donaldejose asks......

Yes, you can shoot transparency film and then scan it to digital. But really, why do all that extra work?

Yes, everything you say is true; however, (not sure whether this applies to you or not Donald), for anyone that has taken the time to read every reply in this thread, I really think you would have to concede, there are,(or may be), many reasons !

This is quite possibly the single most "interesting", most "illuminating" discussion I have read thus far on NRF; ( I find myself agreeing with "both sides", about equally.)

For me personally, here's a couple of things I miss about my "film days"; unlike many who have replied to this discussion, I have never done photography "professionally"......I've never depended on it to make a living; (fortunately, or I would no doubt be "poorer" now than I already am !)

After buying my first camera (about 1951), it was years and years before I ever "got around" to up-grading to a halfway decent camera. It wasn't until the Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. that I finally bought my first truly decent SLR, ( a "refurbished" Canon F-1, a 200mm/f2.8 lens, a 50mm/f1.4 "normal" lens, and a few more "goodies" that Canon Camera had "loaned" to professional sports photographers who were covering the winter games, as a promotional tool; (you will note, we are talking "just before auto-focus" here).

I learned quite a lot with the F-1; (a truly marvelous camera "in it's day"); somewhere along the line, my interest in some of my other many hobbies "exceeded" my interest in taking pictures, and I didn't take a whole lot of pictures for a few years, other than when I went on vacation. ( still forced to work for a living in those days)

Suddenly, everything changed.........after just one phone call; (from my son who was calling from Honolulu) (he: "I'm gonna be out here at least all summer; I just booked you a flight to come out here.....how long do you want to stay?") Me: "three weeks would be fine......never had a desire to go to Hawaii." Two days later I was in sunny Waikiki Beach.

My son works for the U.S. Navy; (as a civilian engineer) his whole group (about 40 people) were sent to Hawaii to "work on" a "project" that had to do with something I know very little about....."SAR" (or synthetic aperture radar) the whole reason behind sending 40 people to Hawaii for 4 or 5 months ? The "sea state"...( apparently the "waves" are somewhat different in Hawaii than they are off of the California coast, and apparently "SAR" is greatly affected by "waves" ?)

Anyway........my son was pretty "into" photography for a few years before he left for Hawaii, so he elected to "upgrade" his "kit", the better to "have more fun, take better pictures" while he's away from home; so he bought a new Nikon F5, about 6 lenses, a new CF Gitzo with an Arca Swiss B-1 ball head, and and a few K worth of "other goodies".

I was greatly surprised by Hawaii.......after my three weeks were about up, I decide to stay "longer" ( about 3 months longer )

Obviously, after shooting with my "then ancient", match-needle Canon F-1 part of the day, then shooting with the new F5 while the son was out flying around in a P-3 Orion, working on "SAR", I realized I also needed to "upgrade"; when I got back to Cincinnati, I spent about 6 months on Ebay, switching from Canon to Nikon, Gitzo, & Arca Swiss.

So.......at this point, I'm now enjoying shooting with what was the "primo" camera among travel and wild life shooters at the time, the Nikon F 5.

The only problem being.........my "timing" sucked ! Digital was just rearing it's ugly head ! ( But I kept right on, shooting Fuji Velvia; ) (for a couple of more years)

A couple of people in this thread have noted that buying film costs "lots of money"; (when you piddle around, shooting 8 fps, it gets VERY expensive, very quickly! ) (At that point in time, I was starting to feel a lot like Pierre !)

It took a few more years before I thought much about going digital; here I am, eye glasses and all, looking through what I consider to be, the single finest view finder ever put on a 35mm camera, and NOW, I'm gonna be obliged to "start all over", at the "bottom" !

Understand, I'm very accustomed to being about 3 years behind everyone else, equipment wise; hey....I'm a poor senior citizen ! how many $$$$ can I "justify", on what are , essentially (for me), "toys"? The quick answer to that is.........not nearly enough to own another Nikon digital body with a view finder half a nice as the F-5 ! If I was about to buy a new body tomorrow, (and I'm not), I'd look for the "best deal" I could find on a "moderately used" D 3s. ( Why not a D 4 you ask ? ) Because, there will be NO "deals" on D 4's for the next few years !

