Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Converting film type SLRs to digital.
(OP)
I have a lot of good quality Konica Auto-Reflex SLR equipment. Has anyone come on the market with a sensor that will sit in the film plane so that old film type SLRs may be converted to digital?
Bill
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"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter





RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
A lot of my old SLR lenses can be attached through adapters to my new DSLR. If you have an old Hasselblad, you can replace your old film backs with a digital back, a piddling $10K last time I asked.
--
JHG
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
As for waross and his Hasselblad, the good news is that even the 'cheap' digital backs start at something like 36 megapixels and go up from there.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
You'd need not just the sensor, but also a display, and some means of interfacing to the existing switchology, shutter controls, lens electronic interface, flash shoe, etc. We used to have an expression for operations like this; "just drive up the old car, we'll remove the original radiator cap and put a new car under it;" it's essentially going to have to be a new car for all practical purposes.
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RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Yours
Bill
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Turns out that Minolta doesn't even make cameras any more.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
My hope was that someone would have developed a sensor thin enough to fit in the film location of a generic film type SLR. A viewer is nice but necessary in an SLR. Alternatively an I-Pod or smart phone may be used as a viewer. (Is there an App for that?)
I guess it's time to stop being a curator and go out and tune up my 40 year old baler and 33 Year old tractor for the upcoming hay season.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Now I was also a long time Minolta fan going all the way back to my first SLR a Minolta SR-1. While my first digital camera was a small pocket-sized Canon, when the DSLR's first started to appear they were not Minoltas and so I waited but I got to where I just couldn't holdout anymore and Minolta by then had started to produce a line of really nice 5.1MP all-in-one, long zoom (in this case, 7X) digital cameras and I purchased a 'Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi':
It was a great camera with many professional features and a good set of add-on accessories, in typical Minolta style. And I invested in many of them, including a really good powerful external flash, remote release, etc. It appeared as if this was going to be Minolta's answer to the semi-professional yet high-end digital marketplace. Granted, they did eventually make a move toward a true DSLR with their release of a series of Konica/Minolta branded digital versions of the older 35mm Minolta Maxxum line of SLR's. But they were big and bulky and really noncompetitive being only 6MP.
So they started a new DSLR project to produce a more competitive DSLR based on the new smaller APS-C 10MP sensors that was all the rage with people like Canon and Nikon at the time, but just as they were about to ship their first models, that's when Konica decided to sell their camera business to Sony. Well Sony took the already finished design, updated 'steady-shot' feature with some technology from their video cameras and sold it as the Sony A100, but it was virtually a Minolta in Sony livery (note that the lens still carried the 'Minolta' name).
But getting back to my original story, there's something that many of you might not realize but for awhile there the 5.1MP camera was the industry standard, irrespective of the brand but there was a hidden flaw. It appears that virtually all cameras using these 5.1MP CMOS sensors were getting them from the same supplier and they all started to fail after about three years. which is what happened to my really nice Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi, one day the images started to look like they were Salvador Dali paintings with drooping lines and streaks of color. That's when I first learned about the Sony acquisition of Minolta when I contacted the Minolta authorized repair shop where I had some of my SLR gear serviced. He explained what had happened and the fact that there was this problem with the 5.1MP sensors and gave me phone number where I could contact Sony. When I did they had me send the camera to them and they would tell me what they could do. When I did I was notified that they could NOT repair it but, even though to was well out of warranty, they were willing to replace it with a Sony equivalent camera for free (I suspect that they did it so as to not tick off all of their new Minolta customers, many of whom now had cameras that were failing). So I ended up with a Sony DSC-H2, a 6MP all-in-one with a really long 12X zoom (courtesy of Sony's video businss). Now that not a camera I would buy as it was garish and yelled tourist:
That being said, it had a really good lens and it took great videos as well as stills, it was a bit higher resolution and best of all it was free. I used it for several years until I finally bought my Sony A100 DSLR so that I could use those add-ons that I have purchased for my Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi. Again, I used it for a few years until Sony introduced the 24MP A65, which just so happens a friend of mine bought one and then got convinced a month or so latter by his professional-photographer wife to move-up to full-frame, so he sold it to me for fraction of what he had paid for it (I had hired him for a job years ago so I think perhaps this was a belated 'thank you', even though he eventually left for another opportunity).
And the good news is those Minolta add-ons I bought over 10 years ago, like the external flash and the remote release, they still work with my latest Sony DSLR.
BTW, a bit of trivia for any old Minolta fans out there. When the first Mercury astronauts flew into space the camera that they took with them were basic off the shelf Minolta SLR's. It wasn't until the Apollo missions and when they started to do the extra-vehicular activities that they started to use special-built Hasselblad cameras.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Minolta SR to Sony: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/994952-REG/f...
Konica AR to Sony: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/994957-REG/f...
To Canon or Nikon too.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Just what I was looking for.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
Thanks for the Minolta >> Sony trivia above, I don't have any gear from either but always like to know those behind the scenes stories.
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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
I appreciate autofocus too, but sometimes, manual focus is needed. Last winter, I was out on a cross country ski trail, when a herd of deer walked by. The deer were something over a hundred meters away. I was surrounded by trees. There was no way to focus my compact camera to long distance, and I did not get he shot.
The pentaprism in my Nikon D7100 is different from the one in my Yashica TL Electro. On the Nikon, I can focus without my glasses. On the Yashica, if my glasses fog up, which they do at -30°C, I cannot focus.
--
JHG
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.