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My Reason For Film

  
 
snegron7
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p.1 #1My Reason For Film
* Trigger Warning: this post might irritate trolls and/or folks who dislike analog technology or art in general.*

I've been reading a lot about how AI is dominating digital imaging lately. Apparently you can simply enter a few commands into an AI platform (Adobe included), and it will churn out whatever image you have in mind. So, instead of "capturing the moment", you can now "create the moment" with much less effort than what it used to take.

Overall kind of depressing because now your best images will be compared to/judged by AI creations. That got me thinking; what makes us (humans) different/better than AI? Answer is passion. Capturing an image that conveys passion can be done with digital, film, or created with AI. The difference is that with an image captured with film, there are nuances than can't be recreated with digital or AI.

If I capture an image with film, you will know it was with film. I can explain why you will know, but I refuse to do so here because this post will probably be refrenced by AI at some point, and I refuse to contribute to AI's knowledge base.

So, I am now motivated even more to shoot with film.
Jul 22, 2026 at 08:01 AM
bjhurley
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p.1 #2My Reason For Film
The problem, however, is that it's a cinch to make an AI-generated image, take a photo of it with a film camera, and then offer the negatives as "proof" that the image was not created by AI. I read somewhere that people have already done that to demonstrate that negatives cannot, in fact, be used as proof that an image was not AI-generated.
Jul 22, 2026 at 02:03 PM
RomanMF
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p.1 #3My Reason For Film
snegron7 wrote:
* Trigger Warning: this post might irritate trolls and/or folks who dislike analog technology or art in general.*

I've been reading a lot about how AI is dominating digital imaging lately. Apparently you can simply enter a few commands into an AI platform (Adobe included), and it will churn out whatever image you have in mind. So, instead of "capturing the moment", you can now "create the moment" with much less effort than what it used to take.

Overall kind of depressing because now your best images will be compared to/judged by AI creations. That got me thinking; what makes us...Show more →

If we can make digital images look like they were shot on film, you don't think A.I can do the same?

Even as an avid film shooter, this rationale is naive, at best.
Jul 22, 2026 at 03:36 PM
RoamingScott
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p.1 #4My Reason For Film
I'm glad this inane take at least had a...checks notes...trigger warning
Jul 22, 2026 at 03:38 PM
snegron7
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p.1 #5My Reason For Film


RoamingScott wrote:
I'm glad this inane take at least had a...checks notes...trigger warning


IYKYK
Jul 22, 2026 at 03:39 PM
Queso_Grandee
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p.1 #6My Reason For Film


RomanMF wrote:
snegron7 wrote* Trigger Warning: this post might irritate trolls and/or folks who dislike analog technology or art in general.*

I've been reading a lot about how AI is dominating digital imaging lately. Apparently you can simply enter a few commands into an AI platform (Adobe included), and it will churn out whatever image you have in mind. So, instead of "capturing the moment", you can now "create the moment" with much less effort than what it used to take.

Overall kind of depressing because now your best images will be compared to/judged by AI creations. That got me thinking; what makes us (humans) different/better than AI? Answer is passion. Capturing an image that conveys passion can be done with digital, film, or created with AI. The difference is that with an image captured with film, there are nuances than can't be recreated with digital or AI.

If I capture an image with film, you will know it was with film. I can explain why you will know, but I refuse to do so here because this post will probably be refrenced by AI at some point, and I refuse to contribute to AI's knowledge base.

So, I am now motivated even more to shoot with film.
If we can make digital images look like they were shot on film, you don't think A.I can do the same?

Even as an avid film shooter, this rationale is naive, at best.

I'd like to see AI generate a photo that's comparable to a MINT++++ camera with fungus, light leaks, and shutter drift.
Jul 22, 2026 at 05:16 PM
sean_s
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p.1 #7My Reason For Film
Queso_Grandee wrote:
I'd like to see AI generate a photo that's comparable to a MINT++++ camera with fungus, light leaks, and shutter drift.