Not EVEN to mention...........in my wildest dreams, I can't even imagine EVER having to take "better pictures" than can be made with the superlative D3s.

I can only speak for one guy........me. I have no idea "how much camera" YOU need, and I have no idea how many $$$$ YOU can "justify" having, (essentially "tied up"), in something that DEPRECIATES about as fast as anything I can think of; (a D SLR body)

I might mention, in Hawaii. the son and I had the extreme pleasure of "playing with" a brand new Nikkor 600mm AF ED/ f4 lens, (which belonged to the U.S.N.) Two things came immediately to mind; anyone trying to shoot with a 600 mm lens, mounted on a ball head, better spend a few more $$$ and get himself a good gimbal head, PLUS, he/she needs to be a hell of a lot "richer" than I am ! (But it WAS a lot of fun !)

Charley

Yes, you can shoot transparency film and then scan it to digital. But really, why do all that extra work? If you love antique cars go buy one and drive it occasionally but really who deals with their inadequacies as a daily driver? Digital has far surpassed film for all but some very specialized uses. Go digital, learn how to manipulate some post processing software if you want to emulate the look of certain films. I am sure you won't once you start learning how to adjust your Picture Controls to get 95% of the look you want right out of the camera. Much post processing, including HDR, can be done in camera before you even view your image on your computer monitor.

I think donaldejose's advice is the best yet ! I can't understand why anyone is willing to put up with all of the hassles of buying and shooting film, then waiting weeks to see what you did...........I still have my F-5, and I still love the camera, but i "miss" film about like I would "miss" a broken leg............

Of course, as we all know, different people like different things..........it seems that a LOT of people "like" to "do drugs", get drunk, watch every stupid "sit com" that TV puts out, ditto for all of the stupid movies Hollywood puts out...........and it's totally inconceivable to me how anyone could derive pleasure from any of these "activities"..............but I suppose many of these morons think I'm "square" because I only listen to classical music, ( rather than all of the noisy crap you hear on the radio and TV ), and I'm sure most of them would think I'm crazy if they knew what some of my "hobbies" are !

While the topic here is about shooting film............I read something recently on the "controversial" Ken Rockwell's website that kind of got me thinking about shooting a roll of film occasionally; He was making the point that what with all of these great film cameras available now, for pennies on the dollar, as compared to what they cost new, that you could pick up a great camera, (such as an F-5, F-6, F-100, etc., take advantage of the capabilities such bodies afford one, ( such as high FPS rates, dynamic AF, etc etc, then process the film, digitize the slides to get all of this data onto your hard drive, than "have a ball" doing all of the things digital photography allows one to do; ( you never know what Ken is gonna come up with next; almost made me think about emailing B&H and ordering a few rolls of Velvia !)

When I started my film photography class, I picked the F5 over the F100. I didn't want to go without a 100% viewfinder.

Maybe the reasons one would continue on film would be interesting to hear. NZnikon has not been on the forum for over nine months..... So, My question is to whom are we talking?

So, here is the "Film vs Digital" thread

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=22&page=5

Ditto on the F100. Got a used one for 150 a month ago. The best bang for your buck film camera you can get.

BTW - read Thom Hogan's review of the F100, it will let you know what you might be giving up that the F5 has. If the F5 has features you can't live without, then go right ahead and get one. Shop around though, I've seen them as low as $300, barely used.

Should one buy a used F5 for $450 these days?

NO.

Buy a used F100 for $100-$150 max. I see them on Craig's List all the time. I paid $100 and it came in the original box with 17 rolls of film.

Then you will own what is basically the baby F5 (kinda what the D700 is to the D3) which, in this day and age, is more film camera than you will ever need.

KZnikon: go to digital, it as so left film behind.

Nothing like replying to a 9 month old thread.............

