Who prefers 35mm SLR over all other kinds of cameras?

Les Sarile · Apr 18, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
I hear them quietly chuckling. I see them whispering, marginalizing, and brow beating SLR guys into submission, into second class member status.

I am certain that this was decided many decades ago now. All you have to look at are the photo magazines of 1956-57-58. The were a lot of other formats in 56, more SLRs in 57 and from 58 and on the overwhelming majority of new cameras were all 35mm SLRs. This is not to say there is no need for the others but they were nowhere near as plentiful after 1957.

R.Gould · Apr 18, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
but when you use 35mm, do you feel like a loser? Do you feel like you are lowering yourself? I dont. Im just saying.

Simple answer is no I enjoy using 35mm and MF, I simply prefer to use rangefinders in both formats, I enjoy using my collection of folders, in both formats, and I love using my Rollei's, specialy in the studio, I have Slr's I have a bronica etr, I have two Pentax slr's, I keep them just in case I might need them, but it is very rarely that I need them, I think I used a Pentax last year once, The bronica a couple of years ago, I think

TheTrailTog · Apr 18, 2015

I've run the gamut and seem to have come full circle. I started with Nikon SLRs. Then I moved onto Rolleiflexes and Mamiya M645. After that it was 4x5. Then I moved back down to MF with Rolleiflex and Certo/Balda folders. Then it was on to Leica M's and Barnacks. Now I'm back to Nikon SLR's. All fantastic cameras and formats, just depends on your shooting style and your subject, but for me a Nikon manual focus SLR just "clicks" (slight pun intended).

Sirius Glass · Apr 18, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
nobody will admit it. But I know people think it. The RF people, the MF people, the LF people.. slipping in snide remarks, cheap shots and backhanded compliments. I hear them quietly chuckling. I see them whispering, marginalizing, and brow beating SLR guys into submission, into second class member status. Thats right. Second class. Do you feel second class when you use your SLRs? I dont. Whos got the guts to admit it? I dont. Mock rant over. Thanks for reading.

I do not suffer the grave psychological traumas of which you speak, because I shoot MF with a Hasselblad which if you did not know is also an slr [if you did know it is still an slr.]. A Graflex Model D is also a 4"x5" slr. I use 35mm slrs as a compromise, when needed. Now that you have self marginalized, you can slink back to your high humidity, damp corner and keep yours aspersions and dispersions to yourself, thank you.

ROTHLMAOABMHATW

GaryFlorida · Apr 18, 2015

R.Gould said:
Simple answer is no I enjoy using 35mm and MF, I simply prefer to use rangefinders in both formats, I enjoy using my collection of folders, in both formats, and I love using my Rollei's, specialy in the studio, I have Slr's I have a bronica etr, I have two Pentax slr's, I keep them just in case I might need them, but it is very rarely that I need them, I think I used a Pentax last year once, The bronica a couple of years ago, I think

are you ashamed to use 35mm slrs?

GaryFlorida · Apr 18, 2015

Xia_Ke said:
I've run the gamut and seem to have come full circle. I started with Nikon SLRs. Then I moved onto Rolleiflexes and Mamiya M645. After that it was 4x5. Then I moved back down to MF with Rolleiflex and Certo/Balda folders. Then it was on to Leica M's and Barnacks. Now I'm back to Nikon SLR's. All fantastic cameras and formats, just depends on your shooting style and your subject, but for me a Nikon manual focus SLR just "clicks" (slight pun intended).

Be proud. I am loving this black Nikkormat FT3 right now with 135mm AI lens. I started having this crisis lately when I realized how many cameras I have. Ive decided on just a few now and Im going to sell or give away the rest of them and buy film and paper. I want to get on with doing photography and no more camera collecting.

Right now Ive narrowed it down to Nikkormat FT3, Kodak Medalist (with sheet film back), Ciroflex F (Raptar 3.2 4 element), Kodak Signet 35 Ektar, Olympus XA and Crown Graphic 4x5 which I dont have yet. She has offered it to me for $100 but I just cant pull the trigger for some reason I dont know why. And thats it. I dont want any more cameras. I want to shoot and Im not going to be ashamed to shoot the 35mm SLR. I dont care what modern people say, how they glare at me and judge me from a short distance. I got to be me and with the help of APUG friends, I will.

Im seriously considering donating money to this site, this place has helped me a lot with many things not to mention a few really cool people I have met here as well.

R.Gould · Apr 18, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
are you ashamed to use 35mm slrs?

No I have used slr's in both formats extensively in the past, but in recent years I quite simply prefer rangefinder/viewfinder/tlr and folders, I like the idea of just a camera. normaly fixed lens, an exposure meter, a couple of filters, some film and nothing else, I also, in recent years, started collecting usable classic cameras, and now have an extensive collection of cameras from a 1938 Voigtlander Baby Bessa to a 1961 Rolleicord, and I get a huge kick out of using them, I might get tired of using them one day and go back to using Slr's, but in the meantime my photography has improved by taking the simple approach to it,

TheTrailTog · Apr 18, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
Be proud...

