altern3 wrote:
Get the most basic film camera and some film, shoot for a month and in no time you'll be back to digital.
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edwardkaraa wrote:
Sorry that I find all your statements so funny. I have shot digital for 9 years and film for 35 years. I'm still shooting both but find film the superior medium.
altern3 wrote:
And I know why you consider film superior, because with film you don't have to worry about "the look", its already in the DNA of the film to provide the photographer with a basic "aesthetic foundation", with digital you have to create your own look - like creating your own film - and that is beyond the ability of most of us.
I made a thread about this, but basically with digital the photographer has been given a medium that is one step behind film - in other words the RAW file is light data with no alteration and its the photographer who has to make the look (what film did) and since a photographer is not a Kodak with millions in R&D and team of scientists, that's why today's digital photography is in fact twice as hard as with film because not only one has to take great photos, one also has to be a great photoshop artist and a visual artist to know what "look" is right. ...Show more → edwardkaraa wrote:
You're probably right about the reason why I prefer film. It's just different esthetics. Some painters prefer oil colors, others prefer aquarelles. None is better, just different.
carstenw wrote:
I also like the look of film, but I would say that the primary reason I like film is its superior highlight handling. The film shoulder has no equivalent in digital, and won't until we have 20 stops of DR to throw at it (or whatever the real number is for the film you want to emulate).
I've kinda learned to like it after shooting digital. When all there was was film I tried to select thee film with the least amount of any kind of "look" to it. For me that was Kodachrome 25 and sometimes 64. I thought B&W was for learning mostly (or for poor people) and not usually interesting. With few lapses I held those opinions for about 25 to 30 years. With the advent of photoshop and other first-wave 24bit (8:8:8:8a) image editors and my dive into the world of CG I learned to appreciate digital FX. As that appreciation matured I began to see film "looks" in a different light - as a sort of integral effect.
The thing is, almost as soon as I gained this insight applications and plug-ins began rapidly appearing which could simulate the look of every film I had ever heard of (and ~50 I hadn't ever heard of) with a really high degree of accuracy (when I compared them to the actual film shots in my collection). So just as soon as the interest and insight appeared, it disappeared again and I saw the permanence of film "looks" as a negative unwanted trait. And I still do today.
That said I do still like shooting film occasionally. But it has nothing to do with "the look". And I can't quite place my finger on just why. I suppose it has to do with the historical content of the experience from a personal, sociological, technological, and commercial perspective. All the paraphernalia, the sounds, the tactile sensations, and etc. are pretty fun. Expensive, but fun. And.... Digital is also fun! For me, even more-so actually.
-- -- -- --
Also I should probably clarify and speak to some of the replies I got:
When I said: "...about once a year I prove to myself just how bad 135 film is even compared to most modern P&S camera models.". I probably should have specified "using most films" - or even "all commonly available films". Commonly available 135 film images do actually suck ass compared to almost any P&S digital released in 2011 or 2012 - in terms of resolution and many other aspects which define IQ. It's just a fact of life. You're welcome to try and prove me wrong by showing an unprocessed 16 or 18 megapixel scan of some film you bought in the supermarket or at any large department store... but you won't be able to. Sure, if you go hunt down microfilm stock or something then maybe you can match the P&S at B&W but that's about the limit of it. Medium format (MF) or really any of the formats larger than 135 are an entirely different story of course.
When I said: "You lose everything [to do with convenience]! Some people say that it paces them but to me that's pretty lame. No self control? Don't want to use the advantages of digital?" That's really what I meant. Of course no one can show any aspect of shooting film that is more convenient. Film "looks" are not an aspect of convenience. Lameness == inability. So the pacing that film photography forces on people might be good or not but it's lameness to be unable to pace oneself similarly with a digital camera. I can and sometimes do.
And finally Leica MP at $3,500 to $4,500 is unequivocally "overpriced" when one considers far more capable cameras can be had for between $25 and $250. That's pretty simple logic. I see no room for rational rebuttal in that remark.