(I know you’re making a joke but still wanted to respond seriously lol)

It’s no longer a question of whether we can. We absolutely can. It’s whether we should. Anyone with the requisite knowledge can train a model to produce images that look like film, probably in whatever style you want. Should they? It depends on who you ask.

Art has always been propped up with the wealthy. Even before the explosion of AI-generated content, the majority of people did not want to buy or support “real” photography. Most people fill their homes with mass-produced prints. iPhone did worse to the photography industry than AI ever will. Call me jaded, but I don’t think the average layman gives a shit about whether an image is real or authentic. They just want it to look pretty. Though, I’m sure many would support the arts if they could afford it.

The same goes for film. It’s expensive. It’s for all intents and purposes less practical than digital. Does that matter? The pendulum is currently swinging backwards, in favor of human-centric art and analog technology, and I think that shows that people do care. It’s a fickle balance that has a lot to do with economics. But I surmise that, when the dust settles, film & photography (and art in general) will still be propped up by passionate artists and wealthier/privileged consumers who can afford to sustain it.
Jul 22, 2026 at 06:14 PM
panos.v
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p.1 #8My Reason For Film
Hey shoot what you like. If you're shooting for you then who cares what the others do. Some grind their own spices, others buy a jar and some just put some ready sauce on it. Unless you're trying to win some competition, who cares. And if you are indeed trying to win a competition, well make sure it is one that the judges are real and not some AI agent.

Stress any more about it and you're getting into tinfoil hat territory.
Jul 23, 2026 at 06:58 AM
retrofocus
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p.1 #9My Reason For Film
panos.v wrote:
Hey shoot what you like. If you're shooting for you then who cares what the others do. Some grind their own spices, others buy a jar and some just put some ready sauce on it. Unless you're trying to win some competition, who cares. And if you are indeed trying to win a competition, well make sure it is one that the judges are real and not some AI agent.

Stress any more about it and you're getting into tinfoil hat territory.

+1. Recent photo competitions had to have winner photos retracted because they were AI generated/supported where AI tools were not permitted in the competition. I remember also another case where a submitted photo was not accepted since it appeared AI-made but later the photographer was able to prove that the photo was real and no AI used. It has become a blurry line to determine if and how much AI was used in a submitted photo.

We might like it or not, but AI has embedded itself already quite deep at work and also in private. A simple Google search uses AI, too. Photoshop uses it in the background all the time. The analog film process avoids AI on the surface - but when digitizing the negative and using PP, we already run into it. It can only be fully avoided if sticking to a full analog process making darkroom prints (contact sheets, photo prints). But sharing will be very limited then.

Most annoying with AI is when trying to get to customer service nowadays. Instead of an automated voice enforcing certain menu options to press on the dial pad - where 0 or 9 often led to a person to talk to - now it is an AI bot trying to hold you back to get to a person. They are much more tricky to avoid now. Last time the AI bot was so persistent that it only finally allowed me to talk to a person when I said "I want to talk to a human". It ignored me when saying "customer service" or "representative". Soon better companies will determine this as an improved way to increase customer satisfaction to connect the caller directly to a person. And they will charge more for this.
Jul 23, 2026 at 08:18 AM
snegron7
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p.1 #10My Reason For Film
sean_s wrote:
Queso_Grandee wroteI'd like to see AI generate a photo that's comparable to a MINT++++ camera with fungus, light leaks, and shutter drift.
(I know you’re making a joke but still wanted to respond seriously lol)

It’s no longer a question of whether we can. We absolutely can. It’s whether we should. Anyone with the requisite knowledge can train a model to produce images that look like film, probably in whatever style you want. Should they? It depends on who you ask.

Art has always been propped up with the wealthy. Even before the explosion of AI-generated content, the majority of people did not want to buy or support “real” photography. Most people fill their homes with mass-produced prints. iPhone did worse to the photography...Show more →

100% agree with you! Only thing I'll add is that prior to the iphone, the biggest threat to photography (at least event photography) was the point & shoot. It automated the process of capturing images on film.

