Best 35mm Film Cameras

• New or Vintage: Vintage
• Viewfinder: SLR
• Shutter Speed: 1 to 1/1000
• Lens Mount: Pentax K bayonet, autofocus K-AF and K-AF2
• Flash: Hot shoe
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Over three million units of this simple and straightforward camera were manufactured between 1976 and 1997 and used units in good condition are readily available in the current market.

No batteries are required to operate it as it is fully mechanical; the light meter does require a small internal battery. It owes its durability and workhorse status to the all-metal construction and lack of complexity in design.

For the beginner, this camera cues you in on settings to help you learn traditional manual photography. It’s also a machine you can grow into, as it is the go-to recommendation for many photography instructors. It lacks some features common in that era, such as a self-timer, info in the viewfinder, and a rapid light meter.

Some users comment the controls seem to be tight, like the shutter speed dial. The location of some controls may require you to drop the camera from your eye to change them. If your hands are small, the machine may feel chunky, but for the quality and ‘real’ photography experience, reviewers note this Pentax is unbeatable.

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Best for Street Work: Canon Canonet QL-17 G-III

• New or Vintage: Vintage
• Viewfinder: Rangefinder
• Shutter Speed: 4 to 1/100
• Lens Mount: Fixed
• Flash: Hot shoe
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.

It’s a workhorse, though it won’t be the only camera in your bag if you want flexibility in your shooting style. The Canonet G-III QL17 was manufactured by Canon for ten years beginning in 1972, producing over 1.2 million units. It is perhaps the best-selling 35mm rangefinder of all time, and with good reason.

The original model was the QL17, the QL meaning a quick film loading system that’s fun to use and the 17 referring to the f/1.7 lens reported to be as sharp as Leica’s.

Canon denoted the G for ‘grade up’, adding improvements over that original model, and III is the third (and last) generation of those quality enhancements. With a fixed mount lens of 40mm, the Canonet outperforms more expensive interchangeable models.

Users note the light meter on this model is perennially inaccurate, so an external light meter is a good idea. Coupling your camera with 400 ISO film seems to garner the best image results. This fair-priced unit shines for street photography and invites you to carry it everywhere to catch that one of a kind impromptu shot.

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Best Kit for Kids: Lomography Konstruktor F

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The Complete 35mm Film Cameras Buyer’s Guide

• Considerations When Buying 35mm Film Cameras
• FAQs for 35mm Film Cameras
• Selection Criteria for 35mm Film Cameras

Considerations When Buying 35mm Film Cameras

• Manual Settings
• Quality
• Convenience
• Uncertainty
• Budget Beyond Gear
• Goals for Images
• The FUN Factor

Will having a 35mm film camera turn you into a better photographer? Not by magic and not overnight. You still need to put in the time to learn what the settings do and how to match the effect you want in the image with what the camera can do.

There is plenty to think about when you prepare to buy a 35mm film camera. A good model is not cheap, and you have the ongoing costs of film and processing to consider. Like buffs who love driving vintage cars or writing on a manual typewriter, image capture with 35mm film inspires creative storytelling in a way that’s not the same as a digital experience.

Considerations for whether you’ll love 35mm film and the cameras who shoot them come down to how invested you’re willing to be, both in expenses and in education. The more you spend, the better quality your images will end up being. Think about these factors and how you like to work as you prepare to invest in a 35mm film camera.

Manual Settings

I learned photography with a camera that had manual everything. It taught me more about how to compose and adjust for a good shot than anything I could have learned from a camera that shoots with automatic settings.

Shooting with manual forces you to become a better, more knowledgeable photographer so you don’t waste a lot of money on film and developing to find out what you messed up.

A good DSLR allows you to set everything to manual and click away too. You can achieve the same end on a less expensive path. A 35mm film camera forces you to learn what ISO means and how to set aperture and f-stop, while a digital model allows you to fudge things a bit.

Quality

A long-standing argument debates the question of whether 35mm film produces better, crisper images than digital. We can’t take sides on this, because our opinion always rests on the skill level of the photographer as much as equipment. A good photographer can make a great digital or a great 35mm film camera into a solid tool, while an unprepared photographer won’t produce good shots with a superb model.

The question then becomes one of quality through innovation. Manufacturers aren’t investing in updates to functionality, materials and design in today’s 35mm film cameras to the same degree that they are for digital equipment. That can cause some dismay among film aficionados who are on the 35mm-is-best-imaging side of the debate.