I'll throw my hat in the corner of Neopan 400 though. Just wish I could get it in 120 or 4x5 =/
I've never used Neopan and I doubt I ever will. I regret that very much.
And finally Leica MP at $3,500 to $4,500 is unequivocally "overpriced" when one considers far more capable cameras can be had for between $25 and $250. That's pretty simple logic. I see no room for rational rebuttal in that remark.
It may be overpriced, but I would love to own one. If I owned one, you better believe I would use it regularly. It's a precision machine and made to be used like one.
So is the Nikon F ~ F5, The Canon A1 & AE1, The Olympus OM 1,2,3,4, the Contax SLR models, or if you're into RF cameras the the Canon 7, Contax G2, Hexar, The Bessa models, Minolta CLE, and so on. All are precision machines and made to be used as such. And all those can be had for under $500.
corposant wrote:
People want to use the same film that Winogrand etc. used?
I wouldn't base the film I use on anything anyone else used, unless I know them well personally and see that it fits what I'm doing. I'm pretty well known amongst some in my photo community for being an Ilford user in a crowd that mostly uses Kodak B/W (and by Kodak I mean TMAX).
It's just not a particularly good film. Very bland, at least at 400. That it can be developed in D76 with the same times at both 400 and 800 should tell anyone something about how wide a range it is. I like some range, but not that much. In trying to be wide, it ends up being an inch deep.
Just saying...
Well, in ten years, I'm pretty sure the MP will still be highly valued, and just about everything else you listed will not be where it is today. That may be because it's Leica, of course, but I think there's a little more to it than that. Not much, but some.
Bifurcator wrote:
I've kinda learned to like it after shooting digital. When all there was was film I tried to select thee film with the least amount of any kind of "look" to it. For me that was Kodachrome 25 and sometimes 64. I thought B&W was for learning mostly (or for poor people) and not usually interesting. With few lapses I held those opinions for about 25 to 30 years. With the advent of photoshop and other first-wave 24bit (8:8:8:8a) image editors and my dive into the world of CG I learned to appreciate digital FX. As that appreciation matured I began to see film "looks" in a different light - as a sort of integral effect.
The thing is, almost as soon as I gained this insight applications and plug-ins began rapidly appearing which could simulate the look of every film I had ever heard of (and ~50 I hadn't ever heard of) with a really high degree of accuracy....Show more →
You lost me here ...I have every plug-in as well ...none of them are film, they are cute but they are not even close. For all the massage of a linear curve its just never going to be film at both ends of the S. You can do great stuff in either is the point, that you can have fun between the curves in either is the best part. Converting a digital image to convince that its film is like cheating at scrabble. You might have won with the word 'bootylicious' but its not really a victory ...not really b&w.
Imagine me as an old man, (think Mick Jagger or Cliff Richard but not George Bush or Donald Trump), Its cold outside. I've grabbed a bottle of wine and put my music on (death acid thrash ...in digital I expect) and I'm in the darkroom making love to a piece of paper in a tray with my fingers. I'm in there for a couple of hours every day, overcome with booze and fixer fumes. Then for another two I'm on the PC with my digital files. For the last two hours (a 6hour day) I'm making googly eyes at the young maid that hates coming to my place because I'm so pervy and smell like fixer.
Its not a something to put your finger on, its film, its a different medium and I sorta feel sick doing b+w conversions when its a fraud and steps over the whole process and skill of shooting film. In 100 years you'll be using DBD's (Direct Brain Downloads) where you have a USB implant (the kids will all be wireless) and dload everything you saw in a day. And OP will still never have used his MP but the brass is showing through from all the polishing it got and it looks gorgeous.
I love digital, adore it and think of it as a miracle just as someone once though about film.
Imagine that ...two miracles and I and others get to play with both.
