Does anyone here still use a 35mm SLR? Or has digital completely made the 35mm go the way of the dinosaur? Also, does scanning a 35mm shot to your computer degrade the quality?

I use my Nikon F70 with 300 mm zoom + teleconverter (see here ) and for portraits.
But I prefer numeric shots for landscapes
I bought a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III to scan 35 mm films. You see the result on this photo

Ok cool, thanks for the help Pierre.

I have a photographer friend who uses his extensive 35mm Nikon cameras and Zeiss lenses along with an excellent scanner to digitize the negs. Some of his black and whites end up as 9-12 megapixel images!

Wow that's wicked...cost a pretty penny I bet tho :D

i still use an old scholl SLR, its a ricoh KR-10m, it provides quality shots & i have a fish eye lens, a zoom & a general purpose lens on it. i've had it for about 5 years now methinks. i think they are still very good quality but the process of buying films & getting them developed is comparitively expensive to digital photography. As for scanning them in, they lose a bit of quality but i hear that if u have a negative scanner that problem is eliminated. when i scan pics in I always pick up some dust no matter how much i clean the scanner. maybe i should have an ion dust attractor by the scanner....? anyhoo hope that helps : )

it does it does...even with all the hassle of developing and scanning and such, a 35mm can be a barrel 'o fun ;-)

Avi-

I think if you scanned your negs (not sure about color, though; maybe pantone filters in PS?), your images would be much sharper than scanning the posititves, and possibly sharper than most everything we see here.

ok cool Thanx Tracy, much appreciated input there :D

Yes I do. Along with 2 1/4 Film. Digital is great for the instant image Idea and still are becoming so good at what you can do with them there resalution is getting to the point that you wont be abble to find a printer to handle them with out spending thousends. But yet I'm a purest I like black and white and dig just dosent do color quit as good as a negative yet.

I haven't used my 35mm kit recently 'cos I'm having too much fun with digital just now, but I've got a negative scanner now and agree with the comments above that it gives much better results than scanning prints. It's a combined printer/flatbed/neg scanner (Epson Stylus RX500) that'll scan a 35mm neg at much higher resolution than my 3.2 mp Minolta gives: in theory it should be equivalent to around 8mp, and a dedicated neg scanner should go even higher. Scanning prints can't give you that quality as the print itself isn't high enough resolution. Hope this helps....

or..... if you are too poor to put out the money for a scanner of your own.....

I get my 35mm photos developed at *gasp* Wal-Mart and do one of two things...have them put on CD (about $4 for just the CD no prints) or have them put the images on Wal-Mart.com for $1 more than the developing and download them from there (not the option you want if you have dial up!)

The ones on Wal-Mart.com are a bit smaller and in my option not as good of quailty - but still pretty good example

Here is an example of the ones off of CD example

Wow thx for all the help guys, I'm afraid I've run across a new problem tho...I need a new 35mm SLR. My choices (or limitations, depending on your point of view) are these:
-Minolta Maxxum HTsi Plus
-Minolta Maxxum XTsi (I'm leaning towards this one)
-Nikon N55
-Any others? ($130-150)

Thx again for all the scanner support
(BTW, I love the hydrangea pic Tracie :D )

If you choose a Nikon, try (if possible $$$) to take a 'F' series. The 'N' series is a 'light' cheaper series which accepts just a few lenses. They don't accept the famous Nikkor 'F' series :-(
In the 130-150$, my advice is to take a Minolta or Olympus.
Good luck :-)

Thanks a bunch Pierre, unfortunately for me my funds are somewhat limited ;-) ...but I appreciate the help. I'm going to start a fund right now for a higher-end 35mm in the future :D

I know this is an old thread but thought it was appropriate for adding this - any one heard of or seen this gadget?
http://www.guardianoffers.co.uk/mall/productpage.cfm/GuardianOffers/_TRUFILM2SD/-/Ion-FILM2SD-35mm-Film-and-Slide-Scanner

i, too, noticed this thread. i also noticed that it is quite old. is there a newer negative scanner that might be better?

Well, that link in my comment takes you to something better - check it out. Let me know if it doesn't work.. And if it does work, let me know what you think of the Ion FILM2SD gadget....

there's always something better - but it usually costs. Nikon currently holds the title for producing the best 35mm film prosumer scanners and, due to its diminishing requirements, probably always will - its a great product. if you have deep pockets - and can also invest the time in fine tuning it to get the optimum result.

if, however, you have access to a reasonably healthy trust fund, then the Hasselblad Flextight scanners are peerless in both performance and quality.

phil, which nikon scanner is the one you think best.

i had to trial several different scanners for a project in France last year and, apart from the Hasselblads, the Super Coolscan 9000ED consistently outperformed all other rivals.

thank you.

Moving this to the Photo forum.

I just thought that putting a strip of negatives straight into an SD card sounded super easy and for post editing, how convenient... IonFILM2SD Anyone used it or heard of it?

it would be super easy but 35mm negs are much bigger than an SD card if (flash) memory serves :-)

besides - as the old saying goes - anything that comes easy is worth....well - you know the rest.