"I want a simple SLR" says my 15y/o son. Err, no you don't!

dynachrome

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I have a fleet of Minolta X700s and I like them. For your purposes a nice camera would be a Nikon N90S (F90X) with the battery grip. They have beautiful finders and all the features you could want all the way up to a top shutter speed of 1/8000. A 50/2 or 50/1.8 AI lens would be a good start. Why the battery grip? Battery grips make holding the camera steady for vertical shots much easier. With AI/AIS lenses you can meter properly and also use focus confirmation. These lenses have aperture rings so making the manual aperture adjustments is easy and changing the shutter speeds is not difficult. Want a different focusing screen? You can get that for the N90S.
 

mgb74

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2 elements at play. First, if paying by paypal, the seller is at risk for delivery unless mailed with tracking to destination. So that means that First Class int'l parcel isn't advised. Then, most sellers add on the expected ebay and paypal fees on the postage, making it even more expensive.
 

Richard Searle

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An program SLR with a 28mm lens and some 400 ASA film. Gets around that fiddle focusing stuff so he'll a point and shoot and something to build pm if he takes to it.
 

cb1

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I vote for a Canon AE1-Program and the nFD 50mm 1.4 lens. Tell him to have fun and don't stop taking pictures, especially at school. He will thank you.
 

cooltouch

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Geez, so many replies. Nikon FG fits perfectly with the OP's needs. Better than any FD Canon or MD Minolta or Pentax KA. Much cheaper than an Oly OM-4

The FG is the only reasonably priced (say $50 or less) manual focus 35mm camera I can recall that has a full program mode as well as a fully coupled and intuitive manual mode. The latter is most important for when he grows into photography a bit more. He won't run out of camera. Like I did with my FD Canons. I had to revert back to early FD gear -- FTbs and old F-1s to operate a camera in fully coupled manual mode.

The Minolta X570 is close. It has a good manual mode and a nice, bright viewfinder. But it does not have a Program mode -- just aperture priority. Perhaps the Pentax Program Plus has something to offer. I have a Super Program and I can't recommend it. The Oly OM-2SP typically sells for much more than a "reasonable price." And Contax? Well, you'll be paying a premium for one of those as well. Not to mention the cost of the Zeiss lenses.
 
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Minoltafan2904

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+1 for the X-700, many people prefer it to the obiquitous Canon AE-1, it has P mode which is useful for a beginner, but the great thing is that Minolta marketed it mostly towards advanced non-professional users but the accessories available for the Minolta X- Series rivals pro SLRs, Motor Drives, Winders, Data backs, Multi Function backs, 3 different flashes that work with TTL off the film metering, power grips, wireless controllers.... oh and Minolta's SR lenses are great too.

I am no longer a beginner but i still love my X-700 that my father gave to me and i am building a fairly good collection of lenses and accessories for it, you'd have to pry it from my dead hands basically.

They're reasonably priced although prices have gone up significantly in the past years, you can get a working one with a 50mm prime for less than 100 USD if you are good at winning Ebay auctions.

If you find an X-500 it's build wise almost identical to the X-700, it lacks P mode and exposure compensation but has a better manual mode and it's possible to use a slower flash sync speed than 1/60.

Things that might put you off the Minolta X- series?
Battery dependant.
Plastic body construction, the build quality is quite good, but try not to drop it.
Maximum shutter speed of 1/1000?
They have a few faults with electronic capacitors that can fail due to age, but they're easily fixed...

I'd highly recomend this article : Dead Link Removed
 
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cooltouch

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Minoltafan2904 said:
If you find an X-500 it's build wise almost identical to the X-700, it lacks P mode and exposure compensation but has a better manual mode and it's possible to use a slower flash sync speed than 1/60.
Click to expand...

Perzackly why I prefer the X-570 (or X-500 if you're not in the States) over the X-700. I don't care about Program of Exposure Compensation. But I do care about a properly functioning Manual mode. With the fully coupled manual mode in the X-570, EC isn't necessary anyway. And when it comes to automation, Aperture Priority AE is about as fancy as I care to get.

One good thing about the X-700: it is still plentiful on the used market. Minolta made that camera for a bunch of years. Not so for the X-570. I kept an eye out for a reasonably priced X-570 for months before I found one at a good price. I could have bought hundreds of X-700s during that same time frame.
 

