Why you should get a film SLR as your first SLR (to those thinking of getting a DSLR) - General

I've decided to buy a 35mm SLR instead of a DSLR. Would I be right to go with the Pentax ME Super? I've found some on ebay in the region of £30. I also saw the Canon EOS 500n on the bay for about £10 - is it any good? Thanks

[QUOTE=Alcapwne;31024946]I've decided to buy a 35mm SLR instead of a DSLR. Would I be right to go with the Pentax ME Super? I've found some on ebay in the region of £30. I also saw the Canon EOS 500n on the bay for about £10 - is it any good? Thanks[/QUOTE] The ME Super is a great camera if you get one in good condition.

Why dont they make polaroid film anymore? It seems like we took a step backwards in technology. "Dude I took this sick picture of you today, I'll show you once I go get it printed either at a store or using a printer at home" "They should invent a camera that can print photos from itself" "No way man, that's soooo 90's"

[QUOTE=MedicWine;31027757]Why dont they make polaroid film anymore? It seems like we took a step backwards in technology. "Dude I took this sick picture of you today, I'll show you once I go get it printed either at a store or using a printer at home" "They should invent a camera that can print photos from itself" "No way man, that's soooo 90's"[/QUOTE] First of all, they do still make polaroid film. Second, the quality of polaroids is far inferior to actual negatives.

[QUOTE=H4Z3Y;31027996]First of all, they do still make polaroid film. Second, the quality of polaroids is far inferior to actual negatives.[/QUOTE] I meant that you can go into any gas station or dollar store in my town, and pick up a film, or an instant camera to take pictures with. Wouldnt it seem like we'd still have the same with polaroids? I'm sure there still is film, but it's that available.

you can get 300 film easy but 600 film is harder to get and you can now get third party versions

The thing with Polaroids is I think Polaroid was the only company who did that, and they moved on to making digital cameras, mostly point-and-shoots, so while you can still find the film for them, you won't find any cameras anymore that develop the film instantly because Polaroid stopped making them. [quote=Wikipedia]In summer 2008 Polaroid released the PoGo, an instant photo printer producing 2 by 3 inches (51 × 76 mm) prints. It uses the ZINK ("zero ink") technology which is similar to dye sublimation but has the dye crystals embedded in the photo paper itself.[33] In 2009 the CZA-05300B PoGo, a 5 megapixel digital camera integrated with a Zink printer, was released.[34][/quote] Well, apparently they do still make them. I don't think this Zink camera is anywhere near as popular as the old Polaroids, nor really ever will be.

polaroid sell make and sell 300 cameras and film but it's smaller than 600

I was looking through the catalog I got with a recent Adorama purchase and there were actually several instant-print cameras. Looks like Polaroid and Fujifilm are the major guys still in the game. Summary for you all: Polaroid Pic 300 Analog Instant Camera - Business card size prints - $85 Polaroid PoGo - Instant 2"x3" Bluetooth printer - $40 Fujifilm Instax Mini 25 Instant Photo Camera - Credit card size prints - $100 Fujifilm Instax Mini 7S Instant Camera - Credit card size prints - $68 They also had Polaroid 600 film but didn't have any such camera listed.

My first proper camera was a DSLR and I'm perfectly aware that I'd be much better now if I had started with film [b]however[/b] the flexibility options it has given me, such as instant development (so I know my own mistakes), instant availability of digital editing, practically unlimited storage (more space =/= more weight) easily makes up for it. Therefore the only practical advantage, in my personal opinion, is cost and the difference isn't large enough in the long run to cover the lack of nifty things I'm spoiled with that DSLRs offer.

[QUOTE=labbet;31008915]I did film photography first and I personally agree with B-Hazard because I would probably learn nothing if I started with digital. With film there is no AUTO setting and you have to know what everything does to get a decent photo. I bet half of the straight-to-digital generation has no idea what ISO is or what f stops do! Also, its fairly easy to get an all manual film slr for free or very cheap.[/QUOTE] I started with digital, although before I had my DSLR (when I knew I was gonna get one soon) I spent quite a lot of time learning how to work all the settings and what they all do, etc. Been using it in aperture priority and shooting in raw pretty much since day 1. I think learning how to use all the settings on digital, and getting instant feedback definitely helped me be confident enough to try film and be reasonably sure I wouldn't waste money by screwing up the pictures technically, so I could concentrate on getting better at actually taking interesting photos.

I personally think film is a lot more fun. If I had known film camera's would be this much fun while still producing great pictures for the price of a CF card, I don't think I would've bought a Canon 7D.

However film cameras usually look fucking badass and you can pull major swag with them as opposed to the often silly-looking DSLRs, especially when you have a short lens (50mm represent) you look like a japanese tourist

walking around the city with this beast today: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhaslehurst/5911850048/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6032/5911850048_b009465de4_z.jpg[/img][/url] in 15 minutes 3 random people struck up a conversation 'that's an old camera you have there...'

what model is that? I just picked up a similar TLR not too long ago

Mamiya C22