Film Camera Question

DavidTO

So, my step-daughter is taking an introductory photography class, and needs a film camera. Hopefully this will be a camera that I could borrow occasionally if I were to need to shoot film (long exposures, etc.).

I have a 20D.

A friend at work has the Nikon N80 he's willing to sell me, along with a lens, so my step-daughter would be all set.

Here are my questions:


Should I find a film camera that works with my EF lenses? Is the N80 just fine? What should I do?

BenA2

Canon EF-M
FYI, my wife has wanted to sell here Canon EF-M since she converted to digital last year.

The EF-M is a perfect beginner's film SLR. I think Canon practically designed it for high school and college photography classes. It's like early 90s vintage.

Of course it takes EF lenses and has a TTL meter. But, other than that, it's FULLY manual--dial settings for aperture and shutter speed and no AF. I think it comes with a 28-70 kit lens and it has a simple little shoe-mounted flash.

I'm sure she's willing to part with it for very little $$. PM me if you're interested.

jdryan3

DavidTO wrote:

Hopefully this will be a camera that I could borrow occasionally if I were to need to shoot film (long exposures, etc.).

What should I do?

Since you want to use it, stay with the Canon family. I can't believe Samy's doesn't have a boatload of inexpensive, used film Canon's from the Rebel series on up. Isn't there a good shop up in Simi also that may have something?

Maybe you have an older lens YOU need to upgrade? Pass it on to her and then get it!

DavidTO

Looks like I'm going to take Ben's off his hands.

I wasn't even sure how the EF lenses line up with the Canons. I know that the AE-1 wouldn't work with EF, but that's all I knew.

Ben's got a nice deal going on this camera, he's a good egg, a dgrinner, etc.

erich6

Good question David. I was looking into something like this not too long ago. Although it looks like you've found an answer I wanted to share what I found out.

If you want to a get a simple, solid, and cheap film camera look for a used EOS 10S. This camera is of good build quality. It is useful for astophotography because it doesn't use power to keep the shutter open during bulb exposure. It works well with Kodak IR film if you want to experiment with that (no fogging issues due to film-winding LED's). The biggest problem I had with it was the awkward user interface for exposure compensation. You should be able to pick one of these up for $100 or so. EF mounts work with it no problems....

Erich

jdryan3

I see that KEH has the Elan II for $50 and you can get Elan 7E for under $150. They are EF compatible