Chuckwade87

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Doesnt matter which one you get, after he sees the results from the first roll of film, he'll prolly never touch it again.
 

Cholentpot

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Chuckwade87 said:
Doesnt matter which one you get, after he sees the results from the first roll of film, he'll prolly never touch it again.
Click to expand...

You joke but that's why I suggested a Rebel or some fully automatic. It took me many many rolls to get my hit-rate up. When I started out I was getting maybe 2-3 well exposed and in focus shots. After a while I can now get all the shots down. It took learning and practice. I knew better though growing up on automatics and whizzbangs. It took a learning of a new skill to take a proper photos without help from the camera.
 
OP
OP

OlyMan

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Exactly this. Those of us who taught ourselves photography-skills when even aperture priority was a luxury, let alone autofocus, cannot possibly grasp the perspective of the current generation. Their typical experience of photography is pointing a cellphone at a subject, hitting a button and thinking about virtually nothing. Even fill-in flash, in any situation, including broad daylight. Just set the flash on the phone to 'permanently on', and notwithstanding physics and the fact the flash on a phone is not exactly a second sun, it just works. Ever tried explaining to the average millennial that to pull-off fill-in flash in bright sunlight you'll probably have to use neutral-density filters to drop the incoming light enough for the film not to be over-exposed at the camera's flash-sync speed?

I'm starting with a someone whose norm is to shoot 500 in-focus well-exposed photographs in a day and select the nicest dozen to upload to his facebook page. With that as a baseline, I'm handing him a device which shoots batches of 36 shots that he has to focus. Having gotten his head round the paradigm-shifting discipline of just those two things alone, we will gradually work backwards.
 

removed account4

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IDK olyman
i think you are selling today's kids short.
they aren't doing that stuff not because they can't
or don't have the aptitude for it, but because they aren't exposed to it.
and if you allow yourself to believe that todays kids are unable to do it
and give your son or anyone's kid some auto everything because that is what their
cellphone is ( or whatever ) they will never be able to prove you wrong and make great photos
as you did with a manual film based camera..

im confused about what is hard ..
focusing ? ( you look through the eye piece and turn the lens until things are in focus )
setting the iso ( you turn a dial and set it to what the film box says )
setting the shutter speed ( high number fast shutter, more light, low number less light slow shutter )
aperture ( big number smaller hole more in focus, small number big hole less in focus )
metering ( turn the fstop ring until the needle is in the middle )
seems like its a no brainer as far as i am concerned ..

i used a mickey mouse camera ( 126 ), a 110 instamatic and a hawkeye flashfun (127) before i got a k1000 ...
mickey mouse, instamatic and flashfun were equivalent to the digital point and shoot, cellphone cameras of the day ..
and it took about 2 minutes to learn how to use a manual film camera .. the hardest part is loading the film...

it is too bad you ( and others ) feed the self fulfilling prophecy that todays kids can't do that ...
they can do that, and then some

my 12 year old was exposing glass plates with me a few years ago, and my current 13 year old
will be shooting an 8x10 camera and doing darkroom work probably this year ...
and the older sister has shot an 11x14 camera when she was 14 or 15 ..

i don't feed the "can't do that" cause they can .. and well
 
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Cholentpot

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Those old fixed focus cameras really were easy to use. Start with a K1000 and things get difficult.

Let's start with focusing. If you've never had to focus it can be a learning experience. First off you need to understand that the lens is wide open when you focus, if the aperture is too open that not everything is in focus. Most kids have never used a wide aperture camera.

ISO? Whats that? Oh, I can change it? No? What's the point then?

Shutter speed. Well 1 sounds great! Why is everything blurry? Have to go over 1/60? Why is everything dark now?!

Aperture. What is depth of field? This is confusing, you say small numbers are bigger and bigger numbers are smaller? And now you say stay away from the smallest and biggest numbers? Then why are they on there?

Meter. So, get the needle in the middle. But don't let the shutter speed drop too low. Or the aperture. Oh, can't move the ISO which is not ISO because the stupid camera says ASA for some reason. WTF is center weight?!

Ok, whatever. I finished the puny 24 shots. Now what? I have to PAY to get it developed? $5 for 24 pictures? What? I need to pay to get prints?

