Who Still Makes Film Cameras?

There are many various kinds of film camera still being produced today, including five groups that I am likely to gloss-over, because they are not particular interesting to anybody thinking about photography by itself.

1. Disposable cameras continue to be produced by the main brands of film manufacturers: Agfa, Fuji Film, Ilford and Kodak, together with many less well-known makers. This kind of camera remains popular as wedding favours, expendable tourist cameras, as well as for transporting in vehicles to record accidents. The recognition from the disposable camera has most likely been boosted through the rise of “Lomography”, were a “under perfect” style is appreciated.

2. Lomography has doubtless also performed a job within the resurgence of great interest in Pinhole cameras, and you will find numerous cameras and camera-kits available.

3. There’s also lots of cameras which are neither disposable nor pinhole, but all fit underneath the general umbrella of Lomography. In other words, these cameras facilitate a “don’t believe, there aren’t any rules, just shoot” method of photography, and therefore are typically deliberately low-fidelity, exhibit optical distortion, and have an easy construction.

4. Fuji and Polaroid would be the key producers of Instant cameras, as well as their upturn in appeal appears to become largely because of the tangibility and uniqueness from the photo taking prints they produce (a nearly anti-digital movement).

For individuals thinking about classical photography, where there’s a wish for precise control and precision, the choices are 35mm SLRs, 35mm rangefinders, and medium format cameras.

Budget SLR cameras are thin on the floor. The choices would be the Nikon FM10, Promaster Pro 2500PK and Vivitar 3800N. Each one is very similarly specified. They’re manual focus, with manual match-the-Brought style center weighted open aperture exposure metering, along with a shutter speed vary from 1 second to at least oneOr2000th sec. The Nikon includes a Nikon F lens mount, in most cases posseses an f3.5-f4.8 35-75mm contact lens. The Vivitar includes a Pentax K lens mount, in most cases posseses an f3.4-f4.8 28-70mm contact lens. The Promaster is comparable to the Vivitar, but commonly has a 50mm lens. The 3 cameras are extremely similarly priced, even though the Nikon and Promaster don’t seem to be obtainable in the United kingdom, where the price of the Vivitar is all about £180 – if you’re able to locate one. Cosina makes both Nikon and also the Vivitar (therefore the former just wears a Nikon badge).

There is not much to choose from them, and all sorts of three cameras resemble the specs from the 1976 Pentax K1000 (along with other makers’ variants), making the trio new “old” cameras. To become frank, I am unsure why anybody may wish to purchase one, apart from like a student camera, these types of prejudice against, or insufficient understanding from the second-hands market.

In the other finish from the scale there’s two SLR options: canon’s EOS-1V and Nikon F6. Both of them are flagship models, highly specified, auto everything, and costly. I could not discover the Canon for purchase within the United kingdom, however the Nikon can be obtained for £1,530.00.

Once more, the benefit of extremely high-finish SLRs eludes me: the amount of automation is counterproductive, that we can best describe through the phrase, “getting an costly camera does not cause you to a great professional photographer”.

35mm rangefinder cameras models are a bit more abundant, however with the option of make being limited to high-finish Leicas and Voigtlanders. Leica models range from the M7, MP and new, potential launched M-A (October 2014). Within the United kingdom an M7 or MP body having a 50mm lens costs about £4,500.00.

The plethora of Voigtlander “Bessa” 35mm rangefinder cameras comprise the R2a, R2m, R3a, R3m, R4a and R4m. The A models are digitally controlled with aperture priority metering, as the M models are totally mechanical aside from a little battery to operate a handbook meter. The numerals within the name indicate viewfinder magnifications with every model being appropriate for any different selection of focal length lenses. A Voigtlander costs between £699.00 and £781.00.

I realize the attraction of those models, but have the 35mm film dimensions are a restricting factor. To attain through the roof quality photos, you actually need a bigger negative size.

The penultimate number of cameras would be the medium formats, an industry using the finest choice: Fujifilm, Linhof, Mamiya, Rollei and Voigtlander. Let us put aside Linhof, Mamiya and Rollei because they are really costly.

Comments are closed.