Looking to buy a 35mm

[Pistol Pete]

I shoot with a D50 now and I want to shoot 35mm as well because in my head 35mm has a lot better quality. If i am wrong please correct me.

basicly I think that you can make 35mm scans a lot better quality (or a larger size).

anyways i am just looking for a camera that will use the same lenses. Am i looking for a Nikon N65? N80?

Thanks a lot gang!

 

[thumb]

hmm, not sure about the premise. not better, just different. resolution will be similar, digital a lot less noise, probably better color with film (dpends on film). film gets grain, which can be a plus or a minus. both are great.

if you really want better as in better resolution, go for a medium format camera. now there you will notice a difference! (i am doing this now).

once you bother going into the difficulties of film with developing, scanning, etc, might as well do MF.

lenses with medium format (MF) will not work (for the most part). but then, depending on what you have already from nikon, they might not either.

any nikon dx lens is for digital only. that includes the kit lens from the d50, the popular 18-200 or the 17-55. most other lenses will work fine on both cameras, and any lens that works for film cameras will work on digital (actually, they all fit physically on everything - F Mount! - but the dx lens will not fill the film frame). so that depends a bit on what you have.

Edit:

oh right, and you question, yes any of Ns would be great, you also might want to consider the F100. film cameras, save the F5 and F6, are pretty cheap these days. I just got a great TLR rolleiflex MF used with amazing optics for $600.

 

[ChrisA]

I shoot with a D50 now and I want to shoot 35mm as well because in my head 35mm has a lot better quality. If i am wrong please correct me.

basicly I think that you can make 35mm scans a lot better quality (or a larger size).

anyways i am just looking for a camera that will use the same lenses. Am i looking for a Nikon N65? N80?

Thanks a lot gang!

You CAN make better quallity images with 35mm if yu WILL make better images using 35mm is a good question. It depends on your equipment, technique, skills and the type of film you use. I've compared my film to D50 and the results go either way. But the best film images are much better then the best D50 images

The D50 has 3,000 pixels across 24mm frame. That is 125 pixels pr milimeter which tmeans about 50 lines per mm of resolution.

50 line/mm is about what a 35mm camera can do if used with 200 ISO print film iand hed held. It can do twice as good if you use a film like "Velia" and a heavy tripod. But it does twice as gooo over a frame with twice the square area. So yes the potential is there but if you were to take hand held snapshots with film and with a D50 the results would be about the same. The D50 however is limited to about 50 lines/pp no mater what you do.

If you want to move to film you can't use the kit lens that came with the D50 nor can use use any other DX lens. So you are going to have to buy both a lens or several lenses and a body. Question: Why stick with 35mm? The increment in quality is only about double. Why not shoot 4x5 or medium format? Maybe it is to large to cary but if you are so concerned about "quality" then I assume this is more for fine arts than vacation snaps. And you will be hauling that 10 lbs Bogen tripod anyways. A Wista 4x5 is not much more weight than an F100 body. If you want "cheap" look into a Pentax 6x7. It looks like a huge SLR but it takes roll film Very high profesional quality for about 35mm nikon price. But nothing will beat 4x5 Velia for quality You could make huge prints. When I bought my scanner one of the criteria in selecting it was that it do 4x5.

 

[Silentwave]

One of the things about film is that when you scan it at really high resolution, oftentimes you're just magnifying the same film grains more and more and more. The D50 is far superior to film at high ISOs, and colors can be manipulated- the only real advantage you have with film is the ability to shoot really low ISO film for a bit of a resolution gain and better dynamic range.

Film grain is not uniform like digital is. That's one of the things about Digital.

35mm film has only a slight advantage over this particular camera in some situations, other higher resolution cameras have closed this gap too.

If you do want a film camera though (and deal with the costs of processing, and if you don't self develop deal with the lack of control over the final product) you can always get the F/N80 which is a good camera, but the F100 in my opinion is a superior camera. It has a great metering system, better AF, and better build and features.

You might, though, wish to consider a used F5 which has an even better metering system.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

basicly I think that you can make 35mm scans a lot better quality (or a larger size).

I don't know about that. We have a 24x36 inch prints in our store that were made from the D50 NEF file. It looks impressive to many of us. A 4000dpi scan IMO might look the same in "quality".

But there is a difference in "feel" of an image from film verses digital IMO. I see it in my B&W images, and to a lesser degree in my color images.

For either, it all about your work flow.

anyways i am just looking for a camera that will use the same lenses. Am i looking for a Nikon N65? N80?

Thanks a lot gang!

If all you have are DX style lens (meaning those for digital only); you can use them for 35mm - but you have to zoom out to more telephoto in order for the corners not to darken.

Any 35mm Nikon AF body at this point will have to be bought used, other than the F6. We sell used gear at my shop, and it is hard to say where prices on used 35mm bodies will go. Entry level bodies like the N65 and N80 are pretty low IMO. The F100 is hanging in there, but still attractive for the diehard 35mm shooter.

Will the 35mm go lower? Or will it creep back up as the number of used pieces goes down? Or will the 35mm used market just "crash"? Only time will tell.

 

[Pistol Pete]

so it looks like i will not be buying a 35mm. Anyways the lens i do use is jsut a basic nikkor 28-80mm. So you guys are right when scanning it is just magnifying the grains.

so maybe i should just get a nice telephoto and a bigger sd card.

the D50 just felt so cheap after using the 35mm program AE-1 with the 100-300mm lens...i think it must have been because of the lens.

thanks again.