Medium format 645 pro or 35mm?

Cost effectiveness" 35mm wins. Also, you might check out the Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2.0. I went with the Distagon, a stop slower, not f1.4 was not needed. There was some discussion years ago and the relative merits of both.

Hmmm, $750 for a 35mm f/2 Distagon. How is that cost effective?

 

That amount of cash would get you a Mamiya 645 with 55mm lens, plus a heck of a lot of film, and give far better image quality than any 35mm camera+lens combo.

Buy a full frame Nikon or Canon DSLR with a 24-85 or 24-105 lens. It will out perform 645 film and be a better investment. You could still get that 35mm f1.4 and take some stunning hand held night scenes.

Sometimes I forget that I'm not on APUG, and I read a comment like rick_jack|1's and wait for the moderators to EXPLODE :-)

I also love the 645 format....but when I am abroad and doing a lot of shooting, the extra cost of the film and processing...and scanning should be factured in. If you mainly do screen viewing, or prints to 8x10, 645 doesn't gain you much. Every click of the shutter though will cost you about 3 times as much.

Buy a full frame Nikon or Canon DSLR with a 24-85 or 24-105 lens. It will out perform 645 film and be a better investment. You could still get that 35mm f1.4 and take some stunning hand held night scenes.

 

What film goes in the Canon DSLR?

It will (...) be a better investment.

(emphasis mine)

 

Sure....... One thing it surely will not be is a better investment. Digital gear deprecates rapidly, good quality film gear stopped deprecating. Heck, I could sell off quite some older lenses, bought from eBay 3-4 years ago, today at a profit. Probably can sell my F3 at a decent profit too. But selling a DSLR after using it for a profit? No way. A modern AF zoom lens? No way. They're not investments, they're costs and that's OK.

Now I've got nothing against digital, but it's incredibly tiresome that people respond "digital" to a question about film, and vice-versa (and frankly, the strong anti-digital sentiments on APUG just turn me away from it, despite the vast amount of knowledge there, it's just unnecessary hostile). Is it so hard to accept different preferences?

 

Anyway, the OP asked this question about 2 years ago. The road trip is probably over, the photos made during it developed, printed and enjoyed.... so all this advice is coming in royally late anyway.

What film goes in the Canon DSLR?

Try 126, just like your other cameras. :-)

 

Good glass rarely depreciates, so choose your system based upon the lenses you want to use. Whatever medium.

Try 126, just like your other cameras. :)

 

Good glass rarely depreciates, so choose your system based upon the lenses you want to use. Whatever medium.

 

Of course, a 35mm film camera usually takes 135(35mm) film

Good glass rarely depreciates, so choose your system based upon the lenses you want to use.

 

I'd probably disagree with that statement to some extent.

 

Nikon seems to be on a cycle of updating some of their staple "pro" lens like the 70/80-200 2.8 every 5 years or so. The newest version is $2800 new, and I'll also add that it doesn't work on most of my cameras. I paid $350 for my 80-200 2.8D. At least as of now it's useable on every camera I own(although I don't get metering on my Fs and F2 Photomics unless I add a fork to it-something I wouldn't mind doing) although the number of DSLRs on which AF is available is dwindling. In 5 years, I wouldn't be surprised to find that low end bodies lose the ability to control the aperture and in 10 years there may well be a very limited number of bodies-if any at all-that offer AF with this lens.

 

I wouldn't mind to have a version of this lens with AF-S and VR, but I'm also glad that I was able to buy a lens I use only occasionally(and usually under good light) for a fairly low price relative to newer versions. I MIGHT get faster AF with an AF-S lens, but then AF is also plenty fast on a high end body.

 

AFAIK, the last few new or revised lenses Nikon has made have been "E" lenses, which in Nikon speak means that they have an electronic aperture. Again, I see the mechanical aperture coupling(I mean the mechanical ability to open/close the aperture, not the aperture feeler tab which of course has been missing from low end bodies since the 1980s) going away on low end cameras in the next few years. If that happens, all your G lenses will be useless on low end cameras, and lenses with aperture rings will revert to full manual control of the aperture(turn the ring to open it up for viewing and composing, close it down to the taking aperture before pressing the button). I can't read Nikon's mind, but I think that eliminating the last mechanical coupling at least on low end cameras would be consistent with their historical practices. And, again, that hurts the value of even some current production high end lenses.

 

BTW, I still swear by my RB67 :)

Ben, I suspect Nikon's move to all-electronic lens control is in anticipation of a mirrorless system.

 

That way their recent lenses wouldn't be made redundant on a shorter register MLC. Just a tube with electrical contacts would be needed as an adapter. OTOH fitting the MLC with mechanical aperture control and screwdriver AF would be a design nightmare and drive up cost.

 

I definitely smell a mirrorless Nikon on the wind, and about time!

 

Also remember Nikon are competing against the likes of Sigma and Tamron, who've both upped their game considerably to make glassware that doesn't embarrass itself on a 40+ megapixel sensor. Aspheric and ULD elements are now de rigeur to get that level of performance, and what was state of the art 20 years ago is now "state of the ark".

Joe,

 

You likely are right.

 

Let's face it at least as far as the "screwdriver" goes-to me it was a band-aide to get AF into the mount as easily and inexpensively as possible. Nikon's first AF venture(the F3AF) used in-lens motors, and even in the early days in-lens motors were used on super-teles when it made sense. IMO, Canon got it right by going with in-lens motors from the start(T80, and then the EF mount), although Nikon did a darn good job with screwdriver lenses. On the same higher end bodies, my old push-pull 70-210 4.5-5.6 focuses faster than my much smaller and lighter DX AF-S 55-200.

 

In a world where electronic connections are often less expensive than mechanical, to me it makes sense on paper to get rid of the one remaining mechanical linkage that was present on all lenses a few years ago. With that said, I still don't like the loss of interchangeability. I forget which it is, but I don't THINK that my D800 is compatible AF-P lenses, or maybe it's with E lenses. Although I realize that body was introduced 5 years ago, which is ancient in digital terms, it's still to me not all that old considering that(for a little bit longer) virtually the same camera is available new and it's the second most expensive body in the line.