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Comment by d13 | Hacker News Reader

Digital photography is not a replacement for film. It's a different technology, and a significant number of photographers prefer film for these reasons: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/why-we-love-film.htm. The best film camera Leica ever made was probably the M3, which it produced for 12 years. If you buy a second-hand M3 today, it will be the best camera you've ever owned and will last for decades. Leica has had a blinding infatuation with digital photography, like the rest of us, but has just released its first film camera in 10 years, the M-A: http://en.leica-camera.com/Photography/Leica-M/Leica-M-A/Det.... It's purely mechanical - no battery, no light meter. They've probably noticed the glaring gap in the market: the only option for photographers who want good quality film cameras is to buy them on Ebay. I wonder if this is the first sign that photography is going to start shifting back to its analogue roots?

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> The best film camera Leica ever made was probably the M3, which it produced for 12 years. If you buy a second-hand M3 today, it will be the best camera you've ever owned and will last for decades.

For some values of "best". :) It's certainly the most iconic. Certainly not the most convenient, what with the cumbersome film loading (three-hand procedure) and the terrible film rewind (uncomfortable, slow knob instead of the M4+ rewind lever). And framelines only for 50mm and longer.

Last for decades? Perhaps. Watch out for finder separation and other fun issues. Hope that there are still capable Leica repair technicians around in 30 years. They are a dying breed.

I miss mine, though. Jungle wisdom says you should never sell a Leica, because you're only going to buy another one for more money later anyway.

> the only option for photographers who want good quality film cameras is to buy them on Ebay

There are still options if you want to buy new, like Cosina Voigtländer's Bessa R2M/R3M/R4M. Leicas they ain't, but they are of good quality and in many ways functionally superior. And I much prefer the R3M/R3A 1x finder to any Leica finder.

The pro camera of all 35mm pro cameras, the Nikon F6, is still in production. In 2012 they were making about 50 per month. Reportedly handled by two (2) people in Sendai!

Nikon FM10 (actually produced by Cosina) is also still being made. Vivitar still makes a similar SLR. I believe Fujifilm is still producing one or a couple of their premium compacts.

More worrisome is the availability of film in the future, although this Kickstarter does get my hopes up: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/filmferrania/100-more-y...

Leica never stopped selling film cameras. The M7 has been available since 2002, and the MP (not the M-P) since 2003. Also, I only own one camera without a built-in light meter, and that's my Hasselblad 501CM[0]. I specifically bought the M6 because having to bolt on extra hardware to meter a scene struck me as being ridiculous.

> I wonder if this is the first sign that photography is going to start shifting back to its analogue roots?

Not at $4,750+ for a camera it's not. If the future of film photography is all 35mm cameras that cost as much as a 2007 Honda Civic, you can keep it.

[0] And if I'm in a position to shoot with my Hasselblad, carrying around a light meter isn't a significant burden.

I have recently gone back to film. You can get pocketable cameras e.g. Ricoh GR1s which destroy almost every DSLR made today in the quality of the final result. Sure the top handful of cameras are better but they are also unwieldy for say street photography.

I think film will only truly serve no purpose in about 10 or so years once a few more technologies like Sony's curved sensor come into fruition.

"destroy almost every DSLR made today in the quality of the final result" why would you say this? The GR1 has a decent enough lens if you are happy with just one, but 28mm doesn't suit everybody, and f/2.8 is not always very useful, it does guarantee the lens performs reasonably well wide open though (it's not a very ambitious lens), but most (full frame) DSLRs have higher resolution that that camera. You need to use medium format to beat a D810 or Sony A7r today. I am not saying film isn't great, I shoot film, but it's just plain wrong to go through life, or try to convince others that your little GR1 can beat a Nikon D810 at anything. You need to use a lot of scanning technology to eek out much resolution from the 35mm negs, even dynamic range is better in the FF digital cameras now, and as for ISO performance, film cannot even dream about keeping up. The A7s can shoot in the dark, by starlight!!

A hasselblad 500c/m with its 6x6cm negative will have more tonality and even on a flatbed scanner will have slightly higher resolution that a D810, you'll need an imacon scanner to really get the full resolution of film.

The biggest challenge with film, besides the poor ISO performance compared to digital is the cost.

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