Is it advisable for a poor high school student to get a film camera?

Don't be silly. Everybody knows digital printers are free and ink and paper
grow on trees. Computers and internet services (to send or post pictures) are free too and so is Photoshop. And, of course memory cards, DVDs, external hard drives and other storage media fall out of the sky into ones pockets. Digital cameras also never become obsolete and always maintain their re-sale value. And, all you have to do to get professional digital prints is to take your image files into a photo service shop and they'll be glad to give you all the prints you want at no charge. Yep, just buy a digital SLR for $500-$3000 and you can shoot all the digital images you want forever without ever paying a another dime.

Uh, nobody said "free" except you in your sarcastic look from a film-shooting POV. Let's look at some current prices, shall we? Some real numbers, not just B.S., okay? Let's shoot 1,000 frames, shall we? Let's price it out, okay?

E200 135-36 Ektachrome Professional ISO 200 $9.95

35mm 36 exposure E-6 slide develop and mount $10.00

1,000 divided by 36 equals 27.7777 rolls. Let's call it 28 rolls, for a total of 1,008 frames with film. 28 rolls of professional slide film costs $278.60 to buy at $9.95 per 36 shot roll, with no shipping costs, no gasoline costs, no travel costs. Processing at $10.00 per 36 exposure roll of slides will run $280.00. So, film cost and developing cost for 1,008 35mm slides is $558.60. That is a little bit over 55 and four-tenth cents PER SHOT with a 35mm film camera.

So, for the cost of a low-end Nikon D40x AND a Nikkor 18-55mm lens, you can shoot and develop 28 rolls of E-6 slide film. Oh, but if you need to pay shipping on the film, add in extra money. And how much money and time will it cost to make all the trips to and from the lab to drop off film, drive home, then drive back,pick up the film, and drive back home? How about when only a few frames are needed? With film, you can shoot 1 frame or 36 frames and the slide developing cost is basically the same. If only 12 exposures are needed on a 36 shot roll , the cost will still be the same for the film and the developing: $19.95 total for the roll of film and the developing and mounting cost; hey, only $1.66 per frame when you need to shoot 12 frames!!! Film is such a great deal!

(Oh, did you want to shoot 200 ISO slide film at 400 ISO? Add the lab's Push/Pull fee of $3.75 per roll)


I bought a FujiFilm S2 Pro d-slr body a number of years ago, and it has shot the equivalent of over $80,000 worth of film and processing. And the camera STILL functions. Cost savings just to create the images, compared with film? $77,501. Sure, there were hard drives that had to be bought to archive the images, and DVD discs to back up the images as well. But nowhere near $77,501 worth of media is or was needed to archive that many digital images. The slide mounting pages, notebooks,and cabinets to house 143,000 35mm mounted slides would probably cost $10,000 quite easily.

So, one single d-slr body that created roughly 143,000 images, shot over four years, at a cost of $2,499 for the camera; a camera that in today's marketplace, could be purchased new for only $500 or so, due to the huge drop in d-slr prices since 2002. A D40x is easily the equivalent of the S2Pro.
A Canon 7D or Nikon D300s is easily,easily a vastly superior camera.

Yeah, film is economical compared to digital capture. Sure. Right. Oh, and if you want to push-process some slide film, add that $3.75 surcharge per roll.
 
Wow Derrel, you sure like to look up and know your stuff before adding to a discussion, that was a very revealing post right there.

As you can imagine I agree on the P&S. You can easily find a decent one with Manual settings(at least Shutter and Aperture Priority) for cheap online, be it used or new.
 
Thanks for all your replies. A P&S camera with manual control is a nice idea, but I'd prefer to save up and get a DSLR, rather than changing cameras in a year or so. I'm still unsure if I should get a film camera, though, as I may not have the time and money to spend on developing and printing and all such. I'll keep looking out, but thanks for the advices anyways, I really appreciate it.
 
I assumed from the OP that you would be shooting and developing your own b&w film, in which case the calculus above wouldn't apply.

Film will run $3-5 for a roll of 36 and $100 in equipment and chemistries will develop thousands of exposures. No need to pay a lab for development or push/pull processing. You can print or scan what you want if you have access to a lab, darkroom or scanner.

