Are you a Die-Hard when it comes to film?

[Keith]

Exactly my thoughts, too. Comparing film-based photography and sensor-based digital imaging is like comparing apples and oranges. That the "taking-devices" look similar and use mostly the same lenses doesn't make it similar.

About film, this 4x5 thing is getting more and more interesting ...

Do it ... everything about it is brilliant. From loading the film holders in a dark bag to remembering to remove the dark slide before exposing (or removing it with the shutter still open after focusing :bang🙂 to finally seeing those 4x5 negatives hanging to dry. Not to mention the fun of carrying around a camera that weighs five pounds that's an absolute blast to use and you also get to use that tripod someone bought you a couple of years ago for your birthday.

Large format is like making love ... digital is like a quickie in the back of the car on the way home from the movies! 😛

 

[titrisol]

Because it is magic....
is not like computer processing or anything, you have to do it yourself, and no matter how you do it you know that each print will be slightly diferent to the other.

I think that digital cameras will someday be able to imitate all the visual magic that we love about the film image. Image sensors are becoming more sensitive and able to meet or surpass the dynamic range of film. Processing software is becoming more sophisticated in it's ability to imitate the look
of different film types. All in all, we will be able to do anything with a digital camera that we used to do with a film camera! We can even learn the art quicker and easier with digital. I dare say, we may also be able to enjoy photography with a digital camera!

My question is why do we love film and dread it's passing? I have been buying film processing equipment on Ebay to take over when my favorite lab gets out of the business. (By the way, good time to buy mini-lab processors. My favorites are the Photo-therm Super Sidekicks, which are much more of a
bargain than any of the Jobo processors.) Do I sound like a nut or are there others out there willing to spend several hundred dollars to process their own film?

P.S. I love my digital cameras: Leica M8 and Canon 40D

 

[amateriat]

The issue with digital for me has been somewhat less about the quality of the images the things spit out (awfully good by now with the upper-crust models), but with the ways the cameras work when in my hands. The intuitiveness of cameras such as my Hexar RFs, IMO, wipe the floor with every pro and mid-level dSLR I've ever come across. Drilling though menus gets a bit old when you're doing it for the fifth time in half that many hours. The above statement, of course, is predicated on my understanding of film's strengths and weaknesses.


- Barrett

 

[maddoc]

Do it ... everything about it is brilliant. From loading the film holders in a dark bag to remembering to remove the dark slide before exposing (or removing it with the shutter still open after focusing :bang🙂 to finally seeing those 4x5 negatives hanging to dry. Not to mention the fun of carrying around a camera that weighs five pounds that's an absolute blast to use and you also get to use that tripod someone bought you a couple of years ago for your birthday.

Large format is like making love ... digital is like a quickie in the back of the car on the way home from the movies! 😛

That all sounds promising !! 🙂🙂 A Crown Graflex might be a good start, I guess ?

 

[mh2000]

yup... after spitting up blood for 2 days after a long darkroom session I "went digital" for 4 years... then I started shooting C41 b&w and started scanning... a nice compromise IMO. I love film and film cameras.

Film may be dead... but it is a slow death... so until it doubles in price and full frame digitals are $500 I keep using it... and when FF digitals are $500... I'm sure they will be damn good too.

The term 'die hard to' me suggests a slightly closed mind and an inability to move on from familiarity. I personally prefer the look of film but I wouldn't consider myself locked into it and I've spoken to several people who encountered health problems associated with endless hours spent in poorly ventilated darkrooms.

Digital is in it's infancy compared to how long photographers have been using silver and it's inability to mimick film perfectly is not coincidental ... the majority of the population don't want it to! They want sharp oversaturated images like the ones they see on their flat screen plasmas or LCD's ... film's dead! 😛 (there I said it)

 

[Roger Hicks]

I am not in the least a diehard. I use both film and digital (mostly Leicas in both cases) and I'm very happy with some of the colour shots I've made with the M8. But the great majority of my favourite shots are wet-printed black and white.

My wife, on the other hand, never uses digital if she can avoid it.

Sure, I've seen B+W prints made by inkjet printer manufacturers that are very good: indistinguishable, without a magnifier, from halide. With the right subject, it's not difficult. I've even made a few myself. But with a subject that doesn't 'want' to go on digital, silver halide wins hands down.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sepiareverb]

Large format is like making love ... digital is like a quickie in the back of the car on the way home from the movies! 😛

Has it been that long Keith? 😀

 

[summilux]

heard that kodak will release Ektar 100 in the coming Photokina.

