Camera prices- new low!

My apologies, the above post was intended for the "What do you shoot" thread.

I must be an odd ball here for the fact I prefer film over digital. I do own a canon rebel xt, in film I have a Pentax K1000 with the 50 f2.0 and 28 f2.8, canon Elan II with a sigma 70-300 and 50 1.4 "fantastic lens and worth every cent at $400.00", and to wrap things up my Yashica Electro 35G.  Film wise I shoot Ilford HP5 Plus traditional black and white, Fuji Superia 400 xtra and Velvia 100F "slide film" and Kodak Extar 100 "color print film thats saturated like slide". If you cant tell, photography is anoter hobby of mine. Oh, for black and white, I print and develop my own film and prints. I get the same joy from the smells of this hobby as I do in the darkroom with hints of sulphur and vinigar.

waikong

 To be perfectly safe, you back that up onto DVD or another hard drive somewhere else. 

When I worked IT......I couldn't believe that companies didn't do a better job of backing up data.

OTOH...............their errors did provide me with plastic model kit money.........

If you guys have lots of photos you can't afford to lose, please setup your computer with a 2nd hard drive that is mirrored, or in RAID 1.  This way when (its not if, its when) one of drive fails, you have a backup. To be perfectly safe, you back that up onto DVD or another hard drive somewhere else. If you really, really don't want to take any chances, make sure the backup is offsite.  I have everything backed up onto a 2nd drive on my computer, and then copied into a Network Attached Storage device that is mirrored. Yeah, takes some effort to do, but better safe than sorry

We have two Rebels available, an older XT and a T3i. Both take fantastic photographs. I do miss my old Minolta 35mm, but not the hassle of getting film developed. I did my own black and white but color or slides had to go to the lab.

Yep, that stuff had ridiculous sharpness and color.    

Dre

Pretty much the only thing I miss from the film days is 35mm Ektar 25, a sadly short-lived emulsion.

While we might lose entire files due to an equipment malfunction, at least digitally stored files don't get scratched or smudged by dropping them on a darkroom floor.... or a film lab running your 4x5 color negs through the B/W line (yes, that actually happened to me and the lab blamed me for "ruining their lines").

Pretty much the only thing I miss from the film days is 35mm Ektar 25, a sadly short-lived emulsion.

Don Stauffer

................ archivally treated monochrome negatives seem to last a long, long time (color not so good).  The digital storage problem is real.  Someone needs to continue to develop better long term storage- I understand even CDs and DVDs advertised as archival are not really that great.  My wife recently lost a lot of her photographs when she lost a hard drive and hadn't been diligent about backing them up to DVDs.  She recovered some from a photo hosting site, but still lost a bunch.

As I understand it, that process can create an archival image though I cannot recall the name of the process at this time,.

Indeed, all you need to see what is on a film negative is a good magnifier or microscope.  Those things are unlikely to go out of fashion!  And archivally treated monochrome negatives seem to last a long, long time (color not so good).  The digital storage problem is real.  Someone needs to continue to develop better long term storage- I understand even CDs and DVDs advertised as archival are not really that great.  My wife recently lost a lot of her photographs when she lost a hard drive and hadn't been diligent about backing them up to DVDs.  She recovered some from a photo hosting site, but still lost a bunch.

Don Stauffer

Just remember that so-called digital cameras have an analog front end, and that is where the art is.  The processing starts with analog readout and amplification and then is converted from analog to digital for storage.

Of course, there are those who say that since photons are quantized, all photography including film is digital :-)

Storage and data retrieval is now constantly changing depending on software and hardware improvements which means data stored today may not be accessible in twenty years, much less one hundred years.

Images can be viewed immediately ( no more Polaroid proofs !  ) and the days of wasted space are over as bad photos can be deleted rather than stored with good images.

Images can also be shared with far more people than before..................no slide projector needed.

Speaking as someone who has maintained computer systems since DOS ruled ( no main frames, though  ) , staying on the "cutting edge " of digital imaging is going to be just as expensive in the long run as with computers.

.

Just remember that so-called digital cameras have an analog front end, and that is where the art is.  The processing starts with analog readout and amplification and then is converted from analog to digital for storage.

Of course, there are those who say that since photons are quantized, all photography including film is digital :-)

jeffpez

I'm old enough to actually rememeber using film. I have an extensive collection of Canon lenses to go with one of their SLR cameras (A-1) and can't bring myself to start over no matter what the cost.

I really miss medium format

The Nikon EM was my second camera and now I shoot with a Nikon D300.

If you're going to pull the trigger maybe you should wait for the post Christmas sales.

I see ads now for Nikon 3100 matching that Canon price!

Nikon is good for backwards compatibility regarding old lenses on new bodies.   But...  not all Nikon digital bodies will work with the old manual focus lens.   One reason I never switched to Canon when they had the edge in low-light sensitivity.

I have a NIkon EM (remember those?) and Nikon N75 - both good film cameras. The lenses fit and can be used on my Nikon D5000 - just won't have the autofocus feature. Don't know about the Canon's though.

I'm old enough to actually rememeber using film. I have an extensive collection of Canon lenses to go with one of their SLR cameras (A-1) and can't bring myself to start over no matter what the cost.