Convenience

There’s nothing like stumbling across a subject you never dreamed of, a terrific one, and snapping away for what might feel like hours but could only be minutes. Boom – 100 shots in the digital camera, and your excitement knows no end. But what if you had to change rolls of film?

This is one of the big reasons people are so in love with digital photography. You can shoot as long as your battery has charge and your memory card has space. That can be a whole album of photos without having to stop.

On the other hand, if you must change rolls of film, some of that shooting momentum is lost. If you can afford an assistant and two cameras so you can fill a roll and trade off with someone else doing the reloading work, good for you. Most of us face the task of doing this ourselves, and by then, the subject could have moved on.

Uncertainty

This is perhaps the greatest risk you take in the land of film. When you shoot with a 35mm film camera, you never know if an image works until you view the developed film, prints or slides. If your image doesn’t appear the way you want and you cannot replicate the shooting conditions, you’re out of luck.

Your negatives and prints or slides can be saved as digital files to a disk or thumb drive, but this is NOT the same as a digital image you can change in post-production. The only way to alter the results when you shoot with film is to change the processing, which means changing the way you convert the negative (exposed and chemically altered film) into the final product (print or slide).

A National Geographic photographer famously once said that if he got one decent image out of each roll of 36, he counted himself lucky. If one out 10 rolls produced an image that might be publishable, he was ecstatic. That adds up to many rolls of film with images you won’t be saving except for your own amusement.

Budget Beyond Gear

It goes without saying that you’ll be buying film and a lot of developing services. Since there is less competition for your business these days, it is not as convenient (mail-in processing only in many markets) and you’ll be paying more. You also might be waiting far longer for those returns and the quality of what comes back might not be as good.

One way to control this cost is to spend in another way, on developing and printing gear and courses on how to use them. This also isn’t without ongoing expenses and requires a dedicated space to set up everything. I used a guest bathroom that way for years, not ideal, but the best I could do, and my condo smelled like chemicals all the time.

There are advantages in the ability to make minor alterations to the resulting images in the printing process. Expect to follow a learning curve and burn through a few throwaway rolls before you get the hang of it. The challenges begin with removing the film without exposing it a second time and continues through the steps in developing and printing.

Goals for Images

The bottom line is what you plan to do with your resulting images. Will they go into a physical photo album, or do you want to submit them for contest entries (often digital)? Are you selling prints as art or selling stock images in a virtual marketplace?

Generally, the more you pay for your 35mm film camera, the better quality you’ll get in images because the materials and design of the gear is of a higher grade. Disposables are easy and fun and, well, disposable. A Leica is an investment that could push your image to the top of a publisher’s pile for article illustration.

The FUN Factor

There is a difference in the feel of a 35mm film camera. Call it a back-to-basics mentality but using a film machine can be incredible fun.

You can feel like a photojournalist of old, or Ansel Adams (he called them ‘small format’) or learn about how negatives turned into images right side up and how cameras were historically constructed to create some of those weird backwards nuances.

You also put thought into each shot you take. You have to, because the camera doesn’t adjust itself, beginning with the focus. Preparing to shoot a film camera focuses your mind as well as the machine, and that makes the process of being a photog an intense and intensely rewarding experience on its own.

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FAQs for 35mm Film Cameras

• Which is better, a newly built 35mm film camera or a vintage used one?
• Do lenses made for digital cameras work on 35mm film models?
• Are 35mm film cameras better for art shots?
• Are disposable 35mm film cameras worth the bother?
• What’s not to love about 35m film camera photography?

If you’re still uncertain if 35mm film cameras are for you, we’ve added some FAQs about the general feelings among pros and enthusiasts alike on their value.

Pros have been known to keep a 35mm film camera in a photog gear sling bag that’s otherwise filled with digital equipment because they like the resulting images for artistic reasons. Only you can decide if it’s worth your investment for your primary gear, or if you prefer it because, like anything in pre-digital format, it can be more enjoyable to use.

Which is better, a newly built 35mm film camera or a vintage used one?

As with anything used, you are buying someone else’s problems. The unit might be as great and trouble-free as the seller says, or it might not be. However, some camera models on our list are no longer manufactured and are therefore only available as vintage or used.

