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35mm - One Step Closer to the End
Anonymous Coward writes "A colleague of mine just pointed out that Nikon UK has posted a press release here indicating that they are all but ending production of their 35mm film cameras, medium- and large-format lenses and enlarging equipment. The F6 35mm SLR will remain in production and be available in Europe and America, and the all-mechanical FM10 will be available outside of Europe. A handful of manual lenses will remain in production as well.
Film in general isn't going away any time soon as digital cameras cannot replace medium and large format cameras, but this is clear evidence that the resolution and popularity of the digital medium have surpassed that of the 35mm format. 35mm took another step into the grave."
AND you will still have a working camera after 3 years, if you buy a film camera.
The digital cameras they are coming out with cost an arm and a leg, and they only have a one-year warranty. I call them disposable cameras.
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-- Pablo Picasso
Nope, they are not. Comparable has a different meaning for professional photographer than an average joe. And don't trust zillions of reviews which shoes digital vs film comparison. You can't scan a film based picture with mere $1000 scanner nor can print a high megapixel camera picture on $5000 laser printer. They will never be comparable. And if you are photographer who has gallery exhibitions, forget digitals. You will never be able to blow it up the wall size even with 30 mega pixel.
It seems you don't really know that much about the subject matter.
maybe you should trust the professional photographers who have switched. The ones who no-longer have darkrooms in their studios and always sway their clients towards digital (and thats not because its less work for them, when you shoot digital, YOU do all of the post processing in photoshop rather than the pro lab you send it to).
The 'professionals' that have switched to digital are those that only do shots that don't require extremely high resolutions; i.e. newspapers and other print publications, wedding photographers, etc, and it's mostly because of convenience and immediate results. Professional photographers stick to larger formats like 120mm, or 4x5. No 'professional' really uses 35mm, but enthusiasts do.
The time has come, cameras are outdoing film grain (especially at high speed). You may need a scanner of higher resolution than a camera to get a good scan but that is because the grain does not match up to pixels so you have to go higher resolution.> [
Wrong again. The average 35mm SLR camera with an average roll of film still comes out with a resolution equivalent to a 25 megapixel digital shot, which you can't find anywhere. However, you can't see what the shot looks like immediately after you take it with a film SLR camera, but you can with a digital one. That's what's making people move away from them, not 'the grain being outdone'.
I can guarantee you that if you take a shot with a 8 or 10 megapixel DSLR and I take the same exact shot with my 35mm N90s and scan the film, my shot will be 10x better-looking than yours, without even touching Photoshop.
I can also guarantee you that anyone with a 20 or 30 year old Rolleiflex TLR taking the same shot will make yours look like pure shit, and mine look like crap.
It sounds pretty hard-core for Nikon to drop film this early but it will eventually get to the point where the only people who use 35mm are people who dont need the added features next years body would provide (they can still use new lenses, at least for a while) as they are changing the settings themselves and dont need a computer to do it for them.
No, wrong yet again.
Nikon is dropping film bodies because Joe Shmoe reads the average photo mag and decides that digital is the next best thing since sliced bread (kinda like you), which is an incredibly ignorant thing to think. Since the average joe wants to take pictures and see what they look like now, they go all out for digital cameras, and Nikon is more than happy to accomodate them.
Why do you think they're keeping the F6 in production? Because it's (to put it simply) quite possibly the best SLR camera ever made, loved by pros. You won't buy it because you can't afford it, and very few people will, compared to the general market.
The bottom line is that this was a decision made to increase proffits, not because digital is better than film or any such nonsense.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Ah, but wall-sized photos aren't done with 35 millimeter cameras. That negative is too small. Normally, you're lucky to get passable 11x17 frames out of a 35 mm exposure. Normally, if you want to make really huge-ass prints, you use a large format camera, using a 4"x5" or 8"x10" plate film. Even most magazine portraits are made using medium format (120/220) film. About the only major professional uses of 35 mm film are in newspapers, where the printers use a 100 dpi printer (anything more on newsprint looks ugly, trust me) and stock photography (which also has a large amount of medium format use). Sometimes event photographers use 35 mm, especially when light cannot be controlled, as 35 mm allows for more exposure latitude and faster film.
