Just point and shoot...

49 responses total.

While I'm getting practice in with a borrowed SLR, I am
thinking of adding a 35mm compact camera to my collection.
Has anyone here tried the Pentax IQZoom 120SW?

Why are you sticking to film and not going digital? (I know some reasons, but
I'd like to get a wider sampling of opinions on this question.)

My wife recently bought a new digital camera.  The
convenience of being able to see the picture straight away
is nice, and it's quicker when we want to email pictures to
people.  A few years back I might have said that I wanted
film for the resolution, today I could just about scrape
together the excuse that it would enable me to learn how to
develop black and white film.  I have a suspicion that light
paints differently on film than on a CCD, but I'm too new at
this to know for sure.

I take mostly slides and I can argue for better resolution for those, although
with everyone going to Power Point one often cannot use slides for
presentations at meetings anymore. Of course, one can scan slides, but then
the digital projectors are very expensive and don't do any better a job than
projecting the slides. So I'm still in the muddle of deciding what I will do.

I did think about slides as I composed my reply to your
question.  I don't currently have a slide projector though,
so that would have been too tenuous an excuse even for me!
;-)

They are probably pretty cheap on ebay, now. 

I'm wary of buying anything on eBay these days.  There's the
hassle of cheques lost in the mail and then I recieve stuff
that's broken or has parts missing.  :-/

Did you check feedback for all the sellers? I've been pleased with all my ebay
purchases. Also, ask questions of the sellers.

Yes, the sellers' feedback was almost entirely positive.
With something as complex as a camera, I'm going to buy it
new anyway. I've had horribly bad luck with second-hand 35mm
SLRs in the past that almost put me off photography.

...as things turned out, it just put me of 35mm for a while.

I'm interested in what people here think about the idea of
carrying a 35mm compact.  I hope that it will let me work on
things like basic composition and enable me to take some
pictures that 'come out' to offset disappointing results
while I'm learning how to drive the SLR.

I used a 35 mm SLR for quite some time but then bought a pretty compact
autofocus that was easier to carry - and also waterproof. I pretty much
have my SLR in storage except for copying.

I don't get it, what exactly about the SLR, were you disappointed in?
In what way didn't your pictures come out?

I used to have a compact automatic 35mm camera, before I got my manual
35mm SLR. The compact is just too limited in the what it can do. Now I 
don't think I could ever go back to using one.

I found the best way to improve learning composition is to get yourself
a nice tripod (with a ball-socket head not the pan-tilt version). It 
lets you really slow down and analyze the entire frame, before you take 
the picture.

In my case it was a change in my photographic purposes. I spent years 
taking "arty" (to me) photographs, had a darkroom, etc., but eventually 
that wore off and I needed primarily documentary photographs. Of course 
there is composition and lighting at issue for documentation, but not to 
the extent in photography for primarily images (when you analyze the 
frame, as you say).

Also, the SLR was burdensome and awkward when skiing and too delicate for 
caving and sailing.

Re #12: When I was a lad I saved up for a while to buy a
  second-hand SLR.  I also bought a tripod, flash, 135mm
  telephoto lense and a friend and I clubbed together to buy
  a 2x teleconverter.  It took me a few rolls of film and
  quite a bit of time to convince myself that there was a
  genuine problem with the camera.  The bottom half of each
  frame came out after a fassion, the top half was always
  dark.  I took the camera back to the shop where I'd bought
  it but the man there denied all knowlege and refused to
  take it back.  I was just a kid and had no recourse.
  Eventually I gave away the rest of my gear to people who
  could use it.

  I bought another SLR at a yard sale, sold as working, but
  appears to be jammed.  I still have that one somewhere
  along with a polarising filter that I bought for it.

  Thanks for the tip regarding ball-and-socket tripods, I'll
  look for one of those.

Re #13: What do you sail?  Is there a sailing conference
  here on Grex?

I have a 12' Ray Green Green "Slipper" sloop - it has 110 ft^2 main and a
jib, so even though it is short, it is pretty yare. At the moment it is in
need of some repair and rerigging, so I'm looking forward to spring to
work on it. There is no sailing conference on Grex. 

I think there should be :-)

My reason to stay with 35mm:  Digital is $$$++

Seriously, I love my Canon EOS SLR. I can take decent photos with it 
and they come up just fine. The digital equivilent is still out of my 
price range. Maybe some day. And since I don't take photographs often, 
I can't justify the savings on film.

I like the convenience of my wife's digital camera, but I
like the flexibility of an SLR. It's a shame one has to sell
body parts on eBay to buy a DSLR though.

I fired off an experimental roll of film on a borrowed
Pentax MV 35mm SLR today.  It will be interesting to see if
any of the pictures come out.

I'm fairly sure that the film in the Pentax MV came un-
spooled.  I'm not equipped to deal with that, so I may just
have to open the back and discard the film.  Of course, the
same might happen with another roll of film, but I won't
know unless I put one in there.  Did I mention that I don't
get on well with 35mm cameras?  :-/

how do you know? does the counter still advance? Did it come unspooled from
the takeup reel or the canister?

