robertofollia
Established
Why do I shoot film?
Plain and simple, I love feelings
-I like the feel of a real camera in my hands
-I like to be able to use the camera my father took pics of me with when I was a kid, or the camera my grandmother gave me 30 years ago.
-I like the feel of the mechanical shutter release.
-I like the feel of advancing film
-I like to have control over almost everything, and if I do something wrong, then the pic is not right.So no computer thinks on behalf of me
-I like real colours, real grain and real b/w, not software produced images.
-When I develop b/w in the darkroom (Seldom) I love to see the image appear before my eyes.
-I like to have to select what I shoot. not shooting tons of pics and not being able to see them
-I shoot with the camera my father gave me for my birthday 23 years ago, and still going strong.
-And I like to be a person with past, don't want to suffer a strike with "digital alzheimer" (that happens when your HD and your copy die at the same time). Know just too many people that lost 7 years of memories. In our grandad's times just 50-60 pics where the summary of a whole life (or even less), maybe some of them were lost, or destroyed, but always there were a handful left. What will happen with non printed files in uncompatible formats in 60 years time?
My first camera was an instamatic 25 when I was 4, I still have it, it still works. Would love to find 126 film to shoot at least agin one roll with it. That happened 40 years ago...Now I', stocking Agfa vista 200 , and when all colour films go, I'll swithc 100% to B/W. I started with film, and so will finish the journey.
To me there's no other way
Best regards to all
Plain and simple, I love feelings
-I like the feel of a real camera in my hands
-I like to be able to use the camera my father took pics of me with when I was a kid, or the camera my grandmother gave me 30 years ago.
-I like the feel of the mechanical shutter release.
-I like the feel of advancing film
-I like to have control over almost everything, and if I do something wrong, then the pic is not right.So no computer thinks on behalf of me
-I like real colours, real grain and real b/w, not software produced images.
-When I develop b/w in the darkroom (Seldom) I love to see the image appear before my eyes.
-I like to have to select what I shoot. not shooting tons of pics and not being able to see them
-I shoot with the camera my father gave me for my birthday 23 years ago, and still going strong.
-And I like to be a person with past, don't want to suffer a strike with "digital alzheimer" (that happens when your HD and your copy die at the same time). Know just too many people that lost 7 years of memories. In our grandad's times just 50-60 pics where the summary of a whole life (or even less), maybe some of them were lost, or destroyed, but always there were a handful left. What will happen with non printed files in uncompatible formats in 60 years time?
My first camera was an instamatic 25 when I was 4, I still have it, it still works. Would love to find 126 film to shoot at least agin one roll with it. That happened 40 years ago...Now I', stocking Agfa vista 200 , and when all colour films go, I'll swithc 100% to B/W. I started with film, and so will finish the journey.
To me there's no other way
Best regards to all
Charlie Lemay
Well-known
At the school where I teach, we still use film and scanning after loosing our darkroom. I prefer this hybrid method myself. I get asked often by parents why we still use film, so I prepared this statement which I will share:
WHY WE STILL USE FILM ©2015 Charlie Lemay
Just because we have Speedboats, does that mean we shouldn’t have Sailboats? Who learns more about navigating the waters, someone who learns on a Speedboat or someone who learns on a Sailboat? A Speedboat may be the fastest way to get from point A to B, but a Sailboat is all about the journey along the way.
When someone makes color images and gets immediate feedback their preconceptions are confirmed. The image they make looks just like what they expect the world to look like. When someone makes an image with black and white film, the feedback is never immediate, and when they do get the feedback in a print some time later, it looks nothing like what they saw in the viewfinder. It has been abstracted. Things that separated by color may not separate at all by tonality. This forces the photographer to try to imagine how they might approach a subject differently by trying to anticipate what will happen when their subject is abstracted into black and white tones. Photographing in color, without the experience of black and white practice, reinforces our preconceptions and makes it more difficult to see what only we can see when we stop seeing what we expect to see.
The key to finding our own unique personal vision is to shed the preconceptions that others have imparted to us, and to have an authentic visual encounter with our subject matter. Once one has this kind of experience, it becomes possible to make images, in color or black and white, that go far beyond what we are taught to expect to see.
