I swear to stick to film. So help me... who?

[PaulDalex]

I would like to resist to digital and stick to film.
However,
I see difficulties in keeping using film and I think the technology is not ripe for me to buy any digital camera.
For film (I shoot color only) it is not yet a problem buying film. There is plenty of supply on the web.
A few people (less than I expected according to a poll here) soups their negative color film.
I cannot because I am allergic to any chemical, no matter how mild is the smell.
Neither I have decent minilabs near home anymore.
Neither I could find in continental Europe a company using prepaid mailers. This logical solution, common in the States, for some reason lacks here.
This is the my bottleneck for film.
In discouragement I took a look to processing machines.
I though to myself: If I could get my hands on a dry to dry little machine in which to put film on a side and get it developed ten minutes later on the other side I would be in business again.
Is seems that Fuji-Noritsu dominates this market. They sell a separate film processing machine for their digital minilabs. Alas! It is far too big for personal use.
http://www.fujifilmusa.com/JSP/fuji...p;jsessionid=79B47D087806D15A8DBBB1B00F8C7561
And yet I would guess, in the light of this product, and the recently introduced kit to process film inside the film cartridge, it should be viable to develop a personal use, small volume, desktop, dry to dry processing machine. It could use sealed tanks much like an inkjet printer. Use tiny droplet to cover the film with the exact amount of chemical needed, with no reuse. No smell and no fuss!
At that point film and digital would compete au pair. And I guess that it should be interest of the film business guys to introduce such a product, in order to revive their analog niche for many years to come.
Passing to look at digital offerings I rececently saw the test of Sony alfa 700 in dpreview. It indicates interesting advances. Extinction resolution passes 8MP (don't be fooled by pixel count of digital cameras, extinction resolution is already very optimistic). Also the camera does a good job extending the dynamic range.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra700/
BUT
It is an APS size sensor!. Can you swallow the crop factor? Not me. What? The beloved 50 I use most becomes a much less useful short tele?
Forget it.
And how about the fact that the APS area is 50% of a full frame size? It would make sense to expect an extinction resolution substantially higher than 8 MP.
Do you remember the Pronea and the Vectis? My feeling is that full frame will catch on and the current D300, A700 etc. will become the modern Pronea and Vectis in a couple years. Forgotten technological and marketing nonsenses!
And we will be right back where we started from (i.e. 35 mm size). Hopefully with smaller cameras and in the same price range of yesterday's pro film cameras!
One may object. There is e.g. the top of the line Mark xyz Cannon, which is already full frame.
Too big, too expensive and, besides, I have no Canon lenses.
How about the D3? To expensive and too small pixel count! Nikon designed it for speed! Well, I like speed. But no trade-off, please.
If only there were that who, who cared to create that little dry to dry processing machine!
I would be so happy to forget for the next decade digitals and the hassle (don't forget to adjourn your firmware! beware of viruses! hope it won't fail too soon like my PC did!...) and keep enjoying my beloved M5, CLE, Fuji 690 etc. No digital cameras will give me the same feelings and neither the same results.
Look forward to your comments
Cheers
Paul

 

[mfogiel]

Paul, I'm afraid that if you shoot colour, sticking to film is somewhat a losing proposition. I shoot 98% film only because I do B&W. For colour, I'd be very tempted to get a digi back for my Hasselblads. If you want my opinion, for colour film the only justifiable option is to use MF and larger formats, and simply send your rolls periodically to a pro lab. I've had enough films ruined by normal labs to even think about using them.
In digital, I use the Fuji S3 Pro - this camera is old now, and you can get it used for nothing, yet it is still the best digital camera for colour fidelity and dynamic range you can find around. It is slow, it is bulky, but it takes great colour pictures. You could get it and start accumulating some ZF lenses, while waiting for Nikon to come out with the D3X. The 35/2 Distagon, 50/2 and 100/2 Makro Planars are terrific - I haven't tried the 28/2 Distagon, but it should be a great lens as well. The S3 takes great portrait shots - for landscape unfortunately, you need more resolution.

