Look, a real Camera

[nj pheonix]

While i take pictures with the phone for convenience (with better than fair results . i think they used a fast shutter speed. I tend to get less shake than in my DSLRs). I'm a bit lazy. Many years ago i shot film like everybody else. Toyed with Mamiya 220 cameras a bit. Decent lenses at not the break the bank prices. Nice big blow up as much as you want (within reason, certainly as big as any enlarger i ever touched would do.) I'm lazy. I like my Canons. does pretty much everything i'd ever need it to do. I end up with a computer full of pictures i seldom look at rather than boxes of prints i seldom look at.

 

[KingBubba]

I still have my old Nikkormat sitting in a drawer. The built in meter no longer works. It just collects dust, but I can't find myself able to get rid of it. It reminds me of my photographer days back in the mid 70s.

 

[Wildcat]

Everytime I take a pic with my iPhone, I say to myself,... "I wish I had my FF camera with me!" Seriously, it's not about the camera or body, it's all about the glass (lens) which IMHO, iPhones can't provide. You don't see pro photographers at sporting events taking pics with their iPhones.

Exactly. And it partly seems to be a hipster thing too, treating the phone as a "real" camera, with screwy reasoning as to why "old school" cameras are passé. I just got a Pixel XL that is about as good as a smartphone camera can get these days, but I also just bought a 24-105mm lens for my Sony Alpha DSLR due to all the traveling I'm doing this summer. Can't have a wide range of interchangeable optical zoom lenses or high quality prime lenses, macro photos, remote flash, time exposures, manually set aperture/ISO/shutter speeds, use Cokin filters and polarizers, etc., etc., with a smartphone camera. Yet I won't leave home without the smartphone. Photographic opportunities are everywhere, at any moment. I'd rather catch it with a phone in decent quality and at least have the image, as opposed to missing it entirely because my DSLR wasn't with me. I could still go crazy buying glass if I allowed myself to.

A DSLR (and a film SLR, for that matter) is as much about a creative process as it is the hardware.

 

[8xlaxx]

...but I also just bought a 24-105mm lens for my Sony Alpha DSLR due to all the traveling I'm doing this summer...

Nice purchase! That 24-105mm is considered by many as the best walk-around lens out there. I struggled between purchasing that lens and the 24-70mm 2.8f II IS lens by Canon. I ended up with the 24-70mm as the price was right for me. You just can't go wrong with either lens,...both are excellent performers.

 

[c.coyle]

I gotta have a viewfinder. Not many non-SLRs with viewfinders left. My current camera is a Canon G11. Not WYSIWYG like an SLR, but good enough.

Elbows against the body, viewfinder against the face. That's how I still do it. I guess modern digitals have image stabilization, but holding a camera away from my body just feels so unnatural, and its harder (at least for me) to compose and to be responsible for everything in the frame.

Unless anyone accuses me of being an old coot, digital is the best thing, after color, that ever happened to photography.

 

[Wildcat]

Nice purchase! That 24-105mm is considered by many as the best walk-around lens out there.

This is a Minolta Maxxum lens--I don't know if it wasn't sold here in the US, but I ordered it via eBay from a seller in Japan. I have an early Maxxum 28-85 (with macro) that is actually a little heavier and longer. A mid 2000s 28-80 Maxxum lens I have is very lightweight, but I almost suspect it might have plastic lenses of some sort, and/or a plastic body. (Although I never could fault the pics with it.) I wanted something with a little longer reach than the 28-85, and the 24-105 so far has done well. I do have a 75-300, so that is covered. There wouldn't be much to gain by getting a 100-300, other than saving some bulk and length.

Elbows against the body, viewfinder against the face. That's how I still do it. I guess modern digitals have image stabilization, but holding a camera away from my body just feels so unnatural, and its harder (at least for me) to compose and to be responsible for everything in the frame.

I do that myself. Although with this camera having an articulating digital screen, I can hold it up, down or around places I could never reach by using the viewfinder. I have held it above a crowd to get a better photo, or way down low for special effects. It's handy to have, but given my eyesight, I get far better results overall using the viewfinder.

Unless anyone accuses me of being an old coot, digital is the best thing, after color, that ever happened to photography.

I know many would disagree with that, and arguably there are still a few things film can do better, but I like digital photography. It was a game changer for many reasons. I like that I don't have to worry about taking bad shots with the camera, and I kind of know my way around Photoshop, having used it for 20 years now. It is nice to see the results instantly, and yet we can still have them printed to photo paper. I do miss film a little (especially since I had thought about trying medium format at one point), but not enough that I would ever go back to using it.