Photoshop and digital capture are metaphors for the wet analog processes. Without understanding these through analog practices, something is lost. Having the analog experiences is the best preparation for the digital tools, which is why we continue to scan negatives even when we begin to output our prints digitally. The extended tonal range we get through the ZoneSimple technique makes negatives that are ideal for scanning.
Our student’s work is proof of the effectiveness of this approach.
WHY WE STILL USE FILM ©2015 Charlie Lemay
Just because we have Speedboats, does that mean we shouldn’t have Sailboats? Who learns more about navigating the waters, someone who learns on a Speedboat or someone who learns on a Sailboat? A Speedboat may be the fastest way to get from point A to B, but a Sailboat is all about the journey along the way.
When someone makes color images and gets immediate feedback their preconceptions are confirmed. The image they make looks just like what they expect the world to look like. When someone makes an image with black and white film, the feedback is never immediate, and when they do get the feedback in a print some time later, it looks nothing like what they saw in the viewfinder. It has been abstracted. Things that separated by color may not separate at all by tonality. This forces the photographer to try to imagine how they might approach a subject differently by trying to anticipate what will happen when their subject is abstracted into black and white tones. Photographing in color, without the experience of black and white practice, reinforces our preconceptions and makes it more difficult to see what only we can see when we stop seeing what we expect to see.
The key to finding our own unique personal vision is to shed the preconceptions that others have imparted to us, and to have an authentic visual encounter with our subject matter. Once one has this kind of experience, it becomes possible to make images, in color or black and white, that go far beyond what we are taught to expect to see.
Photoshop and digital capture are metaphors for the wet analog processes. Without understanding these through analog practices, something is lost. Having the analog experiences is the best preparation for the digital tools, which is why we continue to scan negatives even when we begin to output our prints digitally. The extended tonal range we get through the ZoneSimple technique makes negatives that are ideal for scanning.
Our student’s work is proof of the effectiveness of this approach.
Franko
Established
Three reasons:
1. Barnack
2. FOR ME a great part of the "art" of photography resides in 24x36 rectangles marked Tri-X.
A well-made silver print can still stop me in my tracks.
3. I'm a stuborn old geezer who hates the "digital revolution." I don't know how to text and have no
intention of learning - no "smart"phone. I'll never use a computer masquerading as a phone
masquerading as a camera to take a photograph. It's just not enough.
1. Barnack
2. FOR ME a great part of the "art" of photography resides in 24x36 rectangles marked Tri-X.
A well-made silver print can still stop me in my tracks.
3. I'm a stuborn old geezer who hates the "digital revolution." I don't know how to text and have no
intention of learning - no "smart"phone. I'll never use a computer masquerading as a phone
masquerading as a camera to take a photograph. It's just not enough.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Could you make your own digital camera? This is why people use film as well.
It allows you to be creative in different ways.
For example, one new film shop in Moscow. People come to learn how to do things like this:
It allows you to be creative in different ways.
For example, one new film shop in Moscow. People come to learn how to do things like this:
John Lawrence
Well-known
Why I shoot film?
I like it.
John
I like it.
John
The Spastic Image
Established
Some of my reasons why I shoot film, then processed and scanned:
I need manual, which is rugged, reliable, and doesn't distract me. (I have special needs)
I take photographs to slow down, enjoy life, and enjoy where I've travelled and life I love.
Film is analog, it has life, it has soul and meaning.
Film is not instant gratification, nor ADHD.
Analog isn't perfect. I am not either.
I am different, born different. I am who I am.
I shoot, street, landscapes, life, living and people as they are.
I need buttons, knobs, and levers, not 2,000 menus and modes.
I take pictures because it is how I relax, it is how I express myself, it is my art. It calms me.
It also gives me a distraction from spasticity, pain, and fiery people.
I am old fashioned. I am retro. Some of my cameras/lenses are older than me.
I shoot manual, mechanical, use a handheld light meter often.
I want poetry, not pixel peeping.
Photography is my respite from wheelchair life, and also goes hand in hand with my adaptive life, and adaptive sports and the places and faces I've been.
I am analog!!! Born that way, and I will stay that way!!!
I have battle scars, and both me and my gear have them.
I need cameras which let me take the picture, and stay out of my way!
Why be normal and boring? I am not!!!
