Playing with an SLR (Canon 500N)

[NightShadow]

I have had a Canon 500N in my cupboard for about 2 years now, it was given to me but I just didn't know where to start with film. I know my 50mm f1.8 and my 55-200mm lenses are both EF lenses and will fit but will my Sigma 17-70 DC lens fit without damaging it? Also one of the films that came with it is:

Agfa HDC Plus 100 24+3 - What is the +3 for? also when loaded in the camera it showed 37 exposures not 27, is there a problem with this?

I have about 12 rolls of film to play with, mostly the same as the one above but also a few 400iso Fuji and a 400iso Kodak B&W film. Any advice on where to get started is much appreciated, currently just have the 50mm on the body and an Agfa 100 film loaded. Not knowing what the shots are going to look like or having a way of telling what settings were used once they are developed will be interesting....

 

[Kei]

The sigma should fit ok and operate correctly as it is not EF-S mount but it will give you heavy vignetting/ black corners to images. My parents tamron 18-250mm travel lens works fine on an EOS 3 with film but produces an almost circular image in the frame.

As for the film i don't know what the 24+3 bit is about either. I would have guessed exposures, but with the camera displaying 37 frames available kicks that one. (27 frames is only normal on disposable cameras, else it is either 24 or 36 +/- 1 frame) For shooting the black and white film you will want to have a coloured filter attached to the lens to boost contrast. Yellow/orange/red are the normal ones to choose. (Y=low contrast R=High contrast) No filter results in a much flatter image, which doesn't tend to work well in B&W. The other thing to do is look on the box of the film for the expiry date, and keep the ones you havent used and the ones you are yet to process in the fridge as film doesnt like to be stored in hot/warm temps.

The only thing to bear in mind when shooting film is that you need to ensure you don't underexpose negative films (thin negs, minimal image content, lots of grain) and you don't overexpose slide films (very washed out, bit like digital, without the ability to recover anything. Slide film really needs almost perfect exposure to make a good image) Negative film is a much more forgiving medium with respect to exposure tolerance (more so than both digital & slide film) Only issue with it is it tends to be quite grainy so you need to use low iso rated films (100-200 max unless you want the grain)

 

[Stupot_]

Leave the 50mm on it for the minute, will give you the field of view its supposed to have on a film camera

I'd stick the B&W in and see what you can do with it. If you need to do any low light stuff ilford HP5 is great, its rated at iso 400 but can be pushed to 1600, even 3200. Gives a really nice grain too... I imagine the kodak can be pushed too.

Developing the film yourself is fun too. Forget about developing colour film though. If you want to do B&W, first you have to process the negatives. You'll need a developing tank, changing bag and chemicals (developer and fixer). Once you've processed the film you can do what you want with the negatives. Printing them on to photographic paper requires a lot more kit, but if you have a film scanner then you can convert them to digital.

Will only cost about £20 to get yourself set up for processing negatives, which is the cost of getting a couple of films processed so could be more economical in the long run... I'm only talking about B&W here though

 

[Snapshot]

Agfa HDC Plus 100 24+3 - What is the +3 for? also when loaded in the camera it showed 37 exposures not 27, is there a problem with this?

24+3 does mean that the film has 27 frames available. I think it was an Agfa-only thing to give 3 'bonus' frames. The length of the film is part of the DX info on the film can and it's possible that your camera is either not reading it properly or just can't recognise 27 frames and is doing the best it can.