Film!!!

[Bill Pierce]

For some time now my only film cameras have been 2 large format film cameras used ocassionally for personal work. Digital took over, first, journalism and, now, much of professional photography. But recently I was given a gift of several used film cameras. Because of the sheet film cameras, I still have a functioning darkroom. I wanted to know what the film users on the forum are doing and why they are doing it.

(1) Film processed at a lab or in your darkroom/bathroom/or wherever you could load a film tank?

(2) From these negatives or slides, are prints made in your darkroom or sent out to a lab for silver, chemical color or inkjet or are they scanned and ink jet printed in your office? Or are prints a thing of the past now replaced by a computer screen?

(3) Or are you doing something truly unusual like archival carbon prints on a modified inkjet?

I have one friend who produces archival silver prints because museums like them, and it is the way he has always worked and in which he feels comfortable. I have other friends who shoot film because they feel it slows them down and makes them a better photographer, but they scan the film and make inkjet prints. I’m sure there are many other reasons for shooting film. But I’m sitting here with several film cameras and would love to know some of the things I might look forward to if I start shooting a little film again.

 

[Corran]

From light to print, it's all done in my darkroom by my hands on traditional materials, as God intended.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

I use a Rolleflex, a Deardorff 5x7 & occasionally a Leica. I have a Durst 138 for 5x7 and a Beseler for 35,6x6 and 4x5. I still have a stash of Azo for contact printing. Otherwise it's silver gelatin fibre papers in Ansco 130. I have no interest in digital printing. It's more like a choice of musical taste than any question of one or the other being superior....

 

[SaveKodak]

I own a film scanning lab called Northeast Photographic in Maine.

The people left over interested enough in photography that actually own a camera, are naturally drawn to film for at least some degree of their work. I help them get digital files that look great from full rolls of film.

It's sort of like how Best Buy recently announced that they were discontinuing sales of CDs, but not vinyl. People who love a thing (photography) are not necessarily interested in the path of least resistance. The experience of shooting with a film camera is more fun than shooting digital.

 

[x-ray]

I've been wet printing far too long to quit. I started in 1958 and it's just a part of me. Wet printing has not only been a huge part of my personal life it was a major part of my commercial business until taking the business digital in 2000.

Still it's quite important to me in both my personal work and my business. I'm still engaged in commercial work that's mostly digital but I do a lot of documentary work where I document the rapidly fading culture of Appalachia where I live. I photograph serpent handling in churches, cock fights, kkk cross burnings, moonshiners and many more aspects of the culture. I sell images through galleries and do exhibitions for museums. My work is in perminate collections n several museums.

As you mentioned, museums like archival silver prints. I've willed my roughly 100,000 documentary negatives to a museum that's established an archive for my and one other photographer who documented the area from the late 1890 through the early 1960's. I also donate archival silver gelatin prints to them.

I still shoot everything from 35mm to 8x10. I no longer have an 8x10 enlarger but contact them and enlarge negs up to 5x7 with a Durst 138, Omega D5 and Focomat.

You asked about alternative processes, I do platinum as well as collodion wet plate for both pleasure and sale through galleries.

A few years ago I was going to retire and shut my darkroom down and go full digital for personal work. I foolishly sold off my darkroom but quickly realized I missed film and wound up buying essentially the same equipment back and building an ever better darkroom. I have to say I get great joy out of wet printing and shooting film. Ive commented to several clients that id go back to film in a heartbeat if I could. By the way, I didn't fully retire. I work a day or so a week and really enjoy my clients and work. I found after 50 years it hard to quit something you love.

 

[johnf04]

Mine is a hobbyist interest - I buy old cameras, get them going if possible, and run film through them. I use monochrome film which I process and scan myself. Some scans are printed, at a local camera shop through their consumer digital machine.

 

[Richard G]

CAMERA reasons:

I have been shooting the little Leica thread mount cameras a lot recently, especially the newest one a very functional IIIf with a 50 Elmar in good condition. First, it's small. It slips into the outer pocket of my usual daily bag. It is always on, the battery never flat. It doesn't hunt with autofocus. With the SBOOI accessory finder is is very quick to grab a shot. It is quiet.