I need manual, which is rugged, reliable, and doesn't distract me. (I have special needs)
I take photographs to slow down, enjoy life, and enjoy where I've travelled and life I love.
Film is analog, it has life, it has soul and meaning.
Film is not instant gratification, nor ADHD.
Analog isn't perfect. I am not either.
I am different, born different. I am who I am.
I shoot, street, landscapes, life, living and people as they are.
I need buttons, knobs, and levers, not 2,000 menus and modes.
I take pictures because it is how I relax, it is how I express myself, it is my art. It calms me.
It also gives me a distraction from spasticity, pain, and fiery people.
I am old fashioned. I am retro. Some of my cameras/lenses are older than me.
I shoot manual, mechanical, use a handheld light meter often.
I want poetry, not pixel peeping.
Photography is my respite from wheelchair life, and also goes hand in hand with my adaptive life, and adaptive sports and the places and faces I've been.
I am analog!!! Born that way, and I will stay that way!!!
I have battle scars, and both me and my gear have them.
I need cameras which let me take the picture, and stay out of my way!
Why be normal and boring? I am not!!!
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Rayt
Nonplayer Character
I don‘t care for the touchie feelies like how the shutter sounds or the smell of fixer. Only the photo matters. A b/w photo on the wall shot with b/w film looks better with that lovely grain. That said, digital can do a lot more and with unlimited iso and shutter speed can get the shot when film can’t. That said I’d rather look at a digital photo on the wall than a blank space. So if a shot can be done with film then use it but if you need 6400 iso and 1/8000 then go for it.
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
Newbies to film don't need any explaining as to why they shoot film. Like the rest of us, they have found their way to a different world, an alternate universe, where the latest and the best no longer matters but the truly good equipment, the older film cameras built from cast iron and held together with ocean liner rivets, are what does the work best for them.
Film has its place (to those of us who can afford it), as does digital. Both have their plus and minus points. Many argue it on the basis of an artistic (film) versus technical (digital) medium, which I rather think it isn't. The final image is the thing. Whether produced with Tri-X souped in D76 or on a Fuji Whatever set to monochrome with red, yellow or green filtration.
So yes (or rather no), this isn't meant to be a film versus digital polemic, rather an acknowledgment that, as the old saying goes, different strokes for different folks is the way. Film is an entirely different mind-space, possibly best described as opting to use an American War of Independence era flintlock rifle as against a Glock machine gun. We know that the Century 20 film pioneers produced their work without resorting to pixels or downloads or 1,478 images of the Sunday family picnic all posted on whatever web site they are linked to (which as we all know nobody much bothers to look at, but let's not go there).
I do agree with Ray that if you prefer film, then buy it, load it, shoot it, process it, then scan or enlarge it. If digital rocks your boat, then butter your bread with it and lie on it. As I see it, most intelligent thinkers have no argument with this and won't bother getting into any discussion of it.
On a more basic level, If digital suffices for you to record a sequence of your cat/dog cleaning its bottom, just do it. Please just don't go to the bother or effort of posting your 782 images of a sphincter-licking feline for us to have to suffer through, as most of us won't. Let common sense prevail here.
All this to say, in so (or too) many words, that the image is the end result. However it is produced.
Film has its place (to those of us who can afford it), as does digital. Both have their plus and minus points. Many argue it on the basis of an artistic (film) versus technical (digital) medium, which I rather think it isn't. The final image is the thing. Whether produced with Tri-X souped in D76 or on a Fuji Whatever set to monochrome with red, yellow or green filtration.
So yes (or rather no), this isn't meant to be a film versus digital polemic, rather an acknowledgment that, as the old saying goes, different strokes for different folks is the way. Film is an entirely different mind-space, possibly best described as opting to use an American War of Independence era flintlock rifle as against a Glock machine gun. We know that the Century 20 film pioneers produced their work without resorting to pixels or downloads or 1,478 images of the Sunday family picnic all posted on whatever web site they are linked to (which as we all know nobody much bothers to look at, but let's not go there).
I do agree with Ray that if you prefer film, then buy it, load it, shoot it, process it, then scan or enlarge it. If digital rocks your boat, then butter your bread with it and lie on it. As I see it, most intelligent thinkers have no argument with this and won't bother getting into any discussion of it.
