the process so that the camera makes the decisions for you; you can still manually fiddle with the ISO, shutter, aperture and focus if you want to.

The point-and-shoot market has gone through bigger changes, as it's now standard for excellent quality digital cameras to come as standard in even reasonably priced smartphones.

I love film photography, and used to do the darkroom side too, but it's a hell of an expensive hobby so I hadn't touched it for over a decade. I inherited a used DSLR earlier this year and it's really rekindled my love of actually taking pictures, in a way that having a 4MP smartphone in my pocket never managed to.

 

[oggbashan]

My film cameras - yes I have several - take a maximum of 36 pictures which I then have to wait to be processed (and pay the earth for that).

My digital cameras take pictures at a similar resolution and cost me nothing except the batteries.

But my larger format cameras take finer detail even than my digital camera. A 35 mm negative can be blown up to about A4. My digital ones, about the same. My large format cameras? A1 or AO without blurring. But they are a real pain to use.

My uncle, for all his life, used a full plate camera which usually took glass plates but he could use cut sheets as well. With its wooden tripod, it weighed bout 60 lbs. He would only take one or two photos an hour. But the quality was amazing.

When he died, his widow sold it. It paid for two return flights to Australia to see her grandchildren.

 

[hobbit.]

on grounds of cost, possibly, 'rent a samsung s25 ultra, lose count of how many pixels its got, how many 'modes' it has etc etc... forget to put it in aeroplane mode and fuck up a shot...

buy a zenit 35mm, load it with film, knock a few nails in with it if you lose your hammer...

the digital stuff is fine, but soulless.

 

[hobbit.]

My film cameras - yes I have several - take a maximum of 36 pictures which I then have to wait to be processed (and pay the earth for that).

My digital cameras take pictures at a similar resolution and cost me nothing except the batteries.

But my larger format cameras take finer detail even than my digital camera. A 35 mm negative can be blown up to about A4. My digital ones, about the same. My large format cameras? A1 or AO without blurring. But they are a real pain to use.

My uncle, for all his life, used a full plate camera which usually took glass plates but he could use cut sheets as well. With its wooden tripod, it weighed bout 60 lbs. He would only take one or two photos an hour. But the quality was amazing.

When he died, his widow sold it. It paid for two return flights to Australia to see her grandchildren.

clearly some people still use gun powder as flash.....

 

[Unattached77]

To paraphrase Annie Leibovitz, “why would I need anything other than an iPhone?”

The reason real photo equipment is needed is because phones suck if you actually wish to print the images. Case in point, print something 20x30 from a phone, then the same image taken on say, a Nikon D850 at 46mp. Which is going to look sharper, with more detail? The Nikon every single time. Phone cameras are toys.

 

[jomar]

see thats the thing, apple market their stuff as for the creatives, yet its all digital....

True. And more than a few movies have been filmed with an iPhone. They have evolved to far more than just point and shoot/snapshot devices.

 

[anopheles_leet]

on grounds of cost, possibly, 'rent a samsung s25 ultra, lose count of how many pixels its got, how many 'modes' it has etc etc... forget to put it in aeroplane mode and fuck up a shot...

buy a zenit 35mm, load it with film, knock a few nails in with it if you lose your hammer...

the digital stuff is fine, but soulless.

Like I said, this is not a digital/film divide. This is a point-and-shoot/enthusiast kit divide - or if you prefer, an automatic/manual divide. You can absolutely take manual control with a good digital camera, and there were many, many automatic 35mm cameras. And trust me, people absolutely can take banal, soulless pictures on 35mm film, just as people can take transcendent masterpieces in digital.

 

[jomar]

The reason real photo equipment is needed is because phones suck if you actually wish to print the images. Case in point, print something 20x30 from a phone, then the same image taken on say, a Nikon D850 at 46mp. Which is going to look sharper, with more detail? The Nikon every single time. Phone cameras are toys.

Maybe for now.

But sure, you’re a super enthusiast or professional if you’re printing such large format pics.

ETA: was curious so did a quick search. Maybe not so big a different after all

https://petapixel.com/2020/04/22/i-tried-printing-iphone-photos-really-big/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Td5CbcBRw

 

[FGB]

Depends on the use as you basically stated...

Digital pictures are cheap. I have taken probably 20,000 of them at work If I can get one out of ten or twenty for the "Money Shot" in taking pictures for difficult part identification...cool!

Where as film would be very expensive and slow indeed.

You are right about the super fine detail when blowing up pictures.

 

[oggbashan]

..

buy a zenit 35mm, load it with film, knock a few nails in with it if you lose your hammer...

the digital stuff is fine, but soulless.

About 15 years ago, my youngest daughter went on a safari tour in Africa. I lent her a Zenith with a long telephoto lens. After ten days, all the others couldn't take photos because they were in the wilds of a National Park and there was nowhere to buy batteries.

But her Zenith still worked perfectly.

They were introduced to a lion cub. The lion cub started objecting to being handled and tried to scratch my daughter. She hit it on the head with the telephoto lens. No damage to the lens or camera, but the lion cub tottered off groggily, shaking its head...

 

[Champakian]

I had a Mavica with the floppy disks.

It might still be around here somewhere.

I also have a nice digital camera, but the phone is just as good now.

 

[islandman]

I love my DSLR to death and was recently saddened to read that Nikon is slated to end manufacture of DSLR lenses this year in its remaining factory in Japan that represented ~60% of production. Nikkor has almost-always been on backorder for several years now; I suppose eBay will be the place to turn to now.

Perhaps it's time to go mirrorless and figure out the 'new'.