Film is treasured because photographers have to be as good at that 1/whatever of a second as you might be the next day on a PC with a bunch of lunch-time pics. You have to love it ...how else do you get the results. You have to press yourself and the button.
(when I compared them to the actual film shots in my collection). So just as soon as the interest and insight appeared, it disappeared again and I saw the permanence of film "looks" as a negative unwanted trait. And I still do today.
Mine will always be in a ready case so that if the house is ever threatened by fire then it and my having underpants on are my only priorities (my digi files will all be in a cloud).
That said I do still like shooting film occasionally. But it has nothing to do with "the look". And I can't quite place my finger on just why. I suppose it has to do with the historical content of the experience from a personal, sociological, technological, and commercial perspective. All the paraphernalia, the sounds, the tactile sensations, and etc. are pretty fun. Expensive, but fun.
For me it is the look, the challenge of getting me onto film which is freak'n easy on digital because I get to alter the image after I take it. On film its going to take a lot of booze and fixer ...and maids.
-- -- -- --
Also I should probably clarify and speak to some of the replies I got:
When I said: "...about once a year I prove to myself just how bad 135 film is even compared to most modern P&S camera models.". I probably should have specified "using most films" - or even "all commonly available films". Commonly available 135 film images do actually suck ass compared to almost any P&S digital released in 2011 or 2012 - in terms of resolution and many other aspects which define IQ. It's just a fact of life. You're welcome to try and prove me wrong by showing an unprocessed 16 or 18 megapixel scan of some film you bought in the supermarket or at any large department store... but you won't be able to. Sure, if you go hunt down microfilm stock or something then maybe you can match the P&S at B&W but that's about the limit of it. Medium format (MF) or really any of the formats larger than 135 are an entirely different story of course. ...Show more →
Absolutely not. All that crap awful wooden box gear with bellows and developer made from beer and lemon juice in the middle of a desert are amongst the best photographs ever taken. Amongst mine I have 7000+ negs that I've never seen of my boys when they (and I) were little. I processed the negs but have never seem them printed or scanned. I also have a collection of digit p&s and do have those film pictures you refer to. Thats the other point of film ...its for me(us) and its about the photographs and not the so called IQ.
Also I dont agree about larger format and will tell anyone advocating its more worthwhile than 35mm ...as 'compensating'.
I'll do a larger format for fun later but the dof of MF can be just as irritating as bokeh on an 85/1.4G
When I said: "You lose everything [to do with convenience]! Some people say that it paces them but to me that's pretty lame. No self control? Don't want to use the advantages of digital?" That's really what I meant. Of course no one can show any aspect of shooting film that is more convenient. Film "looks" are not an aspect of convenience. Lameness == inability. So the pacing the film forces on people might be good or not but it's lameness to be unable to pace oneself similarly with a digital camera. I can and sometimes do.
I delete myself twice a year off flickr, ditch my online friends except for a few. I've seen the sickness in heaps of digital photographers, an obsessive compulsion thing.
Film is selfish, its like enjoying both cooking and eating but digital is like showing everyone else what you cooked and how it tasted and even funnier you dont even know these people and yet they know what you had for breakfast on twitter.
More convenient ...there is heaps but there is one and its always the only one you'll never get past. Its printing photographs from film and having the negs to do it.
And finally Leica MP at $3,500 to $4,500 is unequivocally "overpriced" when one considers far more capable cameras can be had for between $25 and $250. That pretty simple logic. I see no room for rebuttal is that remark.
I've got room (grin) ....if you(OP) buy the $25 camera and have fun then buy the MP, is stunning to use and if its feature set fits what you do then you are in for awesome fun.
For me I'm now looking at Contax SLR bodies like the RTSIII, the RX or AX and maybe a zeiss zoom. Never been able to have the zoom on my Nikon body and it makes a ton of sense to me and what I do ...and want to do.