On a more basic level, If digital suffices for you to record a sequence of your cat/dog cleaning its bottom, just do it. Please just don't go to the bother or effort of posting your 782 images of a sphincter-licking feline for us to have to suffer through, as most of us won't. Let common sense prevail here.
All this to say, in so (or too) many words, that the image is the end result. However it is produced.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
I did film_digital_film_digital. Anything looks better on film, especially on analog print.
BTW, digital post processing is not really needed. You could have it SOOC.
BTW, digital post processing is not really needed. You could have it SOOC.
D
Deleted member 65559
Guest
Well I continue to use film because for me printing in the darkroom is a big part of the process. I process my own film, I print my photographs, I mount my own photographs. If i give up any of those things....the process is incomplete and unsatisfactory to me.
philslizzy
Member
I like to use my old cameras so I MUST use film. Thats the only reason.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Hah ... short essay:
I'm old. I've been doing photography with film since I was six years old ... that's 1960, young newbie ... and see no reason to stop. I have all the cameras, I have all the equipment, and I enjoy it. I also have a bunch of digital capture gear, and have been involved with digital capture and digital imaging since 1984. I enjoy that too.
The bottom line is that I enjoy making photographs and I like what the different recording mediums (and all the very different cameras I have) do. Being proficient in the use of both film and digital capture gives me capabilities and insights that I would not have otherwise, and expands what can be done.
'
What should you do? Whatever drives your curiosity and motivates you to making photographs, if that's what you want to do. Or play with camera technology, if that's what you want to do. Or play with chemical processes if that's what you want to do. Every photograph is a unique thing, a single slice of Time that you capture and render for whatever reason. It's the ultimate "art of the moment".
End of short essay.
G
I'm old. I've been doing photography with film since I was six years old ... that's 1960, young newbie ... and see no reason to stop. I have all the cameras, I have all the equipment, and I enjoy it. I also have a bunch of digital capture gear, and have been involved with digital capture and digital imaging since 1984. I enjoy that too.
The bottom line is that I enjoy making photographs and I like what the different recording mediums (and all the very different cameras I have) do. Being proficient in the use of both film and digital capture gives me capabilities and insights that I would not have otherwise, and expands what can be done.
'
What should you do? Whatever drives your curiosity and motivates you to making photographs, if that's what you want to do. Or play with camera technology, if that's what you want to do. Or play with chemical processes if that's what you want to do. Every photograph is a unique thing, a single slice of Time that you capture and render for whatever reason. It's the ultimate "art of the moment".
End of short essay.
G
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
Me too. Since 1961 when I was 13. Like you, I'm also old, well into ancient-dom, and I still enjoy shooting film for many of the same reasons as you. I get colors and mid-tones from film that I can't easily achieve with my digital Nikons. as well as a "film look" different from the too-clean image taken with my D800.
I have the "definitely mixed" blessing of living in Australia, a nice enough place in most ways, but where our 62 cent dollars (= the South Pacific Peso) no longer buy anything imported cheaply - 90% of everything we have here is from overseas. Our politicians and businesses have destroyed almost all manufacturing, Kodak stopped producing films in Melbourne decades ago and most of us are now convinced our economy is fast headed south and sinking fast. Paying AUD $20 for a roll of color negative or film is beyond my pensioner budget, and even if I still had the dosh I would hesitate to fork out so much for 36 exposures which I would have to process and print/scan. So my film work is limited to the old films I have left. Mostly 120 rolls in my darkroom fridge, so I will likely end up using my Rolleiflex or Rolleicord, Zeiss Nettar or Perkeo I for my last analog image-making in this life. Sad, but so it is.
As for the darkroom, I still have one, but I've spent far too much time in my life (years, I reckon) processing and printing. In my time I disposed of enough FB and RC 8x10" sheets to keep several paper mills in profits. With the few years I (hope I) have left I prefer to enjoy in natural light. I'm okay with developing films and scanning when I feel like it, but nowadays those are rare moments, to be enjoyed with a glass or two of good red wine and nice music on the stereo system while I plod away with my mid-20th century processes. Please don't get me wrong, I still enjoy it all, as a now and then experience, not an ongoing pastime or as it was for me for many years, a way of life.
