Is Digital slowly taking over on RRF?

[Frankie]

Film, film, film film, film. It's just better. Really.

Many decades ago, I drank coffee only with cream and sugar...until I accidentally discovered black, the true taste.

In the mid-80's, debates in CD sound quality dominated audiophile magazines, many proclaimed vinyl was better... Then Bob [?] Carver developed a CD player with white/pink [?] noise deliberately injected into the playback and was deemed more vinyl-like, and was celebrated for a short while.

In my own [aerial survey] industry, film [Kodak 2405 or equivalent] was to be exposed/processed with a minimum density of 0.15 above base+fog...and not denser than 1.5...a mere 4 zones net...so as not to truncate highlight/shadow details that need to be mapped; or about ISO 160 rating.

When digital cameras [starting at 112 Mpixel] was operational in early 2000's, the evangelical authorities proclaimed digital is better because of "no film noise"...meaning no B+F, most professionals had no clue what was being said... Indeed, 4 zones or 4-bits cannot begin to compete with 12-bits.

I think the "Absolute Sound" audiophile magazine [Harry Pearson] had it right. What is absolutely right must first mimic reality. White/pink noice or film noise had no place in it.

 

[wgerrard]

Film:
1. Full frame without spending thousands.
2. Pay as you go
3. Fast lenses, affordable
4. Better dynamic range
....Film, film, film film, film. It's just better. Really.

All true, but not very important to the vast majority of camera buyers. Even if they recognized and understood the good things film can deliver, people buy digitals because they want the good things digital delivers more.

Besides, you hafta go out of your way to buy a film camera these days.

 

[Nikkor AIS]

Sometimes the candle is brightest just before it dies. So it is with film. I quit trying to justify why I still shot it when simple fact is "I can". Im about to invest in fridge full of film for a up coming project. I hope to have at least half a fridge of film left over for my personal work when Im done. As long as they make it Im using it.

Gregory

 

[leica M2 fan]

Exactly my sentiments.

Exactly my sentiments.

I will continue using RF cameras until it becomes problematic for me to do so. It takes a certain mind set to accept digtal cameras as compared to Leica or Contax or Canon RF cameras or similar beauties from the past. If I had been a professional photographer, I would use 95% digital cameras.

May film photography never leave this world. It still has soul in it. It would be [for me] a dark "photography world" if film photography goes away.

Would you in evenings while watching TV and drinking some hot drink with your families actually just hold a digital camera in your hands to admire the craftmanship and history that went into its production?

I never do this with my LUMIX digital camera with Leica lens. On the other hand, I have admired a Contax IIa or a Standard Leica or a Voigtlander Prominent or Kodak Retina IIa or ... and each time, I marveled at the beauty of each of these cameras and the lenses they come with. There is warmth in the feelings felt when imagining myself using such a lens and camera the following days. I don't feel such warmth when I take a look at my only digital camera and when I know I would be using it the following day.

My sentiments exactly, could not have been more perfectly stated. Thanks for writing what many of us feel and think.
Tony

 

[Macpod]

what is the price ceiling of film before we stop buying it?

what is the price ceiling of film before we stop buying it?

Im guessing i will pay 10dollars for a roll of tri-x before i stop using it regularly. Anything beyond that will make film a luxury item for me. in fact in australia that is already the price one needs to pay.....

At the moment i pay around 1 dollar per roll of chinese made ERA or lucky 100 and 3 dollars for a roll of ilford pan 400(HP5 equivalent)

For slide film i pay 3.50 for a roll of elitechrome and another 3.50 for push development to 400ASA.

These numbers are still pretty good but if they double i will have to cut down and if they triple then im going to seriously think about that GF1 and 20/F1.7 and only use the cheapest b/w film i can find for kicks once in a while.

The cost of slide film and push development is already at a point where it is something i only use because i dont have a DSLR. Although there is something special about pushed slide film...aghhhh!





PS. im currently living in beijing and it is a film users paradise. especally for someone coming from australia where film is truly dead. I could find every type of film imaginable here even pre loaded kodak 5222 and rollei retro 400 for 3 dollars per 36 exposures. there is also a very professional lab that does C41 for 1 dollar per roll and E6 for 2!