It's kinda hard to compare the F-5 with other cameras; to begin with, Nikon developed the F-5 to be a "do-anything" body, and "aimed" it at the top guys in the business; (such as Moose Peterson and Franz Lanting) There were a few years when you could look through an issue of Nat Geo, and it was a safe bet that 3/4 of the images in the whole magazine were taken with an F-5. The thing has "things" that no other camera of it's day, had; like 5 different "very hefty" motors, probably the ruggedest shutter mechanism ever made, more individual focusing screens, (for every conceivable situation, (and a few that were "inconceivable"!) It was built for people who routinely "drag" their photo gear through humid rain forests, aired deserts, and sub zero places such as Antarctica.

For quite a time, the "thing" was so "tall", (bottom to top of penta prism ), that no one made a back pack deep enough to get the "top" closed and zipped up over the thing; (People like "Kinesis Gear" solved that problem very nicely, with their great "holster-pac").......the F-5 with my big 80-200 / f2.8 AF ED zoom fit the Kinesis Gear holster-pac perfectly, (and with the pac attached to Kinesis great "big padded belt", you could carry the big body and lens all day and all night (if need be) without undue fatigue.

I'm not at all familiar with the F-6, but it was introduced "too late" (as digital was "coming on", so I really don't think the F-6 ever sold enough units to even begin to gain the popularity that the F-5 had for so long.

Another thing about the F-5.........if you wear eye glasses, their has NEVER been a camera that is (or was) as easy to "see" through, as the F-5; IMHO, the all time BEST view finder I have EVER looked through or used.

( If only someone would figure out a "scheme" to convert an F-5 body to shoot digital ! I would "sign up" right now ! )

To answer the question, "is there a large difference in accuracy between the F-5 and the F90X"...........I would say there is a huge difference in EVERTHING between the two !

Yeah, the F-6 is a bit "newer"...........but if you are still determined to shoot film, I really think paying upwards of $1,500 for a F-6, when you can score an F-5 for from $300 to $500, would be a bit like inserting one's own foot, into one's own "arse" ! (financially speaking)

I love my F5 and wouldn't trade it for anything. That said I also only paid $300 for it. If I were you I would look into both the F100 and F5 and see what the difference is between the two and what is important to you. I got the F5 bc I liked the bigger body to balance out lenses better and I also shoot a lot of portraits so the built in grip was a must for me. With the price I would have paid for a F100 and grip it would have been the same price, so I went with the one piece camera instead of having two pieces. A trick if you do get the F5, I shoot in CL so it is only 5fps at most. I only used the CH 8fps once and that was to put a hand full of short movie clips together. That might save you a little bit in film

+1 on the F100. I have one with the mb 15 battery grip and it's fantastic. If you make the jump to digital the controls are very similar to a D200 or D700

The F100 is a fantastic camera (as is the f80)...

I'd ignore that advice unless you are genuine professional photographer. You don't need to spend over $1000 to shoot great photos on film. You can find excellent copies of the F100 on eBay for around or under $200. Its smaller and lighter than the F5 and performs almost identically, and it also has far superior AF function than the F90X. I have both and I only use the F90X when I think I might fall into the water or potentially damage the camera in some other way.

Thank you for the reply, I'll start considering an F6 and N75 also. A new lens could also be a worthwhile investment, especially if the decision to swap to digital was ever made.

Wow that question is about 15 years past due ;) If you are going to stick with film I would go with the F6. The F5 was is just a beast of a camera and I loved the F6 when I borrowed one. Still to date, many rank it the best 35mm film camera ever built. You can pick those up for 1200-1600 fairly easily.

I have a N75 I keep - not sure why, but it works with all the new lenses today as well. You can get those for $50-75 and the tech is just as good. Cheap in many regards, but at that rate, you can pick up 5, still have cash, and have a few cameras left over in 20 years.

Hello,

Currently I use a F90X (N90S) and am impressed with it's ability, but am also aware of the extremely low price of Nikon F5's on eBay. I don't plan on switching to digital, preferring instead to stick with 35mm, so I figured I may as well invest in a top SLR. I've found a F5 in good condition for about US$450, which I figured to be a reasonable price. As far as I can tell, the F5 would offer significantly better metering and focusing accuracy over the F90X. Is this a worthwhile purchase? Is there indeed a large difference in accuracy between the F5 and F90X?

Thanks