Film: Color or B & W or both when you travel?

Film: Color or B & W or both when you travel?

  • B & W only

    Votes: 96 12.9%
  • Color only

    Votes: 77 10.4%
  • Both (both loaded)

    Votes: 225 30.3%
  • Both (B & W loaded. Color on standby)

    Votes: 94 12.7%
  • Both (Color loaded. B & W on standby)

    Votes: 57 7.7%
  • B & W film and color digital

    Votes: 168 22.6%
  • Color film and B & W digital

    Votes: 3 0.4%
  • What film? I am all digital

    Votes: 23 3.1%

  • Total voters
    743
I personally tend to bring and load both when i travel. Life would have been much easier if i can commit to one.

I'm just too afraid that i'd miss the other if i only have one (color or B & W).

What about you peeps?
 
I've stopped shooting color for serious work. The fun stuff, like my local political commentary, featuring a toy monkey named Monkette, is color because it's fast and cheap. I don't tend to shoot a lot of film at a time. Monkette and I can leave a city council meeting (yes, I often go to city council or advisory board meetings carrying a toy monkey), drop a roll at Walgreens, and by the time we go out for coffee and a donut the pix are ready for posting on http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com .

I really don't do that much traveling, staying mostly within a 20km radius of my house, but there's plenty of variety to photograph, from fishing to South Beach. A dozen or more ethnic groups live here, with festivals, outdoor concerts, movies and TV shows being filmed...it's a long list. Greenwich Studios (formerly Ivan Tors) was headquarters for Miami Vice and Gentle Ben and a whole bunch more is less than a kilometer away, as is Criteria recording studio where a lot of rock groups record, and they often shoot their videos and promotional stills in the area. A lot of the filming takes place nearby. All that's lacking is snow.
 
Last edited:
I'm going to get some static from the B&W aficionados here but I take only colour film when traveling. I do this just to simplify things as I can always convert to B&W later at home in PP. Now that I use digital when traveling I do the same. Digital was more to simply things too. No more hand inspections and no agonizing over what speed film to bring. I travel for pleasure and the simpler less complicated I can make it the more I and my wife can enjoy the trip.

Bob
 
I feel like I (and perhaps others) fall in a gap here. I bring a hexar that can change rolls rapidly as well as as a R-D1 as the alternate for whatever happens to be in the hexar. Don't quite know where I fit.
 
I was facing this question for my trip to New Zealand. Finally I decided to keep my Rolleiflex loaded with Provia 100/400 and my Olympus XA with Ektar 100. While converting color to BW is not necessarily always the best option, it works fairly well.

Should I have been heading to e.g. Paris instead - I would have loaded one camera with BW I guess.
 
I carry both (two small cameras) or BW only when going light. Usually one film for each type, too.
 
I'm heading to London and Paris in early September, and will bring 2 M2s: 1 for K64, the other for B&W (mostly Tri-X, but a few rolls of Efke 50 and Fuji 1600, too) . In October, I'll be in NYC for a few days and plan on just a single body. I suppose my decision to bring an extra body has to do with the odds of returning to a given location anytime soon.
 
Usually (depending on the trip duration, mode of travel etc.) I take a film RF with B&W film loaded and a digital (usually SLR). But I carry colour film as well, and often also a film P&S (loaded with higher-ISO B&W or loaded with colour film, depending on expected opportunities). Which doesn't exactly fit the categories, so I just said film B&W and digital colour.

...Mike
 
B+W=film, colour=DSLR and a point and shoot for everything in between for me.
Off to a 2 week trip in Turkey this coming weekend, and will have just 1 RF + 35mm lens and about 1 roll of Tri-x/day with 2 additional just in case. DSLR with more than 1 lens of course, but I use digital only for landscape work along with an assortment of filters, etc and a tripod. However RF is what I have hanging on my neck. Digital stays in the bag unless required.
 
I usually have color loaded in either a RF or sometimes a SLR (depending on where I'm going). When traveling, I must have a few rolls of B&W in the bag; gotta have my Tri-X fix you know... 🙄
 
It's conventionally b&w film and colour for digital for me but I'm increasing interested in the colour depiction characteristics of some of my old style RF lenses so without an M8 I'm using K64 and Ektar 100 in my M3 more and more these days, to my slight surprise. I'm still predominantly using b&w in the Leica though.
 
I bring only b/w so I'm not distracted choosin one or another film then regretting not to have colour when b/w is loaded and viceversa; therefore, as b/w only user, I like to "see" the results I can get when I'm in different places than home so I have no real interest to shoot colours when travelling. Hope it makes sense!
ciao
 
Last edited:
Travel where? To photograph what?

For the past few years, I have carried a mix of Velvia, Astia (or CN) and B&W - the predictions will merely shift the bias between them. If I expect rain, plan for portraits or go to some place that has been overdone in color, I'll bring more black-and-white, and if I do more man-made structure and less earth, water&foliage I'll bring more Astia...
 
Recent trip to GNP I brought Sensia for the F100, Ektar in the MP, and TriX in the M3. Guess what I shot with mostly?

While in Cannon Beach last spring I brought only TMax and my M3.

Whatever the mood moves me I guess.
 
Two or more cameras or backs or film holders. one for color, one for monochrome. If you want to get real fancy, 4 cameras-slow and fast for each emulsion type.

If scanning is the end product, convert to monochrome in the computer.

Digi solves all the problems, tungsten, sunlight, fast, slow, mono, color, grad filters, high or low contrast, it does everything.

I carry a Nikon D700 for color and a camera for monochrome film, Leica if I have energy and a Nikon if not because I can use the same lenses.
 
I use both...I have about 40 rolls of the original Velvia 50 ASA slide film in the frige...I need to get some of that out and shoot it...now that's some color film...not really your standard vacation film though...
 
On my recent trip to Newfoundland I juggled colour and black & white between 3 cameras. I really wanted to shoot B&W only but I figured I'd regret not shooting any colour.

Now I'm thinking I should have gone with my gut and shot B&W only. It was too awkward for me to change all the time and the B&W and colour don't work together as a single project in my mind.
 
Back
Top Bottom