What good slr film camera to get for photo class?

JB 4 Life: What good slr film camera to get for photo class?
What good slr film camera to get for photo class? I want to buy a good film camera for my photo I class this fall.

Answers and Views:

Answer by sagara
Canon ae1
nikon fm2

if you are realy looking for something cool, a real investment look at rangefinders.
New. Voigtlander r3m
used. Leica m6
www.cameraquest.com

Answer by fhotoace
The most abundant and most easily used to transition into digital shooting would be any of the Nikon or Canon 35 mm SLR’s made in the past twenty years

Look on craigslist in a city near you

Answer by K W
minoltas are pretty basic & easy to use, but they are no longer produced, so youd have to buy a n used one. My Minolta X-700 has been with me since I was 8 & even now that I own more expensive cameras I still prefer shooting with it.

Also for fairly inexpensive used cameras, check out www.keh.com. It’s the website my photo 100 professor suggested to us in case we ever needed more camera stuff.

Answer by screwdriver
The classic student SLR camera is the Pentax K1000, which was designed for the job. Built like a tank, it’s just a rugged manual camera with a very reliable, accurate TTL meter built in about as simple as you can get. There are thousands available as they had the longest production run of any SLR camera, 21 years, the last ones were made as late as 1997.

User Manual here;-

https://www.butkus.org/chinon/pentax/pentax_k1000/pentax_k1000.htm

With the Canon and Nikon recommendations if you progress to a digital SLR you can’t use your film lenses on their digital cameras, with Pentax you can.

Chris

Answer by Curtis
IMHO….all good answers, What ever camera you choose, it should have manual controls and a working light meter. It may or may not have autofocus or shutter-priority or aperture-priority or all Program mode,
It should have a “standard” lens ( Focal length of anywhere from 48mm to 50mm # f1/8).That being said, best to find a used camera shop, or camera show in some areas, and look around, ask questions, pick it up and handle it. How does it feel in your hands? Are the controls easy to get to and do they move easily? In the event later that you want a different lens, ask about lens availability.
For film, the Pentax k1000 was a workhorse for many, as were the Canon AE-1, The Nikon FM or FM2. I dtill ude sn Olympud OM-1 purchased in 1974. They have good lenses, and both good bodies and lenses can be had affordably. Make sure they take newer non-mercury batteries (or they can be found easily)
Except for the specific cameras mentioned, the same questions should apply to digital. although, the initial cost factor is higher than film