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Archive 2016 · Could you go back to film?

gdanmitchell
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p.3 #1 · p.3 #1 · Could you go back to film?

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Edited on Jan 03, 2017 at 11:36 AM · View previous versions

Dec 19, 2016 at 07:27 PM

alexdi
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p.3 #2 · p.3 #2 · Could you go back to film?

**** no.

The only thing I liked about film was viewing slides under a loupe on a lightbox. It's the closest I can get to reliving a scene.

Dec 19, 2016 at 07:32 PM

Photonadave
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p.3 #3 · p.3 #3 · Could you go back to film?

I dumped film for good when I picked up a 40D on sale right after the 50D came out. No desire to ever go back! I sold most of my dedicated 35mm film camera equipment long ago however for reasons that elude me I still have all of my color wet lab equipment and 4x5 camera stuff packed up in the garage. My current home is the only house in my life that I have lived in that did not have a built-in dedicated dark room & wet lab. Finding a home for the equipment has been on my list of things to do for a very long time.

Dec 19, 2016 at 07:42 PM

OntheRez
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p.3 #4 · p.3 #4 · Could you go back to film?

Yes, I liked what one could do with B&W. I haven't found a way to match some of the looks I could get from an old Leica IIIc and who knows what film. The smell of the darkroom? Trying to roll bulk film in a sack in the dark? The eerie red light? The week in week out choice - film? food? film? food? film - guess it's ramen again.

The hesitation/fear of hitting the shutter button too early/late too often? Trying to reload in the rain? That incredible roll of shots where the film hadn't been threaded to the take up roll correctly?

Nope. Don't miss it at all, and would only consider it again if every DSLR, computer, H*** even cell cam all broke simultaneously.

Robert

Dec 19, 2016 at 08:03 PM

ctrout
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p.3 #5 · p.3 #5 · Could you go back to film?

I just got back into film this year after going digital back in 2002. I love using the old gear. I have been a mechanic my whole life and a tinkerer so the more mechanical the process, the more I enjoy it. I have 11 pentaxes that range in age from 35 years (LX) to 58 years (1958 K model) and everything in between, SV, MX, ME Super, etc. My favorite is the K because it is nearly 60 years old and still silky smooth function like nothing I've ever seen. You can't understand until you fire the shutter and then cock the lens aperture and wind the film. Go over to APUG.org and you'll find other film users that will never give it up.

Dec 19, 2016 at 08:03 PM

Ruffo
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p.3 #6 · p.3 #6 · Could you go back to film?

I shot mostly slide film (Kodachrome 64) and waiting for the Kodak lab to finally get my slides done just to send them back in for enlargements seems like torture now.

Kodachrome 64 and Fujichrome 50! How did we work at those ISOs? I can even remember using Kodachrome 25 on occasion.

It would have been nice to go digital back then...except....there were no home computers.

Dec 19, 2016 at 08:25 PM

PhotoMaximum
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p.3 #7 · p.3 #7 · Could you go back to film?

Interesting thread.

I am of the generation that has seen the entire trasnsition...

Staff newspaper journalist: b/w TriX developed in HC110, prints made in Dektol and Kodak Rapid Fixer, prints made in Kodak Ektamatic machine, prints made by tossing regular photo paper in a large tray of Ektamatic Developer, processing positive Fujichrome 100 in Wing-Lynch machines (mixing E6 chemistry), C41 in Wing-Lynch machines, etc, etc.

Did a ton of film scanning using all kinds of film scanners.

I then used just about every major early Kodak, Nikon, and Canon DSLR that came on the market.

I had a great time in the darkroom. The darkroom was a very cool hang out haven at daily newspapers. Great place to hide booze...

But I wonder about my long term exposure to Dektol, fixer, Ektamatic chemistry, E6, bleach, C41, potassium ferricyanide, etc, has on my health? Eugene Smith got sick from the chemicals, mainly potassium ferricyanide, after many years of intense darkroom work.