Or

Open Iphone. Open App. Click. Done.

No brainer.
 

baachitraka

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I will suggest a 'Diana Mini' with flash or Diana/Diana F (1960 model with 16 exposures).
It may a stunning experience to witness how direct lights are rendered with those cameras esp., Diana/Diana F
 

cb1

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you guys make kids sound like simpletons. My dad gave me his SRT101 when I was in 8th grade and said have fun. I joined the schools photo club and never turned back. I got a brand new AE1P/50mm 1.8 for Christmas in 9th grade and was soon taking pics for the school newspaper and year book for the rest of my high school years.
I was the local "camera guy" when I was in the Army also.

Get him a Canon AE1P or a Minolta X700 or a Nikon 90s. Teach him basic stuff and send him out. That is how I learned. with my AE1P I put the lens on (A) and kept the shutter manual. Took thousands of pics. Some are blurry, some are good and some are great. All of them have a memory and a story.

once he sees the "magic" he created he will be hooked and experiment.
 

removed account4

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i don't know ...
sounds like you are over complicating things
fixed focus sure
focusing a k1000 was not hard, still isn't
and neither is anything else..
the funny thing about this website ( and other photography sites )
is they make EVERYTHING seem so hard that it is no wonder why
people might get turned off .. the reality of it is it isn't hard
when i bought my first 4x5 camera ( speed graphic and then a graphic view 2 )
i had heard it was so difficult, that it was going to take forever to learn and understand ...
and it wasn't furthest from the truth.
the hardest thing was remembering the lens was open to focus and i had to close it to put the film in
or it would be exposed...

as for the questions you asked ...
i had never focused a camera before and it wasn't hard
i had no idea about fstops or asa's or shutter speeds
or how to use a light meter and it took maybe about IDK 10 minutes to learn

it seems a little over kill to suggest a kid can't do something that really isn't hard
to understand or grasp because they are being set up to fail before they even try.
it is amazing, that anyone before "now" even was permitted to use a camera "back in the day"
cause it is so hard ...
 

jacaquarie

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My suggestions for cameras, Minolta, will say again, Minolta!
Have a friend that has several Minolta cameras and I am impressed.
On the other hand I am inclined to the 4x5 view camera a few film holders. Now we will learn how to do real photography. This is the opportunity for the both of you to grow simultaneously as photographers.
I will suggest Minolta for 35mm.
Enough of my opinions.
 

rrusso

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Gotta agree with jnanian here...I've been reading some of these posts and shaking my head.

The notion that today's youth will have a harder time grasping the basic fundamentals, that it will be too much for their "instant gratification mindset" or whatever you want to call it...that this should be approached with great care and caution lest it lead to sensory overload and/or frustration and, ultimately, disinterest....is, frankly, absurd.

I would throw down an ultimatum (heartless bastard that I am) and say that everything you need to know about how (not the "why" - that can come later) to produce an image I can teach you in 5-10 minutes. If you really, truly have an interest in learning the basics of film photography, then you will put forth the very minimal amount of effort required. You will use a fully manual camera - no A, S, P or any other auto mode. Manual only, period.

Now, if I'm way off base here, fine...but if that's the case, I'd suggest you allow him to continue just using the phone and enjoying himself. Nothing wrong with digital...hell, there are pros who only use iPhones.
 

gary in nj

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During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend my son and I developed several rolls of film he shot over the last few months. Of the ~100 exposures, he printed about half. A few were out of focus and the remainder just didn't interest him - that seems to be a good yield. As I mentioned above, his camera of choice is an SRT-201; a manual camera that eats hearing aid batteries since the mercury batteries are no longer available. Teaching depth of field through aperture control, shutter speed selection is fun and easy. Teaching a young person how to see the world in black-n-white and using shadows, and seeing the results - is more rewarding then you can imagine.
 

pbromaghin

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Here's a completely contrary suggestion. How about giving him a mid-century German 120 folding camera with zone focusing and no meter, and a sunny-16 chart? This will take him completely cold turkey out of the digital era, remove the training wheels, and introduce him to a brand new world without electricity.

I did this to myself for a year, after realizing I was a terrible photographer who needed to relearn from scratch. It was very challenging and a lot of fun.
 

Cholentpot

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I started like this, well minus the scale focus.
 
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