I would no more go back to film than I would begin weaving my own clothes or grinding my own wheat. It seems little more than an exercise in pretentious rusticism to fight our way backwards against clear improvements brought by technological evolution.
Well, I for one am certainly glad that people didn't abandon painting, sculpting, drawing, etc. with the advent of the photographic process. Photography has made it easier for us to record images much more quickly, efficiently, and accurately than pencil drawing, painting, etc. but imagine how bland the artistic world would be if everyone had abandoned the old ways just because they were more time consuming, difficult, or less accurate.
15Bit wrote:
I would no more go back to film than I would begin weaving my own clothes or grinding my own wheat. It seems little more than an exercise in pretentious rusticism to fight our way backwards against clear improvements brought by technological evolution.
But the fact that you do wear clothes, woven by someone else, and that you do eat wheat products, ground by someone else, shows how much you appreciate 'film'.
Without those that work with 'film' you would be naked and hungry.
Sportsnewstoda wrote:
I have a roll of Fuji Press 800 film in the Freezer; I doubt if I ever dust off the film camera to shoot that roll. It is not worth the hassle!
Welcome to FM.
I took my last roll of Tmax 3200 out of the freezer a couple of weeks ago. Expiry date must have been before 2010. Now, I can't open the back of my Olympus 35 SP camera.
Sportsnewstoda wrote:
I have a roll of Fuji Press 800 film in the Freezer; I doubt if I ever dust off the film camera to shoot that roll. It is not worth the hassle!
I will send you the postage for that beautiful roll of Fuji 800, thereby freeing up acreage in your freezer for more snacks. I know plenty of kids who would love it. And by kids I mean me.
For pros you can or cannot make film work depending what you do and what you have to shoot.
But for enthusiasts...well you know in the past, you used to go on holiday for a week with 5 rolls of film, shoot 4, came back, sent the film to the lab, then spent 10 minutes going through and got maybe 10 great shots and another 30 keepers. Now with digital you go on holiday, you shoot anything from 1000 to 10000+ shots over a week, you come back, spend another week editing, post processing, sorting, backing up, cataloguing and all that and you still get maybe 10 great shots and 30 keepers.
So I'm in the enthusiast camp and I shoot film. 5 rolls of film and process at a lab that gives me results that just need a bit of cropping/straightening is a lot cheaper than week's time wasted editing.
Desmolicious wrote:
But the fact that you do wear clothes, woven by someone else, and that you do eat wheat products, ground by someone else, shows how much you appreciate 'film'.
Without those that work with 'film' you would be naked and hungry.
No, without "those that work with film" (or more accurately, the technology/machines that make clothing and food manufacturing scalable and efficient) i would be living in a mud and straw house, breaking my back growing my own crops and making my own clothes, and have a life expectancy of 35 at best. I would not own a nice camera, warm house, car etc. I wouldn't have the ability to choose my job/career and it's location according to my preferences. I would never have travelled more than 10 miles from my place of birth. Our antecedents put in a lot of collective effort to lift humanity out of the mud. It seems something of an insult to them to actively crawl back in to it...
15Bit wrote:
No, without "those that work with film" (or more accurately, the technology/machines that make clothing and food manufacturing scalable and efficient) i would be living in a mud and straw house, breaking my back growing my own crops and making my own clothes, and have a life expectancy of 35 at best. I would not own a nice camera, warm house, car etc. I wouldn't have the ability to choose my job/career and it's location according to my preferences. I would never have travelled more than 10 miles from my place of birth. Our antecedents put in a lot of collective effort to lift humanity out of the mud. It seems something of an insult to them to actively crawl back in to it... ...Show more →
Of course you could. People had specialized jobs back then too. Some worked the land, Some wove cloth, some made bricks, some managed the business, some financed the business. Just like now.
Did not vote.
I know film well. I try to avoid going back to film, but there are some things which are better / easier with film:
Super small DOF with for example ultra large format camera and relative fast lens.
I have made an ultra large format camera with inter image to get that look with digital too: Women-Portrait by Markus, auf Flickr
Some lenses for film have great bokeh, like for example the Aero Ektar. I try to get that with digital, but it would be easier with film and such a lens.
Some claim film has a special rendering which is not easy to reproduce with digital, I suppose this is true, but I have done no tests or comparisons.
Film, or especialy wet plates, show interessting unique effects I lik. I do not want to use software to create such effects.
Not a question if me as much as the people I shoot for. People expect to see photos within a few days. If it were up to me, I'd have to consider the environmental impact, all those chemicals used to develop and process film can't be very good for the environment. And the fewer options we have today, compared to a time when film was more prevalent.
RustyBug wrote:
The only thing that makes me long for the film days ... No Batteries
Going remote ... film may still have its place, although a pack of batteries vs. Rolls of film is debatable, too.
Take a small hand crank generator and or some other way of charging with a extra battery or two and that will not be a problem. I love the pocket socket 10 watt hand crank generator for charging camera batteries and AA/AAAs.
The ONLY thing handy about film in the digital age to me was being able to say to the drunks at the end of a gig, "sorry I have run out of film" I still got away with that with digital for a couple of years.
I voted "what's film" but I guess if I walked past a pack of instant film for my Polaroid 600SE that was free or cheap I would take it for fun.
I still have a few pet SLRs lying around but they will likely never be used again (and haven't been for several years now).
12 years of film shooting and now 14 years of digital. I did have an XPan that was a hold out but mostly I made the switch completely and with no regrets.
The only exception to me for digital is my SX70. I still shoot my kids with it. It's not really film though. So I get a hall pass for that one.
Interesting set of responses, more praise for digital than I was expecting. Being 24, my first experiences with film were from my parents taking photos, but it wasn't something I used myself. Once they went digital, the film was gone for good. My first camera, the Sony NEX 5, was digital and couldn't be further from a film camera. That said, from intrigue (and chasing shallow DoF), I did end up shooting film, as many young photographers that grew up in a digital age seem to be doing these days. Even ilford has reported they are selling more film now than they were a few years ago, there is a bit of a resurgence. I've owned plenty of film cameras in my 6 years of active photography (Canon FD cameras, Minolta Maxxum cameras, a Contax G1, and most recently a Pentax 67), but I've always preferred digital. Especially since getting full frame I've stopped shooting 35mm film, I go through less than 2 rolls a year these days and don't plan on buying 35mm again. Partially this is due to my Costco stopping developing 35mm film, as it was $6 for dev and prints which was a lot of fun to get back. Now at $7 just for developing at a lab that's 40 minutes away, only medium format is worth the cost.
All this said, I agree with the overall sentiment of the thread. Film is not going to be like it was, and it's not the ideal way to shoot. I see a lot of young photographers getting caught up in film because it offers beautiful results with fantastic colors, but it really isn't future proof. Places to develop film will eventually stop, and those heavily vested in film these days are going to find themselves having to cope with a digital world at some point.
