Wunderbar

I'm really wanting to learn a thing or two about photography. I always have these ideas I'd love to see immortalized in a picture, but the truth is I don't know a lot about cameras. My only experience has been with Sony Cybershots and point & shoot cameras like that.

So my question is that I'm in the market for a camera, something cheap but can still take great photos. Is there really a difference between a film camera and a digital? Is it really just convenience of not having to get the film developed that makes the difference?

Here is one camera I've been looking at. I'd really appreciate any input here.

Promaster 2500 PK Super

Pogue Mahone

Hail, fellow Coloradoan!

The major difference bewteen film and digital (other than the ability to instantly see your photos) is the image quality, with film being superior (although digital has been improving). Anymore, it pretty much boils down to your personal preference.

Point 'n Shoot digital cameras anymore are pretty good for cheap cameras. I use a Nikon Coolpix 5600 and produce some quality stuff. Not professional quality, but it does great for a hobby photographer.

I'm not sure where in Colorado you're from, but if you live in the Denver area, I suggest going down to Englewood Camera (about a block south of Littleton blvd on Broadway). They're pretty cool about helping out and they have a pretty good selection.

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Wunderbar

I'm actually in Colorado Springs.

So film cameras currently have the best image quality eh? Ok well that is cool to know then.

Great advice.. thanks a bunch for the help. Someone is actually willing to sell me the camera I listed above for $35.. so I might do that since it's a great price. It's a film camera, and the research I've been doing on it says it's pretty decent. Your thoughts on it? The link is above in my previous post.

Thanks!

mixedmedia

That looks like it's a good starter camera. I started out with a film camera, but recently switched to digital. I considered myself somewhat of a purist, I think.

Frankly, I don't think I had to sacrifice anything aesthetically for going digital. I am just as happy with the quality of my pictures...even moreso in some ways. But what has made the biggest difference is being freed from the limitations of what funds I had available to devote to film and development. Before, if I didn't have the $20-30 bucks to invest, I was out of luck. Now I can pick up my camera and shoot anytime. As long as my battery is charged, I can go out and shoot and it doesn't cost me a thing. It's made me a much more active photographer.

So my advice would be, buy this camera for $35 and see how much you enjoy it. If you feel like you enjoy it enough to devote a certain percentage of your income to it on a regular basis, then you are ready to invest in a digital camera. It will save you money in the long run. And when you do go digital after being a film photog for a while, you will appreciate the ability to walk out your door on a Saturday and take 300 photographs without investing a cent in film and development even more.

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JumpinJesus

Film is superior only as far as enlargements are concerned. At this point, unless you plan on blowing up a print to very large proportions, you won't be able to tell the difference between a digital and film print.

Now, if you're serious about learning photography, I would suggest starting with film and learning everything you can about doing your own developing and printing. To me, it's heresy to spend the time learning what you can about photography, then turning your film over to a Walmart machine monkey to develop and print your photos. If you're not concerned with that aspect of photography, then digital will serve your needs just fine.

But if you go digital, you won't be developing your own photos unless you shoot in the RAW format. If you shoot in JPEG format, you essentially lose the ability to have complete control over your images.

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ngdawg

Not entirely, re: losing control with JPG, but RAW is best.
(It's the default jpeg settings that people mistakenly use when uploading to their computers that kills quality.)
Film-no pixellating. But cost, as MM pointed out. Plus, not being able to actually see your shots until that cost has been paid.
Digital: Immediate results and no cost to see your work. Using your digital camera as a hard-drive(more precisely, working directly off the memory card) increases photo quality a great deal and gives you a lot of choices.
Film, what you shot is what you get.
Another problem with film is in shooting black and white;no over-the-counter processings develop it any more. Kodak does make a 'black and white' designed for that, but you can't develop it yourself as a black and white-it comes out purple and of very poor quality.
Many of my professors preferred film(except, ironically, my photography instructor); I prefer digital for now. But I wouldn't be adversed to going back to film if my 35mm's were repaired.
Camera choices are as personal as buying a car. It's what you need it for, what you can afford, how it feels to you, etc. Read everything you can.
You live in one of the most picturesque places in the US-I expect to see some awesomeness very soon!!

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paddyjoe

jeez dawg, put a little pressure on the freakin kid, why don't ya.....

Smart, smart move, buying that little manual rig. In my opinion, no better way to learn the basics of photography. You really don't need all the bells and whistles while just trying to gain proper exposure, or you don't need that big 5-1000 (haha) zoom lens while figuring out your best composition. You'll learn your exposures by learning how to bracket properly, and with that 50mm lens, you'll depend on your mind and your feet for the nice compositions.