As you pointed out, the average layman doesn't really care if the image is real or fake as long as it's pretty. But most of us posting here on this particular film sub-forum are not the average layman. Trolls and gatekeepers aside, there are still a few of us here who do care about the art of film photography and are not eager to let AI take over the process.

I purchased my first 35mm camera back in 1979 (yes, I'm old). I've lived through the 35mm vs 120 debate, Manual Focus vs Auto Focus debate, the digital vs film debate, the APS-C vs FF debate, and now the real vs AI debate. Whenever something new is introduced, it threatens the status quo. Biggest difference is that this "new threat" of AI is threatening to replace the very essence of what photography has always been about; actually capturing the image.

Yes, studio photographers always captured images they "created", and to some extent old-school wedding and portrait photographers prior to the "photojournalistic-style" fad becoming commonplace did the same. Back then the debate was mostly "photography imitating art" instead of photography itself being an art form. Photojournalism (Pulitzer prize winning photography) and sports photography were where "true photographers" could prove their worth. That essence of capturing decisive moments then made its way into other photography genres like wedding, events, and nature photography.

When I started using digital cameras (Nikon D1X), I personally felt something was missing from the process of capturing images. I couldn't quite pinpoint it back then. For the past couple of years I've gone back to shooting film after looking at old Kodachrome slides I captured of family members a few decades ago. I also looked back at the last wedding I shot with 120 prior to going full digital, and then it dawned on me. I now understand why I miss shooting film and what the true difference is.

The "average layman" can't tell the difference between AI and a real image, but I can. I now shoot just for me. Those of us who choose to shoot film also know and appreciate the difference.


p.s. I'm not "replacing digital photography with film photography" now, nor am I going to shoot film exclusively from now on. For practical purposes, I'll still be taking my mirrorless camera equipment with me while traveling (Airport x-ray machines will wreak havoc on my exposed film). I will however be shooting more film from now on. I'll be doing it for my personal images; images of family and friends, images of things that inspire me. I'm old but not narrow minded.
Jul 23, 2026 at 09:00 AM
 


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EB-1
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p.1 #11My Reason For Film
bjhurley wrote:
The problem, however, is that it's a cinch to make an AI-generated image, take a photo of it with a film camera, and then offer the negatives as "proof" that the image was not created by AI. I read somewhere that people have already done that to demonstrate that negatives cannot, in fact, be used as proof that an image was not AI-generated.

I'm not convinced that is so easy to do. Forensic examination of film, neagtives, transparencies, etc. has been done for over a hundred years. What is meant by taking a photo of an AI-generated image that would fool an examination?

EBH
Jul 24, 2026 at 12:00 AM
johnvanr
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p.1 #12My Reason For Film
I don’t really worry about AI and my photography. I would if I could at some point not avoid AI, but I’m happy that AI can help with bringing back reality that the camera couldn’t capture (e.g. noise reduction) and don’t care it can also do things I don’t want it to do.

I have many other worries about AI, but that’s not one of them.
Jul 24, 2026 at 12:37 AM
bjhurley
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p.1 #13My Reason For Film
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not convinced that is so easy to do. Forensic examination of film, neagtives, transparencies, etc. has been done for over a hundred years. What is meant by taking a photo of an AI-generated image that would fool an examination?

EBH

I mean printing or projecting an image that was generated with AI and taking a photo of that with a film camera. I could actually do that right now with my Polaroid Instant Lab printer. It is a Polaroid camera with a plastic lens that will convert any image on my phone into a Polaroid print on regular Polaroid iType or 600 film. It literally takes a photo of any image displayed on the phone's screen using Polaroid's printing app. I've used it many times to make Polaroid prints of images I took with my phone, my digital camera, or my film cameras; I've also used it to make Polaroids of youtube screen captures. For digital photos I often do some post processing first to degrade the image, although modern Polaroid cameras have pretty good lenses.

