I miss Shooting Film

I second kshapero.
I grew up shooting film, learned photography on film, shot digital for a year, and went right back to film.

I do miss some of the convenience, and the hi-resolution of modern DSLRs, but shooting and printing film is a joy that cannot come from anything else for me.

You're in a good position, though - you have the option of both!
 
Not all that surprised. I've shot (and still shoot) digital as well: much simpler in some ways, sneakily harder in others. Film scanning seems an extra step, but ultimately I get what I want straight off the bat, which I frequently can't say about digital.. So, around here, film gets shot most of the time.


- Barrett
 
I've got a junky little digital camera and the wife likes her little digital camera but I must say I've never really warmed up to digital cameras. I like to take my own pictures, and old film cameras let a person do that.
 
I have a 40D, and it's a great camera, but I find it just doesn't inspire me to shoot the way my pentax 67 or himatic do. that said I am going to force myself to start using it more, chiefly because I feel it is going to waste if I don't.
 
I went through this, too. Since my spiritually-rewarding career keeps me very busy, I have not yet found a way to make time for either darkroom or PP. I know this stunts my growth as an artist in that I cannot pursue perfection. Just being able to shoot as an enthusiastic amateur is perfection enough. In terms of getting the best result for the least amount of effort after the initial involvement of taking the photograph, film (even developed by others) consistently delivers a certain kind of satisfaction in the final image that digital doesn't.

That said, digital does deliver other types of satisfaction that film is weak on.

One day there will be a small body that produces excellent, appealing images at very high iso...
 
I've had an M8 since November '06, and I certainly haven't said goodbye to film. The MP has a different tactile quality; doesn't involve me in faffing around with computers; gives me durable, easy-to-find negatives; and delivers B+Ws that I vastly prefer.

True, I shoot much less colour film nowadays, but then, the relationship between colour and mono seems to me to resemble the relationship between digital and film. Colour and digital are easy, quick and convenient, while film and mono are more satisfying and real.

Cheers,

R.
 
My wife does not like that when I take the digicam I only shoot 20 or 30 pictures during an outing while other guys shoot 20000000000000000 times.
However, when I go out with a film body she is very comfortable with the same fact.
 
Looking at the photos on my computer.... ALL the photos taken by myself in the last 3 months have been on my film cameras..... my SLR and P&S have been idle or been used to take eBay snaps....
 
literiter said:
I've got a junky little digital camera and the wife likes her little digital camera but I must say I've never really warmed up to digital cameras. I like to take my own pictures, and old film cameras let a person do that.
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I can totally relate to that. Difference is, MY wife was actually against me going digital - and she was RIGHT. She said the pictures looked too smooth and perfect. She also said she liked the old (analog) times better when I would not talk equipment all day but just go and take pictures.

Well - duh. I did have to go digital, didn't I? And with no M8 either, but a 350D. What I could not stand was the lenses, all this light, wobbly EF crap with no distance scales - and I'm talking about the EF primes here. :bang:

Now I'm back to analog. First I got out the old FD stuff - so much more satisfying to hold and work with. Then I got into rangefinders... now I'm in heaven again. 😀
 
I started shooting with digital. Now I shoot exclusively film. I sold all my digital kit, except my RD1 which I don't use, but I like to keep it. It helped me a lot getting use to shoot RF's.
There are a lot of reasons to shoot only film for my projects. But I think that the main reason is the lack of materiality of the digital files. And one more thing: I don't think that the image is just the sum of all the pixels, and I do think that digital is just that. The sensor records only the value of each pixel without the relations between them. And this is the reason of the artificial look of a file created by the digital camera. I don't think that digital is making photographs, but rather image-type digital files, that actually looks like this: 0000111010110110101111001111011111010). A bit extreme, but that's my story.
 
Film clearly has a unique look and feel. Interestingly, film is much closer to digital than other analog processes like vinyl music albums. B&W film consists of discrete silver halide particles (grain). And film suffers the limitations as digital, except the discrete pixels can be much smaller than film grain, which results in the smooth look of digital (some say too smooth a look).

But if you enlarge either film or digital images far enough, you lose the smoothness of the image as the discrete receptors (pixels or silver halide particles) get spread farther and farther apart. Which is why a 16x20 from a 50mp back on a Hasselblad looks so much nicer than one from a Canon 40D. Or why a Medium format photo at 16x20 looks better than one shot with 35mm. Film photography doesn't produce continuous tones in the same sense a turntable needle tracks a spiral grove in vinyl.

Sorry, I just occasionally have to post stuff like this to feel like I haven't wasted my timing learning all this useless trivia I've picked up over the years. 🙂
 
I like the way my B&W stuff looks with digital capture. In fact, I pretty much shoot the same way now as when I was shooting B&W film, and I convert over 90% of my digital files to B&W. Nothing has changed that much for me. I have simply replaced my wet darkroom with a computer.

While I do not miss film that much, I do miss some of my old film cameras, such as my rangefinders. Over the years, I owned several of the newer Bessas, a Leica M5, an Olympus XA, I shot the Contax G system for a while, and so on- and I miss the size and workmanship of those cameras.

But that is changing too, my friends. I am very excited about the possiblities of the newly announced micro 4/3 system. Whether or not that particular system pans out, I think that it is definately a move in the right direction.

You know, when I first went completely digital, I thought I would miss my darkroom. When I sat down in front of a computer and saw what I could do with my new B&W images, that feeling lasted about 30 seconds. Naw, I don't miss film one bit.
 
It's interesting to be going down this path again ... a re-ocurring thread where we all gather together and chant ... "all hail film!"

Apples and oranges ... after seeing what a 5x4 negative scans like I can now see why the large format boys (and girls) dismiss 35mm! You get the detail of digital but without the slightly bland flavour that most digital images seem to have ... the best of both worlds!
 
Double Negative said:
That's kind of how I look at it too - sort of... When I went digital I did, totally. But now that I'm shooting film again I went back to at least souping my own. I don't have any interest (at this point) in setting up the wet printing side. A nice scanner and printer with a copy of Photoshop handles that now which much greater efficiency.

Film can be developed in a half hour - it's the printing that took hours and hours in the darkroom. I just don't have that kind of time anymore.
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You know, I was tempted about 6 months ago to buy another film camera. I came across a really sweet deal on a Contax G2 with lenses and I almost pulled the trigger. I really miss those Zeiss lenses. And I was thinking along the same lines as you. Just process the film and forget about wet printing. When I scanned some of my old B&W negatives, I borrowed a Minolta scanner from a friend and had a good time scanning. But in the end, I decided to stay with digital.

Who knows, maybe one night, after a few drinks, I will find a good deal on ebay and wake up the next morning a proud papa of a new rangefinder film camera. :bang::bang:
 
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