Last week I had the temerity on Luminous Landscape to query whether they might consolidate some of the low traffic forum discussion folders into "FILM". Of course the rather strident reaction considered my antediluvian insanity and lots of "Film is dead" original reactions. Best responses were: "Film's simple. Take pictures. Go away and have fun." Okay. Added: "With film, the film companies have done so much of the work for you... building in lattitude and dynamic range, that you don't have to jigger it yourself." Maybe. At anyrate... I get what they're about. "Done".
Many there are old an great film photographer's but the market has indeed moved on, and I imagine if you're a working photographer it's all digital 'cause that's the demand, and what's expected. Selling's hard enough without making yourself out as a lunatic fighting the last war. Yes, understood, and I'm an amateur without that handcuff. Yes, I'm keeping my digital btw, and love digital especially for color where the post adjustments are relatively simpler for me than it would be to try to manage (for me at least) in a wet darkroom. Fairly, I haven't run any color film yet, but I'm not really after that with film - yet... so that may be a premature thought on my part.
So FWIW, during the few days my post played out, an article was posted on the future of photography with quite a fair number of very positive things said about film, and its revival - especially for Fine Art. Of course this followed an earlier article on scanning film negatives with cameras rather than scanners. So their subject matter in their articles is beginning to work an edge in... yet when asked to follow-up... the decision to ignore film was swift, decisive and firmly, "Not gonna happen." Put that in the category of Kevin Brownlow's intro to his book on the Silent Film era, "The parade's gone by, pops" as a tech once put it to the hand crank camera men from back in the day. Sure seems the case here, too. "Sic Transit, Gloria Mundi".
For my part, I'm working out a film-to-digital workflow for my B&W shots using: 1) light table, 2) old englarger ($35 on eBay), 3) Sony A7II, and prototype negative holder using cardboard and fiberboard that I'll shortly upgrade to brass and glass soon enough. Busy debugging my design's kinks at the moment, so Mod-Two should be better. Trial conversions are encouraging: Faster and easier than flatbed scanners, with better quality files - RAW rather than JPEGs... and adjustments in post are pretty quick. Sure, there's a learning curve, but if you're thinking about it, Capture One is doggone simple for B&W, and color doesn't look that much more difficult.
So if film really is all this simple as it is and cuts post production time - at least for B&W, then I'm loving it! Maybe Fuji will give us (back?) some high speed B&W?
