Ever have one of these days?

[wblanchard]

Here's the deal....I'm shooting sunsets in Florida off the Gulf of Mexico last month with my Hexar AF (Classic Black) and a woman approaches me from behind and starts asking me about my camera. I was about to answer her, but she cut me off when I mentioned film. She was under the impression that I had a digital. She then went on and on for 10 minutes how I need to get a digital camera and work with photoshop. Pulling her Canon G5 out, she starts going over all the details.

I get this alot lately. I walked into a Ritz Camera shop and asked for some Fuji Neopan film. The shop owner looked at me and said she doesn't stock film anymore because digital is what I should be shooting. She then pulls out a digital SLR and starts telling me all the advantages over film.

This happens to me in Best Buy and if I'm shooting a wedding...someone will be in awe that i don't shoot digital and feel it's their mission to tell me all about it.

Anyone having this happen to them too?

(I've owned a Leica D2, Canon 20D, and Nikon D70....and sold all of them away because I like the simplicity of the Hexar AF and my other analog cameras. The digital is nice, but the workflow for me is too tedious. I don't want to shoot 5 gig of a wedding and have to batch edit every image and tweak it in photoshop. I don't have the time. I just pull out my light meter, make sure i have the right film...and my exposure is set almost perfect 98 percent of the time. Mail off the film to someplace online and let them scan and print it for me.)

I just had to vent and get it off my chest. :bang:

 

[Little Prince]

You make it sound terribly funny. Try playing along next time and pretend to be bewildered at the mention of 'digital'.

 

[dmr]

I was about to answer her, but she cut me off when I mentioned film. She was under the impression that I had a digital.

I've showed prints to people and had them ask "oh, what kind of a digital camera do you have?" or worse, "what kind of a digital do you have", leaving out the word "camera" totally. 🙁

Anyone having this happen to them too?

Uh-huh, sure does. 🙂 Many of today's people know only digital cameras, just like they don't know about phones with dials, or soon to be phones that were connected with wires. 🙂

The great unwashed masses today just assume digital. They're clueless about real cameras. 🙂

I think the funniest had to be a while back when I had my Pentax at work and one of the younger guys was looking it over and asked "how do you turn it on?" 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was very clear that he assumed it was digital. 🙂

I can see a modern consumer-oriented (so-called) camera shop not stocking Neopan (or maybe not even knowing what it is) but I'm sure they have film, possibly even a Kodak chromogenic B&W, but you might have to show it to them on the shelf. 🙂

Digital may be the rage now, but film ain't going away! 🙂 (Well, probably not in this lifetime, anyway.)

 

[doubs43]

I can think of a couple of quick answers that would likely end the conversation.

"Digital is like a Volkswagen....... gets me there but certainly not first class or in style."

"Sorry but I use REAL cameras...... not toys."

"You paid HOW MUCH and it'll be obsolete in how many weeks?"

I'm sure I could think of more but those come to mind immediately. Of course I wouldn't use those on anyone who genuinely wanted to discuss photography and didn't try to hard sell me on digital.

Walker

 

[doubs43]

I think the funniest had to be a while back when I had my Pentax at work and one of the younger guys was looking it over and asked "how do you turn it on?" 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was very clear that he assumed it was digital. 🙂

"Breathing on the advance lever and whispering 'I love you' generally works. 😀

Walker

 

[sf]

about trying to convert filmers into chippers

about trying to convert filmers into chippers

I was once one of those people that would try a pitch on someone using film. I was certain that digital was the only way to go. I was very sure about the quality and the speed and the cost-effectiveness. I almost converted my professional photographer friend from film to digital. Thanks to the one above that he saw through it. I don't know what came over me. I am a younger person, only 23, perhaps it was peer pressure. Everyone else was doing it.

But then I woke up and sold the thing (D70) to buy more traditional equipment, and now I am being lectured by everyone around me about how I should have stayed digital because it is so cheap and about how I have no money because I don't and will now have less. They are right of course, about the money part. But they just don't understand. See my post "The digital and the traditional" I think it about sums it up.