Great, wonderful memories. I was really good at this stuff, especially on a newspaper deadline. But that is the past and I will never go there again...

Dec 19, 2016 at 09:06 PM

Dpedraza
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p.3 #8 · p.3 #8 · Could you go back to film?

I don't really shoot 35mm anymore I do use my rb67 quite frequently

Dec 19, 2016 at 09:40 PM

Pixel Perfect
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p.3 #9 · p.3 #9 · Could you go back to film?

Give me a big "Hell No". Ain't nobody got time for that!

Dec 19, 2016 at 11:11 PM

Peter Figen
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p.3 #10 · p.3 #10 · Could you go back to film?

Well, film IS dead for commercial still photography, but very much alive for fine art, personal projects and, of course, cinema. I still shoot and love film for certain types of images, but I don't have a wet darkroom anymore. I use a hybrid analog/digital workflow when shooting film - and it's primarily black and white when I do shoot - shoot the film and have it processed by my favorite black and white lab - Schulman Photo Lab in Los Angeles, then scan it on my Howtek HR8000 drum scanner. Being able to make the best quality scans makes all the difference in the world, and seeing just how good film can be, especially black and white, sort of makes it all worth it.

Dec 20, 2016 at 03:27 AM

freetime101
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p.3 #11 · p.3 #11 · Could you go back to film?

Peter Figen wrote:
Well, film IS dead for commercial still photography, but very much alive for fine art, personal projects and, of course, cinema.

This is what I expected, it's been this way for a while now. I suppose it is also true that it should be expected that a forum devoted to DSLR's would lean away from film

It seems all the film lovers are referring to large format - anybody still using 35mm or 120? Or is that well and truly dead?

Does large format still produce a better image than digital? Or is it more about the methodical process that film dictates - i.e. taking more time/care with the shot.

Dec 20, 2016 at 04:42 AM

freetime101
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p.3 #12 · p.3 #12 · Could you go back to film?

I also guess I should have had an extra option on the poll - "Never used it before but plan to try it!" Would be interesting to see if a photographer born into the digital world sees film as a viable option

Dec 20, 2016 at 04:44 AM

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p.3 #13 · p.3 #13 · Could you go back to film?

All the older pros who I've talked to were saying "Good riddance!" I can imagine the pain of getting the film shots out in time for a daily newspaper... Moreso for an evening one.
A NatGeo photographer whose workshop I once attended said that he'd jumped on the first Canon 1DS even though he had to pay a crazy early adopter premium. All for being able to ditch film and the associated hassle.
Me, I can't go back to where I've never been - the only film SLR that I've ever had in my hands got stolen before I even put a single roll through it. I took that as an omen and acted accordingly.

If the digital revolution hadn't happened I would've never been doing what I'm doing. At best I would've worked as a writing journalist, leaving the shooting to whoever wanted to live with the inconvenience of working with film.
YMMV

Dec 20, 2016 at 06:26 AM

melcat
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p.3 #14 · p.3 #14 · Could you go back to film?

freetime101 wrote:
No chimping

Oh, I dunno, it seemed sometimes there were chimps working at one of the labs I used to use.

In my mid-teens a friend took me into the darkroom and I watched as the print was developed. It was fascinating to watch - once - but seemed insanely tedious for the level of control I would have wanted. This was the early 1970s, and IIRC multicontrast paper was newly available but too expensive (for him, I couldn't afford a 35mm camera at all!). And of course it was black and white only.

I never did set up or borrow a darkroom. First I was interested in colour. It didn't take long to conclude the print process, when someone else was doing the printing, offered no real control. So I settled on slides, which at least let me choose a film roughly comparable with my colour taste (I liked Agfa, and later the last Ektachromes). All of those emulsions are discontinued. There is not a single extant slide film I would bother with (yes I tried Velvia, and pass the vomit bucket).

Had digital not come along and had I not been diagnosed with a sensitivity to one of the chemicals used in the black and white process, I probably would have ended up shooting large format black and white and hand colouring to get the kind of colour control I wanted.