 

[Macpod]

I sold my 35 'cron and some other items and will be receiving my GF1 w/ 20mm lens and a CV 40mm brightline finder this week. If this combo works out--i.e. I'm satisfied with IQ, ergonomics, etc.--I could selling off all but a few film essentials. For someone like me who has been unemployed for so long, film has become a 1 roll per month luxury. With digital I can shoot all I want. Right now that is the deciding factor.

thats what i fear as well. the only reason im shooting as much as i am is because im in beijing and there is VERY VERY cheap film and developing around. Even profesisonal darkroom enlarging is very very cheap. Good thing is there is a very large group of artist and students that use film so the few pro labs i know are all very busy. But then again they are the only choices in town(although they are also very good)

 

[bwcolor]

Digital is taking over. After ten plus years of mass marketed digital, we are now in the early years of digital photography. I can't even imagine what form it will take in ten, or twenty years, but I can imagine a few million hobbyist shooting a dozen films, but also owning and using digital cameras/devices. Markets drive the technology and the marketplace says digital. For all the virtues of film and film cameras, it is all lost to the better system for the masses who prefer the simpler digital workflow. The mechanical rangefinder will also slowly fade away as small, high quality digital cameras fill the nitch filled by the rangefinder in the last century. The marriage of high tech digital and low tech mechanical rangefinder will prove to be a short term marriage of technology and nostalgia. What I don't know is where my digital images of years past will safely be stored. I do know where, short of fire, my film images will be rest.

 

[emraphoto]

Film was a relic of history...

Imagine your grand children's reaction when you describe a product that had to be kept in the dark...ideally also refrigerated; reload only after so few pictures; processed in toxic chemicals; then enlarged with a contraction based on a light bulb [what is a light bulb, grandpa?]; and yellows if not "fixed" properly...

I am glad Dr. Erwin Land did not live to see his life work being so irrevocably marginalized...nor did George Eastman.

Had Kodak kept up with the times, the new slogan would be: "you can push the button...because we have already done the rest."

imagine explaining one of the bloodiest wars in modern times to your children? more specifically how our thirst for a more "modern" solution to the "toxic chemicals" approach made us all complicit.

of course we all know the water consumption and toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of semiconductors right?

 

[Pickett Wilson]

We as consumers of film have absolutely no control over its future. The steadily dwindling number of film users cannot use enough film to make it economically viable for companies to produce film at rational prices beyond a few more years.

The cameras to shoot film are also becoming scarce. Canon made five million AE-1's over the years, how many of those are still in use? While the number of film cameras offered on eBay, for example, look substantial, they are really a tiny, tiny percentage of those produced and sold.

I paid $150 for a Nikon F100 that looks new. You can buy a new F100 at B&H for $750 dollars. Why would you do that? Do you think I will repair my F100 when it breaks? Of course not. Or who would repair a $50 AE-1? Take all these "disposable" cameras out of the eBay equation when what you can get for them reaches the price to ship them, and you are left with Leicas and Hasselblads and Rollei twin lens cameras.

We are at that tipping point where the demand for film and used film cameras is about to take a plunge off a cliff, and all those old cameras go to the landfill. Apparently, it's going to take a lot of folks by surprise.

 

[emraphoto]

yawn!!!!!!

 

[bene]

everything is dying. the question is film a 50,75 or 90 years old?
can't we just be happy with it? If there is no more film will you dump your RF? there isn't any sentimental value at all? Seize the day =)
Maybe I'm just a silly boy =) Fyi chasing girls require too much energy not money. 😛

 

[emraphoto]

It's a boring topic that is regurgitated at nauseum like it's A/ some sort of revelation and B/ that it's some sort of fact.

"film is dissapearing, film is dissapearing"!

Sorry for the uncharacteristically poor attitude but man I have just had my fill of it.

 

[wgerrard]

Pickett is correct. The timing of film's demise is a matter of conjecture, but not the reality that its days as a commercially viable product are numbered.

The really salient point, as Pickett says, is that the pool of available film cameras is inevitably shrinking. The cameras made by Cosina, Leica, etc., represent a whisper of demand. The rest are pro cameras that make even a smaller whisper of demand.

You cannot go to the mall or a big box store and buy a film camera. Most towns no longer have independent camera shops. Most residents of those towns that do have such shops don't know the stores exist. Only crazy people like me drive 10 miles to buy film and 40 miles to get it processed.

The film most people in this culture might sometimes see is in the disposable drugstore cameras they assume people buy because they can't afford a digital P&S. That's not likely to be very alluring.

There's a reason digital cameras are ubiquitous, with their functionality melded into things like cellphones. Most people want the camera to do everything, automatically. They no more want to learn about aperture, DOF, etc., in order to use a camera than they want to learn how networking works in order to use the internet. They want quick, easy and acceptable photos they can easily copy and distribute on line. Those are the people comprising the market for cameras, not folks like us. We're just a whisper.

