Today I got my AE-1P back… it got some light leaks because of some loosen screws and washers and all that mechanical stuff I don’t know much about, but it’s supposed to work as nice as the good ol’ times!… anyway, I was chatting with the guy who repaired the camera and talked a bit about these days of digital imaging. You know, my AE-1P is even older than me, and it’s still rockin’, I learned a lot about photography with it, as a little kid I always saw my mother using it and it grabbed my attention, she would let me shoot some frames, and it felt so good watching the prints, it felt so different than shooting a “oint and shoot”…

So this guy told me that he has done repairs for some of the first digital SLR cameras which where 1.x megapixels, which make them now totally obsolete!… these cameras may be no older than 20 years and have became obsolete in a short time period, you can’t shoot with one of those things these days! those things used 8 MB memory cards, and will not accept any bigger than that!! I mean, I can’t use one of those to store more than one RAW file from my Rebel XT, not to mention one of the new XSi or even worse, a thing like a 5D or 1Ds… this battle for the greatest amount of Megapixels is really leading nowhere, making all of the equipment we own obsolete. Canon’s original 5D camera is 12 mp’s… now, the Powershot SD990 is 14 mp’s for a street price of $300… I know the original 5D is far better in other aspects from the powershot, but you get my point right? Do you really need a 50 mp’s H3DII Hasselblad? I can’t imagine the size of a RAW file from that camera!

Now what about film? I’ve already said that my camera is still in working condition… I bought a Rolleiflex 2.8e about three years ago and after it got CLA’d it worked so nicely and I have taken so many good shots with it, and it’s a camera made in 1956-59… yup, thats fifty years if it was made in the last year of production. Oh yeah, do I have to mention these two cameras aren’t very expensive?… I got the Rollei for about $300 and you can get an AE-1P for about $100 lens included… want something a bit better?… what about a Hasselblad 500c kit for about $800, even though I’ve seen some of those selling at eBay for about $600… yup, less than the latest Canon entry level DSLR… oh! have you seen this DIY large format 6×4 Bulldog Camera kit for $325??… just add a fine lens and you’ll have some kickass large format quality image!

I know all this sounds kinda’ “film freak junkie” and maybe it’s inevitable that film will disappear some day, sooner or later… kind of in the same way music CD’s or any physical format will disappear because of MP3 and other digital formats, but really nothing beats the sound of a Vinyl record!… the same with film, nothing really beats the look of it!

Mmhhh… so… Long live film!! either Colour negative, Slide, Black & White or whatever! go on and blow the dust off of your old film cameras and go out, shoot some film while we have it!

Cheers!

PS.- Yes!! this is blog #2,457,135,865 about Film vs. Digital