Which camera do you prefer? ( Archived) (3)

When I was young and environmentally unacknowledged (i.e. dumped poisons into the sewer and thus to the rivers) I grew up with much time in the darkroom. Even today a Phototerm development machine sits unused in my basement. Unused because I now live on a well with a septic system and lack desire to poison either my neighbors or myself. Those left over chemicals are not safe to drink.

There exists here an F1, a Bronica, a Rolliflex and even an old Welta. Pentaxes and Ricoh's too. I miss using them. Sadly however, digital has indeed pushed them away. Economy always wins. We can take thousands of stills with the digital and spend not one dime on development costs. We can even emulate pushing the film in the developer by increasing the gamma with software. Not quite the same, but the consumer doesn't care. Frankly development itself is a dying art. Many stores that used to offer that service no longer do. 120 is a mail order only option here (my phototerm used to handle it before I had the drinking water issue), and sadly I see the day of 35 development by mail only coming too. My film cameras and lenses collect dust in the safe. A waterproof pocket Pentax digital often sits
in my pocket.

If there exists good news, check out some of the newer digitals at the top end. Those features will filter down to the consumer grade in a few years. CCD's keep shrinking in size while continuing to increase in megapixels. ASA 1600? LoL, how old is that? We can get digitals that go up into the tens of thousands. And it all keeps getting better. Better lens coatings, etc.