In my time I sold a lot of stock, in the days when book and magazine publishers bought images and paid well. Now the buyers eschew the stock photo agencies and ransack the free web sites for el chemo or even free "good enough" images (= "digicrap".
For me film has had its day and place and time. I've enjoyed it, but all things change in our lives, and this is one.
Every now and then I take out one of my Ansel Adams circa 1950s film technique books, for the pleasure or reliving those long ago days when he was a mentor to so many of us. Now AA is largely relegated to How It Was Back Then, tho' a lot of what he wrote is still relevant even to digiheads.
Yet I am still all for encouraging young photographers to "experiment" and play with film and old cameras, if only to "get the feel" of what it was like for us Back In The Day. And of course to keep the sales of film scanners going...
Purely my random thoughts on all this.
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Bill Clark
Veteran
I started making photographs when all there was was film. I still have and use an analog darkroom. Only use black and white film anymore. When I started my business around 2004 I used digital equipment for various reasons. I used an iMac computer with Photoshop, CS-4 which works just fine for me.
Now that I’m retired, I use film most of the time. However, color it’s digital.
Now that I’m retired, I use film most of the time. However, color it’s digital.
Bill Clark
Veteran
100% digital since 2004. For business and personal use.
Back then, new clients would ask me. It got to be fewer and fewer as time went on. I explained my take why digital is better.
Now that I’m retired, my primary digital camera is an iPhone.
I’m making, what I consider, some nice photographs.
Back then, new clients would ask me. It got to be fewer and fewer as time went on. I explained my take why digital is better.
Now that I’m retired, my primary digital camera is an iPhone.
I’m making, what I consider, some nice photographs.
Richard G
Veteran
* The same sensor across years and between different cameras.
* Using different sensors in the same camera.
* Brand new sensor for every shot - no unexpected dust spots.
* Different exposure characteristics of the different sensors (films) - eg great tolerance of overexposure with colour negative film giving good shadow and highlight detail in the one image with the one exposure and no clever processing of negative or print.
* The artistic power of limitation - only 12 or only 36 (37) exposures to a roll of film. And a compromise on stopping motion with a non-preferred shutter speed. Trying things that shouldn’t work but you have to try and it works as you hoped, or differently; initially unrecognized mistakes of various sorts, making the picture.
* Other liberating limitations, eg an M2 Leica has only two possible fatal mode problems for the next shot with a working camera: no film in the gate to expose, or the lens cap still on.
* As opposed to forgetting to turn the digital camera from off to on; it’s turned on but the battery has died; it’s turned on and the battery is charged but the start up lag sees you miss the shot (M11 still?); forgetting to turn the digital camera’s shutter speed dial to A from 1/8s; forgetting ISO still set to 3200 at midday; forgetting the shutter is set to 2s self timer; it’s still set to black and white jpeg from last night’s coloured light celebration dinner; the camera is turned on, the battery in it is charged and worked yesterday and there’s an SD card in it same as yesterday but the LCD says No card. Or with camera turned on nothing happens at all. Fresh/different battery: still dead; different SD card (how many minutes gone now?) all working perfectly again; but you didn’t have that other SD card with you; etc
*Using an old old camera with all metal construction, no brittle aged plastic gears to split, no battery to find and then charge, if now chargeable at all, and if you can find the charger.
I won’t reprise the magic of film and the darkroom and prewar uncoated lenses etc etc.
PS An Olympus OM2n would still take a shot with a dead battery; or with the camera turned to OFF!
* Using different sensors in the same camera.
* Brand new sensor for every shot - no unexpected dust spots.
* Different exposure characteristics of the different sensors (films) - eg great tolerance of overexposure with colour negative film giving good shadow and highlight detail in the one image with the one exposure and no clever processing of negative or print.
* The artistic power of limitation - only 12 or only 36 (37) exposures to a roll of film. And a compromise on stopping motion with a non-preferred shutter speed. Trying things that shouldn’t work but you have to try and it works as you hoped, or differently; initially unrecognized mistakes of various sorts, making the picture.
* Other liberating limitations, eg an M2 Leica has only two possible fatal mode problems for the next shot with a working camera: no film in the gate to expose, or the lens cap still on.
