Why I'm Shooting Film Again

[wlewisiii]

LOVE that cornfield. That's the kind of thing I go looking for 🙂 A couple of weeks ago, with the Nikon S2, Jupiter 12, XP2. Pretty sure it was wide open.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

LOVE that cornfield. That's the kind of thing I go looking for 🙂 A couple of weeks ago, with the Nikon S2, Jupiter 12, XP2. Pretty sure it was wide open.

View attachment 4828982

Nice. The shallow depth of field from shooting wide open worked well since the fig would have softened the detail anyway. The farm where I photographed the field in the fog is near my house, I have photographed there several times over the last 20 years. The shot of the sunflower in the fog with the tree in the background in my original post was from the same place.

 

[Godfrey]

Hi Chris! I enjoy seeing your work, whether made with film or digital capture: you have a wonderful eye.

Personally, I started working with digital capture as long ago and far away as 1984 when I started working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, doing image capture work with prototype imaging radar systems. I didn't apply digital capture to my personal photography until some time in the 1990s, and bought my first "real" quality digital camera in 2003 (either a Sony something or other or a Canon 10D, can't remember which). Since then, the majority of my exposures have been digital capture, but I have continued shooting film as well ... I have too many nice film cameras to simply stop using them. 🙂

Keep on keeping on ... Make wonderful photographs however you like!

G

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Chris, the photo of the post office is superb!

 

[Bill Blackwell]

Chris: I had originally assumed that "returning" to film meant you were leaving digital (thus my first response - #55). However, re-looking over your original post and your responses since makes me realize this likely was not the case. I certainly meant no offense; it is sufficient that you're taking pictures and sharing your fine work. Please keep it up!

 

[Prest_400]

Lovely shots Chris!

I find running (Medium format) film next to digital and phone are great combinations. Bill Mentions the M9, but for me, the RX100 does a perfect photo EDC and that 1" 20MP sensor punches very well, and above 35mm in many parameters (If I heard myself say this years ago). With 35mm I have to/fros and now are mostly away in Medium format.
Was discussing with a photo friend about the certain attachment we have to film, and he brought up AI imaging that will be another tool of the staple. That after mobile photography is a different layer that moves imaging more towards the abstract; whereas film is the old physically based medium.

I sent some film to a lab that does the large TIFF scans on a Frontier. There is a coloration to those scans, very appreciated by a lot of hybrid shooters, but that is relatively pleasing in some shots. This one isn't the most neutral but has some eyecandy to me.

Swedish Baltic coast. Portra 400, GW690III

 

[DownUnder]

Like so many others of my vintage, I shoot film a lot because I still have so much of it in my darkroom fridge.

35mm and 120. Last weekend I (finally!) did a count. 78 rolls of '35', three bulk rolls of Kodak Panatomic-X, one bulk roll of Plus-X, Tri-X all used up and oh man, do I ever miss it... 120, 118 rolls, mostly Ilford including far too much XP2. A few odd rolls of stuff I've had for decades and likely will never ever use, like Kodak Technical Pan and some odd Agfa leftover stock.

When it's all used up, or I put my cameras down for the last time, whichever comes first - well, I don't know. Time will tell and I'll see.

I still love my one remaining Contax G1 - I recently sold off the other three to a Japanese collector who paid me my asking price for them, so win-win for us both - with the 28 Biogon, to me the best lens ever made for this camera. Two Nikkormats and two Nikon F65s still get taken out on odd occasions when I feel like working with heavier gear. Ditto my Rolleiflexes. My two circa 1950 folders nowadays see very little action, but I keep them for nostalgia's sake.

Also a beaut old Leica iig and a few Leitz lenses and other bits, but somehow I find I almost never use it. My latest shelf queen. Lovely gear, tho'.

The Olympus Pen-F is one I've always wanted to own, but never did. My loss. Amazing results I see posted in this thread, for the camera's size and format. One of the true gems of 1960s photography.The late Ray Metzker made good use of this camera in his day. His superb results speak for themselves, and for the quality of the camera.

Nowadays I use my digital Nikons more, but this isn't the place for such comments, so let's not go there.

Film to me is an entirely different mindset from The Big D. It makes me pause, stop, reflect. I consciously try to shoot less and I hope, better. I've never been a photo machine gunner, but I find I pause and think more before I press the button. Less exciting at my age is all the time I spend in my home darkroom, but in recent years I've fine-tuned these processes so I short cut a bit. I no longer print much, which opens a new can of worms, what to do with the two storage cartons of unopened boxes of all the lovely FB paper I've kept. Ilford Galerie 11x14 and 16x20 I bought in 2001 or 2002 from a closed photo studio in Australia may never, ever make it to my LPL B&W custom enlarger or my beaut Saunders easel or my processing trays Sad in a way. But so it goes. At my age life isn't about doing everything but doing what I can when I can. And remembering that perfection is really the enemy of the good enough...

 

[wlewisiii]

Went out on Monday for a long drive with both Nikon D810 & S2 in my bag fully intending to shoot both. Only shot digital 😱 🤣
Gotta post some of them somewhere but a film thread doesn't quite seem right 😉

That's ok, shot half a roll of HP5+ today.

As an aside, odorless - as in “Odorless Fixer” - is only odorless in comparison to some of the other versions out there 🤣

I was reminded of this as I mixed a gallon of D76 and a gallon of fixer tonight for the first time in far too many years. Cleaning the rest of the necessities and getting it ready. OTOH, hiding in the bottom of the box I moved them here over a year ago, the jugs of Diafine A & B are still intact and look good. Going to have to sacrifice a roll of something to test it 🤔

Big impatience is waiting on the scanner gadget for my digital camera.

