I have about 500 quid to blow on a shiny new film camera. I am looking at Canon and Nikon, the former being a family tradition, and the latter a new preference.
The model under strongest consideration is the Nikon F80, which is a clear contender unlike the hordes of Canon body/lens options that are available at that price. See [www.nikon-image.com] for specifications.
Does anyone have any positive/negative comment to chip in before I purchase such?
If it seems odd that I would want a film camera in this day and age, it is a considered choice; to satisfy my digital urges I will be augmenting the camera purchase with a Minolta film scanner [www.photo-i.co.uk] (again, a considered choice up against the Nikon Coolscan V that lacks resolution and Firewire) and I shall skip getting a big digicamera until there is another cycle of technology.
The new SLR will augment my old, dented, battered, externally-metered 1964-vintage and interestingly co-branded Canon/Bell&Howell SLR as illustrated at [www.vintagephoto.tv] – which still provides me with hands-on film control when desired.
I have a girly-calendar to shoot in a few weeks time, so I feel the need for a bit more kit.
Heh. You feel the need for a bit more kit in order to shoot girls with a bit less kit.
<grin> – yeah, some of the girls around the office have been training to participate in a marathon – http://www.walkthewalk.org/ – and having gotten themselves uberfit, inspired by a recent movie have decided to do a genteel calendar for charity, as a souvenir.
…and on the basis of my past experience, I got tapped as photographer.
You really might want to reconsider the film bit. My wife is a long time Nikon film fan (so has a panoply of lenses). We just got her a D70 and it’s unclear just when she’ll load up any of the three film bodies in her collection again.
http http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/ http http://www.cameraworld.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=13129501&location=GGSPRD&storeId=10151&processRequest=10002&cm_ref=http%3A%2F%2Ffroogle.google.com%2Ffroogle%3Fq%3Dnikon+d70&btnG=Search+Froogle&prp=541538922&langId=-1&catalogId=10001
you’ve probably made your mind up by now, but here’s my 2p:
I’ve had an F80 since late 2000. Lovely camera, handles nicely, all the bells and whistles you’d ever use and a few you never will — I particularly like auto-bracketing in motor-drive mode. Autofocus is as good as autofocus can be (but I hate autofocus.) And the batteries last forever, I’ve been carrying the current spare set around so long I’m starting to worry about their shelf life
However, I keep going back to my ancient OM2. I just can’t get the kind of shots on the Nikon particularly through the nasty cheap zoom they sell on their sub-professional models. Even against the Nikkor 20mm prime the old Olympus glass is so much better.
And, it’s a monster to carry around but not as bad as the D100.
thanks for the comments – i *am* still thinking, but i am really torn by what keith said. I have a total budget of 1200 quid max, but that breaks down as one of:
1) Film SLR, adequate AF lens, film scanner — or:
2) Digital SLR, adequate lens — or:
3) Digital SLR, cheap lens, film scanner
…and I really am rather torn about where to go from here. I have an archive of film (old, current and future, care of my old Canon, and the Minox GT-E) so a scanner would be lovely; I could get one and skip this generation of Digital in favour of a 5400 DPI Minolta scanner…
…or, I could do like Keith says, and go Big Digital
Argh, I hate indecision, and I dislike option 3.
The “kit” lens with the D70 is really quite good (at this point, with a wee person,we are using the portait lens a lot as well).
’twere it me, I’d go with with (2) for now. Get an older scanner on ebay for the old film/slide conversion in your spare time. But you could put that off, you may be spending too much time outside taking new pictures to justify the scanner purchase just now ;>
If you have enough invested in cannon lenses you could easily go with with their new model. While I don’t think it’s quite as good as the Nikon it’s not a bad choice … and not having to retrain your fingers or give up your lens ensemble are significant factors in my book.