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

@msmoto Your shots were totally acceptable to me...even those that you shot at 12,000+ ISO (i.e the one post a remark on...could not put the link here). Would a flash help, yes...specially if you had the Gary Fog Collapsible Lightsphere.

I was allowed to shoot some supplementary photos at my son's wedding this past weekend. And following my PAD posts for the last couple days will take someone to the "set" on Flickr.

My plans were to shoot two bodies, but the fact I had to be in the wedding at times, and was not allowed to wear my jeans and t-shirt, I decided the D4 with 24mm f/1.4. No fill. At times I utilized the videographers lighting..and at the cake cutting, where I was almost certain the mush in the face was to occur, I shot 8 FPS....

OK, the point....there are no doubt some of the photos on Flickr which are IMO marginal...needed a fill flash. But, the majority can be managed in LR 4.2 or other PP program and again, IMO are a more accurate representation of the situation than if I had added fill flash.

Conclusion: Two cameras, one with fill flash for the "lighting from H***" situations. And, while one needs big ISO, the second with fill might be only 6400 ISO.

Please understand, I have no problems with seeing a small amount of noise....

msmoto said:
I noticed a no budget restraints suggestion.... so D4, D800, 24mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8, and if the lights are horrid, a soft box fill on camera with about a 1 f/stop down on the flash exposure, i.e., just for a fill...

+1, +1.5? :)

A lot of cameras will do the business. I'd be far more uptight about lighting.

I couldn't believe it, but I saw a used D600 for $1700 in the window of one of my favourite camera stores this afternoon! Even crazier was the fact that a used D800 was placed right next to it for $2750. Apparently the D600 will drop like a stone in pricing especially for used bodies and will register below a used D700 because of the body structure differences if you can believe it. Both bodies were mint and had 2,900 and 3,000 actuations respectively. andens grab a D600 it is super light and takes great images. The 24-70 will serve you perfectly as well.

I'd probably lean to a D600 backed up by a D7000. They share a lot of accessories - batteries, cable release, SD cards only, etc. And functionally, the shape of the body and placement of controls are similar. The D700 is a good camera, but I would choose the D600 and related updates at a little more money. The D700, D300, etc have accessories that are not compatible so the savings is not what you would like.

I would more to the pro lenses which is where your money will go. The 24-70 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 are the classic combination but you might try the 70-200 f/4. You'll probably want a couple of flash units - one for each camera and to make sure you have a backup.

I noticed a no budget restraints suggestion.... so D4, D800, 24mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8, and if the lights are horrid, a soft box fill on camera with about a 1 f/stop down on the flash exposure, i.e., just for a fill...

R8R said:
I've shot a friend's wedding with the D7000 and it was totally usable. The images came out great. You need to know that thing inside and out though to make shooting fast and flexible. Put good glass on it.

+1

I've shot a friend's wedding with the D7000 and it was totally usable. The images came out great. You need to know that thing inside and out though to make shooting fast and flexible. Put good glass on it.

If I were committing to Nikon as a wedding photographer my choice would be D800 with a D600 backup. If you are strapped for cash at the moment, you should go for D700 to which you could add a D600 later then D800 when you are rich and famous (;-/). The important thing is that you are exclusively full frame and so your camera body will not affect the style of photo you take, just the ultimate resolution. Next decision is glass - start with 14-24 and 24-70 f2.8's if you can - you'll never sell them to upgrade.

Even if you do get a D7000 (DX sensor) body which is very cheap right now, you should get FX (full frame) glass so you can upgrade the body later.

HTH.

ask anyone you know if you can shoot their wedding casually. then rent a body and some lenses (stay out of the main photog's way).

then see if what you have shot is anywhere near good enough.

then think real hard about wedding photography and what you'll need.

I have $30000 worth of gear and years of experience and would still be nervous shooting a wedding by myself.

If you really can't afford a D800 look at the D600 and get the D800 later but if you are on very tight budget the D7000 will be fine. forget the D90 and the D300 both now very dated, the other option is a S/H D700

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.

Used D7000? Or a used D300s? Or D90, used. I am thinking one might want to start out inexpensively and when the new iterations of the model come out...add a body. One needs a couple lenses. The kit lenses with a flash for weddings may be fine. Then as the price goes up, so does the quality. I am shooting a wedding on full frame with a 24mm, and on DX with an 85mm. No zoom.

There is no doubt a lot of folks have done extremely competent jobs at weddings with the D7000. I suppose it depends on whether someone is spending $500 or $5000 for the photos...

More to come from the experts.....

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 !)

I would suggest using a D600 ($1,000 less than a D800 and available now - plenty of images from it on NR PAD) combined with the replacement for the D7000 (likely to be named the D7200 and likely to be out early next year).

Hi,

Apologies, if I'm in the wrong place, I have used this site intermittently before so may need guidance as to which is the best forum. However, my main question is relating to 'What is a good Nikon camera, to begin photographing weddings with? As a bit of a background to assist, I have for many years used film and still do almost all the time (current camera's include Nikon F3, Minolta Dynax 7 and 9, and a Mamiya RB67) in addition to digital I have been a Sony A100 user, since they came out. However, I'm not ready to commit to the new translucent sensor technology, as it is still new, and as Sony have stopped making standard DSLR's I'm reluctant to commit the the A900 if that is the end of the road for Sony Dslr's. I have been asked to photograph a number of weddings later in the year and next, I realise that one digital is not a good idea, and hence I am thinking of changing platforms to Nikon and have been looking a the D7000 as the my first digital Nikon. Probably to use as them main camera to begin, supported by the A100 if need be, although i recognise all the issues with lenses and flash I have a full compliment of these for the Sony, I would look to get these for the Nikon as soon as practical. I have also looked at the D800, but that for the time being is a little out of reach. So the question really is do you thing that the d7000 id an adequate camera fro weddings, whilst supported with the Sony and the RB for the portraits and art photo's - if the time allows. Many thanks for your thoughts.

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