* As opposed to forgetting to turn the digital camera from off to on; it’s turned on but the battery has died; it’s turned on and the battery is charged but the start up lag sees you miss the shot (M11 still?); forgetting to turn the digital camera’s shutter speed dial to A from 1/8s; forgetting ISO still set to 3200 at midday; forgetting the shutter is set to 2s self timer; it’s still set to black and white jpeg from last night’s coloured light celebration dinner; the camera is turned on, the battery in it is charged and worked yesterday and there’s an SD card in it same as yesterday but the LCD says No card. Or with camera turned on nothing happens at all. Fresh/different battery: still dead; different SD card (how many minutes gone now?) all working perfectly again; but you didn’t have that other SD card with you; etc
*Using an old old camera with all metal construction, no brittle aged plastic gears to split, no battery to find and then charge, if now chargeable at all, and if you can find the charger.
I won’t reprise the magic of film and the darkroom and prewar uncoated lenses etc etc.
PS An Olympus OM2n would still take a shot with a dead battery; or with the camera turned to OFF!
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p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
When you switch the Om2n to OFF, the meter system is still on but with a small difference - it will read exposure from the curtain but not from the film plane. The OM2n reads light from the film plane between exposures 60sec to 1/30th and then the system changes and reads from the curtain between 1/60th to 1/1000.
So when the switch is off and you take a pic, the camera calculates exposure between 1/60th to 1/1000th.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
What people "believe" is at odds with my experience, but not necessarily in the way it seems from the way you state the question. To wit:
What do you mean by "better results"? ... Hah! Another, longer essay ...
I have been doing photography since I was 8 years old, a long 62 years ago now. There were no digital cameras then, I had no choice but to shoot film. And film was/is/remains mysteriously tricky and fun to explore with ... every format, every camera, every lens sees the world a little differently, minute nuances of exposure, chemistry, processing technique, and rendering bring about so many different interpretations of 'that which is in front of the camera' that there is no end to the awe, wonder, and learning that it presents.
And then digital capture came along. It is, first and foremost, a DIFFERENT recording medium compared to the chemical medium of film. And every sensor in every camera, paired with every lens, ONCE AGAIN was/is/remains mysteriously tricky and fun to explore with ... every format, every camera, every lens see the world a little differently where minute differences of exposure, rendering, and techniques used in doing so bring about so many different interpretations .... Sound familiar?
It is, more than it is so very different.
Making photographs with film is a pain in the butt: learning the film's spectral sensitivity, how to make it respond the way you want, how to process it, how to render it is a lot of work and expense. Making photographs with digital capture is a pain in the butt: the recording medium is almost free so you shoot a huge amount and then spend oodles of time choosing just the right exposure, just the right rendering operations, just the right way of tweaking what you captured into what your mind's eye saw and hoped for ... Both are terrific, superb, flexible, forever-more-to-learn ways to produce expressions of your vision, your emotions, your thoughts in pictures. And are fun in doing that despite the various pains in the butt they represent. So why shoot film when it seems so much more labor intensive and expensive with the cost of film, chemistry, processing chemicals, etc?
Because the two mediums see things differently. Period, stop thinking so hard. Film and film cameras are interesting and quirky devices with a huge long history of development; digital sensors and digital cameras are interesting and quirky devices with a much shorter history on a much much more accelerated and broad spectrum of technologies.
If I may make an analogy: Shooting with film is like learning how to pilot a canoe on a stream. The water may be fast or slow, but no matter how fast or how slow, the part of the stream that you need to know can be seen, ultimately, from top to bottom and you can understand the relationships between what is down there and what is up here, and how tweaking the canoe in different ways affects your path through the water. By comparison, move to digital capture and it is as if you just took that canoe and plopped it into the middle of the Pacific Ocean ... the depths below you are vast and unreachable, and what you do to manipulate the canoe can only 'see' the surface of that vastness as you learn to skim the topmost edge of the depths while forces beyond your comprehension drive the path you take. It requires a completely different set of skills to understand and begin to affect the motion of the canoe beyond the most surface understanding of the depths you sail upon. And yet ... At some point, the two mediums and the efforts of a photographer's actions to resolve intent coalesce and the hyperdimensional space of both of them collapse down into a different, simpler, more conceivable logic puzzle that becomes more approachable to your intent.
So, why do I shoot film still?