 

[lZr]

I think your A is buried into your Q, but I'll point you to something you can rethink again. Film you develop (b&w) and no smell of chemicals. Look at this version of life: Gigabitfilm

http://www.gigabitfilm.com/html/english/products/product_photo_135.php?Layout=normal

I don't like it, but wanted to flow with your idea

 

[clarence]

How about simply accumulating film over a period of time, and then sending them off to the nearest decent lab for processing? That should help you save some money.

I don't usually have time to develop film myself, and I usually only get my film processed a few months after I have exposed them. It doesn't bother me. If you need immediate results you should just use a digital camera. Obsolescence is a non-issue as long as you buy used cameras. You can always sell them again at no loss if you decide that you want to move on.

Clarence

 

[TheHub]

... and the recently introduced kit to process film inside the film cartridge, it should be viable to develop a personal use, small volume, desktop, dry to dry processing machine. It could use sealed tanks much like an inkjet printer. Use tiny droplet to cover the film with the exact amount of chemical needed, with no reuse. No smell and no fuss! ...

I think you're referring to Fuji's Darkless development kit. If you have allergic reactions to chemical smells I advise staying far, far away from Darkless. I used it to develop about 5 rolls of film and I got 1 roll so-ok okay, the rest were ruined. The two chemicals, developer and fixer, SMELLED TERRIBLE. I use real chemicals with tanks & reels now and the smell is barely noticable.

Besides the smell, Darkless is very difficult to use and from what I've read/seen on the internet, only sometimes produces good results.

Where abouts do you live?

 

[bottley1]

".......and I think the technology is not ripe for me to buy any digital camera"

Why? The results from typical 10MB digital cameras are stunning. Ask yourself the question, if photography was invented today, and the choice was B+W film, colour film, or digital sensor, which would you choose?

 

[Pherdinand]

Pistach - where in Europe do you live?
I find it unbelievable a bit, that there are no decent minilabs to take care of your film.
I live in NL right now. Every town has a few of the labs. Some do it on their own, some send it out. 10x15 prints are sometimes so-so, having a scanner now, i don't order prints anymore; but the film development is fine. This includes C41, slide, 35mm and medium format.
On the other end of the scale, in a small town in Romania, i expected not to have this "luxury". But it turned out there are 4 or 5 places where they still develop film. The preice was quite less than here in NL and the dev quality was perfect; moreover, i got some 10x15 prints done, and they were stunningly well done.

One thing - do not go for one hour processing, go for two-days, or whatever. You pay more for 1hr, and you get less quality.

 

[Jamie123]

I agree with Pherdinand. If there's a relatively big town near you I'm sure there's a lab that offers film processing. Check Kodak's website for a list of Q-Labs near you. I was very surprised when I first saw that list and found out that there's a great (film only!) pro lab just 5 minutes away from my home hidden in a back alley.

Re: prepaid mailers: Here in Switzerland you can still get some Fuji slide films that come with prepaid mailers. I know we're technically not part of the EU but it's still continental Europe 😀

 

[sjw617]

Can you swallow the crop factor? Not me. What? The beloved 50 I use most becomes a much less useful short tele?
Forget it.
And how about the fact that the APS area is 50% of a full frame size? It would make sense to expect an extinction resolution substantially higher than 8 MP.

Is crop factor such a problem? If you take a picture of a mountain, you have already cropped it to 24mm. Is cropping to 18.5mm really all that much different / worse?

 

[alcaraban]

Passing to look at digital offerings I rececently saw the test of Sony alfa 700 in dpreview. It indicates interesting advances. Extinction resolution passes 8MP (don't be fooled by pixel count of digital cameras, extinction resolution is already very optimistic). Also the camera does a good job extending the dynamic range.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra700/
BUT
It is an APS size sensor!. Can you swallow the crop factor? Not me. What? The beloved 50 I use most becomes a much less useful short tele?
Forget it.

Wait for the 24x36 sensor of the upcoming a900 and you're done.