And I'll tell you something about photojournalism: four years ago, the digital cameras were good enough for that purpose. My 8 megapixel Canon Rebel XT sports too much of a CCD for its intended use (as a newspaper camera).
But yeah, if you were to make an 8"x10" CCD that has the same pixel density as my camera, you'd have a damn good photo, even blown up to wall size. However, I doubt that most would be able to afford that camera, as big CCDs are expensive to make and deal with.
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There are a few factual errors here.
There are, and have been, many professional photographers who use/used 35mm cameras and film. Photojournalists come to mind - in droves. You used to be able to go through Photographer's Market and find gazillions of clients that would accept 35mm film "professionally". Go back an dlook at a few of the "Swimsuit edition" videos and tell me what kind of cameras they are using...
Second, it's 6cm, or 60mm film, not 120mm film (Hasselblads shoot 6x6cm, and lots of the Japanese medium format manufacturers do "645", or 6x4.5cm, which enlarges to 8x10 without cropping. These cameras are popular with portrait photographers and many advertising photographers who work with people.
Large format cameras are the purview of art photographers (who claim and use everything from old throwaway polaroid cameras to 11x14 Linhofs) and commercial photographers. The biggest commercial application of the large formats used to be images that would be re-touched ( a big enough primary image to work with - think playboy centerfolds ) and ads for high-gloss magazines where the tonal range would be at least partially represented. There isn't much work for a commercial photog that requires resolution higher than 6cm film will provide, but there is a little. A 4x5 image will, certainly, make your 35mm look like crap, but mostly because of tonal range, not resolution; if you display them at the same perceptual size, with detail representation below your liminal threshold, the 4x5 image will look subjectively 'better', because it has a longer tonal range and better contrast without washout.
In the end, the camera to use is the one that fits your purposes. An 8 mpixel camera will make a happy 5x7 image - better than most ISO 400 images, probably simliar to ISO100 films, and not quite as nice as, say, an ISO 32 or 25 film. For snapshots, they'll work fine all the way out to 11x14. For display, I would never take a 35mm image higher than 5x7; for snapshots, they'll go to 11x14. I would print 6x6 images at 6"x6" on 8x10 paper for gallery display. After working with a couple of 8 mp cameras, I would say that they will fulfill the purposes of some 90% of 35mm photographers, particularly the ones that offer full manual override. The single place that I've not seen a digital come close to my T90 or F1 canons is in FPS.. I can crank 4.5 frames a second through either of those machines, while an 8MP camera is still downloading third image it recorded.
The end is in sight. I've seen 32mpixel images, and you're wrong; you can blow those things up till hell freezes over.
The Rolleiflex TLRs were beautiful machines, and had wonderful lenses, but in the hands of an incompetent photographer, they would produce shit. By the same token, the Diana was a POS camera, but in the hands of the right artist, would create images that would stop you in your tracks. I suggest that the quality of the photography is in the photographer, not the gear. The gear is enabling, not creative.
Thinking outside my Head
I'd have been happier with your answers --and assumed a pro was answering-- had you caught this one. 6x6 is, as you say, 6 cm x 6 cm. And he did get it wrong by stating it as 120 milimeters. However, 6x6 is also known in professional circles as the 120 format, just as there's a 220 format (6x6 long roll), and a 135 format (also more generally known as 35mm, or 24x36).
"A 4x5 image will, certainly, make your 35mm look like crap, but mostly because of tonal range, not resolution..."
Nope, it's the resolution. Most commercial 4x5 was done E-6, and "chrome" tends to have limited exposure latitudes and high contrast. While, say, a Canon 1Ds MII can rival 645 for some subjects, and a 24MP MF back can rival 6x6 or 6x7 for others, a good wall-sized print from 4x5 simply captures more detail. This is especially noticeable in complex, high-detail, "high-frequency" landscape scenes with lots of grass and trees.
Use a vivid film like Velvia, and the contrast bumps even higher.
"...is in FPS.. I can crank 4.5 frames a second through either of those machines, while an 8MP camera is still downloading..."
Sigh. So you've never used a 1D MII either? 8.5 fps max 40 JPEG or 20 RAW.
(Ex-commercial pro, 20 years experience, Canon Digital, Nikon, Hassie, Mamiya 6x7, Sinar 4x5, Sinar 8x10)
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