The demise of film cameras - I don't like it

I didn't get the whole story on Nikon getting out
of the film camera business and focussing on digital,
but it's bad news for us film junkies.
Ya, everyone has a multi-thousand dollar digital camera
with thousands of dollars in lenses, a brand new computer,
a photo quality printer, and wants to do their own
"processing". Personally, I don't have the time, equipment
or inclination for digital. I would rather bring my 35mm
photos to a lab for processing.

Just observations from an older "gentleman" who has a lot
of 35mm cameras that work quite well!

Dick R.

Simple answer:

Buy that Leica outfit you always wanted...


Dick R. wrote:
I didn't get the whole story on Nikon getting out
of the film camera business and focussing on digital,
but it's bad news for us film junkies.
Ya, everyone has a multi-thousand dollar digital camera
with thousands of dollars in lenses, a brand new computer,
a photo quality printer, and wants to do their own
"processing". Personally, I don't have the time, equipment
or inclination for digital. I would rather bring my 35mm
photos to a lab for processing.

Just observations from an older "gentleman" who has a lot
of 35mm cameras that work quite well!

Dick R.

It may be the best of both worlds.



One can shoot film and get the images scanned to a CD __ then you may
use your computer as you wish.




Or one can shoot with a digital camera and by-pass the film stage.




....maybe some company in China will begin to market SLRs for film and
then Nikon will have to go figure.

= = =

wrote:
Simple answer:
Buy that Leica outfit you always wanted...

Hey UC,
I notice we both have an interest in photography and wine.
It's too late to turn back now (whoa, that would be a good song),
but I'm totally Canon 35mm, manual focus FD system and not
financially interested in changing to any "newfangled" stuff.

Dick R.

"Dick R." writes:

I didn't get the whole story on Nikon getting out
of the film camera business and focussing on digital,
but it's bad news for us film junkies.
Ya, everyone has a multi-thousand dollar digital camera
with thousands of dollars in lenses, a brand new computer,
a photo quality printer, and wants to do their own
"processing". Personally, I don't have the time, equipment
or inclination for digital. I would rather bring my 35mm
photos to a lab for processing.

Just observations from an older "gentleman" who has a lot
of 35mm cameras that work quite well!

I guess all I can say is "I'm sorry". I'm one of the digital
winners. I've always done my own B&W darkroom work, going back to the
1960s, though I never got very good at color. Digital has my color
work looking *much* better than before (and the B&W not as good given
that my quadtone inkjet printer is down). Printing is *such* an
important part of the overall process of getting good-looking
pictures.

For my level of use, the digital SLR body has saved me considerable
money in lab fees in the time I've had it. The computers are
expensive, but I had them well before I started doing anything with
digital photography.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

Dick R. wrote:
I didn't get the whole story on Nikon getting out
of the film camera business and focussing on digital,
but it's bad news for us film junkies.
Ya, everyone has a multi-thousand dollar digital camera
with thousands of dollars in lenses, a brand new computer,
a photo quality printer, and wants to do their own
"processing". Personally, I don't have the time, equipment
or inclination for digital. I would rather bring my 35mm
photos to a lab for processing.

Just observations from an older "gentleman" who has a lot
of 35mm cameras that work quite well!

Dick R.
Be prepared to see others follow Nikon in dropping their film camera
lines.

The future of photography is digital. This does not mean that you
can't continue to use your film cameras and enjoy them but the
manufacturers in the photographic business are all looking towards
digital.

35mm film cameras are going to have an increasingly hard time of it,
and they are already barely selling now. For those people who shoot
the normal print film you find in most stores, say Kodak Gold 400, they
can get better looking prints using a fairly cheap point and shoot
digital. And they don't need a computer or printer to do it, just
take the camera to any number of places and get cheap prints done fast.


But the point and shoot camera keep getting better each years, in a few
years even a point and shoot digital will out perform the best 35mm
film.

There seem to be two types of people in photography, those who really
hate change and those who like to see things progress. Most of the
last 30 years have been very good for those people who hate change, the
next 10 years are going to be very bad from them.

Scott

Scott W wrote:

There seem to be two types of people in photography, those who really
hate change and those who like to see things progress. Most of the
last 30 years have been very good for those people who hate change, the
next 10 years are going to be very bad from them.