 

[shadowfox]

... Or you can buy the Noritsu and *becomes* the developer in town 😀

gosh! these responses are so serious... 😛

 

[flipflop]

hmm...just wanted to comment. I have a canon 20d which I think is a nice camera but no where near a film camera. I dont know what it is ....I dont know if it is the slight shutter lag of the 20d or the pictures just not looking quite as good as my film shots...but in the end I dont think there is anything like loading film in a contax g1 or a Leica M

If money wasnt an issue im sure I would be happy with digital. Buy the best pro camera and pro lenses then maybe I would be in favor of digital. But dollar for dollar nothing can compete with the price of the contax G cameras and lenses....great images for little money.

I think I would find a lab to mail off to after you have shot 10 or so rolls and send them off.

 

[Steve Bellayr]

The nice thing about digital cameras from the point of view of the manufacturer is that when they become outdated there is much of a secondary market. Once they become outmoded (more options added & more pixels) the older models become rather useless. The Nikon D1 with 2.7 pixels is fairly useless compared to the new D3 with 12. A good comparison is music CD's to Film cameras. Older film cameras with a CLA every 20 years & a new battery every 5 for the average family are pretty indestructable. Music CD's are difficult to break & work when scratched. They are light and can move from home to car to office & play forever with no maintenance. And, they had a vibrant secondary market and they could be copied indefinitely. What's wrong with that product? Big business can maximize their profit even further. They can go back to selling us singles for a $1 each and instead of $12.99 or $9.99for 17 cuts we can pay $17 and buy and Ipod and sound is not as good but we get to buy more expensive electronic gadgets. I'm certain that when top quality digitals reach their maximum potential & they are price at reasonable levels...World Corps. will market some other product to maximize their profit.

 

[350D_user]

I would like to resist to digital and stick to film. However, I see difficulties in keeping using film and I think the technology is not ripe for me to buy any digital camera.

So, don't buy a digital camera.

For film (I shoot color only) it is not yet a problem buying film. There is plenty of supply on the web. A few people (less than I expected according to a poll here) soups their negative color film. I cannot because I am allergic to any chemical, no matter how mild is the smell.

Latex rubber gloves, whilst dealing with chemicals.

... unless you're alergic to latex rubber as well...

Neither I have decent minilabs near home anymore. Neither I could find in continental Europe a company using prepaid mailers. This logical solution, common in the States, for some reason lacks here.
This is the my bottleneck for film.
In discouragement I took a look to processing machines. I though to myself: If I could get my hands on a dry to dry little machine in which to put film on a side and get it developed ten minutes later on the other side I would be in business again.

If you're ok with not having to handle printed photos, buy a film scanner.

I love developing b+w film. Printing it, otoh, is a pain in the arse. See, the darkroom isn't a permanent fixture here, so it takes a good 30 minutes to set it up, and I can only tolerate being in there for an hour. Afterwards, it's another 30 minutes taking it down again, so the bathroom is useable to everyone else.

I got a flatbed scanner for Christmas, an Epson 4490. Nowhere near as expensive as a true film scanner, and I feel that the results do show this sometimes. Also, the feeling you get when you see a photo emerge whilst being washed in a liquid is also missing. But, I've finally got a method of seeing my photos, and it's a method I'm more than happy with.

As always, ymmv.

 

[maddoc]

If you only shoot digital and are allergic against all kind of chemicals .... either stick with film and sent them to a decent lab or go digital. Forget about any processing machine because the film may come out developed and dried but you have to open bottles containing chemicals and fill the chemicals into your processing machine....
BTW, I tried the Fuji darkless process (for B&W) and it is a nightmare :bang:

 

[maddoc]

Canon beat Nikon in sales for many, many years. The lens issue proved moot.

Things changed last year at least in the Japanese market. Nikon sold more DSLR cameras than Canon here. 😉

 

[PaulDalex]

I hearty thank you all for your very interesting comments!
I am taking notes because , as soon as I have the time, I want to answer each of your postings.
Meanwhile Toyotadesigner, could you please give me a link to this lab? I can't find it by the search engines (as usual they never find anything. They only sell or spy!)
Cheers to you all. You are fantastic people!
Pistach