I shoot film so I can expand my mind and vision to understand the things that I need to understand in order for photography to make sense. I can see the bottom of the stream and know why the flow of the surface has done what it's doing. And with that knowledge, I can apply my understanding to what I can conceive of in digital capture, in the very limited context of making a photograph, and not be confused by the movements in the depths or the mechanisms at play. And with these twin understandings, come to achieve a few photographs that I like.
All of that besides the point that there are a lot of film cameras, and films, out there that are interesting, curious, fun things to learn and master the use of. And that ALL of them can make outstanding, beautiful, expressive photographs if you work at the effort with the intent and energy that doing so requires.
Film capture places many constraints upon your freedom of motion in the making of photographs, and in doing so, pushes your creativity and understanding, your skills, in ways that are quite different from how digital capture does. And for someone who like to learn and understand a broader scope of things that make photography happen, it is hard for me to conceive of doing just digital or just film alone ... at least at this point in time when the transition from the chemical medium to the electronic medium is still in progress. Doing both give me a diversity of perceptions about photography that enriches what I do to my benefit, and hopefully to the benefit of the photographs I produce.
Sorry to go on over-long like this, but this is a topic that's been on my mind a lot lately as I swap gleefully between my oh-so-modern two-year-old Leica M10 Monochrom and the delightful 78-year-old Leica IIIc that I acquired a few weeks ago. The old camera educate me in ways that are different from the ways the new camera does, and working both together lets me see and try for things with either than I might not otherwise have even thought about trying.
So – "better results"...? Hmmm.
G
—
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Glenn2
Well-known
Like you Godfrey, I'm an old timer using film since the mid fifties with fathers Rollei. Later got into SLRs with Canons before settling into Leicas.
M3s, M4s an M5 and several Barnacks. Plus a Super Technika V which I tongue in cheek refer to as a Leica on steroids.
Kept the M4s a couple Barnacks 3f & 3g , Technika and a Rollei 2.8E so still have the best of the gear from my early days.
And then the dark side called me to try a small digital camera, a Canon C330 , 2mp P&S. Having travelled extensively using film the small size was greatly appealing, Ended up taking it on a trip to India in 2005, some interesting images, but not quite up there with speed and pixels, I missed the Leica. Next trip to India was 2012 when I was trying to revisit old haunts and see friends from the seventies. This time I covered all bases, One of the M4s from first trip 42 years prior and a Fuji X100. Had seriously considered getting an M9 to keep the M4 company but cost and the worry about changing lenses in a dusty environment tipped choice to Fuji.
Film or digital the important thing is to get your backside outside and expose some photosensitive surfaces to photons.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
At times I would use both cameras on the same subject.........
This was one of those occasions. It was hot in South India and I was keeping my liquids and electrolytes up by enjoying a green coconut at this ladies stand. There was a little stool to sit on while you drank your coconut and if you asked nicely she would even split the nut so you could eat the soft meat that was starting to form. I became a regular customer while in Puducherry.
X100 original firmware.
And the M4 , 21mm SA ,Tri-X
M3s, M4s an M5 and several Barnacks. Plus a Super Technika V which I tongue in cheek refer to as a Leica on steroids.
Kept the M4s a couple Barnacks 3f & 3g , Technika and a Rollei 2.8E so still have the best of the gear from my early days.
And then the dark side called me to try a small digital camera, a Canon C330 , 2mp P&S. Having travelled extensively using film the small size was greatly appealing, Ended up taking it on a trip to India in 2005, some interesting images, but not quite up there with speed and pixels, I missed the Leica. Next trip to India was 2012 when I was trying to revisit old haunts and see friends from the seventies. This time I covered all bases, One of the M4s from first trip 42 years prior and a Fuji X100. Had seriously considered getting an M9 to keep the M4 company but cost and the worry about changing lenses in a dusty environment tipped choice to Fuji.
Film or digital the important thing is to get your backside outside and expose some photosensitive surfaces to photons.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
At times I would use both cameras on the same subject.........
This was one of those occasions. It was hot in South India and I was keeping my liquids and electrolytes up by enjoying a green coconut at this ladies stand. There was a little stool to sit on while you drank your coconut and if you asked nicely she would even split the nut so you could eat the soft meat that was starting to form. I became a regular customer while in Puducherry.
X100 original firmware.
And the M4 , 21mm SA ,Tri-X