 

[agianelo]

My real question was:

My real question was:

Thanks for all the replies to my post, but I was really wanting to hear if:

"are there others out there willing to spend several hundred dollars to process their own film?"

Even though I am often willing to spend much more on a camera or lens than I just spent on my own mini-lab, I somehow felt like a "nut" or a "die-hard".

Know the feeling??

 

[kevin m]

The intuitiveness of cameras such as my Hexar RFs, IMO, wipe the floor with every pro and mid-level dSLR I've ever come across. Drilling though menus gets a bit old when you're doing it for the fifth time in half that many hours.

Which is why I'm hoping the M9 is more like the R-D1. It's easy to forget you're shooting digital when using that camera and, as you said, that's a good deal of the annoyance of digital capture: the sense that you're taking pictures with a computer. 🙂

 

[jolefler]

I don't think a nut or die hard....but you must shoot a lot of film to justify a mini lab. I have several hundo in processing equipment (incl. enlargers/lenses, etc.), but it's all manual. There's a way to do what the machine does by hand, just more slowly. I can't justify running a line when a tank & water bath will do. I just don't do more than four rolls at a crack.

Who knows, I'm probably behind the times (wouldn't be the first occurance).

Jo

 

[amateriat]

I don't think a nut or die hard....but you must shoot a lot of film to justify a mini lab. I have several hundo in processing equipment (incl. enlargers/lenses, etc.), but it's all manual. There's a way to do what the machine does by hand, just more slowly. I can't justify running a line when a tank & water bath will do. I just don't do more than four rolls at a crack.

Who knows, I'm probably behind the times (wouldn't be the first occurance).

Jo

This reminds me: when I worked for a media-services company in the 80s, I was in charge of running an E6 sink line (thats's a hand-operated dip-and-dunk with water-jacket temperature control), and did a tight-enough job with control that I was running my own film through the line with nary a thought; in fact, the Ektachrome slides of the WTC images in my show (opening tonight...talk about a coincidental plug) were run through that line, and look great, all these 27 years later.

I will say, however, that whether it's E6 or C41, I'm quite happy to let a lab do it now. 🙂


- Barrett

 

[payasam]

I think we must agree with those who say that while the technology of digital photography is advancing rapidly, that of film photography is static: that a time will come when digital will not merely imitate film but will surpass it.

 

[amateriat]

I think we must agree with those who say that while the technology of digital photography is advancing rapidly, that of film photography is static: that a time will come when digital will not merely imitate film but will surpass it.

I wouldn't so much say static as much as merely slow: most of the major improvements in contemporary film technology, IMO, came between around 1993 and 2003, and most of the R&D was directed at high-speed color-neg emulsions. Whatever film-based R&D is being done now is pretty much the same. But then, that's long been the case, because color neg has been the backbone of both Kodak's and Fuji's film business for decades, outselling both color-slide and black-and-white by the proverbial order of magnitude.


- Barrett

 

[sepiareverb]

Again with the "surpass it"? These are different mediums. Does oil paint surpass egg tempera? Do Doritos surpass tortillas?

 

[ElrodCod]

What's "digital"?

 

[LeicaM3]

Which is why I'm hoping the M9 is more like the R-D1. It's easy to forget you're shooting digital when using that camera and, as you said, that's a good deal of the annoyance of digital capture: the sense that you're taking pictures with a computer. 🙂

Word.
It's like using a RF... and then having the images digital vs. on film.

R-D1, digital RF done mostly right.

But I am still 90% film.

 

[40oz]

I think we must agree with those who say that while the technology of digital photography is advancing rapidly, that of film photography is static: that a time will come when digital will not merely imitate film but will surpass it.

I think we must agree that digital camera technology still has a very long way to go.

 

[photogdave]

Again with the "surpass it"? These are different mediums. Does oil paint surpass egg tempera? Do Doritos surpass tortillas?

Doritos are too smooth and plastic-looking. Tortillas are more organic and the grains are more pleasing. :angel:

 

[agianelo]

I don't think a nut or die hard....but you must shoot a lot of film to justify a mini lab. I have several hundo in processing equipment (incl. enlargers/lenses, etc.), but it's all manual. There's a way to do what the machine does by hand, just more slowly. I can't justify running a line when a tank & water bath will do. I just don't do more than four rolls at a crack.

Who knows, I'm probably behind the times (wouldn't be the first occurance).

Jo

I'm just seeing $6000.00 automatic mini-lab machines selling for $500 on Ebay (I bought one). I can process two rolls at a time in either B/W, C-41 or E6 without any fuss, just push a button. Small machine that sits on top of a table with lots of bottles attached.