35 MM Film Cameras vs Digital Cameras

[Colorado Cowboy]

I have 2 35mm Konica Cameras with numerous lenses (wide angle, 75x250 zoom, 2x converter, filters) and used to take 100's of pictures evry trip I took. I have a couple of digitals now. No question about the ease of digital cameras and that is all I've used for a number of years.

My question is ...are any of the new digital camera bodies set up to use the older lenses I have? Sure would be nice to buy a digital camera body and be able to snap them in. The older style lenses were pretty expensive and really great quality.

 

[Kevin Root]

I think it will depend on the lens and camera body you have. Older lenses built for film SLR cameras often work with newer digital SLR cameras, though quality and functionality may or may not suffer, depending on the unit. There may be sensor size issues or conversion challenges. A digital SLR camera's sensor is shinier than a piece of film, a special coating is sometimes applied to the lens's outer glass to achieve greater contrast and clarity. Also depending on the lens, you will most likely loose your automatic focus and you will need to rely on manual focus.

I'd take them down to a good camera dealer to weigh your options. There may be an adaptor option for your lens available to convert the old lens to newer camera body.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

Thanks. I was told to check out www.photo.net also.

 

[AKaviator]

C.C,
I've never tried one, but I have looked into this some. I have some really nice old Canon film cameras and know that there are after-market adapters to fit old lenses to newer digital bodies. They were relatively inexpensive and had widely mixed reviews. It seems that you lose an F-stop or two. One repeated gripe was they came with no directions and were hard to make fit properly. Once they were properly fit up, they worked okay.
I found the adapters on EBAY and several online markets for about $35.

I probably have a couple thousand into the cameras and lenses and they're worth about 50 bucks now.

If you give it a try, let us know how it works out for you.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

C.C,

I probably have a couple thousand into the cameras and lenses and they're worth about 50 bucks now.

If you give it a try, let us know how it works out for you.

Havn't made up my mind if its worth the trouble. I have the same situation with old camera bodies and lenses. I have also heard that on a lot of these adaptors you lose the auto focus feature. When I got out my old 35mm stuff and started looking at it, the first thing that struck me was how big and heavy this stuff is. I'll probable put it all back in closet. Have an old vhs movie camera there too. Don't know why I save this stuff!

 

[tttoadman]

I have suffered for years with the fact that I couldn't get the quality from my digital as I could with my film camera. I attempted for years to use my canon 75-300 zoom on my new XTI digital with little success. After consulting with a few people, I came to the realization that shooting digital through an old lense with no stalbilization was most of my problem. I bought the 70-300 IS lense for my XTI digital and made a few recomended changes to settings, and I am thrilled. The $500 for the new lense doesn't hurt so bad, because I can take the quaity of that new lense and pop it right on my old 35mm film camera if I want to get creative that way.

I have people tell me I am crazy for carrying this heavy equipment, but most of the point and shoot cameras even with big optical zooms can't touch the quality and rapid shooting that you can do with these big DSLR units.

Good luck on your quest. Everything seems to require a little compromise on weight, $, or whatever. When the hunting isn't great, you better at least come home with some good pictures!!