From the canister I think, because I can't seem to wind it
back in.  When I get home I'll check whether the counter
advances.  It wouldn't be so bad if I knew someone locally
who was adept with cameras.

If you take it to a photo shop, they can open the camera in a darkroom 
for you and recover the film.

Re #23: that might have been even more embarrassing than
  this admission: I took the offending camera into the
  darkest room in the house at night, with no lights on.  I
  popped the back and fealt for the film.

     ( Hmm... that's odd I can't feel the film!  Perhaps  )
     ( it went back into the can after all!  Hang on, why )
  .oO( can't I feel the can?!                             )

  I flick the light on and sure enough: I'd somehow omitted
  to load the camera with film.  I loaded it up with Kodak T
  -Max 400, because I found some laying around.

  In the mean time, I fired off a roll of colour negative
  film in an old Minolta. I should know on Wednesday whether
  any of those pictures came out.

In the past I've rigged bathrooms without windows as darkrooms - when I 
did my own developing and enlarging. It just takes a little better light 
sealing around the door. Aren't there also "dark bags" available for just 
such purposes as loading film? Of course, they would be going the way of 
film cameras themselves. 

I've never pulled film fully out of a cartridge, but I have rolled it 
fully back in! I made a handy film grabber to pull the end back out.

I've done both of those.  Usually accidentally rolling an un-shot roll 
into the can was the result of having loaded the film improperly to 
begin with, so when I thought I was rewinding a full roll of pictures, 
I was actually just rewinding the leader back into the can.

After accidentally tearing the film loose from the cartridge one too 
many times, I stopped trying to squeeze that one last shot onto the 
roll, and just stopped after the number of shots it was supposed to 
contain.  To be extra safe, I also didn't advance the last frame before 
rewinding the film.

I'll file that last one away under "handy hints".  Today I
rewound an APS cartridge after 24 exposures, before my wife
told me they generally hold 27.  I had just installed a new
battery and the camera had lost count. Perhaps it would have
found its place if I took another photograph, I don't know.

My first set of prints came back today.  I had fired off a
test roll in a 35mm Minolta SLR that I picked up for a song
at a yard sale.  Most of the pictures were underexposed, but
a few of them turned out okay.  I don't think there's any
-thing fundamentally wrong with the camera, I just failed to
compensate for a polarising filter that I'd bunged on the
front for no readily discernable reason.

Getting back on-topic for a moment, I could have done with
a Point-n-Shoot in the car today because I saw a car with
the best collection of bumper stickers that I've ever seen.
Examples include "Prius Owners Against Bush!" and "If you
aren't outraged, then you're not paying attention".

Isn't the camera's photometer after the lens? That should have compensated
for the filter. Does the camera have the right battery in it - I mean the
*exactly* right battery? There is a difference if you replace a required
mercury coin cell with a different kind - it throws off the photometer.

When I took the pictures I thought that the TTL metering
would compensate.  When I saw that the pictures were under-
exposed, I thought that perhaps it hadn't.  I /think/ it's
the right battery, but the camera's eons old (Minolta X-370)
and I have no manual for it.  For some reason the colours in
the prints aren't quite right: people's skin looks purple.

I'm have two very similar cameras (Minolta XD-5) which were probably 
made around the same time. One of them I just took in to a camera
repair shop. It was working, but I suspected the timing of the shutter
was a little off. It was slightly less than $100 for them to clean,
lube and adjust it. I figure its like routine maintaince on a car.

If you really want to get an estimate of how well the metering is,
just shoot a roll of slide transparency film (e-6) through the camera,
and keep track of the exact exposure settings.

Any idea what might make a person's face appear purple in a
photograph?  It wasn't purple in real life ;-)

old film or the photolab....i'm 99.26% certain its not the camera's fault

Perhaps it's their way of encouraging me to ask for "Perfect
Touch" ;-)  The colours look a bit wierd and most of the
pictures were underexposed, but I got to see depth of field
in action and I can always convert them to greyscale. It was
a good learning experience.

There's an adapter out there that lets you use an alkaline button cell 
to replace the old (and no longer available) mercury cells.  It 
incorporates a voltage regulator.  I had one in my Canon F-1 and it 
worked fine.

Interesting.  I may try different cells in the Minolta next
time, but I have a feeling the film may have been sitting
around for a little while and colour film apparently ages
more quickly than black & white.

I found myself looking at an inexpensive Canon 35mm SLR in a
shop today.  Someone (elsewhere) had mentioned to me that
opting for Canon or Nikon might open up a nice range of
lenses (e.g. third-party and used) that would not be
available to me if I buy the Pentax ZX-M that I've been
saving up for.  What do people here think?

Gah, it occurs to me that I should have asked my lens
question in the "Suggestions on buying a SLR" item.

Re #35: when I mentioned the potential battery problem I did not recall which
way was the effect on exposure. What you say would describe getting
underexposed shots using an alkaline instead of a mercury battery. Apparently
the alkaline cell has higher voltage, so one would stop down using it for the
same reading on the photometer. Hence, underexposure. So, the question is,
what original battery is required in that camera, and what battery is in it
for the current exposures?

No idea.  I don't have a manual.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss