Canon drops flagship EOS-1v film body and projects end date for repairs

@ChickenBalls: “Since there are apparently people who still prefer film over digital…”
Yes there are plenty who prefer film over digital, especially among artists and hobbyists, just like there are people who prefer stereo LP’s to digitally recorded music (there’s a big comeback of LP’s), and people who love to keep and ride horses, when they could ride an SUV (which need much less maintenance). It’s a good thing that there are such choices still available, Including roll and sheet films.
Good snark, though.

Tippler:
"...plenty..." is an exaggeration.

there were 250 frames and 750 frames film magazines that you could attach to the back of 'high-speed' film cameras of this kind equipped with super-fast motor drives ... probably there are such toys available for this particular model as well, is there?

surely digital cameras can do that much easier and more economically but well, there are still people and organizations that prefer film to digital for all kinds of reasons ...

Maybe a better comparison would be a typewriter vs a computer. Or even better, vinyl vs digital.

It would appear that Mr. Balls exists on these forums to ridicule and be ridiculed. Just the chosen name ensures the latter.

in a sense you're right of course ... but remember: IMAX motion picture cameras still use film! not even digital 8K resolution and DR can beat that, yet! (maybe someday though ...) ;-)

In still photography as well (still as in opposed to video), there are larger film formats in use than the largest sensors (outside of very specialised products like this Canon sensor).

no one denies there are MANY benefits to digital photography (and video) than there are to the old-school film (so-wrongly-called 'analog') photography, and nothing beats shooting with film and then editing the film (negative, reversal what have you) in digital imo ...

but only those who have never done film photography for years (in a PROFESSIONAL manner that is!) so cocksure-ly believe film is dead! they simply have no idea what they're talking about!

have said it before here and elsewhere: footage shot in film decades ago can still be re-scanned and re-UPSCALED via state of the art digital technology and give even better results than the original positive film or print material of its own time ... while you cannot do the same with old lower-resolution video or even digital files themselves!

try upscaling a 2K digital still or video image file via WHATEVER the most advanced digital tech you have available and you'll see what i'm talking about!

end of rant!

you only get to do it once if you follow that method !!!!

Your Grandpappy was probably attempting to talk to you about sex, for whatever good it did.

Useful enough that pros used to use this camera to shoot basketball, football and baseball a few years ago. Some of them accept 120 frame film backs.

@MichailK - Some pros who shoot for magazines still use film depending upon the "look" they want. One even uses an old Contax point-and-shoot film camera sometimes.

you have misinterpreted things here: I don’t think anybody suggests that Canon should carry on production - it is just sad to see the departure of old horses however obsolete or not they may be - the automobile perfectly obsoleted plenty of strong and fully capable horses, times go forward but sad it is for anybody who once shot any quantity of film the best way he could

He said a 120 frame back. Not a 120 format back although I only can recall 250 exposure backs. But you could put shorter rolls of film in them. There have been 250 exposure 35mm backs produced for numerous cameras. These once were common for remote applications in science, industry, and sports. Next to useless for handheld shooting.

Photographers shooting high volumes of film would often have multiple cameras or in the case of 120, multiple backs, and assistants trying to keep up with re-loading as fast as the photographer could shoot.

With the Hasselbald, my assistant would count as I shot and after frame 12 would switch backs, wind through the film and re-load.

One reason I changed from Hasselblad to the Rollei 6006 was the Rollei was much faster to change film and uses fast drop in inserts into the interchangeable backs.

I was shooting surfers last week at 10fps. I thought, "be careful not to run out of space." Then I saw I still had 2300 frames left.

@AlanG - Yes, I also recall 250 exposure 35mm backs. I envy you in that you had a Rollei 6006, especially the lenses. In those days, I could not afford one.
I too shoot surfing, but never greater than 3fps. I have trained myself to anticipate peak action. I do not like looking thru 5K frames on my computer.
Sometimes I force myself to correlate peak action with moment of focus by using a 1990's Canon 100-300mmL with my Canon film and digital bodies. The telephoto focuses much slower than todays telephotos, but the resolution can still rival many telephotos today.

The fact is that a digital sensor does not require a specific size by itself. But a standard size, or a limited number of standard sizes, must exist so that lens manufacturers know where to go. There is a finite market to share, and if you multiply the number of sensor sizes, you decrease the volume of lenses for a given sensor size, which makes lenses more expensive. So, for the interest of us, users, the number of standard sizes must remain limited. And why not keep the 24x36mm size as many lenses of this format already exist ? Also, we cannot avoid the necessity to have a reference to compare things between sensor sizes. Maybe a focal length expressed in FF equivalence is not perfect, and talking about angle of view would be better. But who can immediately visualize what a 18-degree lens can do ? Personally, I cannot. But using field of view does not suppress the need of using equivalence. A 18-degree lens on an FF camera does not give the same field of view on a M4/3 camera...

