New here and have a dilemma...

[jd callow]

Callow -

I recently had to do a large 20x30 color print for someone of a landscape. Cost was an issue, so digital output was the way to go.

The camera used though was a Crown Graphic with an old 125mm lens and 4x5 Velvia 100.

The guys at the lab could tell I didn't do digital because "digital breaks down at this size".

Not suprising...
I make digital enlargemnets all day. They can be very very nice, but ones made from big negs and high res scans are always the best. Digital cameras will be there some day ('there' being more detail, colour etc.. -- it will never be film), but not yet.

I suspect when digital can capture the colour, latitude and detail of film, they will come out with a 'looks like film' plugin.

 

[John Koehrer]

luvmydogs
Yet another option for MF is the Mamiya 7II. Weighs less and is smaller than your F5 but has the advantage of 6x7 negative, silent operation, no flash sync limitations. Beautiful piece for street portraits & landscapes. Panorama (24x56mm) if you want to spend another bunch of money. Downside is limited selection of lenses & like any MF camera you just can't get 5 frames a second out of 'em.

 

[gr82bart]

I'm just not sure what to do...with the F5 and the D100.

Let's recap for my sake:

• You want to keep - Nikon D100 with 105 macro, 50mm f/1.4, 80-200 f/2.8

• You want to sell - Nikon F5 with 17-35mm f/2.8, 20-70 f/2.8, 85mm f/1.4

• You want to buy - Hasselblad 501CW with a 80mm f/2.8 and A12 back

• You want to shoot - landscape and still life, and street photography (candids)

If you want to keep 35mm digital, I would keep the D100 the 17-35mm f2.8. I'd sell the rest. I'd buy a new lens like the 28-70mm f2.8 for it instead. I know this isn't what you originally posted. Reason is the 1.5x factor the D100 has and the type of photography you want to shoot.

If you want to keep 35 mm film, I'd keep the F5, 20-70 f/2.8 and 80-200 f/2.8. This gives you the widest range of shooting possiblilities.

The Hassey 503CW is a great camera. This camera will s - l - o - w you down though. I mean it is fully manual camera with a top shutter speed of 1/500th second. And the lenses are ex$pen$ive. But $$$ hasn't stopped people from getting Ferrari's...

Just an FYI, I sold my F5s and all my fixed lenses. I only have 3 zooms - the 17-35mm AF-S f2.8D, the 28-70mm AF-S f2.8D and the 80-200mm AF-S f2.8D. Kept my F4e. Love that camera, though I haven't used it nearly as much as the new Hassey.

Art.

 

[luvmydogs]

Shaggy and gr82bart,

Thanks for your comments. After reading through everyone's posts, I have decided to hold off on buying anymore equipment until I have a better grasp and understanding of what I really like to shoot, and also until I can produce better photos. I would still like to unload one of my cameras (I have three -D100, F5 and FM3A), but am unsure which yet at this point.

gr82bart - I actually have the 28-70 f/2.8...and not 20-70, which I don't think exists! Typo on my part. I actually find that I don't use that one as often as I do the 50mm f/1.4 combined with the 85 f/1.4, mainly because the 28-70 is quite big and heavy.

Thanks again.

 

[John Koehrer]

luvmydogs:
Since you want to lighten your load, I would lean towards disposing of the F5(bigger & heavier) and some of the heavier zooms, learn the discipline of working with fixed focal lengths for a while & then consider the larger camera systems. I would also get rid of the D100(personally) since Nikon will probably come up w/something new this fall. Right now there would still be a good market fot it. If you need the digi capabilities you can always scan the negs or have a CD made. So many choices, so many opinions

 

[Ara Ghajanian]

This is my first post and I'm glad I can say this right away:

Digital is a joke. It was created to get people to buy more cameras every time a new model comes out. The quality is laughable. Unless you buy a Hasselblad with a Phase One digital back ($30,000), you are seriously compromising on quality.

Sell the D100. You know it will be obsolete soon. You say the quality of the scans from the F5 are close to the D100 files? Guaranteed someone will come out with a film scanner that will improve on that. When they do you still have all your images on film which you could rescan. Whereas, you can't improve on the quality of your images from the D100.

It makes me cringe to think people are shooting on this disposable format. The F5 will always be worth something because film will always be better than digital. But after the next Nikon digital comes out, the D100's price will plummet. Bad investment. I'm sure you still don't use the first computer you ever bought. Same thing with digital cameras. You could buy the first Hasselblad that came out back in the 50's and the quality still is there. I remember a friend of mine had a Apple digital camera back in the day and you can't even hook it up to a computer now, much less compete on quality with newer digitals.

Isn't all this why this web site was started?