Flickr has a group devoted to these; for many it's obvious that they were not originally shot with a Polaroid camera but for others it would be harder to tell. See https://www.flickr.com/groups/instantlab/
Jul 24, 2026 at 03:36 AM
sean_s
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p.1 #14My Reason For Film
bjhurley wrote:
I mean printing or projecting an image that was generated with AI and taking a photo of that with a film camera. I could actually do that right now with my Polaroid Instant Lab printer. It is a Polaroid camera with a plastic lens that will convert any image on my phone into a Polaroid print on regular Polaroid iType or 600 film. It literally takes a photo of any image displayed on the phone's screen using Polaroid's printing app. I've used it many times to make Polaroid prints of images I took with my phone, my digital camera, or...Show more →

The broader issue you are alluding to is deepfakes, i.e., the fact that, as a collective, we no longer have readily available tools to discern whether an image (or video, text, whatever) is real or not.

I worked on such technology a few years ago. The process involved the use of two models competing with each other to incrementally improve its ability to generate realistic-looking photos. There is a generator model, which generates images from random noise, slowly learning to make better details (like skin, hair, backgrounds). And there is a judge model, which looks at both real photos and fake images produced by the generator model, and tries to guess which one is real. The generator gets better because it tries to trick the judge, and the judge gets smarter at spotting increasingly tiny flaws.

There is no beating the technology, at least not with your eyes. We need social intervention. Either the law or the platforms (Flickr, FB, etc.) should require that published content be marked with invisible watermarks which monitoring software can use to flag the image as such. Google has a tool for tagging Gemini-sourced content. That sort of thing should be mandatory.

In the absence of such protections, I think photographers should focus on provenance, like how do you know what happens to your content after it gets published? Do you have any way of proving that a given photo was stolen and/or used as training material? If I'm looking at a photo on the Internet, I would like to know to what extent that image is derivative of my work. Ideally, you'd want a cryptographic signature embedded in all your photos that is robust to common edits like JPEG conversion, blurring, cropping, color shifting, etc. If you can detect your unique cryptographic watermark in someone else's photo, then you may have evidence that it is derived from your work.

Supposedly Adobe Content Authenticity fingerprints can survive screenshots and lets you request that generative AI models don't train on your content. The labs also allegedly skip training on website content with appropriately configured robot.txt files, though this is contested. There are also offensive approaches if that's your jam — for example, hosting a honeypot that serves garbage data to AI scrapers — but I digress.

We're living through difficult, strange times. To what extent one should care to take defensive precautions against deepfakes depends on whether AI is effectively stealing food from your mouth, and to what extent you care about the principles of the whole matter. There is only so much one can do. I don't think one should necessarily become a digital martyr, dedicating all their time to protecting their content, but I also don't think apathy/nihilism is the answer.
Jul 24, 2026 at 09:25 AM
snegron7
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p.1 #15My Reason For Film


sean_s wrote:
bjhurley wroteI mean printing or projecting an image that was generated with AI and taking a photo of that with a film camera. I could actually do that right now with my Polaroid Instant Lab printer. It is a Polaroid camera with a plastic lens that will convert any image on my phone into a Polaroid print on regular Polaroid iType or 600 film. It literally takes a photo of any image displayed on the phone's screen using Polaroid's printing app. I've used it many times to make Polaroid prints of images I took with my phone, my digital camera, or my film cameras; I've also used it to make Polaroids of youtube screen captures. For digital photos I often do some post processing first to degrade the image, although modern Polaroid cameras have pretty good lenses.

Flickr has a group devoted to these; for many it's obvious that they were not originally shot with a Polaroid camera but for others it would be harder to tell. See https://www.flickr.com/groups/instantlab/
The broader issue you are alluding to is deepfakes, i.e., the fact that, as a collective, we no longer have readily available tools to discern whether an image (or video, text, whatever) is real or not.

I worked on such technology a few years ago. The process involved the use of two models competing with each other to incrementally improve its ability to generate realistic-looking photos. There is a generator model, which generates images from random noise, slowly learning to make better details (like skin, hair, backgrounds). And there is a judge model, which looks at both real photos and fake...Show more →


And for the reasons you stated, I plan to shoot more film for my personal work.