Seriously, i've seen folks with more money than brains go out and buy the nicest digi set-up imagineable, all without knowing their ass from their aperature.

Learn the nuts and bolts while you're saving for the big one. And, don't forget to have some fun while you're learning. Look around town for some classes with people in the same learning curve as you. Oh yeah, did I mention, don't forget to have some fun.........

shakran

I might argue against that. Film certainly has the *potential* to be higher quality, but with the goobers working at the McPhotomats these days, especially since they're not getting much practice with film anymore, the end result can be iffy.

Plus I look at it this way. If Kodak has started pulling out of the film business, then a film camera is not a sound investment

skibum

you get a trade off either way. Digital you see what you shot right away, have more control over your images (assuming you are having others develop your film), and don't have development costs. However harddrives crash, files corrupt, disks go bad... think you can see the tradeoffs. lol

ngdawg

Ugh! That brought back some memories....4,000 photos on zip disks...they failed after a couple years....then,bad reformatting-'lost' over 5,000 photos with that fiasco; with recovery programs, had to sift through 44,000 files and still didn't get'em all back
Hey, I'm old and living a life-shortening lifestyle...ain't got all day!!!
Edit: The memory card lever in my relatively new DSLR broke. While the camera is still usable, the latch won't close. Luckily, it's still under warranty so it's getting sent out later this week after I do some work. Pisser is, I have a wedding and two shows in May and I promised the mill poster to someone in June and I have no clue how long it takes to get a repair back.( Always have a backup-my older Minolta is mine)

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Wunderbar

Definitely good knowledge in this thread for me. Turns out the camera I'm getting comes with a Vivitar f3.4 28-70mm zoom lens. What the hell does that mean? I don't think that's the stock lens obviously, so is that good or bad? :\

shakran

f3.4 refers to the aperture of the lens - also known as the lens speed. The lower the number the better because the faster the lens, the more light can get to the film/sensor. It means you can take pictures in lower light areas without needing a flash. (this is a very basic explanation)

The 28-70mm refers to the focal length of the lens. If it's got two numbers like yours does, it's a zoom lens. the lower the low number, the wider the shots you can take. The higher the high number, the closer you can zoom in. You have a "starter" lens there - it takes pictures in the typical range of, say, a point and shoot. The longer zoom lenses are around 200-300mm, while telephoto lenses are 600-1200.

That lens, I don't think you'll like very much once you start learning about photography. It's pretty slow, especially for such a low focal length lens, which means you'll be relying on the flash a lot unless you're outside. And flashes are annoying because they tend to wash out colors and flatten out objects, in addition to giving your subjects the dreaded redeye.

I'm guessing you'll supplement that lens down the road with a 70-200 or 70-300mm zoom lens, and you might end up replacing your 28-70 lens with something faster, but for a starter camera, you'll be fine with what you've got.

Rinndalir

I would not go back to film for anything other than novelty, film purists be damned. But, learning on a manual 35mm will either cause you to give up in frustration or hopefully teach you alot of basics that are overlooked by newbie photographers these days. If that camera really is a clone of the old Pentax K1000 (which is what I learned on back in the day) $35 is a great buy. Although you'll be spending a ton more if you do decide you like photography, it's an expensive hobby.

cadre

Okay well I'm not gonna lie, I didn't read this whole thread but I'm going to give you my opinion anyways.

If you really want to learn to do photography get a film camera (used is good, even old film cameras work great) and take a class somewhere. I find that if you are just starting out you will learn more working with film than you will with digital. This is because if you start with digital you will learn to rely on the technology rather than your knowledge and that is very hard to undo. Film cameras will only give you higher quality if you shoot medium or large format, 35mm is like...10 megapixels? (not sure if I'm right at all, just a guess). I personally love film and I shoot mostly in film for this reason. I have access to a darkroom though so it's a little different. Though if you take a class at a community college or something (very common for hobbyists) you will probably be able to learn to work in a darkroom and you may find you like it.

If you work with film but you don't develop and print it yourself you are seriously damaging what could be done with it. Mainly if you take it to Walmart or even if you send it out to Kodak, I would not reccomend that. If you really don't want to develop film yourself but you want to work with film there are specialty shops where they will develop the film by hand for you and the end result is much better than one of the one hour photo places.

Digital has it's merits and I'm not trying to bash it but you will learn more from starting out with film and it will benefit you in the future.

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Daemon1313

Right now film is better quality than digital (with a few exceptions like very high speed).

