Anything requiring mercury batteries, apart from the inconvenience of futzing with ill-fitting zinc-air cells, is also verging on being a relic with a good chance of age-related problems affecting reliability/functionality. After the usual chorus of counter-claims, testimonials and CLA recommendations dies down, remember you'll still be relying on a 40-50 year-old camera whose reputation for toughness will be cold comfort when it breaks or produces poorly-exposed negatives. Forget about retro fashion statements. Get the newest, most reliable gear you can. There seems to be budget enough according to the OP.
Rubbish... The only cameras that have ever left me completely in the lurch were electronic marvels...
Meters can be very easily tested for accuracy at home and a roll of film can guarantee that a shutter is operating normally.
Classic cameras go *slowly* out of adjustment with age, whereas electronic marvels can drop dead suddenly and without warning.
Give it a rest. Mechanical cameras aren't immune to breaking, jamming, and otherwise failing suddenly. If I want reliability for a project, I won't be asking to borrow an elderly SRT 101 or Spotmatic for fear that something 40-50 years younger and electronic just might possibly fail. I also won't be losing any sleep over a possibility that remote.
After the usual chorus of counter-claims, testimonials and CLA recommendations dies down, remember you'll still be relying on a 40-50 year-old camera whose reputation for toughness will be cold comfort when it breaks or produces poorly-exposed negatives.
...equipment that has been properly maintained.
A Nikkor 24/2.8 in excellent condition can be had for $150 or even less.
Then I can only question your real-world experience....
Mine is quite different.
I should probably take the hint and not chime in given your adament statement of your opinion/experience... but I still shoot with a 1982 F3 and a 198? FE and a 1958 Retina and a 1940 Anniversary Graphic and a 196? SuperGraphic with excellent reliability and quality. The key is not just the age of the equipment but the condition of the equipment. Oh, and my images are generally metered by a WestonIII or a LunaPro, but with a Gossen battery adapter to avoid being disappointed by kluged batteries. The difference that you may be alluding to is that someone buying older gear from whatever source may or may not be getting equipment that has been properly maintained.
Fair enough. My point is simply that older is not axiomatically better. I've got low-mileage FE, F3, F90x and F100 bodies I trust that were bought as NOS or from original owners.
Give it a rest. Mechanical cameras aren't immune to breaking, jamming, and otherwise failing suddenly. If I want reliability for a project, I won't be asking to borrow an elderly SRT 101 or Spotmatic for fear that something 40-50 years younger and electronic just might possibly fail. I also won't be losing any sleep over a possibility that remote.
No camera is totally immune to breaking or jamming, but on the balance of probabilities, I'd back my 40 year old Nikon F, or my slightly "younger" FM2n's against the latest electronic stuff anytime.
A further point. some years ago whilst covering a violent demonstration that turned into a full scale riot, it became necessary to defend myself. My all metal Nikon FM2 with MD12 motordrive attached, made rather a mess of the attacking rioter's face with just one swing, yet still continued working afterwards....a testament to the solidity of Nikon engineering in the 1970's-80's........If I found myself in the same situation again, I wouldn't feel half so confident that the current crop of complicated electronic wonders would come through a similar situation completely unscathed.
Cheer up. If you'd been packing an F3+MD4, you'd probably still be in the slammer. The F4 and F5 weren't exactly petite.
Probably, but if I'd had the rather flimsy AF 35mm f2 attached to a D300, instead of the older all metal manual 35mm lens + FM2 & drive, I doubt it would have survived.
One question: All the cameras being recommended seem to have pretty basic meters compared to modern SLR cameras (the Minolta XD-11 seems barely ok from reading the user manual), such as a led turning green, or disappearing +/- signs, or needles (!). I know the idea is to zero your meter off something close to 18% grey in the same lighting condition as your subject, but when using my dslr, I typically look at the scene and use my spot meter to meter off skin tones (when doing a portrait) or a highlight I don't want clipped (under most normal contrast lighting situations), and use the exposure bar to set my exposure to say -3 for black with detail or +3 for white with detail. Given that these film slr cameras don't tell you how much you are over/underexposed by (for 18% grey), is it fair to assume that I can't use this approach, or am I missing something?
For me, it seems like the fastest way of working, and based on what I normally shoot, I've never really had any issues and its served me well. I don't claim to be an exposure guru, so any advice (please no flame wars!) would be nice, and ultimately, good exposures and good focus are my primary concern as we all know that film is rather expensive, especially if you have to import it yourself!
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