Back to the future indeed 😎

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (nikkor h auto 50mm f2) nikkormat ftn

Amsterdam, 1974 (the mooring of seagoing vessels in the port of Amsterdam)

Erik.

 

[das]

I shoot exclusively film for two reasons - one, I dont shoot enough to justify the depreciation on a digital camera and two, I kind of hate what the digital world has done to us.

Many of us here grew up with records / cassettes / books / cameras / negatives / slides / snail mail letters, etc. The modern economy wants us to own nothing tangible or long lasting, with the tradeoff that on demand we can listen or any song, watch any movie, read any online book, take and publish worldwide any photo or video in an instant. I just don't think that despite that unlimited, instant access to the entire world of everything that we are better or more fulfilled for it. Maybe many in society are, but I am not.

I lost many digital photos that I took over the years. Phones break and digital cameras bricked and hard drives failed and data cds permanently skipped and laptops were stolen. Once in a lifetime stuff, gone. But I have every single negative from every film shot I've ever taken, every letter someone wrote me, and every record I ever bought. No one will steal these things and they will last 50-80 years or more, decades after every Leica M13 has been tossed in the recycle bin.

I just want to sit back an enjoy being in the last generation or two of people who actually own / collect real things, not just temporarily rent them, or whose possessions become worthless or inoperable through planned obsolescence. I understand that many people would think differently, and I have no problem with that.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (s skopar 50mm f2.5) contax 1

Amsterdam, 2016

Erik.

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

I shoot exclusively film for two reasons - one, I dont shoot enough to justify the depreciation on a digital camera and two, I kind of hate what the digital world has done to us.

Many of us here grew up with records / cassettes / books / cameras / negatives / slides / snail mail letters, etc. The modern economy wants us to own nothing tangible or long lasting, with the tradeoff that on demand we can listen or any song, watch any movie, read any online book, take and publish worldwide any photo or video in an instant. I just don't think that despite that unlimited, instant access to the entire world of everything that we are better or more fulfilled for it. Maybe many in society are, but I am not.

I lost many digital photos that I took over the years. Phones break and digital cameras bricked and hard drives failed and data cds permanently skipped and laptops were stolen. Once in a lifetime stuff, gone. But I have every single negative from every film shot I've ever taken, every letter someone wrote me, and every record I ever bought. No one will steal these things and they will last 50-80 years or more, decades after every Leica M13 has been tossed in the recycle bin.

I just want to sit back an enjoy being in the last generation or two of people who actually own / collect real things, not just temporarily rent them, or whose possessions become worthless or inoperable through planned obsolescence. I understand that many people would think differently, and I have no problem with that.

Very well said.

I find a certain pleasure in owning 40–50 year old cameras that work just as well as the day they were made. I have a Pentax SL, for example, made around the time I was born. My father could have purchased it to take pictures of me as a baby, I'm taking pictures of my daughter with it today, and if film continues to be available, I could give it to her and she could take pictures of her children with it in the future.

 

[wlewisiii]

I shoot exclusively film for two reasons - one, I dont shoot enough to justify the depreciation on a digital camera and two, I kind of hate what the digital world has done to us.

Many of us here grew up with records / cassettes / books / cameras / negatives / slides / snail mail letters, etc. The modern economy wants us to own nothing tangible or long lasting, with the tradeoff that on demand we can listen or any song, watch any movie, read any online book, take and publish worldwide any photo or video in an instant. I just don't think that despite that unlimited, instant access to the entire world of everything that we are better or more fulfilled for it. Maybe many in society are, but I am not.

I lost many digital photos that I took over the years. Phones break and digital cameras bricked and hard drives failed and data cds permanently skipped and laptops were stolen. Once in a lifetime stuff, gone. But I have every single negative from every film shot I've ever taken, every letter someone wrote me, and every record I ever bought. No one will steal these things and they will last 50-80 years or more, decades after every Leica M13 has been tossed in the recycle bin.

I just want to sit back an enjoy being in the last generation or two of people who actually own / collect real things, not just temporarily rent them, or whose possessions become worthless or inoperable through planned obsolescence. I understand that many people would think differently, and I have no problem with that.

While I can understand the sentiment, I still have all the important digital photos I've ever taken as well as boxes of negatives that were commercially processed and binders of negatives that I processed. None of them are inherently any safer from the ravages of time. If I were to keel over from a massive coronary after typing this I have no doubt the negs would end up in the same dumpster as the computer.

I find that I enjoy taking photos with film, I enjoy developing film, I don't mind scanning and post-processing scans, I never never never liked wet printing so I won't bother with that ever again.

Likewise, when CD's came out my albums were sold and I've never looked back. I happily made the same transition to digital files from CDs since then. When I need a CD for my vehicle, a blank and a burner provides until it wears out.

Digital and analog both have strengths and weaknesses. I am enjoying shooting my S2 tremendously and enjoying the photos from it. That hardly means I am going to stop using my Leica or my D810. One of the most enjoyable decisions each day is which of my EDC cameras goes with me:
The beautiful girl: Leica M Type 240 Chiyoko (Kobalux 28/3.5, Super Rokkor 50/2, Elmar 90/4)
The BIG Dragoon: Nikon D810 (Nikon AF 28-105mm/3.5-4.5 D, AF 50/1.4 D, Tokina AF 17/3.5)
My 60th birthday present from this September: Nikon S2 (Jupiter 12 3.5cm/2.8, Nikkor 5cm/1.4. Nikkor 10.5cm/2.5)

Often both rangefinders go out in the same bag. But at least one goes with me every time I go somewhere. I'm a hybrid kind of guy in the end.