Do you Shoot Film or Digital?

Do you Shoot Film or Digital?

  • All Film

    Votes: 190 19.8%

  • Mostly Film, Some Digital

    Votes: 358 37.3%

  • All Digital

    Votes: 55 5.7%

  • Mostly Digital, Some Film

    Votes: 357 37.2%
  • Total voters
    960
Learning to soup my own negs has increased the percentage of film.

I'd shoot even more digital if there were a better-than-the-M8 digital platform available ($$$) to me for my M lenses.
 
I would have answered 100% film six months ago, but now I find myself embroiled in a project that requires 100% (or so it seems at the moment) digital. Oh well, six months from now who knows, I might be painting.
 
toyotadesigner said:
100% film. Because this is real photography.

I have a bunch of high quality and precise camera systems which are phenomenal performers (and outperform any digital system available today), so I don't see any reason to sell any of them just to invest a fortune into a crump of plastic which is obsolete after 6 or 12 months.

Simple as that.
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toyota, Just curious... what "high quality and precise camera systems" are you using?
 
Since about 2003-4 I've been shooting strictly digital. Then, a few weeks ago, I just had a notion to shoot b&w again. Digital conversions are good but not the same. Having a variety of film SLRs and a Kodak Retina IIIc and Minolta 7SII I decided to consider shooting some film again. It's been 30 years since I was in a darkroom but decided to sign up for a couple classes at the local community college where they have nice scanners and a good darkroom.

Haven't actually shot anything yet with the old stuff but I did get four rolls of 24 exp. Fuji 200 color film at Walmart for $6.50 and am thinking of getting some 400 too. It's dirt cheap compared to many of the online places and it's all fresh stock.

However, my real interest is shooting film b&w not color. While I think digital excels at color it doesn't excel at b&w. Still, shooting color film again might be kinda fun too.

All this is really an excuse for me to buy a Leica M3/2/4. 😉
 
toyotadesigner said:
Jan,

35mm: 2x Contax G2 systems with 16mm to 90mm, Nikon F4s 2x with 15mm to 600mm (only prime lenses), Fuji GW 690 III with 3.5/90mm and GSW 690 III with 5.6/65mm, Plaubel 69W ProShift Superwide with Schneider Super-Angulon 5.6/47mm, Arca Swiss F line monorail with Rodenstock lenses from 45mm to 240mm.

All lenses with either zero (Zeiss, Fuji, Schneider, Rodenstock) or only marginal distortion (Nikon), no or marginal (compared to digital) chromatic aberration.

And yes, I am prepared to deliver technical data for the resolution of film - even for 35mm - compared to digital 😀
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That's a pretty nice line up. We both have some overlap. I've a Contax but it's the G1 with the 28,35,45,90 ; Fuji BL G690 with 65, 100 180; LF Toyo A 65 - 210.

I'm purely amateur though I recall you shoot pro. Do you have any client issues shooting film and time taken for processing vs competition using digital workflows?
 
Hasn't film done well! I am quite surprised by the poll, but suspect lots of oppressed film users voted whereas all-digital-ninjas might have been less inclined to bother - you know, being full members of the new order.

Although I curse the darkroom when things dont go well, I still cannot get over the magic of hitting the lights and seeing a beautiful, gleaming print in the tray. Printing digital feels like waiting for passport booth photos to emerge 😀

I use digital for happy snaps and to copy silver prints for the internet/digital usage.

I have been shooting a long-term project over several years on film and it has been seriously hard work, but I still get all tingly when I see the finished results. I will be thinking hard about digital cameras for serious use over th next few months tho.
 
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Mostly digital rangefinders, then film cameras, then DSLRs, then digital p&s (~20 pictures a year), then cell phone cameras (~10 pictures a year).

I think I should add a film SLR and see if I will use it more than the DSLRs. Or perhaps LF and see if I think I can afford to use it more than the cell phones.
 
Gravitating back toward film again.. There's something about the pictures that I can't seem to get with a digital camera. It's not that film is superior, it's got its flaws, but I just like it better for people pictures. Maybe it's because it reminds me of shooting with a clunker SLR in the seventies..
 
Lately, if I do a "photo walkabout", that is, for "art", I use film (Fuji 690 or M2). If I'm shooting around friends/family, it's generally digital (M8 / DLUX4 / etc).

But I have to admit over the last 10+ years, it's been mostly digital.
 
The question may well have been:
Of those earning a living from photography, does anyone shoot film, and if so, what % and what is the subject matter. <2% at a guess

Most working photograhers have left film in the gutter. I don't know any who still have film cameras even (some landscape photographers not withstanding). This is a niche market, even more so RF film cameras.

Film is for personal projects only; clients aren't interested in waiting a week to see results!
 
Ti29er said:
The question may well have been:
Of those earning a living from photography, does anyone shoot film, and if so, what % and what is the subject matter. <2% at a guess

Most working photograhers have left film in the gutter. I don't know any who still have film cameras even (some landscape photographers not withstanding). This is a niche market, even more so RF film cameras.

Film is for personal projects only; clients aren't interested in waiting a week to see results!
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A week? What kind of lab takes a week? My mom and pop shop only takes an hour!🙂 Takes me that long to batch process all the digital images I shoot and I hate computer work, I would much rather be making images.
 
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