Hi ya' Steve
To be honest with you, film ain't that big of a hassle. As to cost, it costs me about $4.00 per 24 exposures (film + processing). Out of those 24 exposures I will generally get 18 "keepers". True, I have to scan each negative with a film scanner so that takes a little time but I still have about the same amount of post-exposure image correction to do with digital images. So the real disadvantage to me is that I have to wait for the film to be processed and I have to scan the negatives. For someone who has worked in the photo industry for nearly 23 years I'm used to it. Besides, my wife, Marsha, runs a mini-lab for Walgreens and I get "same-day" processing of my film and she gets a well-tuned processor.
The best I could get from the G3 was about 5 useable images per 75 exposures. Afterwards I still had a lot of post exposure image corrections. Yes, I could sit down and shoot 100+ exposures in a session and see the results immediately but the ratio of "keepers" to "trash" was way too low. I was spending more time making adjustments to poor images to see if I had "keepers" than I was shooting. This is unacceptable to me as I have very little time to shoot. I am not impressed with the G3 for microscope work, to say the least.
The disadvantages using the G3 are just too great for me. Shooting moving subjects with a long shutter lag is way too frustrating. You can't predict focus when you can't see your subject while tripping the shutter. Also, I have yet to find an acceptable relay lens that doesn't introduce some sort of noticeable aberration. If I do find a combination that works then I'm kind of stuck with that combination and that range of image magnifications. With the film camera I can change projection lenses to change image magnifications and not sacrifice image quality.
With my film camera setup I can view the critter I'm photographing right up to the moment the shutter fires. There is a very, very short shutter lag time with my Canon A2E. Actually, if I continue with film I may purchase a used Canon RT camera. This camera uses a pellicle prism rather than a mirror so there is no mirror slap and the shutter delay is even shorter (miliseconds) because you don't have to wait for the mirror to flip up. These can be purchased real cheap right now (right around $200.00). This probably will be the route I will go if I cannot save enough money for a dSLR.
I have no problems viewing and focusing my subjects through the viewfinder. I have a focus screen designed for photomicrography and I use a right-angle finder so I don't have to crank my neck around. The camera is mounted on a Canon bellows extension and I can turn the camera on the bellows for horizontal or vertical images or anything in between. Since the shutter lag time is so short and the film is advanced by motor I can make exposures as fast as I can press the shutter. There's no waiting for the digital camera to write a file to the memory card.
My earliest adventures using flash for photomicrography were using an auto flash unit with the A2E. Unless I was wanting to "freeze" the cilia on a rotifer or
Vorticella the auto flash worked very well with very accurate and consistent exposures. In fact, the exposures with autoflash on the A2E were more consistent than manual flash on the G3. A lot less fiddling when changing objective lenses. Auto flash works very well with all but the fastest of protists. Check out my images of
Urocentrum turbo,
http://www.oncloserinspection.com/Image ... cili07.htm. If you know how wildly
Urocentrum moves then consider that these images are 4 exposures in a row. Try that with anything other than a film SLR or dSLR!
Here's another advantage to film. If a DVD or CD of image files goes bad (that does happen) or a hard drive fails (which happens, too) any image files are lost. With film I can always go back and rescan the negatives. I have a physical backup to my virtual images.
After reading what I wrote, here, I may have just convinced myself to stay with film
Best regards as always,
)
Film? You must be insane 