But as it is the modern digital process does offer me most of the control and colours I want. It's not even as if I'm trying to do anything terribly adventurous with colour - but the film-to-print process didn't offer it in any form accessible to me. You could shoot negative film and hope the lab operator didn't disagree with your vision. You could shoot transparencies and project or look on a light table, but I hated Ilfochromes (=Cibachromes).

I'm afraid my conclusion, in hindsight, is that apart from some memories from trips etc., all my "art" photography on film was a complete waste of time, and I would have been better off learning to draw. Even the memories from the most unrepeatable of my twenties travel adventures was ruined by a lab.

So, no, I don't miss film. Its existence, and that of glass plates and autochromes before it, benefits me in that there has been a development of the photographic art form (and of course, cinema). But I wish that I, myself, had not taken up "art" photography until digital had arrived.

Edited on Dec 20, 2016 at 07:02 AM · View previous versions

Dec 20, 2016 at 06:59 AM

Mike Veltri
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p.3 #15 · p.3 #15 · Could you go back to film?

Nope, Nada, Never...

Imagine owning a top level Dslr in the film days, you would have been king of the photography world... lol

Dec 20, 2016 at 07:01 AM

rattlebonez
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p.3 #16 · p.3 #16 · Could you go back to film?

Looking back on film, I am surprised people could learn photography in that way. Taking images, paying for processing, waiting, only to find you had maybe 1 or 2 usable images. I gained access to a B&W darkroom and that was a big help in learning. At least I could make a proof sheet and see what was in focus, and usable before printing.

The only way I could have control over the final results was to use slide film. The negative printing of the day did not give you the exposure you put in, or the cropping in most cases. What a mess. Scanning film is a big mess as well.

As others have said; digital photography made photography fun again!

Long live digital photography

Dec 20, 2016 at 10:41 AM

gdanmitchell
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p.3 #17 · p.3 #17 · Could you go back to film?

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Edited on Jan 03, 2017 at 11:36 AM · View previous versions

Dec 20, 2016 at 11:48 AM

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p.3 #18 · p.3 #18 · Could you go back to film?

Frankly, the results are not surprising but I wonder whether the opinion was similarly unanimous ten years ago?

Dec 20, 2016 at 11:52 AM

gwaww
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p.3 #19 · p.3 #19 · Could you go back to film?

I embraced the digital era when it first arrived and never looked back. Although, now that I am now retired and have more time on my hands, I wouldn't mind putting some fine grained B&W film in the old 4x5 Speed Graphic I held onto and do some landscape photography. I've always enjoyed the photographic process. film or digital.

Dec 20, 2016 at 12:02 PM

rstoddard11
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p.3 #20 · p.3 #20 · Could you go back to film?

I may shoot a roll here or there for fun. I really respect the work a lot of people did with the restrictions of film and the time it took for great work to happen. I try to employ those principles with digital.

This is possibly why I try not to "spray and pray" with my shots or take burst shots of stationary sitting birds etc. Quality over quantity was even more important with film, even with choosing your shots.

I have read a blog where some 20 something photography student dude rambles on endlessly about how when film is no longer available he will give up photography and that cropping is sacrilegious and if a shot is cropped, it should have never been taken etc. etc.

I guess I'm not as cool as that guy. To each his own, but for me, just because I enjoy riding a horse and miss the days before the invention of the automobile, doesn't mean its going to be my daily commuting mechanism. I'm not going to crap on the practice, but again, practicality wins when time is limited.

I wonder if there are painters who lambaste people for using store bought paint and not making their own out of charcoal and rendered animal fat.

That all being said, I think film developing is an art form that hopefully will still keep going, sort of the way of tying and fishing with flies or drawing with charcoal or making your own tools etc. There is an enjoyment to it that people can still experience outside of the fastest or most efficient way of doing things. If you have the time why not make it interesting?

Dec 20, 2016 at 12:17 PM

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