But people are always going on about FF equivalence for medium format!
they say things like "80mm is 50mm FF equivalent" and so on

It's nothing to do with FF being in any way magical, it's just that as long as people don't know what "27 degree AOV" means FF equivalence of focal length tells people about AOV (and FF equivalence of aperture tells them about perceived depth of field)

FWIW, I still think about sensor size and image area for my astrophotography. A given sensor size on a fixed focal length telescope yields a field of view. That can have a lot to do with being able to frame an object or not.

I remember a massive forum thread on photo.net about ten years ago with people debating the subject. Even back then, it took an 8000 DPI scanner and an extremely carefully, manually focused shot to really show up an 8mp APS-C and even then the grain was getting intrusive.

But the thing I especially noticed was that film users with more realistic scanning gear were continually posting examples that were already enlarged so much that they had gone past true detail and into interpolation. Their equivalents of "100% crops" were consistently soft despite being intended to show much much extra resolution film had. There was nothing to stop a digital user from simply upscaling their image, in both cases the image had exceeded the limit of detail it contained and been pushed beyond it.

Continued below...

Cosina still produce a 35mm rangefinder film camera I believe. And there’s still the MP and M-A (the one with no built-in light meter apparently!) from Leica even after they discontinued the M7.

The EOS-1v, along with the Nikon f6 are flagship professional cameras. As much as I enjoy using manual film SLRs (I have an FM2, and it's still my favourite camera), the 1v is a workhorse that did it all back in its heyday.

You might wonder why anyone would want to work commercially with film these days, but there are many who still do reportage and documentary work on film. Most would prefer using a fully manual camera since you don't need batteries to operate one (very useful when working off the grid). But on the other hand, this Canon runs on AA batteries, so it's easy to carry spares, and the Canon is a modern camera that runs on EF lenses, unlike the older Canon film SLRs which only took FD mount lenses.

If you are good at guessing exposures, you can use a manual camera without a light meter. That's its advantage over digital.

Funny, I thought the same thing. I'm 63 and shot film for most of my life, but now shoot only digital. So whatever comes next will likely be after me. But what I shoot with now is just so damned fine I don't give it much thought.

I think that's the next logical step; to bring computational capabilities to high-end cams. Something on the order of being able to save the raw file along with the "computed" jpg would be nice. I know we have settings that are applied to jpg files now, but nothing like a smart phone can do.

According to Japanese media reports, production had actually ceased by 2010 and Canon was just running off existing inventory. This is about officially fixing the support termination date.

That's the correct corporate approach Mariano ... to cease communication with "old folks and collectors"? Just treat them as if they don't exist. It's all for the "next generation" right? And pretend there are no young people interested in these great film cameras? So nobody should have a clue how long repairs will be offered.

Pacifico, if you’re lucky you’ll get old. I don’t know where you went to school, but there’s nothing wrong with us, old folks

Hmm. The design ethos began in a Soviet battle tank? :)

Don't worry, most of those zombies got another job - they became politicians.;)

@ AbrasiveReducer, Leica's made the the 1920s and 1930s can still be inexpressively repaired.

@cdembrey - maybe even cheaper than digital Leicas?🤔

I'm finishing a 36exp roll on my AE1

@Chris: The 35mm camera I last used was an AE1. I still have it but the shutter needs work; never got around to having it serviced. It came with the older style FD lens (orange rather than green markings and the chrome locking ring), 50mm f/1.8 S.C. and 135 f/3.5 S.C. (II).

I'm still in the middle of exposing a 135 roll of Ilford Pan 100.

Last week. On a 1931 Leica 1 which still works perfectly.

You should never meet your heroes.

Go for it, Elon!

I have a few F4's that I bought on Ebay - you can sometimes find them really cheap ( less than $100 for what once was a $2500 camera) -
Built like a tank - heavy, but in a good way.

Yes, Nikon is still cleaning black spots on exposed rolls of film. They call it ICE.

Actually, ICE was developed by Kodak. Nikon scanners are great, but they have been out of production for years and the software that comes with them won't run on modern operating systems. Fortunately, those scanners are well supported by Viewscan and it uses the IR sensor to do ICE-like noise removal and it actually works as well or better than the Nikon version. The catch is finding one of those scanners on E-Bay for something less that twice what they sold for new.