Nh3
Well-known
In my humble opinion film has made a comeback.
Film has made a comeback in a very subtle way. There are quite a few reasons but mainly its due to camera hobbyist and collector/photographers, young people who are bored of digital and find film cameras 'cool', digital photographers frustrated with unforgiving nature of digital which shows everything as it is without that extra characteristic that film adds to a picture.
First of all I think people who use film fall in five categories:
1- Camera hobbyist and collectors who love old cameras. And film cameras with its vast verity provide them an inexhaustible selection... There is a subgroup to this category which consists of mainly younger people who consider it highly fashionable to use old film cameras and collect them. This category with its subgroup is by far the the largest base of film users.
2- Photographer's who have grown up with film and have spent a lot of time learning how to use film and are either computer illiterate or afraid/hate new technology.
3- Creative photographers who have specific aesthetic and look in mind which they get with film and that "look" is like a signature - Salgado and Alex Webb comes to mind.
4- Digital users who use film as a sort of "therapy" when their creative justices run out or for casual relaxing shoots.
5- Students who feel they need to start with film to learn about photography.
As the digital DSLRs have become well-established there has been a surge back to film because for most of the younger people the coolness factor of digital has faded so it was no wonder that the other day the used film section of my local camera store was nearly empty and as i was standing there a guy bought a Nikon F2 with a motordrive and the cashier girl was playing with a Nikon FE... In the same store the film chemical shelf was stocked with a wide verity and the film counter behind the cashier used to carry less than five selection of films both 35 and medium format but the other day there was a five level shelf full of all sorts of film and fridge was full of film as well.
Online camera message boards and clubs have been another force in making classic camera knowledge base more widespread and selling/buying of classic camers more easy and reliable. And Internet is where the camera hobbyist and collectors suddenly were connected to young people wanting to shoot film and with the knowledge and tool from the former group and money to spend by the later group there has been suddenly a surge of film users. And then off course internet has made it quite easy for people to learn how to process their own film with even videos on YouTube teaching how to process film.
Digital cameras are purely mechanical photographic tools and they are absolutely unforgiving. for example using Trix makes even the most boring of stuff interesting because the look of the film adds a certain atmosphere and mood to the picture, with digital its purely "what-it-is" and therefore, a lot of people soon feel bored of digital and frustrated on how ordinary their images look. And naturally those frustrated and bored with digital suddenly find in film a medium which actually 'helps the photographer actually like his own pictures'...
My conclusion as someone who falls squarely in 4th category in my classification and who is a digital user is that film has made a come back and it will continue to do so. Off course its all not good news because color film and processing has declined and will continue to do so, from Kodachrome to E6 and even C41 - the labs are closing and will not process them or the processing cost has increased (wal-mart increased C41 processing recently here in canada). But b&w has made a huge comeback because of ease of precessing and its appeal to many because of historical as well as aesthetic reasons; however, its mainly the ease of developing
/i typed this in a hurry so forgive the mistakes etc...
Film has made a comeback in a very subtle way. There are quite a few reasons but mainly its due to camera hobbyist and collector/photographers, young people who are bored of digital and find film cameras 'cool', digital photographers frustrated with unforgiving nature of digital which shows everything as it is without that extra characteristic that film adds to a picture.
First of all I think people who use film fall in five categories:
1- Camera hobbyist and collectors who love old cameras. And film cameras with its vast verity provide them an inexhaustible selection... There is a subgroup to this category which consists of mainly younger people who consider it highly fashionable to use old film cameras and collect them. This category with its subgroup is by far the the largest base of film users.
2- Photographer's who have grown up with film and have spent a lot of time learning how to use film and are either computer illiterate or afraid/hate new technology.
3- Creative photographers who have specific aesthetic and look in mind which they get with film and that "look" is like a signature - Salgado and Alex Webb comes to mind.
4- Digital users who use film as a sort of "therapy" when their creative justices run out or for casual relaxing shoots.
5- Students who feel they need to start with film to learn about photography.
As the digital DSLRs have become well-established there has been a surge back to film because for most of the younger people the coolness factor of digital has faded so it was no wonder that the other day the used film section of my local camera store was nearly empty and as i was standing there a guy bought a Nikon F2 with a motordrive and the cashier girl was playing with a Nikon FE... In the same store the film chemical shelf was stocked with a wide verity and the film counter behind the cashier used to carry less than five selection of films both 35 and medium format but the other day there was a five level shelf full of all sorts of film and fridge was full of film as well.
Online camera message boards and clubs have been another force in making classic camera knowledge base more widespread and selling/buying of classic camers more easy and reliable. And Internet is where the camera hobbyist and collectors suddenly were connected to young people wanting to shoot film and with the knowledge and tool from the former group and money to spend by the later group there has been suddenly a surge of film users. And then off course internet has made it quite easy for people to learn how to process their own film with even videos on YouTube teaching how to process film.
Digital cameras are purely mechanical photographic tools and they are absolutely unforgiving. for example using Trix makes even the most boring of stuff interesting because the look of the film adds a certain atmosphere and mood to the picture, with digital its purely "what-it-is" and therefore, a lot of people soon feel bored of digital and frustrated on how ordinary their images look. And naturally those frustrated and bored with digital suddenly find in film a medium which actually 'helps the photographer actually like his own pictures'...
My conclusion as someone who falls squarely in 4th category in my classification and who is a digital user is that film has made a come back and it will continue to do so. Off course its all not good news because color film and processing has declined and will continue to do so, from Kodachrome to E6 and even C41 - the labs are closing and will not process them or the processing cost has increased (wal-mart increased C41 processing recently here in canada). But b&w has made a huge comeback because of ease of precessing and its appeal to many because of historical as well as aesthetic reasons; however, its mainly the ease of developing
/i typed this in a hurry so forgive the mistakes etc...
