Remus Loc: Norfolk, UK

Try your local auction house. Here in UK i've seen film cameras and equipment, which cost a lot of money when film was in, going for peanuts. Joe Public doesn't want film cameras so it's a buyer's market.

par4fore Loc: Bay Shore N.Y.

I have Nikon F3 and FM2n, both manual focus (good way to slow down) both can use non-DX MF or AF (in MF) lenses.

I had F100, and it is great except for the batteries don't last long and can be expensive!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Sure! Go ahead and buy one on ebay or wherever. A little while ago, I bought an Agfa Optima and a Miranda Sensorex because they were my first two good cameras.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Might I suggest a full manual Nikon?

FM2 with 50mm lens fully tested and working. No bids on it yet and currently sitting at $97.50.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIKON-FM2-Nikon-Lens-50mm-1-1-8-SHUTTER-EXCELENT-FILM-Installed-and-TESTED-/191975338449?hash=item2cb29f31d1:g:Fi4AAOSw4shX4Dhs

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Nikkormat with 50mm f/1.4 in fully working condition; $50.00 or make offer.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikkormat-With-50mm-1-1-8-Nikkor-/291881730971?hash=item43f581c39b:g:y40AAOSwHoFXt0NR

twhrider Loc: Indiana

Hey Bike guy....It probably isn't the Nikon of your dreams, but I have a N8008 that I bought to get the 35-70 2.8 lens that came with it. I have no use for the camera. Unfortunately, I also know nothing about it's workable status, although it looks pretty clean. If you want it, pay the shipping and it's yours.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

The film cameras I use outnumber the digitals I use. It'll probably stay that way, too. I purchase film in bulk. Process my own.
--Bob

Zone-System-Grandpa Loc: Springfield, Ohio

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bikeguy (Jim),

Rongnongno, ecobin, MT Shooter, Carl D, Chg Canon, imagemeister, Bill de, GoofyNewfie, SharpShooter, anotoherview and Erik H have given you very good advice, but you might want to pay special attention to that which imagemeister has told you about getting yourself a medium format camera. His advice about the Pentax 645 is a good camera, but if you can find yourself a nice Mamiya RB67 or RZ67, you would have yourself a camera which will provide for you very high quality 6x7 negatives or slides. In my heyday, photographs from my RB67 had enabled me to produce several 16"x20" prints of which garnered for me gold medals and best of shows in International competitions. Lastly, there is nothing quite like loading roll film into a stainless steel canister for developing and then making large prints in one's own darkroom !

Best of luck to you !
~ Doug ~

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes, excellent reason to buy one.... I have a Pentax FSLR to sell.

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

I have never regreted learning with film (before the digital age). For me, the main learning experience for film was ASA (ISO) speeds and Color Negative, Color Slide, or Black and White. Now (with digital and TV's, computers and other digital displays,) the need to choose between formats is irrelevant. With a digital output, the photographer can decide after the shot whether he/she wants to display the results on a TV, the internet, on a print (paper, metal, etc.) save it to CD, the cloud or whatever. In the old days, the photographer had drawers of slides, negatives and stacks of prints to represent his/her output. But the key was that the photographer had to make a choice (and live with it) each time the camera was loaded with film. That film choice had to be Black and White, Color Print or Slide (yes there was Black and White Slide too but it was not very prevalent) and then the photographer had to decide film speed. The choices were going to have to be based on shooting environment as the choices were ASA (ISO ) anywhere from 100 to 3200 (give or take) and then you as the photographer had to decide if you wanted to "push" the film. "Pushing" meant exposing and developing ASA (ISO) film at a higher rating than the original film speed. But as a photographer, you had to understand (similar to now in digital) that lower (slower) film speeds had better grain that high speed films. A popular "high speed" black and white negative film was Kodak Tri-X (XXX) film which was popular for news papers and general photography. News papers didn't really care about grain because the image had to be converted to "dots" anyway on the printing press for the paper and wasn't "generally" going to be high quality anyway. Portrait photographers typically tried to stay in the ASA (ISO) 100 range for the better grain qualities. Color (negative and slide) was generally much slower than black and white. As a photographer in the "old film days" I typically shot color slide film for my projects because it was less grainy. After all, it was designed to be projected onto a large screen so blowing it up to 8x10 or 16x20 wasn't going to be a huge deal. But (and this is key for film photographers) unless you had a camera with "interchangeable film backs" such as the Hasselblad, you had to anticipate the environment and types of images prior and load your camera with a film that was going to be appropriate. For instance, you wouldn't take an ISO 100 film and go to car race, air show etc. and you wouldn't take high speed film to go take portraits or shoot for a magazine. If you were shooting at night, fires, and other news events you probably wanted to load with Tri-X (ISO 400) because it was fast and grain wasn't an issue.
Now, with digital, you can shoot any image at any speed but you still (hopefully) keep the ISO in mind and either restrict it or lock it at a certain speed. My cameras are fast enough and lenses are good enough that I generally tell the camera not to go above ISO 400 or 500 but I know that the sensor is good enough that I have extra ISO in reserve if I get to the scene and need more. I also have another advantage that film doesn't offer: I can look at the image I just shot on the view screen on the back of my camera and decide if I want to make changes and shoot more.
The key to this is that having learned on and shot with film has made me constantly aware of ISO speed and what lighting and environment can do to affect the shot. I also remember that I had to keep my film in an ice chest to protect it from the hot Oklahoma summer days or the frigid winter nights. Temperature extremes also affected film speeds. So, yes! Learning to shoot well, with film will give you great advantages in shooting digital because it develops a thought process in preparing for and getting the shot correctly. This is one reason that many college photography courses start their students in film before moving to digital. Is it necessary? No. But the processes it develops are.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Film has a *different look*. It's not easy, nor is it desirable for most of us to duplicate that look.

oldschool

I still have and frequently carry my F4S along with my D750. I just love shooting with it, especially with 2.8 80-200 zoom. Have to keep working out, it is a heavy combo!

Impressionist

Anyone in the position to get something they had wanted shouldn't deny themselves of the opportunity. Have often found by shooting a roll of film I keep myself from getting lazy. The wait for results adds to experience. If Doctor Brown isn't coming to pick you up, get the camera you wanted and make the trip.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

FWIW, I used to shoot night-time high school football with a Mamiya RB 67 for the daily I worked for . Another photog and I did it just because we could. (We could have used the Nikon F2 and later we had FM2s) There was a definite difference in the print quality from 35mm. We printed everything on 8x10. One could usually make out the threads on a jersey. Of course, by the time it got reproduced, that difference was just about gone.
Some detail: This was using manual flash (I had a Braun RL 515) zone focusing, and waiting for the action to come to us. We usually had several games to cover in a night and stayed for no more than a quarter. Just needed one good shot of each game. This was hand held, but I was a little younger back in the '70's. I'll see if I can find some negs.

EAM Loc: Milwaukee W

You mention scan the negative. Wha scanner renders the best quality? I need to scan many negatives and slides.
For some reason the flatbed scanner method seems to me to be less resolution, less quality.
Any certain make that is easy to use,feed the negative in and it scans within a reasonable amount of time??? Or to scan in batches?
I'd appreciate your input on what you find a good device.
Thank you,
Beth