Desmolicious wrote:
You never can get the real film experience shooting digital until you can somehow figure out how to forget to rewind your SD card before you remove it, thus ruining all your images.
Actually, you can. It wasn't a SD card, back then cameras used PCMCIA cards - little hard drives. Once, the Associated press tech support guy dropped my drive just goofing off. Being a magnetic drive that has a physical disk like a record with a pickup (a needle in this analogy) It destroyed the drive in an 18 inch fall. I about punched him in the face.I had driven all day for about 150 miles and dozens of photo shoots. I had to set up all those appointments all over again and do it again.
Desmolicious wrote:
You never can get the real film experience shooting digital until you can somehow figure out how to forget to rewind your SD card before you remove it, thus ruining all your images.
That’s the film experience I miss when shooting digital.
I’m on my third lab since I started back with film. What I don’t like is the long turn around times. AGX Imaging, not back yet, but long turn around time once again. I suspect that these labs just aren’t busy enough to run development batches daily. Perhaps that is a reasonable price in exchange for fresh chemicals etc.
Film doesn't seem to be dying here in Eugene, Oregon. We have at least three drop off labs, prices for develop only range from $7-9/roll for 35mm and $10-12/roll for 120.
I mostly go to the family owned shop that's been around since the '30s, even though they are at the upper end of the range. They also have a constantly updating selection of used film gear, including point and shoots, vintage 35mm, TLRs, medium and large format, etc. Clientele seems to be of all ages, with a surprising number of young people.
I haven't noticed any drop in prices on the film gear I own or am interested in.
OregonSun wrote:
Film doesn't seem to be dying here in Eugene, Oregon. We have at least three drop off labs, prices for develop only range from $7-9/roll for 35mm and $10-12/roll for 120.
I mostly go to the family owned shop that's been around since the '30s, even though they are at the upper end of the range. They also have a constantly updating selection of used film gear, including point and shoots, vintage 35mm, TLRs, medium and large format, etc. Clientele seems to be of all ages, with a surprising number of young people.
I haven't noticed any drop in prices on the film gear I own or am interested in....Show more →
Almost the exact same situation in Atlanta, prices and all. Our local photography industry seems to be very healthy, especially for film. We've even got a few newer labs that opened recently. It's mostly have the brick and mortar KEH store for camera sales, but there are also a number of local stores which sell cameras too, and a very versatile repair shop that works on everything from obscure TLRs to late model SLRs. The lab I go sells about 50-60 rolls of film in a month, and they go quickly.
tile_86 wrote:
Almost the exact same situation in Atlanta, prices and all. Our local photography industry seems to be very healthy, especially for film. We've even got a few newer labs that opened recently. It's mostly have the brick and mortar KEH store for camera sales, but there are also a number of local stores which sell cameras too, and a very versatile repair shop that works on everything from obscure TLRs to late model SLRs. The lab I go sells about 50-60 rolls of film in a month, and they go quickly.
You are extremely lucky! What's the name of the repair shop?
tile_86 wrote:
The lab I go sells about 50-60 rolls of film in a month, and they go quickly.
Up here in Montréal, my lab probably sells that much film in a day or two. I develop my own B&W but have a lab develop my colour films, and I buy most of my film there. When I go, there is frequently a line out the door and sometimes in summer they have to shut their doors for a few days to catch up on the backlog. There are at least four film labs here in town and they are all busy. Part of it is that we have a lot of young immigrants from France here, and film is very popular among young people in France. Until recently most of the workers at my lab were from France; the owner is from Belgium. But film is also very popular among young Québecois people. When I go to my lab I'm usually the only person in line who's over 25 years old.
bjhurley wrote:
Up here in Montréal, my lab probably sells that much film in a day or two. I develop my own B&W but have a lab develop my colour films, and I buy most of my film there. When I go, there is frequently a line out the door and sometimes in summer they have to shut their doors for a few days to catch up on the backlog. There are at least four film labs here in town and they are all busy. Part of it is that we have a lot of young immigrants from France here, and film is very popular among young people in France. Until recently most of the workers at my lab were from France; the owner is from Belgium. But film is also very popular among young Québecois people. When I go to my lab I'm usually the only person in line who's over 25 years old....Show more →
I met a young guy from Scotland who was on his first roll of film. We were on Shinkansen and he was on a three week vacation with three rolls of film. I asked him why he shot film and he responded that this is what people his age did. In other words, to look cool. Not a great foundation to insure the long term viability of film manufacture.
Pixelpuffin wrote:
I agree
Last winter due to boredom I picked up 4 working film bodies and a dozen rolls of film
The plan was to have a go…
But the cost of process and print for a measly 36 shots is horrifying.