In general, your normal ISO 100-400 35mm film has the same image detail as anywhere from a 10-40 megapixel photo. That figure varies in that range depending on what your testing basis is, quality of film, etc.

This means that we are already seeing digital cameras that can produce better quality photos than some low end 35mm film. So it won't be to long before digital will take over in quality.

Of course if you move up in format digital quickly ends up the loser. Medium format ranges up closer to 100 megapixel equivalent and large format can jump up to close to 1000 megapixel equivalent.

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cadre

I think it will be quite some time before readily available digital cameras (meaning not the thousand dollar cameras for science and such) will surpass medium format film and even longer for 8x10 film.

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Daemon1313

I would tend to agree but with the rate we are accelerating the technology going into digital camers we all may be suprised.

So would you put the Hasselblad H3D-39 into that category. 39 megapixels of love for only $30,000+. But then again, a little over 10 years ago the Kodak DCS460 was running $12,000, not bad for a 6 megapixel camera.

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ngdawg

While attending school, one of my instructors, with whom I'd been sharing photograph, tips, etc., suggested I continue learning by going to his professor's photography classes to learn all about film. Supposedly, the professor was a leading expert in photography.
I contacted the man, asked about classes, what I wanted to take, etc., and gave him a link to the work I had. His response was(not verbatim), "Don't bother wasting your money. Film is a dying craft with nothing to offer besides being a personal preference. Digital photography will surpass film and because of its immediacy, is preferred in almost in every field of photography." He continued to suggest I further my studies with digital. My instructor was shocked.
Our first digital camera was an HP 4mp, bought in 2000 for $600; the selection of cameras at the time, mostly Kodaks, ranged from 1.3mp for about $200 to a whopping 6.0, outrageously priced. The quality of the HP generally sucks, it doesn't have much in the way of setting choices and no shutter or aperature options. In the same amount of time, the choices of middle-range 35mm cameras has gone from a seemingly endless array in any store to maybe 2.

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cadre

Is that a full camera or a digital back for one of there 60x60s or something? Hasselblads are awesome. *drool* They're like the Lambos of film cameras.

Ngdawg, there are a lot of people who feel that way about film photography but I wouldn't say it's a majority yet. Most of the photographers I know use film for at least something and I know many who still use only film.

Like I've said in other threads here, film photography will probably just return to what it once was. A hobbyist and professional medium.

I maintain that if you want to learn photography you will do better starting with film.

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Daemon1313

It's a full dual format camera. It does medium format digital and film.

I honestly found I learned a lot more after switching to digital. Mostly because I was more willing to play with settings since the pictures were effectively free.

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serlindsipity

OK, here's what Ive noticed with dig vs film....
Learning in film, although pricey (processing is only cheap if you do it yourself...)will force you to train your eye much better. Now, you can train your eye with digital, but the ability to see instantly is somethign people use as a crutch, thus you dont learn anything.

Now igital, although film will be superior for another ten yers, if you know how to manipulate an image properly, you can make it a considerable size. I mean, off a 6 megapixel camera I am managing 16 by 20 and I can almost double it if i needed. and Photoshop - yea, that wil teachyou a lot too. Learn it all, and see what happens.

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cadre

Well maybe you would have learned more if you had more film available to you but I get what you mean.

As for the camera, I've seen that somewhere but I can't place it. It's a pretty spiffy piece of equipment with an equally high price. Too bad I have no money

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Baraka_Guru

My 2 cents:

1) Learning photography as an art form? Go film.

2) You forfeit an interesting aspect of photography if you go digital: experimenting with different film types: brand, speed, grade, b&w/colour, C-41/E6, etc.

There are other differences you might want to research too, bearing in mind you want to learn photography.

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Daemon1313

Problem wasn't amount of film, it was economics. When I picked up photography I was using it to help pay for college doing photos for advertising. I had a limited budget for supplies and even more limited time. I learned how to take "technically" correct photos real quick but I got stuck in that mind set (still am somewhat). Everything was just so blah. When I started playing with digital I just felt I was more free to expirement without the nagging thoughts of "Well there goes another $5" every time I start dinking around. Of course I'm also a techy and would much rather spend an hour playing with photos on a computer than an hour in a darkroom.

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cadre

Well that's what I mean, if you had the time and the money so that you weren't worried about wasting film mabe you would have learned differently?

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Daemon1313

Even when I got out of college and had a fairly decent bit of disposable income I still couldn't bring myself to do the kind of random crap I do with my digital using a film camera. I lost complete interest in photography becasue of it and sold my gear. With digital I truly enjoy it again.

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