Scott


You're not the first to voice this polarized view. Why does it have to
be all or nothing? Can we please leave room for a large group of peeps
who acknowledge that change is inevitable, but don't leap at change for
it's own sake? There is a huge spectrum of views that fit somewhere
between the stodgy 'give me grain, or give me death' reactionaries and
the smug, condescending 'my toy's better than your toy!' brats like
Anika.

-Greg

--
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it’s just a goddamned piece
of paper!" - George W. Bush.

Greg Campbell wrote:
Scott W wrote:

There seem to be two types of people in photography, those who really
hate change and those who like to see things progress. Most of the
last 30 years have been very good for those people who hate change, the
next 10 years are going to be very bad from them.

Scott



You're not the first to voice this polarized view. Why does it have to
be all or nothing? Can we please leave room for a large group of peeps
who acknowledge that change is inevitable, but don't leap at change for
it's own sake? There is a huge spectrum of views that fit somewhere
between the stodgy 'give me grain, or give me death' reactionaries and
the smug, condescending 'my toy's better than your toy!' brats like Anika.

-Greg


Well stated Greg. It seems that some people dismiss all images of the
past . . . as in "can't possibly be a good image, because it came from
film" sort of mentality. Many of these "advocates" have no talent, and
would not know a good photograph if they sat on one. The reality of
today is those using film can only hope to get as nice images as the big
name photographers of the past, and those shooting direct digital are
not any closer to emulating the great images of the past. Just because
the technology changes, or people throw more money at something, does
not mean the results are instantly better . . . I think too many people
forget that too often.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com

"Scott W" wrote in message
ups.com...

Dick R. wrote:
I didn't get the whole story on Nikon getting out
of the film camera business and focussing on digital,
but it's bad news for us film junkies.
Ya, everyone has a multi-thousand dollar digital camera
with thousands of dollars in lenses, a brand new computer,
a photo quality printer, and wants to do their own
"processing". Personally, I don't have the time, equipment
or inclination for digital. I would rather bring my 35mm
photos to a lab for processing.

Just observations from an older "gentleman" who has a lot
of 35mm cameras that work quite well!

Dick R.
Be prepared to see others follow Nikon in dropping their film camera
lines.

The future of photography is digital. This does not mean that you
can't continue to use your film cameras and enjoy them but the
manufacturers in the photographic business are all looking towards
digital.

35mm film cameras are going to have an increasingly hard time of it,
and they are already barely selling now. For those people who shoot
the normal print film you find in most stores, say Kodak Gold 400, they
can get better looking prints using a fairly cheap point and shoot
digital. And they don't need a computer or printer to do it, just
take the camera to any number of places and get cheap prints done fast.


But the point and shoot camera keep getting better each years, in a few
years even a point and shoot digital will out perform the best 35mm
film.

There seem to be two types of people in photography, those who really
hate change and those who like to see things progress. Most of the
last 30 years have been very good for those people who hate change, the
next 10 years are going to be very bad from them.

Scott

Well, there are also some other reasons why digital photography can be very
nice. I always confined myself to B&W film when I was younger because I did
my own darkroom work, and I frequently took pictures of naked girlfriends,
and I didn't have to worry about some prissy processing labs destroying my
images. Doing my own color processing was way too much trouble for me, and I
never bothered with it. Today, one can take color pictures of anything they
want, and do all the follow up work inside their own computers and not have
to worry about anyone else seeing their stuff. IOW, digital gives one
complete independence from others, even if one wants to work in color. It
isn't cheap, but you can buy a good digital camera, a computer, a good
quality printer, and for perhaps $5000 to $10,000 (depending on the quality
of your lenses) you can do anything you want without worrying about the
tight-lipped American religious nuts getting on your case.....:^)

"Dick R." wrote in message
...
Hey UC,
I notice we both have an interest in photography and wine.
It's too late to turn back now (whoa, that would be a good song),
but I'm totally Canon 35mm, manual focus FD system and not
financially interested in changing to any "newfangled" stuff.

Dick R.


Looks like that leaves Canon as the only system manufacturer of film and
digital cameras with lenses that can work without a crop factor on
either...I hope they appreciate that and take advantage of it. Now, it'd be
nice if they built on that and got KM's line of exposure meters and film
scanners...I don't see Sony doing anything with either of those.

George