Once upon a time in a camera shop long. long ago I dreamed of the holy grail I couldn't afford. Until today that wasn't a possibility.  Time goes by and dreams faded.
My first SLR camera was an Olympus OM10, which I still have and still works.  I upgraded that with a manual adaptor ? Manual and Aperture Priority in one camera  - the world is at my feet.  Could have been Canon, or Nikon, or Minolta, or Pentax, turned out to be Olympus.
Always wanted a pro version.  Picked up a rather bruised Olympus OM4 with a cracked pentaprism and a few lenses that lasted for a long while.  It's now in need of a very good service, but with the adventures we've had I'm loathe to discard it.  Kind of an old friend, even with the gaffer tape.
Bought an Olympus OM1 and that got completely trashed in a cave along with the 28mm lens, but salvaged piccies got into Descent.
Still no holy grail.
Biggest regret to date was selling my Yashica T4 compact when things went awry.
Then took a long break and my first digital camera was actually a Nikon that took AA batteries, OK and had a good flash for what it was.
Then went through more Olympus and Pentax digital offerings (Pentax DSLRs are brilliant).
Then got a Leica D-Lux 109 ? simply brilliant.  Still switching between film and digital ? polaroid, Zorki, Fuji, and others continued. Olympus Pen-F digital was right up my street and, for me, ergonomically brilliant when it came out.
Still no holy grail.
Fast forward a bit.  Well, a fair bit.  Got a Panasonic Lumix S5 ? best digital camera ever, and totally awesome.  Also previously had the Olympus TG-6, which you can dunk in the murky stuff.
But still no Holy Grail.
Until today.
It's been on the shelf for a while at the local camera shop, and I've wondered about it.  I'd bought stuff there before, and after a bit of umming and erring  the owner made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
I now have an Olympus OM4Ti, the Holy Grail film camera I couldn't afford decades ago, with the brilliant multi-spot metering system.  Ran home (well, drove), got some film out of the fridge and wandered around.
Immediately I could feel blood pressure dropping, and a better awareness of what I was shooting.  I have 36 shots, each of which costs money. Immediately more pleasant, and ergonomically awesome. Using digital the temptation is to just machine gun everything, and a bit of a bland experience, and maybe have got too used to that. Can't stand the people that say 'I'll sort it out in post.'
Maybe film pics some will come out, maybe some (OK a lot) won't as ever, but's that not necessarily the point.  Let's face it most digital stuff ends up on a hard drive never to be seen. Anyway film isn't dead, at least you get real pics form developers. And I'll be using film to chill out and use digital for other stuff.
I guess my OM4Ti grail could be any other film camera that people have an affinity with.
Thoughts and comments welcome.

Well done. What film will you be using with it?

I still have one of these, and although I wouldn't dare take it underground, I'm quite keen to revive it and do some outdoor shots with it. Heavy bastard though

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164965456745?hash=item2668b51b69:g:XZ0AAOSwznVg0Kgu

Still miss the challenge of film underwater photography, remember my cool bag packed with different rolls of ASA film, there was a nice sepia one I used to use from Ilford that gave great retro images  :bow:

What film will you be using with it?

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I'm using Ilford XP2.  It's black and white film that is developed in normal C41 colour print film chemistry.  In other words I took the roll I shot yesterday into Boots this morning to get it developed and printed. It'll take a few days to come back.  XP2 is nominal ISO 400, but can be used at 50-800 
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/xp2-super-35mm
Still got a couple of rolls left in the fridge I bought before the world ended last year, you can get good deals on packs from proper camera shops on eBay and other places.

It's good to see they still support 7" X 5" sheet too, though it's not cheap. But given you get a whole roll of 35mm in one sheet I guess it's not bad. They do a 'Made to order' on the Delta 100 though, so it's clearly a specialist product! Interestingly they do two 7" X 5" options, one with 3mm X 2mm smaller than the other. I wonder if this is because the original 'half-plate' size was smaller? It fitted in 7 X 5 holders, but was a little bit loose inside.

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/delta-100-professional-sheet-film

Speaking of Ilford products, a couple of years or so ago I tried some of their Direct Positive paper in a pinhole camera.  Quite interesting, and you can handle it under a red safe light, so could cut to size to fit any camera.
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/harman-direct-positive-paper-sheets
Think I've still got some left somewhere, so might have to dig it out.  Given the ISO is 1 to 3 probably not the best for freezing Formula 1 cars in motion though.

ZombieCake said:

What film will you be using with it?

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I'm using Ilford XP2.  It's black and white film that is developed in normal C41 colour print film chemistry.  In other words I took the roll I shot yesterday into Boots this morning to get it developed and printed. It'll take a few days to come back.  XP2 is nominal ISO 400, but can be used at 50-800 
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/xp2-super-35mm
Still got a couple of rolls left in the fridge I bought before the world ended last year, you can get good deals on packs from proper camera shops on eBay and other places.

Click to expand...

Yes thats the one XP2 thanks for jogging my memory   

Thought I'd seen it in film before (cinema that is).  I guess that's what you call rather unsubtle product placement.  Still waiting for the OM-Martin...
Just looked up the price of slide film in my new found excitement, defo need Goldfinger's bank account.  I used to shoot Velvia a lot, cos it's lovely. It's now ?20 a roll!!  There again, when you compare against the cost of Polaroid film and Fuji Instax film on a pic by pic basis, maybe not so bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju_by-sC79c

ZombieCake said:

Thought I'd seen it in film before (cinema that is).  I guess that's what you call rather unsubtle product placement.  Still waiting for the OM-Martin...
Just looked up the price of slide film in my new found excitement, defo need Goldfinger's bank account.  I used to shoot Velvia a lot, cos it's lovely. It's now ?20 a roll!!  There again, when you compare against the cost of Polaroid film and Fuji Instax film on a pic by pic basis, maybe not so bad.

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Velvia was my choice for Macro work 

?20 a roll is cheap. Back in 1961 a roll of Kodak slide film was 36 shillings including developing. An average week's wage would buy about 5 rolls of film back then, compared to about 25 rolls now.

As for the cameras, anything decent was stratospherically expensive. I used to slobber over a second hand ?56 Rolliflex in the local camera shop. Mind you, everything was expensive in the '60s.

The price of Velvia doesn't include processing.

Perhaps I am a different older generation but I wouldn't go back to film - light getting in, running out of  film, messy chemicals etc etc. Similarly I cannot see the attraction to vinyl and all that hiss crackle and space occupation.  I was very pleased recently to meet somebody who was using film though. I was able to give her a pile of Olympus accessories including motordrive, 600 mm mirror lens, macro lens, ring flash etc etc. She was thrilled to bits and I was pleased to see them go to a good home. It is strange who you meet when you go looking for new caves!

That is indeed a fair point.  I'm kind of looking for a more hybrid approach.  That is using film to take the piccies, and then develop. For me the C41 chemistry is most likely to be Boots or other retail outlet.  I'm also tempted by Ilfords 'simplicity' range of chemicals that are basically one shot negative development for actual B&W film.  That seems more convenient for ad hoc (i.e.once in a blue moon) stuff, so need to investigate that further.
After the development then scan the negatives and then if a bigger print is needed do so via a normal computer printer, or take the USB to a shop or upload to an applicable site.
Of course film isn't the be all and end all, and digital is undoubtedly more convenient, but film is fun.  Certainly the rise of mirrorless cameras has also led to a new life for film lenses, which is nice.

Vinyl, hmm, now that's a different can of worms....