So, what’s wrong with just adapting film-era glass to a modern mirrorless digital camera?

You are correct that these devices are quite lacking. However, that is the result of the rather small niche market limiting potential sales, not because it’s a bad idea. These devices are targeted at folks who 1) already have put a lot of money into film cameras and 2) want to move to digital but are held back by the need to replace their equipment. A quality device of this type would make buying old film cameras a viable option for more photographers, but is not going to be a prevalent trend. Perhaps this is why you detest them though, as it would raise the value of older film cameras that you would rather see continue to decline in value in the digital age?

My father-in-law has a really nice old camera and lenses from a company that no longer makes cameras. There is no digital (or even other brand of film) camera that accepts the lenses. So, if he could pay $500 for a decent digital censor package to mount in it, he would be able to move into the digital world fairly cheaply and with a camera he is familiar with. Sure, it won’t have all the bells and whistles of a modern DSLR or mirrorless camera, but he’s a hobbyist who doesn’t need that. He’s just can’t spend the money required for film to shoot like he used to, and it’s nice to know you’ve got some good shots before leaving that spot you’ve saved up to visit once in your life.

The root of the problem isn’t digital, per se, but rather a consumer culture that accepts some notion of built-in obsolescence and insists on pursuing the newest and brightest shiny bauble. This is not a new phenomena – it dates back in its modern form to the USA of the 1950s. It affected the world of film cameras, which i grew up in, much as it does digital. The key difference is not the existence of the phenomena, but its intensity. I shoot digital, and i do it on cameras that are over a decade old and that i bought second-hand. I stopped shooting film when i realized that film photography was 100% dependent on the existence of one of the most damaging industries on the planet – the livestock industry. Eighty per cent of the worlds arable land being utilized to produce just 18% of the world’s protein requirements… and all film uses gelatin. It’s not just a ‘water… water…’ ‘strawman argument’ when a technology simply cannot exist without also producing analogous catastrophic harms that you attribute to digital.

Lot’s of arguments one way or the other. The kicker for me on film was the realization that it was inconsistent with… my politics. Eighty per cent of the world’s arable land is recruited by an industry that produces 18% of the world’s protein (for human consumption). Nothing contentious about those numbers – it is what it is. That industry contributes disproportionately, therefore, to a host of global problems ranging from climate change to desertification, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, antibiotic resistance, deforestation, eutrophication of waterways, depletion of aquifers, etcetera – in short, the usual existential suspects. Film and photographic paper are produced as a ‘byproduct’ of that industry. Until the photographic industry finds a way to not use gelatin, my film cameras will just look pretty and gather dust.