I don't shoot film, I'm not rich enough...

[Juan Valdenebro]

No one has said that...

Only that if you look at a screen, you look less at reality.

The same with Polaroids... This is in no way against digital sensors.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[lewis44]

one does not STOP THINKING because the medium has turned digital.

Joe,
It's not that you stop thinking, you just don't have the luxury of reviewing your shot's, so you put a little more time and effort to getting it right with a film camera.

 

[Mcary]

Ain't That the Truth.
Film Makes You Think Before You Shoot.
Not a bad Concept

Sorry but I must of missed that memo! Doesn't matter to me whither I'm shooting digital or film, I see a shot I take it, and if I don't see a shot I don't take it simple as that.

My thoughts on shooting film http://figuremodels.org/insomniacure/?p=355 Not work safe

 

[FrankS]

People can say that you don't have to shoot more frames with digital than you do with film,, but in most cases this is what happens, due to the nature of the 2 media. In the real old days, typical weddings could be shot with 12 sheets of 4x5 film. With the switch-over by many pros to 120 film, that went up to 24 or 48 shots. When 35mm film became acceptable for weddings: 100 to 300 shots was typical. Nowadays with digital, taking 5000 shots is not uncommon per wedding. Digital can't force a photographer to take a lot of frames of a single scene, but it is usually done, due to the nature of the medium, in order to assure that one will be just right. It's a bit like selecting the decisive moment from a video. That's just not my style. For most of us it's just a hobby, so do whatever you like that floats your boat. I don't care what others do, I've found my "thing", and it is film.

It's the same with using long lenses for street shooting. If that works for you and makes you happy, then go with it. It doesn't matter in the least that it doesn't work for me, because it doesn't have to. That is your thing, not mine.

 

[Denis M.]

10% is not a bad success 🙂

I believe it is lower than that, ~1-2%

I find my hit rate with digital doesn't got over 1%, with film it doesn't go over 3%. With medium format, it's about under 8%. With 4x5, well, I'm still "learning."

For some reason I feel like my hit rate keeps getting lower every year :bang:

 

[FrankS]

I find my hit rate with digital doesn't got over 1%, with film it doesn't go over 3%. With medium format, it's about under 8%. With 4x5, well, I'm still "learning."

For some reason I feel like my hit rate keeps getting lower every year :bang:

That's not necessarily a bad thing. It could mean that you are trying new stuff instead of the old, not too exciting, safe stuff.

 

[Brian Legge]

I think the chimping issue largely comes down to frequency. For some shoots, reviewing every shot makes sense. For others, it would take you out of the moment to a degree which is detrimental to getting good shots.

Simplest example, try shooting high pace sporting event while reviewing constantly. It is too easy to miss plays, etc. At the same time, checking a shot every few minutes makes sense to be sure lighting isn't drifting, etc.

I don't shoot sports often, but turning off image review/auto displaying images after shooting was one of the first changes I made to my normal routine. It was actively distracting to have it there.

At the same time, I appreciate that I could review images periodically, see that autofocus wasn't hitting the spots I wanted, and compensate. Of course, if the finder was larger I wouldn't have had as many issues with that. 😉

 

[Mcary]

I find my hit rate with digital doesn't got over 1%, with film it doesn't go over 3%. With medium format, it's about under 8%. With 4x5, well, I'm still "learning."

For some reason I feel like my hit rate keeps getting lower every year :bang:

Or maybe you're just getting more selective and an image that was a keeper last year or the year before that simply doesn't make the cut today.

 

[wgerrard]

To you... To some other people it can be good or it can be bad.

Well, that goes for almost every opinion expressed here or elsewhere.

No ethical weight is attached to an LCD screen on the back of a camera. Getting an LCD screen onto the back of a camera is a technological advance, just as the Polaroid was. I.e., a tool. Using it, or not using it, is a preference, not an issue of good or bad.

Some may prefer to look at the LCD others may not. Some may think not looking at the LCD, or shooting film and, hence, having no LCD image display, makes them a better shooter. Others may not.

It's like arguing if an M6 is better than an M7. Invariably someone will argue that the MP is better than all. Doesn't make a bit of difference. It all comes down to what works for each individual, i.e., as you say, how they choose to play the game.

 

[back alley]

Joe,
It's not that you stop thinking, you just don't have the luxury of reviewing your shot's, so you put a little more time and effort to getting it right with a film camera.

this makes no sense to me...as an absolute saying.

if this is what you do then fine, but if this is what you think all people do, then not so fine.

maybe my age and experience make it different for me but my style of shooting has not changed at all since going digital rf.
in fact, i may shoot even less with a better 'hit rate' now.

 

[jky]

I've had to learn to treat digital the way I did with film and not machine gun the sucker to capture the image I want. This then, obviously, increased the keepers (back to the low % it was when I shot film).

Re: film as being expensive.

It was for me until I started souping my own b&w... then the issue of *time* crept in...

Digital/film - whatever works for you I'd say...
I've seen some images shot with digital & processed in Alien skin that look like TriX... or perhaps I just didn't notice the difference because the overall image was just spectacular.

 

[semilog]

I really don't see why people are so against chimping. When you use film you check exposure and replace rolls out on the street, don't you? I assume you don't walk into poles! Just think what could have happened in those moments!


rxmd beat me to the punch...

I'm not against chimping generally. I am against chimping in street work.

A film change requires no interpretation unless you're changing films, in which case it's a pre-exposure photographic decision. Exposure metering is also an intrinsic part of the pre-exposure sequence.

Chimping is a post-exposure action. In this kind of photography, where opportunities are intrinsically evanescent and non-reproducible, there's little point to seeing whether you got the shot before the end of the session.