Keep up the good fight

 

[wlewisiii]

The most fun I had recently was shooting my inlaws 60th wedding anniversary mass. There was another family there for IIRC their 50th that day and had hired a pro to shoot thiers. So he and I are standing next to each other working the shots. I've got my Kiev 5 and Jupiter 8nb out with fast Fuji loaded (no flash) and he's using a fairly current very high end Nikon DSLR (I forget the model) with some unreal Nikon zoom (fast and a long range of focal lengths) with a decent softbox on a smaller flash and I asked a couple of questions about the kit. His answer, essentially, was that he'd rather be using my camera. So much so that I wonder how much he would have offered for it if he hadn't had to go to thier party... 😀

Still the odds are I've been using computers longer than the woman in Bill's original post has been alive (in my case since 1978) Equally good odds that I've had more total loss hard disk crashes than she has owned hard drives. Digital has it's place; I firmly believe that the cell phone digital cameras are going to eventually create a market for real cameras again. They may or may not use film, but if not they will still be closer to the R-D 1 than anything else.

But for anything that is important to me, I want it in silver on celluloid... Which it has it's own, real, vulnerabilities but they're easier to deal with in my mind.

I've had a few folks try to evangelize me about digital. Overall, I've found it quite easy to ignore them. YMWV.

 

[dphotoguy]

My digital D1x gives me blue balls. Could never be satisfied. Film is like a full-blown-out-of-your-mind orgasm. hahaha...i love film. I recently stored away my D1x and went back to film and is enjoying every aspect of it...processing, scanning, editing, etc. I've also rediscovered my love for Portra NC and VC.

 

[mac_wt]

My standard reply to 'Is that a digital camera?' is 'No, it's analogue'. This usually keeps them wondering what I meant and if it's something newer or better than digital.

Wim

 

[back alley]

IIRC = ?

joe

 

[stet]

"If I Recall Correctly," if i recall correctly.

6000+ posts and you've never come across that?

 

[Doug]

On the rare occasions I'm asked about my "digital" camera, I just answer is if it WERE digital. What kind? Fuji... How many megapixels? Thinking of the small scan, I answer hesitantly, I think its about 5... and so on. I try to turn the conversation to something else, like what we're taking pics of.

Y'know, in the future I wonder if people will be amazed at the idea of an actual glass lens, how primitive... Cameras will have electronic lenses programmed to image the scene perfectly...

 

[wlewisiii]

Sorry, _I_f _I_ _R_ ecall _C_ orrectly.

William

 

[jlw]

You make it sound terribly funny. Try playing along next time and pretend to be bewildered at the mention of 'digital'.

Better yet... since most (younger) people don't know anything about traditional cameras anyway, convince them you're a step ahead of them:

"Yeah, I had a camera like that, but I got rid of it. I've switched to this great new technology called Finite Integral Linear Molecular storage, that uses these little data cylinders like this one. I know this is gonna sound like science fiction, but the image data is actually stored by changing the state of halide molecules!

"It's got a huge pixel count, no compression artifacts... and once you've finished it, you can just load the cylinder into a special drive and it converts the linear molecular element into a permanent optical storage medium, so you don't have to burn it onto a DVD!

"Oh, and you know how your batteries are always running out, and you have to carry extras and recharge them all the time? Well, with this camera, they've solved that, too. It's actually digitally powered.* I don't understand exactly how the technology works, but my camera never runs out of power and I never have to change batteries!"


So, after you've sold them on the benefits of Finite Integral Linear Molecular technology, you can try to persuade them to visit a camera store and ask to see a F.I.L.M. camera...




*Digitally powered = you wind it with your digits, don't you?

 

[wblanchard]

Better yet... since most (younger) people don't know anything about traditional cameras anyway, convince them you're a step ahead of them:

"Yeah, I had a camera like that, but I got rid of it. I've switched to this great new technology called Finite Integral Linear Molecular storage, that uses these little data cylinders like this one. I know this is gonna sound like science fiction, but the image data is actually stored by changing the state of halide molecules!