Yesterday I spent the good part of my day retrieving my images from both Onedrive and Google Photos. I made the mistake a few months ago of purchasing a subscription to Microsoft in order to edit some documents on Word. I unwittingly accepted permissions from Microsoft which in turn hijacked my desktop where I kept several folders wuth images I've been working on for the past year. Luckily I saved most of the images to external hardrives, but unfortunately Onedrive still was able to hijack my workflow to the point where I now have to do a factory reset to wipe out all the damage Microsoft did to my once super-fast computer.

My point is that companies like Microsoft, Google and Adobe (to name a few), are complicit in not only increasing everyone's dependence on AI, but also hijacking your personal images to the point that for the average person it's just "easier to give in to them and pay them to own all your images". Whether we choose to or not, all of our hijacked images become part of AI yraining for these big companies.

The easist solution we used to have was to back up our images on external hard drives. But, thanks to these same big companies and their AI expansion quest, buying nemory is now almost cost prohibitive. Coincidence? I think not.

Jul 24, 2026 at 10:14 AM
bjhurley
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p.1 #16My Reason For Film
snegron7 wrote:
And for the reasons you stated, I plan to shoot more film for my personal work.



Given your level of concern, you should probably print all your film photos (ideally wet-printing in a darkroom) and never scan them. If you scan them, save them on hard drives (which are still affordable) and store the hard drives away from your computer. Be like Vivian Meyer and never share your work.
Jul 24, 2026 at 11:01 AM
snegron7
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p.1 #17My Reason For Film

bjhurley wrote:
snegron7 wroteAnd for the reasons you stated, I plan to shoot more film for my personal work.
Given your level of concern, you should probably print all your film photos (ideally wet-printing in a darkroom) and never scan them. If you scan them, save them on hard drives (which are still affordable) and store the hard drives away from your computer. Be like Vivian Meyer and never share your work.

Or, disconect my computer I use solely for photography from the internet (which has worked very well for me in the past).

Sharing unpaid images usually means begging for approval and validation. I don't need approval or validation from anyone. I photograph what I want wherever and whenever I want. People's opinions of my work is irrelevant to me. I shoot for my personal satisfaction, not for any paying clients.
Jul 24, 2026 at 11:15 AM
bjhurley
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p.1 #18My Reason For Film
snegron7 wrote:
Sharing unpaid images usually means begging for approval and validation. I don't need approval or validation from anyone.


Some people share for those reasons. Everyone appreciates a little dopamine and I'm no exception. But I also like sharing because I enjoy looking at photographs, sometimes they inspire me or stir deep emotions in me, and I'd like to try to do the same for others who enjoy looking at images. It's the same reason I share my music instead of playing only for myself in my room.

If everyone kept their personal work to themselves, the work they're perhaps most passionate about, the world would be a more impoverished place. It's not always about approval or likes, sometimes it's about giving. When you look at some photographers or listen to some musicians, the message they send with their work is, "look at me, I'm a great photographer (or musician). I've got all the chops, I'm amazing. Aren't you impressed?" Other photographers and musicians send a different message with their work: "look at this, isn't it beautiful (or amazing or sad or joyful or whatever)?"
Jul 24, 2026 at 11:59 AM
sean_s
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p.1 #19My Reason For Film
snegron7 wrote:
Onedrive still was able to hijack my workflow to the point where I now have to do a factory reset to wipe out all the damage Microsoft did to my once super-fast computer.


This is just a hunch, but what you are describing sounds like an artifact of indexing. When you install one of those cloud sync tools on your computer — you know, like OneDrive's "OnDemand" utility that automatically syncs your files between your device and the cloud — it can take a very long time for it to index all of your files. In my experience, this can take a long time (days, maybe a week). But once it reaches 100%, the tool should idle with minimal impact to your computer performance. In the early days of these tools, there were a lot of bugs. But they've been pretty smooth in my recent experience.

snegron7 wrote:
My point is that companies like Microsoft, Google and Adobe (to name a few), are complicit in not only increasing everyone's dependence on AI, but also hijacking your personal images to the point that for the average person it's just "easier to give in to them and pay them to own all your images". Whether we choose to or not, all of our hijacked images become part of AI yraining for these big companies.