Don't know as though I necessarily need to feel pride. As far as I'm concerned if someone is going to give me grief for my choice of equipment then the joke's on them and they're not worth my time any way. If for some reason I ever end up feeling ashamed for shooting with a particular camera or let the opinions of others get me down, then I have far bigger issues to worry about than the camera.

GaryFlorida said:
...I started having this crisis lately when I realized how many cameras I have. Ive decided on just a few now and Im going to sell or give away the rest of them and buy film and paper. I want to get on with doing photography and no more camera collecting.

...

Im seriously considering donating money to this site, this place has helped me a lot with many things not to mention a few really cool people I have met here as well.

Become an APUG subscriber and then sell your unwanted cameras here in the Classifieds, giving back 3% of the sales to the site. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone

R.Gould · Apr 18, 2015

Xia_Ke said:
Don't know as though I necessarily need to feel pride. As far as I'm concerned if someone is going to give me grief for my choice of equipment then the joke's on them and they're not worth my time any way. If for some reason I ever end up feeling ashamed for shooting with a particular camera or let the opinions of others get me down, then I have far bigger issues to worry about than the camera.

Become an APUG subscriber and then sell your unwanted cameras here in the Classifieds, giving back 3% of the sales to the site. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone

My feelings in a nutshell, each to their own, and if anyone does not like it then thats their bad fortune, we use the cameras that we like using,

Sirius Glass · Apr 18, 2015

Xia_Ke said:
Don't know as though I necessarily need to feel pride. As far as I'm concerned if someone is going to give me grief for my choice of equipment then the joke's on them and they're not worth my time any way. If for some reason I ever end up feeling ashamed for shooting with a particular camera or let the opinions of others get me down, then I have far bigger issues to worry about than the camera.

Well said.

frank · Apr 18, 2015

Blonde, brunette, redhead, black hair: I love them all.

Oh, are we talking cameras? Yes, I love them all. Variety rules! I have these moods.

Paul Howell · Apr 18, 2015

There was a time when folks who used large format gear were thought to be behind the times, and got little respect from some. The 60s and 70s, the 35mm had come of age and the rage was for a candid photojournalist approach, available light thing. I minored in photojournalism in the 60s, one of my instructors was the photo editor at the a local paper, not the LA Times, the Examiner he told our class that the 4X5 and MF would be gone by the 80's, replaced by shift lens and the like. What goes around comes around. My first camera was a 35mm, Retina IIIC big, my second a Speed Graphic, my 3, a Spotmatic, all good for their intended purposes and I don't really give a rats behind what others think. Of all the prints I sold over the years no asked or cared what camera I used.

Greg Heath · Apr 20, 2015

frank said:
Blonde, brunette, redhead, black hair: I love them all.

Oh, are we talking cameras? Yes, I love them all. Variety rules! I have these moods.

I was reading this and laughing.... I was looking for the APUG "LIKE" button.

Greg

ambaker · Apr 20, 2015

I don't feel inferior no matter what camera I use.

The 35 slr cannot match the MF for larger print quality. The viewfinder on a MF slr is like looking through a bright big window, in comparison.

But the 35 handles faster, and gets more shots per load. If you are shooting action, a shot missed is an image never printed, and the 35 wins big time.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

blockend · Apr 21, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
nobody will admit it. But I know people think it. The RF people, the MF people, the LF people.. slipping in snide remarks, cheap shots and backhanded compliments. I hear them quietly chuckling. I see them whispering, marginalizing, and brow beating SLR guys into submission, into second class member status. Thats right. Second class. Do you feel second class when you use your SLRs? I dont. Whos got the guts to admit it? I dont. Mock rant over. Thanks for reading.

You are partly right and there are a number of factors to the snobbery, some more credible than others. If you go back to the early SLRs, most were rangefinders with a prism stuck on and offered the worst of both worlds. From 1970-ish SLRs had won the camera battle, mainly by marketing. The big manufacturers took lots of space in photographic magazines and bored/thrilled everyone with incredible claims for their products. Photo amateurs mostly aspired to single lens reflex cameras "because that's what professionals use" and compact cameras, including compact rangefinders, burbled along in the background. Small cameras were sold as holiday cameras, lady's cameras, second cameras, anything except serious cameras.

Leica had always had their fans and looked down on everyone else but there was a large premium to pay for one, and they were the preserve of the well-heeled and serious art/street photographers. I'm sure there were "serious" photographers using compact cameras all along, but I didn't come across any until the late 1970s, guys shooting black and white on Olympus Trips and similar stuff. By the 1990s SLRs had moved away from OM1/MX miniaturisation and become huge AF monsters, and compact 35mm cameras grew alongside, until the advent of the clamshell Olympus cameras, which showed the masses that pocket cameras really were capable of SLR quality.

In the digital era film fans are less interested in large 35mm cameras, generally speaking, because they have grown to expect high quality images from small cameras. This has left SLRs marooned to some extent, a fact born out by the cheapness of late model SLRs, especially consumer models. That's my take on the anti-SLR thing. Of course it's all BS, the photographer takes the picture like they always did, and good shots are as hard to come by as they ever were.

thuggins · Apr 21, 2015

rbultman said:
Does the 35SP meter through the lens, requiring it to be fully open when metering? Does that happen in auto only or is the lag the same when metering manually in-camera?

The 35SP does not meter thru the lens; the sensor is actually in the camera's upper left corner, next to the viewfinder. But meter position has nothing to do with the shutter lag. On any trapped needle metering system the shutter travel must be relatively long and stiff, since depressing the shutter button physically "reads" the meter and sets the aperture before the shutter is fired.

As for the lag when metering manually, that takes from 30 seconds to a minute, depending on the camera. Because one has to look thru the viewfinder and do whatever is necessary to get the exposure to display, bring the camera down, set the exposure manually, bring the viewfinder back up, verify that the lighting hasn't changed, and if all is well, fire the shutter.

On unmetered cameras the shutter lag is over a minute. This is the time it takes to retrieve the meter from your pocket, meter the scene, move the meter around to get an indication light variations, read the meter, transfer the meter reading to the camera, re-meter the scene to verify you got it right and nothing has changed, recheck that you transferred the meter settings to the camera correctly, bring up the viewfinder, frame the scene and fire the shutter.

No matter how you look at it, an SLR is a heck of a lot quicker.

flavio81 · Apr 22, 2015

thuggins said:
On unmetered cameras the shutter lag is over a minute. This is the time it takes to retrieve the meter from your pocket, meter the scene, move the meter around to get an indication light variations, read the meter, transfer the meter reading to the camera, re-meter the scene to verify you got it right and nothing has changed, recheck that you transferred the meter settings to the camera correctly, bring up the viewfinder, frame the scene and fire the shutter.

This depends on you, not on the camera.

With an unmetered camera, every time i enter into a place/scene with a different light condition, i preemptively adjust the settings on my camera.

In this case my "lag" is zero, for the camera is always adjusted to a correct exposure value.

It is really easy; it becomes second nature.

Nokton48 · Apr 22, 2015

I sold off my three Leicas and lenses and replaced them with Minolta SRT's. So now I have about ten of them.

I very happy and the Rokkor lenses are excellent. I started with these cameras and now I'm back.

And now I can afford the pieces I couldn't back in the seventies.

GaryFlorida · Apr 22, 2015

Nokton48 said:
I sold off my three Leicas and lenses and replaced them with Minolta SRT's. So now I have about ten of them.

I very happy and the Rokkor lenses are excellent. I started with these cameras and now I'm back.

And now I can afford the pieces I couldn't back in the seventies.

have you been to the rokkor files website?

thuggins · Apr 23, 2015

flavio81 said:
This depends on you, not on the camera.

With an unmetered camera, every time i enter into a place/scene with a different light condition, i preemptively adjust the settings on my camera.

In this case my "lag" is zero, for the camera is always adjusted to a correct exposure value.

It is really easy; it becomes second nature.

Actually, it depends on the film. From your description it is obvious you're shooting negative film. I didn't need to use a meter either when I was shooting negatives. But about 20 years ago I graduated to transparencies. Since 1/3 stop is noticeable and 1/2 off ruins the shot, every frame has to be metered.

Maybe you should try using a better film. That way you can see what 35mm is really capable of.

pentaxuser · Apr 23, 2015

GaryFlorida said:
have you been to the rokkor files website?

I am not trying to be deliberately challenging here but I was unclear as to the connection between your question and the OP's decision to sell his Leicas and use Rokkor lenses? Can you clarify, thanks?

pentaxuser

miha · Apr 23, 2015

Many older Leica-R lenses were Minoltas in disguise as we know it, so maybe not much has changed since he switched systems.

GaryFlorida · Apr 23, 2015

pentaxuser said:
I am not trying to be deliberately challenging here but I was unclear as to the connection between your question and the OP's decision to sell his Leicas and use Rokkor lenses? Can you clarify, thanks?

pentaxuser

Nokton48 said:
...

I very happy and the Rokkor lenses are excellent. I started with these cameras and now I'm back.

And now I can afford the pieces I couldn't back in the seventies.

you were talking about your love for Rokkor lenses so I thought I would suggest the site dedicated to it. I thought you might like to go there and indulge yourself.

And actually I am the OP of this whole thread so ... Im not sure what your point is. But enjoy the Rokkor files its great.

pentaxuser · Apr 23, 2015

Thanks for the answer which clarifies matters.

pentaxuser

flavio81 · Apr 23, 2015

thuggins said:
Actually, it depends on the film. From your description it is obvious you're shooting negative film. I didn't need to use a meter either when I was shooting negatives. But about 20 years ago I graduated to transparencies. Since 1/3 stop is noticeable and 1/2 off ruins the shot, every frame has to be metered.

I agree with you here.

thuggins said:
Maybe you should try using a better film. That way you can see what 35mm is really capable of.

Best film, technically speaking, is b&w negative film, not color reversal film. Or in any case b&w reversal film... if you have the option.

And any good film I can use in my 35mm camera, I can also use on my Medium Format cameras.

Who prefers 35mm SLR over all other kinds of cameras?

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