Difference between 35mm Cameras

L

leo_oz

New member
Hi Guys,

Short and sweet - I'm wondering what the difference is between 35mm film cameras? I mean besides reliability / robustness / running noise?

I mean aren't they simply rolling film through the gate and exposing that film to light? Seems overly simple..?

Having never shot on film, it seems the difference in image result is solely related to the film stock used and lenses (and all other lighting / cinematography etc) as opposed to digital where the sensor plays such a large roll in terms of look and feel / DR / rolloff etc.

If there is no difference between the 35mm cameras, why the price difference? Is this solely related to build quality etc as outlined above?

Thanks for any info!
 
leo_oz said:
Hi Guys,

Short and sweet - I'm wondering what the difference is between 35mm film cameras? I mean besides reliability / robustness / running noise?

I mean aren't they simply rolling film through the gate and exposing that film to light? Seems overly simple..?

Having never shot on film, it seems the difference in image result is solely related to the film stock used and lenses (and all other lighting / cinematography etc) as opposed to digital where the sensor plays such a large roll in terms of look and feel / DR / rolloff etc.

If there is no difference between the 35mm cameras, why the price difference? Is this solely related to build quality etc as outlined above?

Thanks for any info!
Click to expand...

Are you referring to 35mm still cameras or 35mm motion picture cameras... in any case, 99.99% of the difference boils down to quality of the device relative to such criteria as 'years of usefulness', accuracy of use (fittings, and knobs work reliably, etc.), and then there is the name brand identification...

Most 35mm still cameras are derived from 30's vintage German camera designs, which in the post WWII were taken by japanese manufacturers, and 'cost' engineered, and as time time went on, became 'quality' engineered.
One still sees the Leica which still has its high end 'name brand' identification, and still is produced in German, according to the wiki...

Personally I think the Nikon F was the pinnacle of Film based 35mm stills... I'm sure you will find people who are fanatics about other brands, but in terms of price, world coverage, and 'useful life' (as in the Wife still has her Nikon F she bought 45 years ago, and it still works... and in a pinch could be used as a weapon...).

Later models while still 'quality' began to have more 'plastic', or 'light weight' design, etc...

In terms of 35mm motion picture cameras since they were expensive, and most productions 'rented' their cameras for the period of use, and so most were made to last years. There were small 35mm cameras which someone may 'buy' for their production use, but again they were designed to last years as well.


While the film transport is the main thing for a 35mm camera, most cameras had some set of accessories and lenses to allow them to be configured in the field quickly. I personally preferred the Nikon bayonet mount, to the threaded screw mount (M42/Pentax) other manufactures had, for example. I don't think there is a screw mount camera made in the last 30 or more years... Pentax being the most common such camera in the US.
 
There are big variances between the 35mm cameras but generally you are right - any properly setup camera should produce a good picture, but there were some which were better than others to begin with. Mostly in terms of image stability.
 
leo_oz said:
...aren't they simply rolling film through the gate and exposing that film to light? Seems overly simple..?
Click to expand...

Really? You think it's simple? That's... insulting. Engineers have worked on the problem for over a hundred years, and you think it's simple? I'm gobsmacked by your naivete.

There's nothing simple or easy about the operation of a cinema film camera. And there's no "rolling" through the gate either. The camera has to pull the film off the supply reel, decelerate it to a stop (OK, part of it, because the film supply and takeup reels keep turning while everything else is going on), keep it under tension so it doesn't bow, pull it flat to the plate to keep it in the plane of focus, keep it straight, level, and centered relative to the gate. The film has to be completely quiescent before the shutter opens, and stay exactly that way until the shutter closes. Then the camera has to accelerate the fully stopped film through the gate without damaging it, move it exactly the right distance, and decelerate it to a gentle stop again, all before the shutter opens. Over and over again, at 24 cycles every second. And this highly simplified sketch of what the camera does, must also be done relatively quietly.

Cinema film cameras aren't at all simple.
 
Uh-oh...lookout.

You've stirred the engineers to awaken.
There's going to be hell to pay now.

One thing I can say in the OP's defense is that many people working and doing fine in the video business, but who are under the age of say...35, have never even been in the room with a real 35mm or 16mm movie camera.

But they should try to...at least once.
Once you've seen, heard, and FELT a 35mm movie camera rolling...you'll have a VERY healthy respect for the machine.

...to say the least.
 
There's a saying: "They all pull film." So the threadstarter is right. In seeking image quality, the only things that matter are lenses and film stock. Unlike today's digital cameras, the camera itself didn't affect image quality.

Bruce Watson, in a sense, is right (although he's obviously talking to somebody other than the person who started this thread). The mechanism is not simple. And some manufacturers did it so much better than others that many will sing their praises. For example, Ken Rockwell about the Leica M3.
 
With 35mm movie cameras there was always a trade-off to be had too. The Mitchell mech was and is still widely regarded as a fine piece of engineering, but it was never very quiet.

Sync cameras tended to be very heavy, as there was a lot of sound deadening going on. A Moviecam Compact is twice the weight of an SL and the two share the same basic mech, but one is officially "sync" and one MOS, although the SL is pretty quiet as MOS cameras go.
 
Just like any camera, different features contribute to the price.

Movement type such as Pin registration/pull-down claws, gate, frame rates/motor speeds, variable shutter, noise level, timecode sync, info display window, accessory inputs, viewfinder/video assist, magazine style & capacity, weight, are a few things which can contribute to the price difference.

In my opinion... We have reached a point in time where cameras, both film and digital have evolved to the point where if you can't make pretty pictures, it's not the camera's fault.

All the best!

Dave
 
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