15 Euro medium film cameras? Where?
You've just awaken a photocamera junkie.
Please don't tell me they're Lomo cameras.
Taking Pictures the Hard Way
61–70 of 92 posts
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#62Analog photography is quite amazing but, at least, in 35mm world it's not because of the resulting images but more in the cameras. Old, mechanical film cameras are much more pleasant to use for me. And before someone says that camera doesn't matter - it sure does. A camera that you like to use will be used more so you will end up "doing more photography". I also love black and white films. I've not tried monochrome d…
"Old, mechanical film cameras are much more pleasant to use for me."
Me too! The big ker-chunk on my Pentax 6x7 or my Nikon F2 is very satisfying. I also don't mind the weight of either one. Granted, I don't take these cameras hiking. I actually prefer having a little heft to keep things steady.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#63Alas, film's recent popularity comes with (literally) a price. Cameras that were practically being given away are, thanks to "influencers", now insanely priced. Film was expensive enough but pandemic-related supply issues and Fuji's slow withdrawal from the film market have just made things worse. I was lucky in that I picked up a bunch of film cameras when they were cheap. Processing hasn't risen in price all that m…
I get mostly annoyed with how expensive some old cameras are because branding. I mean the medium format box cameras are literally just a box with a hole for a lens and a bit of mechanics to move the film and shutter. There's no reason for them being a thousand dollars still. There's even some company 3d printing new medium format cameras and made them expensive :(
> I get mostly annoyed with how expensive some old cameras are because branding.
Regarding branding, I'd say you're half-right: In the same way that a Leica or Contax 35mm camera costs more than a Nikon or Canon 35mm camera, and the Nikon and Canon cameras cost more than a Yashica or a Konica (or even lesser known brands), so do the more luxurious medium format brands cost more. If you've never shot with (for example) a Hasselblad and a Kiev 60 (a budget Soviet knockoff of a Hasselblad) then you might be missing an understanding of the literal quality tradeoff, but brand names do command higher costs regardless. This is the same now with new cameras as it is (and always has been) with old cameras
> I mean the medium format box cameras are literally just a box with a hole for a lens and a bit of mechanics to move the film and shutter.
Every 'old' camera - SLR or rangefinder or viewfinder, 35mm or medium format, etc - is a box with a hole for a lens and some mechanics to move the film and shutter. New cameras are just boxes with holes for lenses and a lot of electronics.
Part of the original cost of camera bodies has to do with the fact that you're buying into a system; it costs more for a company to exist that builds good camera bodies as well as an extensive lens and accessory lineup, compared to a company that only has a few or poor-quality lenses to pair with their camera bodies. Some camera companies invested a lot of money into their ergonomics, or their materials and finish, or durability, or new viewfinder and shutter technologies, or autofocus, and so on. These companies typically charged more for their products.
Making cameras and lenses in a larger format format compounds all production costs. They literally have bigger viewfinders and mirrors and film transport systems and more glass in their lenses.
> There's no reason for them being a thousand dollars still.
Nobody is making them anymore, which makes supply-vs-demand an issue. You can only repair cameras so many times, and some are very difficult to repair at all.
Nowadays, you pay more for a used film camera if it's extremely popular, and usually it's the best performing, best handling, best looking cameras with the best used market for lenses and accessories that command the highest premiums.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#6415 Euro medium film cameras? Where? You've just awaken a photocamera junkie. Please don't tell me they're Lomo cameras.
Not Lomo cameras, but not much better in quality. I mean the old Agfa Clack and Agfa Isola cameras for example.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
The smell of fixer is pretty pungent. You forgot about processing the film. That has to be done in complete darkness (well, loading the processing tank anyway) and you get the added anxiety of drying the film in a dust-free place because any speck of dust getting on the film when it's wet is going to be near impossible to remove later. Nothing beats the exhilaration of having the perfect shot ruined by a speck of dus…
Yeah, dust is a bugger. But it is amazing how W. Eugene Smith developed such great photos in some really primitive conditions.
It really makes you appreciate the old-timers. Back when I started we already had computerized exposure control (my first camera was a Canon AE-1 Program). While it was primitive compared to what we have today, it was light years ahead of the old equipment. But damn! Keeping everything dust-free was a real PITA, especially when every time you loaded a new roll of film, changed a lens, or even took the cap off a lens presented a new opportunity for dust to get somewhere it wasn't wanted! Then after getting all the fates to align to make it that far the film gets dust on it while drying after being processed. Aargh! It seemed to me half of photography was about battling dust.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#66The author talks about getting into medium-format photography. When shooting film, I usually shoot medium format and I’ve been shooting mostly medium-format for 15+ years. I have observations about what the author says about MF. > It seems like the vast majority of medium format cameras have fixed focus lenses though. This is the toy camera movement. Holga, Diana, Lomo, etc. The cameras might cost you $20 or less and…
Ah with the cheap medium format cameras I mean something like the Agfa Clack. Really cheap to get second hand but I don't see it producing decent quality pictures. I did get an Epson V600 to do photo scanning, do you have any detail on why it would not produce good scans? I tested it with a few old 35mm negatives and it looked quite alright after disabling _all_ the postprocessing crap in the official software and lo…
The first problem with MF scans is that it is hard to mount film so it is completely flat. If it is not flat, it cannot be in-focus from edge to edge. 35mm is smaller and has wider borders (where the sprocket holes go) and so this is much less of a problem with 35mm. There are various techniques and tricks to get MF flat, like using tape, using glass, or wet-mounting. Tape might not work in your film mounts at all, depending on construction.