I LOVE Film (and digital) photographs (grin)
And if Kate from Texas finds you Bi, you're in for a smack for taking the fun and love out of something that has so much fun and love in them.
Have got this 1st roll of Tri-X roll at iso320 and am in high contrast scenes. So thats why D76 otherwise I might be burning my highlights with anything like rodinal.
Next roll will likely be HP5 and then it might be Delta3200 and after that a slow film. Whenever I buy a roll, I buy it bulk. That way I know what chocolate or vanilla tastes like and I know what kind of pie it goes with. Into the freezer it goes and out it comes when I know its either a day for apple pie or waffles.
Its no good anyone telling you whats best because one didn't listen even when Dad said it was a bad idea to jump off the garage roof in a Batman suit.
Even drunk, stoned, and half poisoned you still rock bro.
On the film plug-in thing; about 6 or 7 years ago (?) I took my digital "bridge" camera (minolta A2), a Nikon F3 and some different 12exp. film rolls out for the weekend and shot many of the shots consecutively: Film camera, then A2. When I got home I applied the appropriate filters (presets) for the film used to the A2 base images. They were almost identical. There were some minor corrections to get them to match up perfectly but all the basic attributes were there. I suppose if I had pre-set the digital camera's WB, saturation, and contrast to match the films I wouldn't have even needed those minor corrections. One of the more striking things I noticed from that exercise was how closely matched the resolutions were - with the A2 being even slightly better in some scenes. Of course the A2 is almost 10 years old now.
Film? Nah... don't do it. It's addictive. I started using film again a couple of years ago, after a 5 year break. Soon I found myself filling the fridge with film instead of food (good thing there are restaurants around). Then I bought a Contax RX... and an F6... and now I have that horrible beast, the GX680 staring at me, begging to get loaded.
If you go for 35mm, try Ilford Pan F Plus 50. Great fine grain film but you need fast lenses. I'm trying out Fuji Acros 100 on the GX680 now. It's a great ride, and I'll never stop.
Commonly available 135 film images do actually suck ass compared to almost any P&S digital released in 2011 or 2012 - in terms of resolution and many other aspects which define IQ. It's just a fact of life.
no, I'm sorry. but no. maybe with terrible scans, but not with a half-decent work flow.
films I've personally used which are miles better than a s95 digital point and shoot off my old scanner, and I could easily buy walking into Hunt's:
Kodak Portra 160NC, 400NC, new 400
Kodak E100G
Fuji Superia Reala
Fuji Velvia 50
Fuji Provia
Kodak TMAX 100 and 400
Fuji Neopan Acros
Fuji Neopan 400
Ilford Delta 100 and 400
this is just limited to what I have personally used in 35mm. so either you've got one hell of a point and shoot camera or your proclamation of a "fact of life" is actually just further proof that the real fact of life is that on the internet people will say anything.
btw, let's get into the numbers, shall we?
From Zeiss Camera Lens News 2003 #19 and 2004 #20, merged and sorted by resolution. These tests were done by microscope, so resolution is higher than can be obtained by scanning.
lp/mm film name (type)
----- ----------------
400 Gigabitfilm (B&W)
250 old Agfa Ortho 25 (B&W)
200 old Kodak Ektar 25 (C-41)
200 old Agfa APX 25 (B&W)
180 Kodak T-Max 100 (B&W)
170 Fuji Velvia 100F (E-6)
160 old Fuji Velvia 50 (E-6)
160 Kodak Farbwelt 400 (C-41)
160 Kodak Farbwelt 100 (C-41)
160 Fuji Neopan Acros 100 (B&W)
150 old Agfa Portrait XPS 160 (C-41)
150 Kodak Portra 400 (B&W)
150 Kodak Portra 160VC (C-41)
140 Kodak Portra 160NC (C-41)
140 old Kodak Tech Pan (B&W)
130 Kodak Ektachrome 100VS (E-6)
120 Kodak T-Max 400 (B&W)
110 Fuji NPZ 800 (C-41)
100 old Kodak Supra 400 (C-41)
90 old Kodak Portra 800 (C-41)
80 old Kodak Supra 800 (C-41)
80 Maco Ortho PO 100 (B&W)...Show more →
I bolded an important part. You know though, with film I can go back later when I have a better scanner and get more off the film. Today, Harikiri on blu-ray looks really amazing. But a movie like Drive that's shot on an Alexa, well that movie can never look better than the digital allows.