If you are interested in a used or vintage model, the closer to never used you can get, the better. If you have the original packing materials and seller assurance that it has never been used, that will be the best alternative. If the model has been out of production for a long time, consider how easy it would be to get parts or find a repair person if/when the need arose.

Do lenses made for digital cameras work on 35mm film models?

The short answer is no, because digitally enabled lenses have specific alignments to make automatic settings work, the lens and camera body in partnership. That’s not to say there aren’t a ton of lenses out there for your interchangeable lens body. Often the numbers are staggering because they produced these lenses for so long.

Are 35mm film cameras better for art shots?

In this blog, we often say the photographer makes the image great, and the gear is secondary. Take the time to understand how the magic triangle of aperture, ISO and shutter speed work together. Many modern pro photogs make stunning images with regular (read, not expensive) digital and even point and shoot models, top instant cameras and smartphone cameras.

If there is a particular look you want to achieve, though, say like Ansel Adams, you might think that it is often best achieved with 35mm film. Where it lacks, though, is in the instant feedback of digital display, allowing you to adjust settings or play with light and angles. You wouldn’t be aware of this without considerable skill with manual settings and film.

One way to hone this knowledge is to shoot two cameras side by side, a 35mm film model and a digital used with full manual. If both have similar lenses and the same settings, and you view the digital image, you know what you’re getting on film. Film will then give you greater depth of field range and resulting clarity that’s unique to film.

Are disposable 35mm film cameras worth the bother?

Disposable 35mm film cameras (single use) have their place. They’re great for people to grab and click at parties (adults or kids). You won’t worry about losing a big investment if they disappear at the beach or at a kids’ sports game.

If the subject matter is important, though, you want to consider how good the pictures will be. This class of camera includes a cheap plastic lens and the body is easily crushed. Think about how you feel about the disposable part in terms of creating environmental waste.

Don’t dismiss them completely, though. Single use cameras today are produced by the same people who bring you 35mm film, namely Kodak and Fujifilm. That alone makes them worth a look.

What’s not to love about 35m film camera photography?

It comes down to ongoing costs. You need to buy film and processing materials, and you’ll never be sure if the images in your roll are worth the price you’ll pay until you look at the result. If you find a stellar shot, it’s harder to enter that into contests too.

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Selection Criteria for 35mm Film Cameras

• New or Vintage
• Viewfinder
• Shutter Speed
• Lens Mount
• Flash
• Weight

The market of new 35mm film cameras is relatively limited, which is why you see so many vintage models on our list. There’s a big difference between a disposable and a Leica, just as you find big differences between a point and shoot and a top-end DSLR. Here are the criteria we used to differentiate the 35mm film cameras on our list.

New or Vintage

The number of 35mm film cameras made today is a sliver of the marketplace, with most manufacturers devoting their efforts to digital equipment. Because they have been around for so long, though, many vintage models are still readily available and at a reasonable price.

Compare these to new models, often at the high and low end of quality and price ranges, to see what works best for your shooting style.

Viewfinder

Single-lens reflex (SLR) is the most common type of viewfinder and the best one to have if you’re learning the basics of manual film work. It allows you to see exactly what the camera is seeing down its lens. Rangefinders have the viewfinder off to the side and above the lens requiring framing adjustments, better used by people with significant photography experience.

Shutter Speed

Higher quality 35mm film cameras have a shutter speed dial, with multiple speed settings. Speeds are listed in whole numbers, equating to a fraction; for example, 8 really means 1/8th of a second, and the higher the number, the shorter amount of time the shutter is open (faster ‘speed’).

The more control you have over the shutter speed, the more accurately you can adjust the amount of light entering the lens and creating the image.

Lens Mount

For cameras with interchangeable lenses, we note the mount in this criterion, and add comments about how compatible it is with a range of lenses.

Recall that even if you have a lens with a compatible mount, all settings on the lens may not work on that camera body. Some of the 35mm film cameras on our list come with a fixed lens, and for those, we list the lens settings in the text of our review.

Flash

Since the convenience of some film cameras lend them to use for indoor work, we note the presence of either a flash or a flash shoe. For disposable models, the flash may be on full-time, a drain on the battery. We note details in the review comments.

Weight

Overall, 35mm film cameras can be heavier than their digital counterparts because the build materials are heavier. Innovations aside, the advances in lighter weight materials and optics haven’t made it to film models. If the camera is sold as “body-only”, remember to look up the lenses you’ll buy to add their weight to your total.

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