The next problem is that your film has to be held in the focal plane of your scanner. There are film mounts which let you adjust the film height with screws, and some scanners have focus adjustments (usually automatic, I think).
Next, you will want to enable the IR channel for chromogenic film (including B&W chromogenic, like Ilford XP2) and disable it for non-chromogenic film. Generally speaking, I would use one of the aftermarket scanning software packages like VueScan or SilverFast. You can save the IR channel as alpha and use it to remove dust later.
Do tests to find out the actual resolution to scan at.
My experience with flatbeds like the Epson V600 is that you can get very good results, but you are getting like half the resolution MF film actually provides and the image is less clean than it could be. For 35mm it is not hard to find “film scanners” that let you feed slides or strips of 35mm and get better results. For MF, flatbed is as good as it gets until you go to like an Imacon (expensive, IMO not that much better than a good flatbed) or drum scanner (best results, maybe $30 per scan).
In the lab, you focus the enlarger carefully using a “grain focuser”, use a high-quality lens for your enlarger which has enough covers for your film size, set it to a middling aperture (tiny apertures affect focus), and you can get sharp, sharp prints for less than the cost of getting that same sharpness in the digital domain.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, dust is a bugger. But it is amazing how W. Eugene Smith developed such great photos in some really primitive conditions.
It really makes you appreciate the old-timers. Back when I started we already had computerized exposure control (my first camera was a Canon AE-1 Program). While it was primitive compared to what we have today, it was light years ahead of the old equipment. But damn! Keeping everything dust-free was a real PITA, especially when every time you loaded a new roll of film, changed a lens, or even took the cap off a lens…
> my first camera was a Canon AE-1
Hey! I had an AT-1, which was the manual version - I managed to lose it on a train in London about 1981, while moving flats. I was very upset.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#68The author talks about getting into medium-format photography. When shooting film, I usually shoot medium format and I’ve been shooting mostly medium-format for 15+ years. I have observations about what the author says about MF. > It seems like the vast majority of medium format cameras have fixed focus lenses though. This is the toy camera movement. Holga, Diana, Lomo, etc. The cameras might cost you $20 or less and…
> You might spend $1,500 for a used Hasselblad system. I think you left off a zero at the end there. Either that, or maybe I need to go learn real quick how to snipe Ebay auctions...
$1,500 is about the entry price for a used Hasselblad 500C/M with kit lens (80mm f/2.8). If you're paying $15,000 for a Hasselblad, you can get something brand-new with two or three lenses. If you're buying straight off eBay auctions, it's easy to end up paying too much, but even then, you aren't likely to be paying more than $2,500 for a typical 500C/M kit.
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#69The author talks about getting into medium-format photography. When shooting film, I usually shoot medium format and I’ve been shooting mostly medium-format for 15+ years. I have observations about what the author says about MF. > It seems like the vast majority of medium format cameras have fixed focus lenses though. This is the toy camera movement. Holga, Diana, Lomo, etc. The cameras might cost you $20 or less and…
> You might spend $1,500 for a used Hasselblad system. I think you left off a zero at the end there. Either that, or maybe I need to go learn real quick how to snipe Ebay auctions...
It's funny because my school (back in the early 80's) had Hasselblads but nobody wanted to use them because they were old - like 20-30 years old even then! They were a nightmare to operate, had no light metering let alone expose control - but damn! You could get some great photos if you said your prayers right! I had a brand-new Canon AE-1 Program but still liked using the Hasselblads from time to time because you could get some great shots that you could enlarge to poster size without any grain! Incredible to think how much those cameras would be worth today!
Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess developing BW film is more expensive because there's just less volume? Most people shooting BW film probably develop it themselves while it's way harder to develop color film without getting a full lab. The price for 35mm per shot is a bunch less for me. And it seems like people still have stocks o their old 35mm film rolls I can get for free-ish. Developing and scanning was something like 17 euros for me. Se…
The reason I've heard why it is more expensive is that color development has been completely standardized. You put the rolls in the machine and the negatives come out the other end with little interaction from a person. They never standardized black and white photography development so it all has to be done by hand, which is more time consuming. As for 35mm, yes it's true that it is cheaper, but I got into this for t…
You can do the same thing with B&W--buy a standard high-volume film processor and load it up with B&W film chemistry. If you look at the data sheets for XTOL, you'll see instructions for high-volume processing. B&W processing is not standardized (in the sense that there are standards for it, but nobody uses them) but that doesn't mean you have to do it by hand.
I think the reason why it is more expensive is just because it is a specialty service. Even in a large city, the amount of B&W film processed per day is not going to be very large, in 2022. On top of that, it's easy enough to process B&W yourself--it's not prohibitively expensive and can even be done in a small apartment without too much fuss.
(One reason that there are standards for B&W film processing is because it's necessary in order to have standards for film speed. The "ISO speed" of a film is tested by exposing the film to certain amounts of light, developing in a standardized way using a standardized developer, and then measuring some certain part of the resulting density curve.)