APS film camera's

What's your budget?

SLR Film camera's are dirt cheap nowadays. You can get a Canon EOS Rebel GII with a 35-80 f/4-5.6 lens for $199.95 + shipping from B&H (http://www.bhphoto.com). You'll have access to Canon's full line of EOS lenses from the $100 jobbies to the $6K monsters, hot shoe flashes, filters, the works.

And yes, APS is almost completely out the door now. My wife has one she bought many years ago and we're finding it increasingly difficult to find film for it. Not only that, but your film choices are severly limited not to mention rediculously expensive to develop.

Bill in Brooklyn

 

There's no "need" to go digital unless you really want to. I find it a pain in the arse to print out all of my digital vacation pictures (I took digital when I went to South Beach) and put them into a photo album. Mostly it's a pain because I can't help myself from fiddling with the picture, "Oh let's crop this, blur that, would this look better in black and white?" Then there's the matter of uploading each 4 megabyte jpeg to Shutterfly (best digital printing service there is) and ordering each print.

Screw that. For vacations, I'm switching back to film where I can just drop off the roll, get my prints, and have the wife file them into another fifty-friggin-dollar photo album because the cheaper ones "don't match the bookshelf". Film camera, especially the SLRs, are considerably lighter than their digital counterparts, they require no "boot-up" time, and the batteries will last you the next 6 vacations.

Don't get me wrong, I love digital, and all my portfolio work is shot digitally, but film still has it's place.

Bill in Brooklyn

 

APS was a no win from the get-go, IMO.

If you don't want to get an SLR like the new entry-level Nikon ( the 80?? Can't remember, like $375... probably less used), I'd cave and go digital.

Although I got my first camera, a Minolta Maxxum 5000 from a used camera shop for about $120 - it lasted a good 4 years (until HI weather corroded it out) and was full auto and full manual.

Last year I got a 3.3MP camera at CompUSA for $200. SiPix brand (CA co). Pics are ok, high enough resolution, only problems are the light meter isn't the best and I end up tweaking every photo, and it eats AA batteries like the Cookie Monster on Keeblers. For $200 I can't complain too much. 3.2 will print fine up to 11x17 or so - it would be enough unless you want to print full poster size.

 

Batteries are fine. I'd stock up from Bruce, his yellow and black Energizer boxes are in every drawer of my place it seems .

 

The advantage of APS is that it records the light conditions on the film and therefore colors can be processed more accurately. It also supports 3 different picture sizes -- normal, not-normal (I don't remember the name), and panorama. Also, in processing they provide a single index cars of all photos rather than negative.

In reality, I havn't seen any significant advantages in color processing and the pictures are slightly lower quality than 35mm because the resolution is lower. The panorama mode is pretty amazing for shots that need a very wide view (such as mountains). Also, APS cameras are small -- our Cannon is about the same size as the smaller digital cameras. Other than than parorama mode and size, 35mm is a better choice. I don't think APS will go away, but it is more expensive to process. I'm not a big fan of digital cameras -- most film processors allow you to order a CD of digital images with 35mm or APS processing, so this is what we do when we want a digital image.