p.s. for film cameras I currently own a Leica M2, Olympus OM-1, OM-1 and OM-2sp, Minolta SRT-101, Mamiya 7 and Sinar F 4x5. The 650 USD I spent on the M2 was worth every penny and it's the best camera of the lot in my eyes. It does what I need it to do; you can focus it in low light and it exposes pictures properly without hangup or unnecessary complication. Any additional functionality is lost on me.
I await your sample images. Till then it's only talk. And the vast majority of those films you named are not "commonly available"!
Also, you better not wait too long before you revisit those negs and slides they deteriorate over time! After 30 years you'll be lucky to even get a decent thumbnail off of them.
Bifurcator wrote:
I await your samples. Till then it's only talk. And the vast majority of those films you named are not "commonly available"!
Also, you better not wait too long before you revisit those negs and slides they deteriorate over time! After 30 years you'll be lucky to even get a decent thumbnail off of them.
samples on page one buddy. I must be next-level, well either that or you aren't paying much attention.
Im sorry that you have to pay so much for film in Japan. I, on the other hand, walk 3 minutes from my Boston apartment to a Hunt's and could get film for ~5 a roll for everything on that list. Would pay 7 for Portra 800. Now that I'm in Texas, I simply order them off Amazon for cheaper but I have to wait a whole two days.
you're entitled to your own opinion, despite it not agreeing with the larger body of testing. what isn't cool is calling something a fact of life while putting forward zero evidence, and then going further and telling the solitary person who has actually posted samples in the thread to post some.
Actually every time we've had this discussion in the past 3 years or so it ends about the same: Common 135 films especially color slides aren't as good as digital (even "good" P&S digital) in terms of resolution. Only special films and fine grained B&W cuts it - and even that's only unanimously agreed upon when the films are sent out to profe$$ional scan labs or scanned using very expensive scanners.
But where are your full 16 or 18 megapixel samples? I don't see any. There were some web sized scaled images back on page one. Reread the posts I guess, I agreed that almost all films are good enough that when scanned on affordable equipment, can indeed look OK ~ good scaled to web-sizes. I called for full size 16 or 18mpx samples. And IMHO those p.1 samples are pretty classical of the low resolution I'm talking about. Unless those are 100% crops from 4,700 x 3,500 pixel scans. Are they?
Also I don't get what price has to do with "commonly available". One is price, the other is about where it can be obtained - which matters if you're out and about and need some more.
Good to see the old Fuji Velvia 50 (E-6) can handle 160 lp/mm because I've got about 30 rolls in the freezer and they are all dedicated to my Zeiss ZF 25 f/2.
Bifurcator wrote:
And IMHO those p.1 samples are pretty classical of the low resolution I'm talking about.
coming from you I'll take that as a compliment.
tell you what Bif, you go on having fun playing with your m4/3 cameras and oversharpening your 100% crops to death. frankly, I can't take you seriously when you make tons of posts telling everyone how bad the Zeiss 21/2.8 is and that a p&s is better than film because the only thing I should be allowed to shoot on is walgreen's 800 iso film because that's what's around. I see your points here as being in exactly the same vein.
So you spent your time trying to get dirt on me for a personal attack rather than either admitting you might be wrong or scanning in a sample image for honest discussion? Ummm, okey-dokey.
And all those can be had for under $500. 
Even drunk, stoned, and half poisoned you still rock bro. 
