So hard to start up with film!

[CGW]

Yeah, i've made 2 attempts to connect to some local film shooters with only marginal success. None seem to print their images which really boggles my mind. I cannot imagine shooting medium format and not printing. I used to love looking at the images I made from my medium format camera and now feel utterly stupid for surrendering that experience the past 8 years or so. You cannot even get optical prints anymore!! My goodness!

Got lemons? Make lemonade. If you can still get reasonable quality processing or are willing to do B&W, suck it up, get a scanner and sort keepers from crap with digital contacts/proofs. Negs will keep. Do magnificent prints latter.

I'm in much the same boat after my otherwise superb pro lab stopped ALL film services. Another lab still does great processing--lucky me--but not proofs. Jeesh.

Contact the site I posted. There are film shooters there who might be able to help.

[Bill Burk]

maybe you should become good friends with one of the mom and pop stores you mention

I agree with jnanian, good thing to do is make friends with someone who processes film, encourage and advise them on process control or the art...

Then since you may not get the superb quality, also look to a camera with quirks. Super Ikonta or Bessa II.

[BrianShaw]

Sure. Buy a Sony NEX 7 and forget film!

I had similar suggestion. I don't know if I'd choose that particular camera, but I'd be focussing on imagemaking and not the medium used to do so.

[Diapositivo]

My two cents.
Buy your medium format camera. Develop your films yourself. Not very difficult. Not very expensive. Can be done cheaply without a rotary processor applying extra care.
Buy a medium format film scanner, a serious one.
Use an internet printer. You will find all sorts of technologies, optic printing (laser beams), ink-jet, sublimation, who knows what else. Prints get delivered to your address. Easy and risk-free.
Processing your film allows savings and peace of mind, besides the fun.
Scanning eliminates all risks in sending your negatives to a laboratory.

When you are again at home you can undertake optical printing with an enlarger.

[amsp]

Life is too short to not do what you love, buy the camera, start shooting, figure out the rest as you go along. That's my advice. Even if all you end up with right now is negs, imagine the glorious prints you will be making from them once you get your own darkroom or find a good lab. Don't worry so much, just shoot.

[cliveh]

If I were living at home in the US, I would do that no question. However, I'm an expat living in China and do not know how long I will be here. Could be 1 more year, could be 5 more years, could be 6 months. I can't start buying dark room equipment in such an environment.

Why not get the camera, shoot the film and store it up for the next 1 to 5 years. Then sometime in the future you can process and print as required.

[CGW]

I'm now beaming the Jedi mind trick to Shanghai--"RattyMouse. Buy the GF670. Don't listen to those other voices. Just buy the GF670. Do it soon,,,"

[RattyMouse]

I had similar suggestion. I don't know if I'd choose that particular camera, but I'd be focussing on imagemaking and not the medium used to do so.

Yes, I often arrive at this thought too. My alternative camera is either a Nikon D700 or D800. I'd love to go full frame digital and now might be the time to do so. It's not medium format, but it is way beyond what i have been doing since I left medium format long ago. This seems the most logical way to go forward but my emotions fight against it.

[Brian C. Miller]

My alternative camera is either a Nikon D700 or D800.

Reality check. Take a look at Tim Parkins' Big Camera Comparison. Take a look at the video of a comparison of a Nikon D800 vs Hasselblad H4D-40. They didn't test against film for color acuracy, did they? You know from the comparison that the D800 isn't color accurate, and color is important to you. I'd be asking, "Is this better than Portra?" Personally, I can't see spending $3300 on something that doesn't give me accurate results. Why bother? Look at how the MF camera holds up against an 80Mp back. And you want something less than that? Hello?

Grab your yardstick, and see what measures up for yourself.

[Mark Minard]

I wasted so much time on digital and now am facing a dead end.

Talk more about your beef with digital. I'm genuinely curious, as I went through my own struggle with this a while back. Once I decided that nothing but a negative and a silver print would do, the rest was easy