Film still favoured

[peterrdean]

I still use film and I have a mini darkroom set up. In a cupboard in the hallway next to the bathroom I have a Durst enlarger on a shelf about waist height. In the cupboard is a safelight, a papersafe, timer etc. This is the dry part of my darkroom. In another cupboard is a small 500mm high cupboard unit on castors, which stores my chemicals. Mounted on top of this is a Nova Quad 12 x15 tank and wash unit. The quad tank can be capped so the chemicals will last for about 6 weeks. This is the wet part.
When I want to use the dark room, I wheel out the wet part connect a water supply hose and drain, and I'm ready to go. The finished prints and films dry over the bath.

I also have a Nikon negative scanner built in to my homebuilt black Hyper Osiris computer. I had to download a program called VueScan to make it work with Windows 7.

I have 2 x Nikon F2ASs, and 1 each of FM2n, FE2, and FM3A, all in black.
For the F2s I have the full range of non metering heads all in black, except for the waist level finder, which was never made in black so I had to get the chrome one.
To use with these I have: 15mm f3.5 rectilinear lens, 20mm f3.5, 24mm f2.8, 35mm f2.8 shift lens, 45mm f2.8 Guide Number lens, 50mm f1.2, 80mm f1.4, 105mm f2.5, 135mm f2.8, 300mm f4.5 plus a selection of zooms and 2 teleconverters (all genuine Nikon)
In 1976 I bought a Nikon FB8 case which was made from an artificial leather. After about 20 years it split, so I disassembled it and made patterns of the leather. I rebuilt it using black Conolly hide. Picture from my gallery.

I have 3 x black Rollei 35S's and 1 in gold. (Do you detect a trend?)

A black Leica M6TTL with a Noctolux 50mm f1.

I also have a couple of digitals. A Nikon D40x with 12 to 24mm VR and 18 to 200mm VR lenses, and a compact Panasonic.

 

[Edcculus]

I'm getting back into film. I've got a Nikon F2 Photomic and mainly use the 50mm Nikkor lens. I do have a zoom, but the foot that connects it to the light meter came off, and I can't find a screw small enough to get it back on.


I'm in the process of setting up a darkroom too. I've bought a Beseler XL enlarger. The previous owner gave me all of their pans, tubs, safelight, timer tongs etc. It would be pretty sweet to have a processor for prints though.


I was going to just process the film myself, then scan it in, but printing is really the best part so I went ahead with getting an enlarger.


Next, I'm looking at getting an old rangefinder. I've seen several in a great price range. I'm leaning heavily toward FED or Zorki.


I don't think film can or will completely replace what I do in digital, but it can certainly have a place!

 

[djh]

I recently bought a Nikon film body in order to be able to use my current lens set whilst shooting film. This won't replace my digital photography, but it is certainly a fun addition. I develop my negatives and scan..... and now I am seriously jonesing for a Hasselblad.

 

[Heespharm]

I was an all digital wedding photog but now that I'm done with that I've gone back to the film scene... I do 4x5 , 8x10 large format; a couple of hasselblads and nikons... My f2 that I own was the camera my dad used to take my baby pictures... Love the look of film more than digital... Especially color pics

 

[Clarifixer]

One of the things I'm going to do to celebrate my birthday next week is process a couple of rolls of Plus-X that have been sitting for too long. Black and white film is just a lovely medium, and when you mix your own developers and various chemicals, it's a very creative and satisfying endeavor. It is time consuming and can be expensive when you start printing, but there's something about being in the womb of the darkroom that soothes the soul.

I've started scanning negatives now, and it is fun to joint film and computers into "Figital."

Here's one taken with an Olympus OM-2n and 90mm F/2 macro on Ilford Delta 100 in D-76

 

[legrandfromage]

I gave up/dismantled the darkroom years ago, but still shoot some film (actually less than I want to). I think that the reason that I like to do it is primarily the feel of the cameras and the process. My film cameras (35mm and MF) have a totally different, mechanical feel to them versus the DSLR's. After fifty odd years of shooting film I still have the mindset and still, after ten or so years of shooting digital, will come home with a relatively small number of frames on a card.