"It's got a huge pixel count, no compression artifacts... and once you've finished it, you can just load the cylinder into a special drive and it converts the linear molecular element into a permanent optical storage medium, so you don't have to burn it onto a DVD!

"Oh, and you know how your batteries are always running out, and you have to carry extras and recharge them all the time? Well, with this camera, they've solved that, too. It's actually digitally powered.* I don't understand exactly how the technology works, but my camera never runs out of power and I never have to change batteries!"


So, after you've sold them on the benefits of Finite Integral Linear Molecular technology, you can try to persuade them to visit a camera store and ask to see a F.I.L.M. camera...




*Digitally powered = you wind it with your digits, don't you?

LMAO...the people that would believe you would be the same ones you could ask if they checked the blinker fluid in their car or better yet, if they are driving along side you, roll down your window and tell them their back tire is going forward. 😀

 

[GeneW]

Or, "Is that a digital camera?"

"No, it's post-digital ..."

Gene

 

[taffer]

There's an easy solution

face them and with your most innocent beatific face ask them

'May I take your picture?'

They will think you're a pervert and leave you alone. Keep your eyes open just in case a police patrol appears though 😀

If that doesn't work, keep repeating it for as long as it's necessary, of course an unloaded mechanical camera is almost a warranty that he/she will end giving up.

The most funny comment I've heard was from a colleague at work, we were talking and I told him that some days ago I had bought a new camera, he asked me how much, I told him $xyz, he looked at me, astonished and said 'but for that you could have bought a digital !!'

I had a hard time trying not to laugh too loud 😛

PS: Btw, is that me the only one who can see some similarities with these people telling 'no film, digital is future, the only future, you see, this is a digital camera, it works this way and this way...' and the movie Invasion from the Body Snatchers !?? 😱

PPS Watch out for huge pods in your backyard 😉

 

[Heath]

A few weeks ago I was walking home with my Neoka hanging around my neck and as I passed some kids around the corner from my house one asked me if the camera was digital. I said no, it is film. I then mentioned it ewas made in 1958 and he said "whoah, that is old, does it still work?" I laughed and said that it did indeed work. He then asked if I could still buy film for it. I said that the film was readily available and he siad "cool". He seemed amazed at the age of the camera.

Then yesterday I was out shooting a roll in my EOS 1000F and saw a father and his 2 kids in the park I was in. The oldest (a girl aged about 9) asked me if I was a 'photography man' and I said yeah. She then asked if she could see the photos I had been taking. I said that the camera was not digital and that it took film. She then said that I should get a digital. I told her that I had a digital, but it was at home. She was pleased to hear that. She told me her brother had a digital camera but she didn't. She had a 35m P&S. Her brother told me about a cool camera he had. You took the shot and pulled out a bit of paper and then you had a photo, but it was too small to see without a magnifying glass. I asked him if it was a Polaroid i-Zone and he smiled and said yes. I mentioned I had about 35 cameras and that most were over 40 years old and that most still worked. This totally amzed the kids, and also their father, who had come over and joined our conversation.

I love film, and I also love digital. they both have their place in photography. The clarity and resolution of a nice well focused and exposed medium or large format negative cannot be easily replicated in digital. You could use a 20+MP digital back on a MF camera (like a Mamiya, Hassy or a Rollei) but who is going to mortgage their house to pay for one of those setups? I know I ain't. Give me my $200 Graflex Century Graphic with 6x9 120 Rollfilm Back. That is all I need for some great landscapes/cityscapes.

Heath

 

[rover]

Here's the deal....I'm shooting sunsets in Florida off the Gulf of Mexico last month with my Hexar AF (Classic Black) and a woman approaches me from behind and starts asking me about my camera. I was about to answer her, but she cut me off ....

Was she cute?

Just keep this opening for your other story (fiction) about this meeting. 😀

 

[aizan]

what i don't get is why people ask if you have a "digital camera" when they don't even know about film cameras. it's really weird....