At the opposite end of the spectrum I bought a Hasselblad recently. Mostly I have used it on a tripod. The machine itself, like the IIIf is part of the experience. I am not in the school of "a camera is just a tool." It is an important part of the experience and the immersion in photography. The Zeiss lenses and the medium format perspective and tonality are wonderful.

FILM reasons:

. I love the flexibility of colour negative film. Deliberately over-exposing two stops for shadow detail. Digital is the exact opposite, and slide film. Mostly I have been shooting Ektar lately. It has fine grain and a real Kodak signature reminiscent of Kodachrome sometimes. The M9-P CCD sensor is not so far from that either. Then Tri-X, also very flexible. And certainly familiar. Sometimes the emotion evoked by film image leaves digital far behind.

PRINT:

Inkjet. I think it can work very well with good inks on good paper.

 

[Bill Clark]

Great idea for a thread here.

Only make photographs with black and white film.

I process the film and print in my analog darkroom. The largest print I have made so far is 16” x 20”.

I only do projects with film because of nostalgia as it is the medium where I began my photography journey.

Today my wife and I drove to St. Paul to see and make photographs of the ice palace and other sculptures in Rice Park.

Smiles and still lots of fun.

 

[K14]

I still shoot film and have a temporary darkroom, processing trays on the washer/dryer in my pantry.

I've also been sticking to film for my astrophotography, no worries of running out of power, no wires to trip on in the dark, loosing my night vision from the glare of a computer screen or camera LCD. Setup time is minutes for film compared to an hour using digital.

Hypering film is what I miss and want to get back to, see how sensitive the modern films emulsions are today.

My C41 goes to the camera shop, process only. I then scan and print. I do agree that film slows me down and I do take better pictures.

 

[Shac]

Develop at home (B&W), scan and inkjet prints. Had a darkroom since I was 12 and would rather not go back. All thinks equal the controls & consistency in digital printing suit me just fine.

 

[shimokita]

01) I support the local lab - the mom & pop shop were they have told me that I am their only film camera user (SLR / RF). They make their small income from disposable cameras, digital prints, digital enlargements, portraits, and small photo related items. Recently they are closed one day a week.

02) The local gets the enlargement work that I do from digital files... I scan all my own film (135 or 120 format), mostly B&W recent years. It's actually less expensive to have color film developed vs. B&W.

03) Nothing that I would consider out of the ordinary... but I really enjoy getting the enlargements ( 20x30 cm) which I frame.

 

[dfranklin]

My serious interest in photography began only about 5 years ago. Since then I have acquired several MF cameras and one 4x5 view camera. Three years ago I built a darkroom in my basement--the first darkroom I have ever had regular access to. I develop my films there and print them with an Omega enlarger. The process is time consuming, but the images I produce this way are, I think, far better than what I get out of my digital camera. At least they are more satisfying, and ultimately more memorable (to me), since I spend so much time with them. And to my eye, at least, a silver gelatin print has a 'depth' that can't be replicated by an ink jet printer.

 

[fuji645]

I shoot film and digital. Film is mainly medium format (6x6, 6x4.5, 6x9). Develop and scan for prints for exhibition/shows and personal use. Prints on a Canon Pro 9500 Mk II or outsource to a lab for larger than 13x17. Shooting film (even 35mm) is a cathartic and extremely pleasurable experience for me personally.

 

[farlymac]

1) Still have it done at a lab, but I need to keep hunting for a better place as some of them have no idea what quality control is.

2) I kind of got away from making prints (inkjet), but once I have my new set-up running (changing over my whole computer system), I plan on going back in the files and printing the really good ones.

3) Ha! If I had the facilities, I'd be doing cyanotypes.

I still shoot more film than digital, but it all depends on the situation. If it's an event, definitely digital. Most of the other time it's just because I like using my film cameras. It's what I'm most used to, and a lot easier to get the look I want. Plus the investment in bodies and glass would be going to waste if I didn't use them now and then.

