I'm such an idiot!

[faeriegodess612]

So, I know I'm weird and I might be the only one that does this. But some of my most brilliant ideas come from my time spent thinking while in the shower. I've been thinking lately of how I could upgrade to a better camera. I live in a military town now, so I thought of all the pawn shops that the soldiers and their families will sell stuff to when they deploy. There are A LOT of them here. Thats probably for a lil later when I have a few hundred (or less, depending) to blow on something like that. So I was still pondering on it and I got a brilliant idea. I felt like such an idiot once it came up, thinking why didnt I think of that before?

My husband bought a Canon EOS Rebel K2 a few years ago when he was in college for the photography course he took for his art credits. He NEVER uses the thing now. It's a film camera, but it basically has all the settings that a DSLR would have. All it needs is film, and batteries.

So I bought some 800 speed film (4 rolls for 10 bucks at Wal-Mart) and gotta go back for the batteries. Forgot to see what kind it takes and hubby didnt remember. Not only will it give me a chance to play with actually being able to change the shutter speed and the aperture and all that, but even though film is pretty cheap, processing isnt. I still wouldnt want to waste an entire roll of film just for maybe one shot. In other words,...not that I dont do this already, but it forces you to pay more attention to each shot. Instead of just click, click, click,...and Oh, I can just delete those or edit that out later.

I hate that I hear that from so many DSLR photographers. If you pay more attention to what your shooting, you have less to go thru later and end up with more pictures that you can actually use. If you have to spend hours in PP then they werent that good to begin with. Let's remember the days when they didnt have digital cameras.

So, anyways,.....I'm SO looking forward to playing around with it. I'm a lil intimidated by it, I'm gonna have to read up on the beginner stuff and make sure I remember all that correctly. But, just had to share my idea and rant a bit.

[PowerPix]

So you are excited?

Come on, share how you really feel!

[Jonbar18]

i just bought a Nikon N60 cost me $20

BTW for film, Blacks sells 5packs for about $40, in including processing, and you can get the pics on CD for $5

[LMAshton]

I think Blacks is Canadian, isn't it? I used to work at Blacks in Edmonton, Alberta, and back then it was only in Canada...

[tuxcomputers]

Originally Posted by faeriegodess612

In other words,...not that I dont do this already, but it forces you to pay more attention to each shot. Instead of just click, click, click,...and Oh, I can just delete those or edit that out later.

That's all well and good IF you have the time to setup each shot, try some street photography the moment passes in an instant. You don't time to think let alone take into consideration the light angle and what settings you need etc.

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by tuxcomputers

That's all well and good IF you have the time to setup each shot, try some street photography the moment passes in an instant. You don't time to think let alone take into consideration the light angle and what settings you need etc.

This is not a limitation imposed by a film camera, it is a limitraion of the operator. People took lots of great photographs before digital came along.

[Sime]

Originally Posted by tuxcomputers

That's all well and good IF you have the time to setup each shot, try some street photography the moment passes in an instant. You don't time to think let alone take into consideration the light angle and what settings you need etc.

There was some amazing street style / photo journalistic photography before digital.

[zona5101]

Learning of a film camera will be a valuable experience. As you suggest, it will force you to consider more before you press the shutter. Be sure and take notes of what you envisioned versus what comes out... then spend time to figure out what variables affected the difference between the two. You don't need to have a film camera to use a similar methodology but most people just adjust something or another until they get a "better" picture without understanding what prevented the first shot from being what they envisioned.

[oldwolf]

Originally Posted by tuxcomputers

That's all well and good IF you have the time to setup each shot, try some street photography the moment passes in an instant. You don't time to think let alone take into consideration the light angle and what settings you need etc.

Originally Posted by zona5101

This is not a limitation imposed by a film camera, it is a limitraion of the operator. People took lots of great photographs before digital came along.

+1

The limitations of the operator are what affects the output of a good picture. Give a terrible operator a $30,000 digital camera and they'll still output terrible pictures. Give a great operator a $10 disposable film camera and they'll output great pictures.

My only recommendation when learning film is to take notes of what each frame's exposure settings are so you can analyze it later. That's the one thing I hated about film; the note taking.

[faeriegodess612]

LOL, I appreciate that so many of you see things the way I do. It's not the equipment, its the skill of the person controlling it. :P

Thank you for the advice about using film too. I didnt think about the fact that the camera won't save the EXIF data. And when I do get them developed, if I can find a decent place around here to do it, ( I refuse to use places like Wal-Mart or CVS ) I'll have them put on CD, so I can put them on my computer and post them on DPS.