The b&w route is much cheaper than color in film. But you are obviously limited to b&w unless you want to either pay someone to develop for you.

I enjoy developing film and making prints by hand. There are still many folks out there that share my interest. If you think that is something you would enjoy, then by all means go for it. You will be a better photographer for the experience. But if you would see the process as a painful chore then don't bother.
 
Uh, nobody said "free" except you

Not true and relax! My post was not aimed at you but at the following post
by pbelarge in which he/she said:

Skieur and Derrel have it right. The P&S will allow him to keep taking shots without the fear of cost.

in your sarcastic look from a film-shooting POV. Let's look at some current prices, shall we? Some real numbers, not just B.S., okay? Let's shoot 1,000 frames, shall we? Let's price it out, okay?

E200 135-36 Ektachrome Professional ISO 200 $9.95

35mm 36 exposure E-6 slide develop and mount $10.00

1,000 divided by 36 equals 27.7777 rolls. Let's call it 28 rolls, for a total of 1,008 frames with film. 28 rolls of professional slide film costs $278.60 to buy at $9.95 per 36 shot roll, with no shipping costs, no gasoline costs, no travel costs. Processing at $10.00 per 36 exposure roll of slides will run $280.00. So, film cost and developing cost for 1,008 35mm slides is $558.60. That is a little bit over 55 and four-tenth cents PER SHOT with a 35mm film camera.

So, for the cost of a low-end Nikon D40x AND a Nikkor 18-55mm lens, you can shoot and develop 28 rolls of E-6 slide film. Oh, but if you need to pay shipping on the film, add in extra money. And how much money and time will it cost to make all the trips to and from the lab to drop off film, drive home, then drive back,pick up the film, and drive back home? How about when only a few frames are needed? With film, you can shoot 1 frame or 36 frames and the slide developing cost is basically the same. If only 12 exposures are needed on a 36 shot roll , the cost will still be the same for the film and the developing: $19.95 total for the roll of film and the developing and mounting cost; hey, only $1.66 per frame when you need to shoot 12 frames!!! Film is such a great deal!

(Oh, did you want to shoot 200 ISO slide film at 400 ISO? Add the lab's Push/Pull fee of $3.75 per roll)

Keep your shirt on and read the OP. He's talking about shooting and
developing his own film. Typically this is B&W film which can be bought for
as little as 2 buck a roll or even less on specials from Freestyle. I have a
fridge full of premium B&W film bought at yard sales at an average of about
0.50/roll or less.

Yes, he will have to scan or otherwise print them but there are costs with
either film or digital shooting. I'm not saying one is cheaper than the other
particularly. It all depends on how or what you shoot. My earlier comment
was directed at those who seem to think that shooting digital is free and
shooting film is expensive which is a common misconception.
 
I say go either direction.

The cheapest up front cost would be a used manual focus slr and a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Should be able to find that on ebay for $50. Could even find an AF camera and inexpensive af zoom lens for about that if you watch.

The next option is to look for and pick up a Nikon Coolpix 5700 used on ebay. This is a point and shoot bridge camera (looks like DSLR). The nice fact about is, 1 - its fairly inexpensive for a 5mp camera. 2 - it has manual as well as shutter and aperture priority modes. 3 - has a decent range lens on it. Its really not a bad camera. I have its older brother the 8700 and still use it on occasion. And the 5700 can be had for $100 on ebay.

Obviously the digital would be the cheapest in the long run. But leanring to develope film and prints is a learning experience that will help with your picture taking.
 
I'll say this again, if you are going to school for photography in the near future, contact the school and see what they require for a photo degree. They may require you to take a few film classes, if that is the case a manual slr is worth it, you'll have time to get to know your camera as well as practice, practice, practice. Amazon has some cheap prices on film, some local places can offer student discounts on B&W film making them just a few dollars a roll. I can purchase FP4 for only $2 for 36 exposures.

It would really suck for you to go off to college and realize that you need to buy a manual slr
 
Uh, nobody said "free" except you in your sarcastic look from a film-shooting POV. Let's look at some current prices, shall we? Some real numbers, not just B.S., okay? Let's shoot 1,000 frames, shall we? Let's price it out, okay?

