Cheap 35mm Battery Independent Camera

[puthenveetilnoel]

Yep, I use 400 for birds and fast stuff, and indoors, 200 when shooting under good conditions.

Do you shoot B&W or color? Also do you have a specific brand preference?

 

[vimwiz]

Yep, I use 400 for birds and fast stuff, and indoors, 200 when shooting under good conditions.

Do you shoot B&W or color? Also do you have a specific brand preference?

For colour (General photography, birds, landscapes) I use Kodak UltraMAX 400. This has consistently given me good sharpness and natural colours. As a "war" film, I use Agfa (I think its actually Fuji made) Vista Plus 200. This is a very cheap film at ~£1 a roll and gives warm "retro" colours and feel. For B&W (Street, portraits, artistic stuff) I use ilford HP5+ (ISO 400 but has a wide exposure latitude so you can shoot it at say 100 or 800 and push/pull if you develop it at home) . This is a sharp, contrasty film. I have also used the Kentmere 400. This is made my Harman Tech (Ilford) but is like 1/2 the price. Slightly different process, less contrasty, but still a great B&W film for the price. In terms of what I dont like, I never got on with Ilford XP2 and found the Kodak to be superior to the comparable Fuji in terms of colours.

As am example, the body in my avatar was shot using HP5+.

 

[puthenveetilnoel]

Yep, I use 400 for birds and fast stuff, and indoors, 200 when shooting under good conditions.

Do you shoot B&W or color? Also do you have a specific brand preference?

For colour (General photography, birds, landscapes) I use Kodak UltraMAX 400. This has consistently given me good sharpness and natural colours. As a "war" film, I use Agfa (I think its actually Fuji made) Vista Plus 200. This is a very cheap film at ~£1 a roll and gives warm "retro" colours and feel. For B&W (Street, portraits, artistic stuff) I use ilford HP5+ (ISO 400 but has a wide exposure latitude so you can shoot it at say 100 or 800 and push/pull if you develop it at home) . This is a sharp, contrasty film. I have also used the Kentmere 400. This is made my Harman Tech (Ilford) but is like 1/2 the price. Slightly different process, less contrasty, but still a great B&W film for the price. In terms of what I dont like, I never got on with Ilford XP2 and found the Kodak to be superior to the comparable Fuji in terms of colours.

As am example, the body in my avatar was shot using HP5+.

Thanks for the detailed film review. Might I ask where you source your B&W. That cheap Kentmore seems right up my ally. Thanks.

 

[vimwiz]

Im based in the UK.

The Agfa Vista+ you can get in the £1 shop, or online for about double
Boots (What in the US would be called a drugstore) does a buy-one-get-one-half.price on the Kodak, so works out about £5 each
The HP5, buy it in packs of 10 online, works out about £4 each.
The kentmore singly on line is about £3 each.

Online, I dont use amazon/ebay, but the mail-order style photorraphic sites.

I also intend soon to bulk load spools of HP5 in my darkroom.

 

[puthenveetilnoel]

Im based in the UK.

The Agfa Vista+ you can get in the £1 shop, or online for about double
Boots (What in the US would be called a drugstore) does a buy-one-get-one-half.price on the Kodak, so works out about £5 each
The HP5, buy it in packs of 10 online, works out about £4 each.
The kentmore singly on line is about £3 each.

Online, I dont use amazon/ebay, but the mail-order style photorraphic sites.

I also intend soon to bulk load spools of HP5 in my darkroom.

Hmm. Yeah I'm definitely gonna have to look online for film. Its so expensive (relatively) and I am stuck with only one choice of film type.

 

[gsgary]

Im based in the UK.

The Agfa Vista+ you can get in the £1 shop, or online for about double
Boots (What in the US would be called a drugstore) does a buy-one-get-one-half.price on the Kodak, so works out about £5 each
The HP5, buy it in packs of 10 online, works out about £4 each.
The kentmore singly on line is about £3 each.

Online, I dont use amazon/ebay, but the mail-order style photorraphic sites.

I also intend soon to bulk load spools of HP5 in my darkroom.

I get 100 feet of HP5 direct from Ilford for £50 delivered with my discount code, pm me if you want the code 10% of everthing and free delivery over £50

 

[puthenveetilnoel]

pm sent.
Thanks. All of you have been a huge help with this starting out process.
Update. I am about halfway done with that first roll of film. Found an old scanner in my attic, and made a makeshift negative scanner to hopefully get some good scans uploaded.

 

[sm4him]

Whether your budget is $25, $50 or $100, I'd still say a Pentax K1000 would be a great choice. Back in the day, when I bought mine, it was simply one of the best basic, no-nonsense cameras for a student, and I think the same holds true today.

EDIT: Never mind the rest of that drivel I wrote earlier. Evidently I didn't have enough coffee this morning. I thought there was only one page of comments, so I posted some thoughts, only to discover there were already 3 more pages of comments that addressed everything I'd said quite well.

 

[minicoop1985]

If you're ever in the market for another one, I came across this thing and it's absolutely battery independent. It's metered, but via a selenium meter and not a powered one. Haven't shot with it. It's an SLR, but not an interchangeable lens one, oddly enough, and is probably worth all of $5.


IMG_4025 by longm1985, on Flickr

 

[puthenveetilnoel]

Huh. That looks relaly interesting. It kinda seems like a rangefinder. I think one of those will be my next camera purchase. I am finding those pretty cheap on ebay (with a little hunting lol) but yeah I think my next purchase will be a yashica minister D. Supposed to take excellent pictures and is dirt cheap.

 

[puthenveetilnoel]

Well that or a good TLR. I was just blown away by some of the pictures I have seen shot with really inexpensive TLRs. They see. To be the best image quality per dollar spent. Least as far as I can tell.

 

[minicoop1985]

TLRs have an advantage for slower speeds: no big ol mirror flappin all over the place. The mirror on a TLR is stationary. They're definitely different and attention getters, but they're a lot of fun to shoot. 6x6 is where it's at, if you ask me.

 

[puthenveetilnoel]

Well I'm not shooting for the attention (though it is a pleasant side effect). Do you shoot TLRs?

 

[Josh66]

TLRs have an advantage for slower speeds: no big ol mirror flappin all over the place.

I just realized that I do not regularly use a single camera that has a moving mirror, lol. Even my SLR, a Canon 1N RS, has a stationary mirror. The rest are rangefinders.

I can always hand-hold at longer shutter speeds than I really should be hand-holding at, haha. Subject motion blur is the limiting factor for me.

And, yes - 6x6 is definitely where it's at.

 

[minicoop1985]

Well I'm not shooting for the attention (though it is a pleasant side effect). Do you shoot TLRs?

I've shot with a few of them. I never did it for the attention either, but I always get some oddball questions like "Is that some strange surveying equimpent?" "What on earth is that thing?" "That's not a weapon, is it?" "You've been randomly selected by TSA for a special, more thorough search." But the Zeiss and Schneider lenses in all the Rolleis I've used are absolutely INCREDIBLE.

Waist level finders are by far my favorite. I shoot medium format SLRs more than TLRs, but the way I hold my cameras makes them very, very stable.

There's one HUGE advantage to 6x6, btw. No rotating the camera. No need for grips, weird hand positions, yoga, etc.