If I Scan Negs, Don't Do Darkroom/Prints, Then Why Film?

Late in here but I had a mini-revelation about this (the original question) recently.

For a year I shot our travels using a G2 and mostly Provia 100F. On our last trip I failed to see what the point of it was as I observed all the other tourists walking around using digital. Slide film, processing, and then scanning is expensive and time consuming. And, aside from the specifics of the G2 and its lens range, it's hard to argue that it's worth it (IMO). A good digital point and shoot would have done just as well as I have no intention of making prints of any of this stuff.

So I was on the fence thinking about dumping 35mm film and switching to digital. I bought an Epson V700 (because I have lots of film to digitize) and quickly scanned a few of my MF b&w negs. My face lit up. There was a bit of soul there on my screen, something lovely that reminded me why I like film.

So I sold the G2 (and a T3), bought a ZI and 2/35 biogon, and a stack of Neopan 400.

I'm going to buy my wife a new compact digital and have her capture colour. She has a good eye and I'll occasionally grab the digital and use it. But for the most part I'll stick to black and white film.

For me this seems to be a great compromise. I keep my hobby the way I like it and for me alone — no need to use film purely to record things anymore. But for all the other stuff in life we have cheap easy digital.

Make sense?
 
Tonality, dynamic range, the predefined (and sometimes unpredictable) results I get from a given film and a given lens, and the fact that I don't think I'll be able to match B&W from APX 100 or Tri-X with digital. I love digital, and a full-frame sensor may make me ditch color film entirely, but for now, I have a few reasons to use it now and then.
 
If anybody does want to look at Al Kaplan's blog it even includes a scan of a B&W picture of my three uncles before my father was born in 1917. (I didn't take that one.)

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

Someplace on it is a Kodachrome II self potrait that I shot in 1962 with an Olympus Pen. I recently discovered a couple of boxes of Kodachromes my dad had shot in the late 1930's and early 1940's. I'll probably post a few of those. I'm a few days behind in writing text, and lately I've been scanning directly from contact sheets (just because...).

CAUTION! Do not attempt to read the blog beginning to end in one sitting. There's a lot of reading to do. with well over 1,000 daily postings, three or four paragraphs each.
 
Last edited:
Tuolumne said:
Why do wedding shooters post-process their own files? Seems like a waste. Out source it to India or pay a high school/college student to do it.
/T
Click to expand...

you're kidding, right? pp is extremely important - many wedding shooters develop proprietary actions etc to ensure style continuity and individuality, afaik. would you have an apprentice produce, say, wet prints your livelihood depends on?
 
MCTuomey said:
you're kidding, right? pp is extremely important - many wedding shooters develop proprietary actions etc to ensure style continuity and individuality, afaik. would you have an apprentice produce, say, wet prints your livelihood depends on?
Click to expand...

Well, everyone who laments all of the PP work wedding photographers have to do say it was all so much easier when the lab did it. So, if it was Ok for the lab to make the prints why isn't it Ok for a "lab" to post-process your digital images? And if you develop your own PP methods set them up so they can just be run by someone you hire.

/T
 
It's all about keeping the spirit of traditional photography alive. Digital is simply icing on the cake that allows me to view other peoples great work that I would never see otherwise.
 
wgerrard said:
I'm curious about your thoughts on this scenario: Use film, pay a shop to process it, stuff negatives into a scanner, and then fiddle with Aperture/Lightroom/Photoshop/whatever.

That's what I do, and I'm wondering if it's worth the time and money. I don't do darkroom work or have prints made. I'm quite happy to look at my stuff on a monitor screen.

The only thing that isn't digital in this mix is the film and the camera.

So... I don't intend to launch a film vs. digital thread, so please don't go there. But, I am honestly interested in the comments of any others who have wondered the same thing, and what they did about it.

(How some money gets spent in the near future is behind this question.)
Click to expand...

Well, for some reason, all the good stuff I see on flickr is analog. Especially color positive looks much better than digital capture.
 
I know my films, and the look they will give, and can then get that look without resorting to time-consuming post processing by simply loading a camera with that film.