PF

 

[jan normandale]

(1) Film processed at a lab or in your darkroom/bathroom/or wherever you could load a film tank?

BW, C41, E6 at home Jobo CPE2

(2) From these negatives or slides, are prints made in your darkroom or sent out to a lab for silver, chemical color or inkjet or are they scanned and ink jet printed in your office? Or are prints a thing of the past now replaced by a computer screen?

Epson V750 for 120, 4x5, 5x7 + Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV for 135

Scans are corrected for levels and dodging / burning then saved. Printing is done by pro labs


(3) Or are you doing something truly unusual like archival carbon prints on a modified inkjet?

I am investigating ‘alternative’ processes and have just picked up “Jill Enfield s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes”

I have one friend who produces archival silver prints because museums like them, and it is the way he has always worked and in which he feels comfortable. I have other friends who shoot film because they feel it slows them down and makes them a better photographer, but they scan the film and make inkjet prints. I’m sure there are many other reasons for shooting film. But I’m sitting here with several film cameras and would love to know some of the things I might look forward to if I start shooting a little film again.

I shoot film because I have 2 fridges full of it. I also shoot with a Nikon digital p/s and a Sony A7. I have no favourite. Horses for courses... film does some things better as does digital. I take this into account when using any camera film or digital.

 

[telenous]

Most of my cameras use film. I develop and print both ways (dry/wet) but mostly dry, to be honest. Nothing fancy, scan + inkjet or small darkroom stuff. I have one petty reason for using film -- I just like the cameras of old. A somewhat loftier (or maybe not as petty) one is that film provides for a physical fixed reference point to the scene photographed. The very fact of the exposed negative heightens sometimes my emotional response to a photo. It's as if you can still touch that which was.

.

 

[dmr]

(1) Film processed at a lab or in your darkroom/bathroom/or wherever you could load a film tank?

Lately I've been doing all film in the Jobo in the kitchen, temporary set-up. The main reason I got that was because the last real camera shop that does processing has cut back the schedule and it's a multi-day turn-around time now.

(2) From these negatives or slides, are prints made in your darkroom or sent out to a lab for silver, chemical color or inkjet or are they scanned and ink jet printed in your office? Or are prints a thing of the past now replaced by a computer screen?

For those I print I do it in, well, LOL, my "office" at home, spare bedroom. 🙂 I maybe print out one per roll at most. As I've said for a long time, if I have one real keeper per roll I'm tickled pink! I end up posting more of them on line than I print out.

(3) Or are you doing something truly unusual like archival carbon prints on a modified inkjet?

Uh, say what? 🙂 🙂

 

[sepiareverb]

I shoot both film and digital cameras. Been in the darkroom a whole lot for the past four months or so, and loving every minute of it. I learned to print in 1977, and have rarely been without a darkroom since.

I print little of the digital work, the thought of knocking out two dozen work prints on the Epson has so little appeal. Every few months I knuckle down and do it tho.

 

[gnuyork]

I've been shooting more film lately, and have plenty of film cameras to use from 35mm on up to 4x5. I got a Rolleiflex last summer and have been really enjoying that (what a fun camera).

I process B&W film on my own here at the house, scan and work on the images in Lightroom. Sometimes I may make an inkjet print. I post a lot of my stuff on my Instagram page, which is a mix of my film work and digital.

I do have a few inkjet printers including a 44" wide format canon (that needs servicing at very high cost!), and some Epsons. I do have an older Epson I converted to carbon inks. But I don't use it anymore.

Down the road, I'd like to get my darkroom set up. I have everything for it including 4 enlargers, but not much motivation in organizing and setting up. One day....

For color film and transparencies, I send off to a Lab in Rochester, NY. - processing only. I scan and print myself.

My only complaint with film, is the smell of fixer and how much water I waste processing rolls of film.

 

[ptpdprinter]

I shoot black and white film and process it myself. I also do a lot of digital black and white. For color work, I shoot digital. I wet print in my darkroom. I also scan and inkjet print at home. I print all my own digital work. I print both scanned film and digital on platinum/palladium. I have done some carbon printing, but I currently don't have room to make tissue.