 

[No Money]

I still shoot film for a lot of things. I find, for example, black and white does much better in the midtones with film for example. I still think a well thought out and properly exposed black and white print on silver gelatin paper can't be equaled by an ink print. I have worked with the new silver gelatin paper that goes through a Lambda printer and it comes close, but the amount of work that needs to be done in PhotoShop to get it there is as much as, if not more in most cases, than a darkroom print. And a contact print from a good 10x8 neg, ... I still have yet to see something that beats it. Though the super high contrast stuff I do with my Sony A7 is interesting. Different, but interesting.

But for most day to day stuff I use digital. And I embrace digital for it's ability to help me do things I couldn't do before, like scanning a badly damaged negative and "rebuilding" it in PhotoShop. Or sending a scan from Hong Kong to a lab in the USA for printing for an exhibition.

 

[Wildcat]

And I embrace digital for it's ability to help me do things I couldn't do before, like scanning a badly damaged negative and "rebuilding" it in PhotoShop.

I actually enjoy some restoration from time to time. I have an old family photo I need to retouch, and I also have negatives that need scanning and touching up. Now that I have good scanning software and drivers (VueScan is simply amazing), the slide/neg scanner does a great job. I have a few dozen sets of slides I need to scan, as I've probably seen them enlarged only once or twice!

 

[No Money]

INow that I have good scanning software and drivers (VueScan is simply amazing), the slide/neg scanner does a great job. I have a few dozen sets of slides I need to scan, as I've probably seen them enlarged only once or twice!

I use Silverfast with an Epson V750. Really like it once you climb the learning curve. Still take critical stuff into a bureau for drum scanning though.

 

[C6Bill]

The next generation of DSLR's will have a phone in them

 

[MannyE]

Or at least a modem.

 

[kaplang]

A real phone.

 

[MannyE]

That is the phone I use in the garage. I love it when kids have no clue how to use it. I then explain how we used to hate people with a lot of 8s 9s and zeros in their numbers. LOL. I look at it like shaving with a straight razor. And you can't beat the sound of that ring.

 

[MaxxVolume]

A real phone.
View attachment 971070

From the days when most families had ONE phone and ONE TV in the home....
(and yes, the ringer on those phones would wake the dead ! )

 

[MaxxVolume]

When my Canon FT-QL was too big & heavy to carry along, I would always bring this nice little Minox 35-GL, one of the smallest full-frame 35mm cameras of it`s time. Took some memorable photos with it....

 

[Wildcat]

I use Silverfast with an Epson V750. Really like it once you climb the learning curve. Still take critical stuff into a bureau for drum scanning though.

VueScan is known more for making older scanners work, then giving us fine control over how they operate. While my Epson printer/scanner is recent, the Minolta Dimage film scanner is way too old to have a current driver. Likewise, there is an HP USB scanner around here also, and I don't think drivers for that have existed since Vista. What was neat is that it corrected a problem in the Minolta scanner that I thought was mechanical, and actually quit using it for many years. Once I tried it with VueScan, the pale line going through all of the negs and slides was gone, and it scans both visual and infrared, which gives it the ability to remove some dust and scratches and still have the photo look pretty darned good.

I have an old HP Scanjet SCSI scanner in the basement that cost me a small fortune back in the 90s; can't find a SCSI card to give it a try, but I would bet VueScan would make it operable again.

 

[MannyE]

VueScan is known more for making older scanners work, then giving us fine control over how they operate. While my Epson printer/scanner is recent, the Minolta Dimage film scanner is way too old to have a current driver. Likewise, there is an HP USB scanner around here also, and I don't think drivers for that have existed since Vista. What was neat is that it corrected a problem in the Minolta scanner that I thought was mechanical, and actually quit using it for many years. Once I tried it with VueScan, the pale line going through all of the negs and slides was gone, and it scans both visual and infrared, which gives it the ability to remove some dust and scratches and still have the photo look pretty darned good.

I have an old HP Scanjet SCSI scanner in the basement that cost me a small fortune back in the 90s; can't find a SCSI card to give it a try, but I would bet VueScan would make it operable again.

Will this work? https://www.ebay.com/i/131639810135?chn=ps&dispItem=1

 

[Wildcat]

Will this work? https://www.ebay.com/i/131639810135?chn=ps&dispItem=1

Thanks, but most likely not. Any SCSI cards I have come across in the past several years no longer have current Windows drivers. With USB having pretty much taken over, SCSI seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. (That's OK though, it was always a pain to deal with.) I don't want to use the scanner that bad, but I also don't want to send it to the landfill.

 

[No Money]

I know people who run very old pc's and mac's just to run older SCSI based scanners. When the computer finally dies it's likely the end for the scanner.

 

[MannyE]

Meh... it was worth a shot. When it comes to "developing" pictures you never know what crazy old thing will produce that magic. But yeah, I get what you mean.