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Converting film type SLRs to digital.

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
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

waross,

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.

I've only ever used ONE of my old lens from my film days with my current DSLR and that's a 400mm preset lens. Since it's a 'T-Mount' lens it was a no-brainer, just replace the old Minolta 'T-Mount' with one that fits my Sony Alpha-series camera and we're done. And it works just as well as it did with the film camera since it was all manual operation back then and I have a full manual mode on my Sony A65, and since my Sony uses an APS-C size sensor, that 400mm lens is equivalent to a 600mm on a 35mm camera. In fact, it works better because the A65 has what's called 'Live View' meaning that you can preview, in real-time, what the image is going to look like using either the large LCD panel on the back of the camera or the high-resolution OLED viewfinder, as I manually stop-down the preset lens I can see exactly what I'm going to be getting and of course, in manual mode, the effect of changing the shutter speed is also previewed for me, something you just had to trust to experience and luck when shooting film (or do a lot of 'bracketing'). Of course all is not 100% rosy with digital as film still beats it when it comes to latitude. Granted, the use of the HDR (High Dynamic Range) feature can help, and if all else fails, simply underexpose by a couple of F-stops and then pull the detail up using Photoshop.

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.

I would think that it would be a royal pain to try and convert an existing camera into a digital one.

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.

(OP)
Thanks fellows.
Yours
Bill

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

A wise man once wrote, "Be a consumer, not a curator."

smile

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

(OP)
Point taken VE1BLL. grin

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

I had the same thought about my old Minolta gear a few years ago.

Turns out that Minolta doesn't even make cameras any more.

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

(OP)
I understood that Minolta had a digital camera on the market sometime after the merger with Konica. I had hopes that my selection of Konica lenses could be used on a new Minolta digital but, alas, the Minolta Digital SLR would not accept the old Konica lenses.
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.

Minolta's DSLR assets were more-or-less sold off to Sony in 2006.

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

Yes, Minolta did market a very short-lived DSLR but then Konica sold their entire camera division to Sony. who was wanting to augment their very successful video business with a professional line of still cameras and so this was good deal all around as Konica had really acquired Minolta for the copier business.

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.

In the above post, the last sentence, I meant the Gemini Program was when they started doing EVA's and therefore NASA needed a purpose-built camera that would operate in the vacuum and cold of space.

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.

(OP)
Thank you very much MintJulep.
Just what I was looking for.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Converting film type SLRs to digital.

One of my greatest difficulties when I had better vision was critical focusing. Now that I have progressive lenses, cataracts, etc. autofocus is a boon so I have no interest in trying to use all my old manual focus lenses on a digital body. The only exception might be the Hasselblad but at $10K for a digital back I can buy a lot of micro-four-thirds equipment.

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.

----------------------------------------

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.

dgallup,

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.

Yes, during low-light conditions, autofocus can be a real curse. Also when I'm shooting something where I need to catch the action, and I'm a fixed distance away from where it's occurring, I use manual focus to make sure there is no focus-lag. This was important during the recent Easter vigil Mass where I was shooting photos of the adult baptisms. Anyone who has ever seen or experienced one themselves (I was lucky, I was baptized as a baby), you know that there is a certain 'moment' that I'm trying to 'capture' and I don't want the autofocus searching for a solution to mess with my timing.

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.

Agreed there are good reasons for a manual focus over ride, I'll add that to my list of must haves. I frequently pre-focused at race tracks where I'm usually shooting at one specific spot on the track and just waiting for the leaders to come around again. Sometimes that doesn't work like the time the Porsche LMP did a back flip on the back straight at Road Atlanta. I missed that shot but I don't think I even had my camera to my eye, it was so unexpected and over in an instant.

----------------------------------------

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.

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