Film vs. Digital... Die, Die, Die! (was: VCF suggestions...

[Tony Duell]

> 
> Show me a consumer film camera made in the last 15 years that doesn't take 
> batteries in some form or another...

Take, or require (the latter meaning that you can still use the camera, 
with a good range of shutter speeds, without the battery, only the 
exposure meter doesn't work).

IIRC, the new-ish Leica MP doesn't meed a battery other than for the 
meter, the shutter is totally mechanical. And I believe Nikon have done a 
limited run of a reproduction of one of their classic S-series 
rangefinder cameras, that is fully mechanical too.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous, those pre-loaded single-use 
outdoor-only cameras don't contain a battery :-).

Mroe seriously, the batteries taken by most film cameras were standard 
primary batteries and are a lot easier to find than a custom Li-ion or 
NiMH pack for a digital camera.

> Many would say that if you're serious, you're not using 35mm... ;-) I'm an 
> amateur (at best) and my digital SLR outperforms my old Canon 35mm (in ways 
> that only I care about! ;-) enough for me to ditch film.  'Course, I will 
> never, never, never, never take pictures on the level that Tony does. I 
> don't need equipment like that to take pictures of my kids stuffing 
> blueberries up their nose.

And I wouldn't recomend you tried to use a large format camera for that. 
It would be totally impractical. Set the thing up, open the shutter, focus 
and get the movements right on the ground glass screen, close the shutter, 
set the aperture, slot in the film holder, pull out the dark slide, then 
expose the film, all without your kids moving. No way... :-)

Fortunately, I have several cameras and try to use the most appropriate 
one for each job. As yet I've never come across a situation where I've 
felt the need for a digital camera, though.

And equally fortunately my classic computers are well enough behaved to 
stay in one place while I try to photograph them.

-tony