So instead I bought a pair of cheap used 256 & 512 MB sd cards…
Shooting JPEG’s in my canon 6D the camera said 37 shots available …yay 😎👍🏻
If I turn off every single auto feature except AF
I feel as tho it’s as close as I can get to shooting film without the expense of actually doing so
Before I got back to film I did the same thing , but we all know we are shooting digital psychologically so it will never feel the same.
moreover load , unload , rewind , advance film , sometime metering by using sunny 16 etc all of these are unique.
bwcolor wrote:
I met a young guy from Scotland who was on his first roll of film. We were on Shinkansen and he was on a three week vacation with three rolls of film. I asked him why he shot film and he responded that this is what people his age did. In other words, to look cool. Not a great foundation to insure the long term viability of film manufacture.
Sure, there are the hipsters and the folks who just want to look cool and do what their peers do. But this is a whole younger generation that's indoctrinated. Many will pass on to the next fad, but a lot of them have shot enough film that if they like the experience they'll keep shooting it. Especially as they start getting more disposable income.
jcolwell wrote:
I think it's more about having a common experience.
I find common experiences extremely rare.
This dood using film because his peer group are is not a bad thing. He may enjoy the process and results and get hooked. Or not, but unless he tries it he’ll never know.
bjhurley wrote:
Sure, there are the hipsters and the folks who just want to look cool and do what their peers do. But this is a whole younger generation that's indoctrinated. Many will pass on to the next fad, but a lot of them have shot enough film that if they like the experience they'll keep shooting it. Especially as they start getting more disposable income.
Not by chance that he had three rolls of Kodak Gold. Perhaps young people will shoot film for as long as 35mm three packs exist.
snegron7 wrote:
You are extremely lucky! What's the name of the repair shop?
Camera Service Company, I actually found them through an old letter that was buried inside a kit bag I bought from an antique store. Here is their website: https://www.cameraservicepro.com/
bjhurley wrote:
Up here in Montréal, my lab probably sells that much film in a day or two. I develop my own B&W but have a lab develop my colour films, and I buy most of my film there. When I go, there is frequently a line out the door and sometimes in summer they have to shut their doors for a few days to catch up on the backlog. There are at least four film labs here in town and they are all busy. Part of it is that we have a lot of young immigrants from France here, and film is very popular among young people in France. Until recently most of the workers at my lab were from France; the owner is from Belgium. But film is also very popular among young Québecois people. When I go to my lab I'm usually the only person in line who's over 25 years old....Show more →
snegron7 wrote:
I need to find a quick refresher tutorial on developing my own B&W film. I used to do it decades ago, but I've forgotten. For every 10 Google searches I do, there are 11 different methods people use. I don't remember it being so complicated.
Now there's the truth right there. People really do overcomplicate this stuff. If this gives you any confidence, I've had better results with simpler methods.
Is film photography dying? I answer it in two parts - generally speaking, no. Film will continue to remain as art form and within its niche. Film is a different medium than digital, and it comes with its pros and cons into which I am not further going on in this post since this has been discussed before.
Second part to the question - yes, I also see that the hype for film has calmed significantly down since last year. This has been driven by multiple factors: increased film prices and accessories to develop film and to make darkroom prints; increased film camera prices with exemption of large amount of SLRs still flooding the used market; and last but not least the hipster film hype slowly ending. I believe we have seen the max of the bell shape curve of film renaissance kicking in around 2015 with maximum reached about 4-5 years ago before higher pricing kicked in after the pandemic. Since then it has calmed down more and more and prices becoming steady or getting lowered again for some gear.
jcolwell wrote:
I think it's more about having a common experience.
Amen. If this is about getting people to be social in the meat space than this is beyond worth it.
In LA you can spend $16 on the dumbest of things. Might as well go out and be creative with your friends and a roll of Portra 400 taking pictures of bridges and graffiti.
I was a film user at the height of the Great Analog Selloff. I bought a M6 TTL Millennium unused in the presentation box for twelve hundred dollars. A M2 for six hundred and a Nikkormat FT2 for twenty five bucks. Everyone was convinced film was as dead as the dodo and our digital future was shining bright. We had the film renaissance which ran up the prices for gear and film, a large number of photo processors closing up shop and leaving fewer, more expensive choices. On the positive side, the growth in scanning choices. Camera scanning has evolved from the DIY days of PVC pipe and old enlarger negative carriers to the high end stuff from Negative Supply and Valoi. New and faster software for converting negatives. As the hipster film craze wanes, there is a new group digging out the film cameras they thought would never use again.Welcome back! Film isn't dead and will be with us for a while longer.