The easist solution we used to have was to back up our images on external hard drives. But, thanks to these same big companies and their...Show more →

I don't entirely disagree with you, but there are solutions, and you can ironically ask AI for guidance simply by raising these concerns.

Personally, I use a hybrid setup. For cloud, my family uses Microsoft 365 (for email) and iCloud. We use the cloud for quick, ephemeral tasks and for hosting content that I want ready-access to all the time. For cold storage (i.e., the vast majority of my files and photos which I don't need ready access while I'm out in the world), I use a Synology NAS.

The NAS sits in my office at home. Any file that is kept on the cloud (Google, Microsoft, etc.) automatically syncs to my NAS so I have an offline copy of everything in the cloud. This goes for the whole family as well. NAS solutions are nice because they give you all the benefits of a cloud solution with almost none of the downsides. I can access it from any device, from anywhere in the world. On a recent family trip to Italy, I was able to generate a link that allowed the whole family to upload their photos to a shared folder on the NAS. Modern NAS solutions a pretty much plug-and-play cloud solutions for the home.

The only "cloud" I still trust is Apple (iCloud). They seem to (at least for for now) take privacy seriously and have put in a lot of work building a reputation as a good data steward. As long as your data is encrypted at rest, you should be good.

The NAS is worth your consideration if you are serious about data provenance.
Jul 24, 2026 at 12:20 PM
snegron7
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p.1 #20My Reason For Film


sean_s wrote:
snegron7 wroteOnedrive still was able to hijack my workflow to the point where I now have to do a factory reset to wipe out all the damage Microsoft did to my once super-fast computer.
This is just a hunch, but what you are describing sounds like an artifact of indexing. When you install one of those cloud sync tools on your computer — you know, like OneDrive's "OnDemand" utility that automatically syncs your files between your device and the cloud — it can take a very long time for it to index all of your files. In my experience, this can take a long time (days, maybe a week). But once it reaches 100%, the tool should idle with minimal impact to your computer performance. In the early days of these tools, there were...Show more →
snegron7 wroteMy point is that companies like Microsoft, Google and Adobe (to name a few), are complicit in not only increasing everyone's dependence on AI, but also hijacking your personal images to the point that for the average person it's just "easier to give in to them and pay them to own all your images". Whether we choose to or not, all of our hijacked images become part of AI yraining for these big companies.

The easist solution we used to have was to back up our images on external hard drives. But, thanks to these same big companies and their AI expansion quest, buying nemory is now almost cost prohibitive. Coincidence? I think not.



Thanks! The ussues with Onedrive started when I toggled the sync & backup sliders to off. Onedrive immediately changed the file path of my desktop folders to funnel through their Onedrive folder. I then unlinked Onedrive from my laptop and disconnected my computer from the wifi to avoid any further data transfer/unwanted syncing. But was unable to restore my desktop folders to their original locations. Every time I tried moving a folder or copying onto my desktop, I would get the "insufficient space available" warning. I panicked yet again and re-saved all my files to backup SSD's, then erased all files from the Onedrive folder. So, now my desktop has loads of folders and most likely corrupted files thanks to all of this. That's why I'm resetting everything back to factory settings then re-installing my files from my SSD's (and deleting every Microsoft file plus cancelling my subscription).

Prior to this whole Onedrive disaster, my workflow consisted of shooting images, going home and physically saving my images onto my desktop, then onto an SSD. Worked perfectly for years without any hiccups until I made the Microsoft mistake.

Unfortunately the increase in price of SSD, and storage in general, has made my traditional workflow unnecessarily expensive.
Jul 24, 2026 at 12:51 PM


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