Spyderco Forums

Does anyone here use a film camera? I did for years but got away from it. My oldest found an old Kodak for my wife, which got me looking for an SLR. Sure enough, I found a 90s vintage Canon Rebel 500 35mm. I forgot how much fun it can be! I'm at the very beginning of my knowledge base on this so it's another brand new adventure!

Not any more, but I used to do medium- and some large-format photography (that's using 4x5" or 8x10" individual sheets of film to produce a very large negative) in the 90's. But it's a wonderful art form, and you have a great little camera there. My advice would be to stock up on as much film as you can, and pray that there will be someone left to develop it in ten years time. There have been many processes that were commonplace up through the 90's which have completely disappeared, and with the advent of digital photography, there will come a day when all silver nitrate-based film processes will be limited to the artisan/craft level (that is to say, no manufacturing or service).

But you have a cool little camera and you should enjoy it! Here's a little tip: shoot mainly around dawn or dusk.

I sold all my film gear years ago.

It’s easy to forget just how expensive it was / is to process a trips worth of film, but it was the demise of a lot of the good transparency films that ultimately pushed me to digital.

I sometimes look at some of the b&w Agfa Scala pictures I took on my M6 and wish I could turn the clock back.

Thanks Jon I will! I know what you mean about finding film and developers. I was a kid in the age of Photohut! It's amazing how times change. I really like my new camera. It's pretty user friendly and carries well too.

I went with my son last year to a Boy Scout merit badge course in Photography. The instructor was saying the same thing.
There's a movement currently, similar to the vinyl records revival, that's taking place involving film and old cameras. I hope it's enough to keep at least some film production going.

ChrisinHove wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 24, 2020 9:52 am

I sold all my film gear years ago.

It’s easy to forget just how expensive it was / is to process a trips worth of film, but it was the demise of a lot of the good transparency films that ultimately pushed me to digital.

I sometimes look at some of the b&w Agfa Scala pictures I took on my M6 and wish I could turn the clock back.

ChrisinHove wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 24, 2020 9:52 am

I sold all my film gear years ago.

It’s easy to forget just how expensive it was / is to process a trips worth of film, but it was the demise of a lot of the good transparency films that ultimately pushed me to digital.

I sometimes look at some of the b&w Agfa Scala pictures I took on my M6 and wish I could turn the clock back.

Oh, Scala was a gem! Ever had any Ilfochrome (aka Cibachrome) prints made from transparencies? Fine, fine prints, and super archival. And the paper made just on the other side of the big bad metropolis from you!

I’ve still got my Nikon 8008AF, the old F3HP and a few lenses for each.

I was just talking to some co-workers last week and they named a few shops locally that sell 35mm film and processing.

I discovered a local drug store that still develops film. When I was a boy, a local photographer came into our school and took us into a ready made dark room, where we developed pics. That's been a long time ago! It's been a good time so far!

One thing I have discovered is that you're extremely lucky to find ANY 35mms film in stores that used to have racks of the stuff. If I, or my wife, sees it we grab it. It's almost exactly like my vintage Spyderco obsession

My camera with a zoom lense coffee cup that my wife got me at the Smithsonian a few years ago. Prior to everyone getting used to it, I was always asked why I was carrying a camera lense around

I used to do all film photography with 35mm SLRs... problem these days is finding 35mm film and finding someone to process the film. I'm a huge Nikon fan, have several Nikon film SLRs, although my overall favorite to use was the Nikon FE.

These days I'm still using a Nikon 35mm camera, although it is a digital SLR... the Nikon D3. I like it because it gives me 35mm format images and I can use both Nikon automatic focus lenses as well as my old Nikon manual focus lenses on it.

That's one great thing most of the manufacturers seemed to do, and that's to make the old lenses interchangeable with the newer digital cameras.