 

[islandman]

About 15 years ago, my youngest daughter went on a safari tour in Africa. I lent her a Zenith with a long telephoto lens. After ten days, all the others couldn't take photos because they were in the wilds of a National Park and there was nowhere to buy batteries.

But her Zenith still worked perfectly.

They were introduced to a lion cub. The lion cub started objecting to being handled and tried to scratch my daughter. She hit it on the head with the telephoto lens. No damage to the lens or camera, but the lion cub tottered off groggily, shaking its head...

Shitty thing to do to the lion cub.

 

[Champakian]

Life is pretty shitty for lions.

Have you not seen what they do to each other?

 

[RoperTrace]

. .

 

[oggbashan]

Shitty thing to do to the lion cub.

It was the park ranger's fault. The lion cub was really too old and too large to meet tourists. After its encounter with a Zenith camera and lens it was retired from public interaction. Had my daughter not hit it, she could have been seriously hurt.

 

[RoperTrace]

. .

 

[oggbashan]

My main 35mm camera is a Zenith Photosniper:

https://assets.community.lomography.com/70/c4c85ee60686f168868a3472a462eda807a648/1200x800x2.jpg?auth=f7ffa81691c66d95d487f6b7b293760417bf1e50

When I took it, slung on my shoulder into Portsmouth Dockyard it caused consternation with the gatekeepers.

I had two. I gave one to a nephew who was a planning enforcement officer for his local council. He could take pictures of illegal developments without getting too close and risking assault.

 

[ag2507]

An interesting debate

I struggle to use a cell phone as a camera, it is awkward to use, difficult to compose a picture, and if you want to take a lot of pictures soon fills up the memory. You can usually spot a cell image from 1000 paces, as most use the short focus lens, so distortion of nearby objects: excellent for taking boob or dick pics as the distortion enhances the size of the objects in question. The biggest issue is the the tiny lenses only let in a limited amount of light.
I was late to the DSLR scene as I had more than adequate Olympus SLR film kit and and a huge investment in lenses. Mind you my first SLR was a Zeiss Contaflex: a stunning camera.
I eschewed early digital kit as the images were shit but succumbed to a Sony Bridge F707 as it had a Zeiss lens and I could take shots at 1 cm from the object (a professional requirement). After Sony fucked up the 7x7 series I then began coveting an Olympus DSLR but that series want AWOL so I looked at Canon/Nikon, chose Cannon but ended up with a Nikon as my son had one. (sharing lenses was attractive).
Had Sony been further ahead with it's Alpha I would have have stuck with Sony and the Zeiss glass.
It is worth remembering that in photography, there are two players, the photog and the glass: the lump of plastic/metal in between is, while not irrelevant, certainly less important.
Today I run two Nikon Cameras, have a suite of compatible glass, tend to run with an 18-300 and 18-400 lens, (as these are mounted on 4/3 bodies I effectively get 600 and 800 mm telephoto) and both have large objective lenses so lots of lovely light. I can take good pictures in 1/8th of the time it takes to deploy and compose a cell phone; and it's a darn sight easier to get at the pictures later.
In a nutshell, cell phones don't have the glass, have to be deployed at arm's length, extremely annoying in a confined space, and composition is difficult compared with holding a camera with a viewfinder giving the eye a 100% view of the image.
Apropos cost, 10 years ago I did a study on the per image cost of managing digital images. It came conservatively to about £28 (about $35-40)per image. It will be higher now.
Oh yes, and a good DSLR is a darn sight cheaper than an iPhone.

 

[hobbit.]

About 15 years ago, my youngest daughter went on a safari tour in Africa. I lent her a Zenith with a long telephoto lens. After ten days, all the others couldn't take photos because they were in the wilds of a National Park and there was nowhere to buy batteries.

But her Zenith still worked perfectly.

They were introduced to a lion cub. The lion cub started objecting to being handled and tried to scratch my daughter. She hit it on the head with the telephoto lens. No damage to the lens or camera, but the lion cub tottered off groggily, shaking its head...

On digging further into the camera bag today i found my light meter, bellows adaptor for macro work and a two times converter - all of Russian manufacture - all of which, particularly the light meter, still work.

I had an Ohnar slide duplicator attachment but a 'friend' borrowed that years ago - then lost it.

never really thought of using a long lens as a assault weapon though

 

[Plain_Vanilla]

Digital and celluloid

Regarding digital cameras -- amateurs are mesmerized by high pixel counts, and advertising copywriters are happy to accommodate. Professionals focus (pun intended) on sensor size. Many pixels and a small sensor generate visible noise under lower light conditions, obscuring the advantage that a high pixel count might offer.

There's a reason why some well regarded film directors, producers and cinematographers pay Eastman Kodak to continue the manufacture of cinema film stock to ensure its ongoing availability. The look of 35 mm film is the benchmark that digital cinema camera manufacturers (Arriflex, Panavision, Sony, Red and others) strive to equal and surpass.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmmm...

Just thinking here, I have used all three in my life. From my Cannon A1, to my Sony 35mm digital camera, to a phone or tablet.

Film has always given a sharper image until the digital cameras, phone included, go up into the 15 mega pixel range. Post shooting manipulation of the image on 35mm film is done via the developing process and is... tedious.

Digital images have always been easier to manipulate post image capture. With new software always being developed to do more and more manipulation.

I did enjoy my 35mm film camera(s) very much, yet the digital ones are much faster and easier to use, even in a phone or tablet. Plus developing film is a messy process. I can also see the digital image immediately right there on the camera or digital device. I can decide to keep it or get rid of it.

Nowadays, digital is probably the way to go with the market of software available to you to make the image look the way you wanted it too.