 

[Keith]

Hi Keith,

I think a bit differently... My opinion is that wet printing is precisely what gives film shooting a valid life apart from digital world...

For digital processing and printing, I think a digital capture makes more sense...

Cheers,

Juan

For film to exist though Juan it needs people taking it up and not just the die hards like us continuing on!

I'm not saying a hybrid work flow is superior but it is more inviting to someone who already has a computer and will likely master the post processing skills very quickly to produce acceptable output because they are 'digital natives' and it comes naturally to them!

People your age and my age are 'digital migrants' and consequently we see little joy in a digital future ... though we accept it!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

1. For film to exist though Juan it needs people taking it up and not just the die hards like us continuing on!

2. I'm not saying a hybrid work flow is superior but it is more inviting to someone who already has a computer and will likely master the post processing skills very quickly to produce acceptable output because they are 'digital natives' and it comes naturally to them!

3. People your age and my age are 'digital migrants' and consequently we see little joy in a digital future ... though we accept it!

Hi Keith,

1. I think most of the small niche of constant film shooters, now and in the future, is and will be related to wet printing, B&W especially. I guess film will become even less usual after some people now shooting film and scanning learn how much IQ loss they can avoid if they migrate to digital capture.

2. If we talk about people with computers, the ones you name digital natives, what is really inviting, is digital capture, not film... Why shoot film if you won't print film? A hybrid process is a historic, nostalgia way of using our past and our present together, and it will diminish soon... The main reason is that when you scan you lose part off the benefits film gives when you wet print. For time, money and IQ, if the processing and printing is going to be digital, what makes a lot more sense is shooting digital.

3. I'm no digital migrant. I am a film shooter and film printer as long as there are materials... Maybe all my life... And indeed I see a lot of joy in a digital future with high quality digital printing, processing and shooting. And I'll do it the day I see better B&W prints than fiber paper wet prints... It's the hybrid process the one I consider the least effective: you lose the best of film (wet printing tone), you lose quality considerably while scanning, and you don't enjoy some of the best from digital: economy in time and money while shooting...

I doubt the future of new, young film shooters in coming decades will be scanning film. The common thing will be an all digital workflow, and there will be a smaller all analog workflow.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Keith]

The two terms digital migrant and digital native have very specific meanings Juan.

If you were born before digital technology existed you are a digital migrant ... like it or not sorry! 😀

Digital natives are a whole different ball game ... they exited the womb into a digital world and have far less connection to an analog system than can be appreciated by the likes of us!


'digital native'

 

[FrankS]

The two terms digital migrant and digital native have very specific meanings Juan.

If you were born before digital technology existed you are a digital migrant ... like it or not sorry! 😀

Digital natives are a whole different ball game ... they exited the womb into a digital world and have far less connection to an analog system than can be appreciated by the likes of us!


'digital native'

There is another term: film Luddite

 

[David Murphy]

I buy generic C41 35mm film for prices between $0.25 and $1.25 USD per roll in bulk purchases on eBay, the 99-cent store, sometimes here, or at other photo sites (often expired, but rarely an issue). I process it to negatives at Walmart for $1.50 a roll and scan it myself - all very cheap. I have low cost ways to shoot color slides too, but I won't bore you with the details. Film is cheap if you want it to be.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

I feel a bit sad about the hybrid workflow... Sad because some years ago I considered it a great option... But there's visible sharpness and tonal loss while scanning: and I mean even with the best scanners...

For example: what 35mm color film and camera, after scanning, give us similar results to an M9? That's what I mean...

Yet the hybrid system has a strong point apart from its digital processing strengths: it allows us to have great physical originals, and those originals might take two other roads sometime in the future: optical, analog printing, or, future, better digital ways of scanning and printing...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[wgerrard]

Ain't That the Truth.
Film Makes You Think Before You Shoot.
Not a bad Concept

There is nothing about film, with one exception, that has anything at all to do with whether or not the photographer thinks before shooting. And that one exception is the cost of film, which, ahem, bears on what some of us have been saying in this thread.

We all can think before shooting, or not, just as readily with digital as with film. (Give me a motorized film camera and I could rip through film with my brain turned off.) If some of us don't, that is only because we decide not to.

The number of keepers people say they have with film versus digital is really irrelevant to the cost of film. I have a couple of 16-gig SDHC cards. I can shoot thousands of JPEG's before one of them fills up. I won't incur any additional cost doing that. To shoot 36 new shots in one of my film cameras, I need to spend money on film. I could trash all the film shots and keep every JPEG shot and I'd still be out the money for the film.

Many of the traditional arguments for film over digital have been raised in this thread, and I agree with a good number of them. But, the attributes of the two mediums, and our individual preferences for one or the other, are peripheral to the issue under discussion.

 

[lewis44]

this makes no sense to me...as an absolute saying.

if this is what you do then fine, but if this is what you think all people do, then not so fine.

maybe my age and experience make it different for me but my style of shooting has not changed at all since going digital rf.
in fact, i may shoot even less with a better 'hit rate' now.

Joe,
I don't know much that is absolute, so my statement is pretty much general.
As for age and experience, I just turned 66 the other day and started with a Kodak Brownie when I was 10.
I found that my style slowly changed with digital as I could review what I shot on the spot and could re-shoot and I got sloppy.
As much as I liked digital, I just got rid of all my "D"gear and am going to go back to shooting film.

Also, with you using the RD-1, you have to cock the shutter, and maybe that keeps you focused.


I kept a Contax G kit on the shelf along with some Nikon stuff, so onward I go, or should I say "Back"
I always thought if I could get 1 or 2 really good shots on a roll, it was a good day. I found myself looking through 50-100 files to find one that was OK.

For me, I Gotta' go back to the basics.