I also find it much simpler to find negatives than DNG's or JPG's.
 
Here's why I do it.

I live in a small town. The local developer (only one) does terrible prints and employs teenage elves to dance all over my negatives and scratch them (I swear it's true ;-).

I can develop black and white and then scan it myself. It's over night developing for me rather than waiting a week or two to get into the city to develop negatives at a responsible developers. Tri-x is quite pretty and often surprises me in how it abstracts the light and translates colour. My Nikon scanner has this setting called digital ice which miraculously removes all the dust on my color negatives saving hours of tedious touch-ups. Finally, the scans and CDs that the photo centers produce always have funky colour, are over sharpened, and too low resolution for my needs (occasional enlargements).

Why film cameras than digital cameras?

a) Partly it's the size of the DSLRs (which i have, like, and use professionally). The size is not much fun.

b) Partly it's because I like how the cameras affect how I take pictures. I have to think to use them and that usually means better pictures (though sometimes thinking is muddled and I'm too slow).

c) Finally, the is not a digital camera for me that is as much fun to use as Leicas and TLRs. They are delightful machines and produce beautiful results!

Best wishes in your quest,
Ian
 
Tuolumne said:
Well, everyone who laments all of the PP work wedding photographers have to do say it was all so much easier when the lab did it. So, if it was Ok for the lab to make the prints why isn't it Ok for a "lab" to post-process your digital images? And if you develop your own PP methods set them up so they can just be run by someone you hire.

/T
Click to expand...

well, the actions automate the workflow, so outsourcing would be a needless expense. it's a time saver, it's a consistency benefit, and a control benefit. c'mon, read up on ascough or buissink, or spend some time over at FM on the wedding photog forum.

re: printing: afaik, there are lots of wedding photogs who farm the printing out, but pp and album design & layout not. i've been to a few of their seminars - it seems like the vast majority of wedding shooters are one-person shops or, at most, husband-wife teams. they're all over efficiency and cutting overhead like a blanket. it's about maximizing the computing tool's efficiency, not avoiding it. i think you miss the point why a tool like lightroom becomes so popular versus a picasa.

i don't think many of the higher volume shooters would return to a film-style workflow, meaning lab dependency. there's a reason those labs are disappearing ...
 
I think its horses for courses. Photography is my hobby and I like B&W, so most of my pictures are taken with Leica rangefinders which are eminently suited to the kind of shooting I do. To share on places like this and with others I scan the developed film as a background task on my PC when its running.

I also have a family that wants reasonably nice color snaps, but quick. For that I have a Fuji S5 dSLR with a very good Nikkor medium zoom lens. The camera is set to auto everything and I get amazing JPGs out of the camera (about 26MB in size). A bit of sharpening in PS and everything is marvy.

I like the look of the results I get from both the B&W RF and the dSLR color, and I don't spend a great deal of time or money getting those results. When I was researching a digital solution I stayed clear of Leica and focused on the products that gave a "film-like" look to the output and ended up with the Fuji. Yes it's a dSLR but it works without any problems. I was not prepared to get an M8 because of all of the problems, didn't want an Epson because I don't fancy it's design and wondered about quality/support. If you're prepared to deal with these uncertainties then get a digital RF but I do think that digital seems perfectly good for color and would encourage you to explore that option.
 
I would say that when film becomes a pain in the neck, it's time to give it up and "go digital."

(I'm not yet at that point.)
 
I'm sure by page 5 I have nothing new to add. But here goes anyway :)

Different films have a different look. I don't use digital because I haven't yet found one that delivers the looks I like. And I did intentionally write the plural form, "looks." I can get B&W the way I like it using film, then scanning. I can get the color look I like using film then scanning it. If I want a different look for B&W or color, I can use a different film rather than go out and buy a whole new system just to change the sensor.

I just don't see the point in replacing my film bodies with a digital camera. They have their uses, and I have a four year old digital P&S that does fine when that's what I want. A DSLR system is the thing I would ever accuse of being "convenient" or "handy."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom