WTD CHEAP Working 35mm SLRs for School Use

[fstop]

Personally, I learn the most from prints and, when I am shooting transparency film, projected slides.

The viewing screens on the back of digital cameras are as likely to mislead me as to reveal what I need to know.

Its true you need to see the results of your efforts fairly promptly, but instantly - not so.

And I think there is a substantial difference between what shooting pros got from Polaroids and what new photographers get from being able to see their shots on their phone.

A lighting lesson learned with film is likely to be remembered.

Phones and rear screens are not how its done.Light is light, light placement/managment is the same no matter what medium you use.

 

[blockend]

can I just say, for the record, how bad this tale makes me feel.

How about this: Five years ago I paid $300 to KEH for a Leica R4. You can now buy the R4 for $100 on the auction site, and the price on them has fallen so low that the margin is too slim for KEH to even carry them.

On the other hand look at the price of Japanese fixed lens rangefinders. New, about half the sales tag of a cheap SLR. Now, maybe four times as much.

 

[MattKing]

Phones and rear screens are not how its done.Light is light, light placement/managment is the same no matter what medium you use.

Absolutely agree.

It is how inexperienced people learn and how that interacts with the processes and procedures available to us that we seem to differ on.

 

[elcabezagrande]

Some of you might have noticed that I buy a lot of cameras. So often, I find myself with a surplus. So I also give a lot of cameras away. I have donated over one-hundred cameras to film photography curricula over the past several years, to programs in the US and Canada, as well as to private individuals who have an interest in film photography. It feels good to do this, as I remember not very long ago when I struggled to support my hobby. At the moment, I have no surplus SLR cameras to donate. So I ask the OP, does the Weber State program have any interest in compact AF point and shoot cameras, because I literally have dozens of them languishing in my spare room? While they might not be the best choice to learn the basics of exposure with, they will at least give the students something to shoot, and practice composition and darkroom technique with.

 

[CMoore]

.....took a beginner film class at my local college last year. Evey camera they had was F'd Up in one way or another...some worse than others.
I cannot stress ebough the importance of a "Donated Camera" needing to be straight. To simply buy a K1000 from Ebay for 35 bux, and then donate it to a school with:
. a meter two stops off
. shutter speeds not timed
. sticky shutter release
. missing battery door
. or in complete need of a CLA, which is all of them if they have not had it in the last 10-15 years
Generally Speaking...you are doing a Big Disservice to the students. The students do not know what is wrong with a camera, and do not understand how that effects their negs. The teachers/staff do not have the time to go through every camera and check it out...they are not camera techs.
So in closing, My Fellow Countrymen, donate something that works properly.

 

[Vonder]

Hobo Tap-Tap lives on!

 

[summicron1]

Some of you might have noticed that I buy a lot of cameras. So often, I find myself with a surplus. So I also give a lot of cameras away. I have donated over one-hundred cameras to film photography curricula over the past several years, to programs in the US and Canada, as well as to private individuals who have an interest in film photography. It feels good to do this, as I remember not very long ago when I struggled to support my hobby. At the moment, I have no surplus SLR cameras to donate. So I ask the OP, does the Weber State program have any interest in compact AF point and shoot cameras, because I literally have dozens of them languishing in my spare room? While they might not be the best choice to learn the basics of exposure with, they will at least give the students something to shoot, and practice composition and darkroom technique with.

I don't think they can use those, thanks. They're trying to teach the basics of exposure, and for that you need cameras that use that.

There are other art programs around that do use cameras like that -- I will ask. We have one at Union Station, a tenant called "Nurture the Creative Mind" that might have a use. They've been using instant cameras, and Holgas in the past, so perhaps....

Thank you, though, and for your past help to the hobby.

 

[summicron1]

.....took a beginner film class at my local college last year. Evey camera they had was F'd Up in one way or another...some worse than others.
I cannot stress ebough the importance of a "Donated Camera" needing to be straight. To simply buy a K1000 from Ebay for 35 bux, and then donate it to a school with:
. a meter two stops off
. shutter speeds not timed
. sticky shutter release
. missing battery door
. or in complete need of a CLA, which is all of them if they have not had it in the last 10-15 years
Generally Speaking...you are doing a Big Disservice to the students. The students do not know what is wrong with a camera, and do not understand how that effects their negs. The teachers/staff do not have the time to go through every camera and check it out...they are not camera techs.
So in closing, My Fellow Countrymen, donate something that works properly.

I know. I'm checking them out. I did get a Pentax Spotmatic that, as it turns out, doesn't work on 1/1000th of a second, so I'm going to discuss that with the professor. The other speeds seem ok -- shutter capping at that high speed, I suspect. I think the professor is ok with no light meter -- teaching exposure using hand-held meters, I suspect, which is better.

Students can be hard on cameras. These are college students so, I think, are more careful. I have a friend who taught film in high school until recently -- high school in the rough part of town. Those kids could destroy a Nikon F in hours -- and these are cameras designed to withstand combat.

These are the chances you take buying old used cameras, but I agree -- one that simply does not work is no use to anyone.

charlie