E200 135-36 Ektachrome Professional ISO 200 $9.95

35mm 36 exposure E-6 slide develop and mount $10.00...etc.

Way to choose the most expensive film+developing option to pad your example. :raisedbrow:

The "average" price for non-professional color film (do students need pro film?) is around 3 bucks. Regular non-pro lab processing with cd scans is around 3 bucks too. So 6 bucks a roll... that's quite a different result from your slide film options. Of course, b/w film + developing is even less in the long run.

However, I do agree that shooting film doesn't make a difference in learning, that is if you really 'want' to learn and not just set everything on auto. Personally, I learned more with digital because of the instant results and not worrying about wasting shots, but once I got the hang of things, I get more shots that I like with my film cameras.
 
Aside from all of the usual Peacock spectacle on this forum, I would say go with what is going to give you your best understanding of light and time. I learned on a K1000, and looking back I am very glad I did. It is the fundamentals you must master on ANY camera. From there you can make anything work for your vision, and never back down.
Get to be good friends with your Yearbook Staff, if not become the photo editor.

Most of all, enjoy shooting and soak up knowledge like a sponge. Hell, there's always someone there trying to wring you out.
 
Thanks again. I'm actually not planning to go to a photography school after graduation. I would love to take photography courses outside school though, as long as it's beneficial and affordable.

I don't know much about film photography. Is it expensive to make your own prints? So we can make prints out of a developed film strip with a scanner if I haven't misread anything.

I've been quite comfortable with digital so far, and I'm certainly interested in film and would like to try doing everything myself. But as I never had any film developing experiences I honestly don't know if I have the time and patience to keep it up. This is one of my doubts about getting a film camera apart from the financial concerns.
 
leaning to print does take time and practice, which does cost money. Also, it takes time and patience and if you feel that is something you can't commit to then you have your answer.

yes you can take a strip of negatives and scan them and then make correction in an editing program and print them out.

be aware that if your doing black and white prints unless you have a high end printer the prints are going to have a color cast. It is the nature of the printers and has been a problem for sometime with those that what "neutral black and white prints".
 
Thanks again. I'm actually not planning to go to a photography school after graduation. I would love to take photography courses outside school though, as long as it's beneficial and affordable.

I don't know much about film photography. Is it expensive to make your own prints? So we can make prints out of a developed film strip with a scanner if I haven't misread anything.

I've been quite comfortable with digital so far, and I'm certainly interested in film and would like to try doing everything myself. But as I never had any film developing experiences I honestly don't know if I have the time and patience to keep it up. This is one of my doubts about getting a film camera apart from the financial concerns.

If your not going to keep your photography education going. I suggest picking up a good point and shoot. Buying into a DSLR system may be a waste of money. Once you learn more and figure things out in a couple years then buy a DSLR that you know you want. Buying one now (even your mother) may not be the wisest move. Nothing wrong with a point and shoot camera. Just don't settle for those over priced ones at department stores. You can find amazing deals on used ones. For less than the cost of just the cheapest DSLR body you can pick up the best, top of the line Point and Shoot. Don't discount them because they are not a fancy DSLR. And the fact is your looking at buying the cheapest DSLR! And your still going to need lenses for it!
 
Film SLR gets my vote. I have a D-SLR and several film SLRs. In my personal experience, I much happier with the results that I get shooting film, developing in my bathroom, and using an old enlarger.

The arguments for or against film/digital go on and on and on and on, and obviously there are people on both sides who will never have their mind changed. I like film, I feel like I am a more discerning photographer using film and my D-SLR sits at home MOST of the time, except when convenience is key.

Also, you don't HAVE to be able to enlarge to enjoy film. Buy the gear to develop at home and buy a scanner or have your negatives scanned.
 
Ronnie, stick with Digital. When the time comes for you try film, you'll know it.

If you stick with photography there will come a time but if you are worried about the cost that time is not now. You can save enough for either type camera but if you have trouble saving to buy film and then have to put the film back until you can afford to have it developed you will quickly tire of the whole process simply because you can't do it when you want to much less see what you have done.

Digi is your answer for now.

Good luck and Good Shooting!
 
P&S digitals have tiny tiny sensors, which means very limited DOF options resulting in "shapshot" looking photographs.
 

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