 

[raid]

My sentiments exactly, could not have been more perfectly stated. Thanks for writing what many of us feel and think.
Tony

Hello Tony,
I am just saying what is really on my mind. Such threads don't help or hurt anyone, and they just repeat what has been stated hundreds of times. People who like using digital should do that, and people who feel otherwise, let them be.

 

[raid]

We're just a whisper.

Our "whisper" can move mountains. Who else is willing to pay over $100 for a lens hood, or pays $350 and waits three years to get a camera repaired?

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Our "whisper" can move mountains. Who else is willing to pay over $100 for a lens hood, or pays $350 and waits three years to get a camera repaired?

What!.....no way! 😱

 

[Frankie]

imagine explaining one of the bloodiest wars in modern times to your children? more specifically how our thirst for a more "modern" solution to the "toxic chemicals" approach made us all complicit.

of course we all know the water consumption and toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of semiconductors right?

The same could be said of a paint brush, or paintings destroyed.

One time use of toxic chemicals is better than recurring use for years to come...and I am sure the CCD manufacturers would have to comply with safe chemical disposal laws, unlike most home wet-room owners.

 

[bmattock]

The same could be said of a paint brush, or paintings destroyed.

One time use of toxic chemicals is better than recurring use for years to come...and I am sure the CCD manufacturers would have to comply with safe chemical disposal laws, unlike most home wet-room owners.

The chemicals used to manufacture film are in themselves a bit of a problem.

http://www.scorecard.org/ranking/ra...ips_state_code=36&sic_2=All+reporting+sectors

Facilities Releasing TRI Chemicals to the Environment
Rank Facility Pounds
1. EASTMAN KODAK CO. KODAK PARK, 1669 LAKE AVE., ROCHESTER 4,433,749

http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CX5065-WorstPolluters.htm

The worst polluters in the U.S.

Listed below are the top 15 (US) corporate polluters with total releases (air, water, land, underground, public sewage and off-site transfers) given in pounds for 1988. The top 10 accounted for 1.6 billion pounds, or 26% of all reported toxic chemicals.

Kodak 82,153,751 (number 14)

This is not to point fingers at Kodak - they're simply a film manufacturer located in the USA, where such information is public. And Kodak has been manufacturing film for over a century; their practices were once worst and are now better, based on what we've learned over the years about groundwater pollution and heavy metal toxins and the like. However, the fact remains that producing photographic film is not a 'clean' business.

It is for this reason (as well as one of demand) that I sincerely doubt any new photographic film factories will be coming online in the USA again. The EPA would simply not allow it.

It is also true that manufacturing computer components - including the sensors for digital cameras - is not a 'clean' industry either. Not good no matter which one looks at.

 

[grainhound]

It has been stated on this thread that film will at some point in the near (or medium?) future become unsustainable for any company to produce. As everyone knows (disclaimer: I don’t know this everyone), vinyl LPs were on the edge of the cliff back in the 80s, fell off sometime after that, and have recently clawed their way back a few inches toward a new life. As a math failure and phobic, I realised way back in high school I needed a career in anything but business. So could one of the marketing experts on this thread explain the existence, let alone sustainability, of these things I see on this link:
http://www.needledoctor.com/Online-Store/Show-All-Turntables

Clearaudio Statement Turntable Price: $150,000.00
Clearaudio Master Reference Turntable Price: $27,500.00
Roksan TMS-2 Turntable Price: $19,995.00
EAR Disc Master Turntable Price: $17,000.00
Clearaudio Maximum Solution
AMG Wood CMB Turntable Price: $16,000.00

There are cheaper models you can look at on the linked page, but note that these ‘tables come without a cartridge. Clearaudio has one for its interestingly named Statement ‘table: Clearaudio Goldfinger Phono Cartridge Price: $10,000.00

LPs? Audiophile LPs tend to go for $50 and up, the cheap stuff starts at around $16 from what I glanced at here: http://store.acousticsounds.com/

How is this sustainable, and where is the market? I thought everyone (the person I don’t know) downloaded all of his/her music for free onto MP3 players. Don't you get one free on your iPhone?

Oh yeah, no connection of any kind to either of the linked vendors. I buy locally, not this gear, not at these prices. I’m curious how something dead can be sold at these prices.

 

[Frankie]

It has been stated on this thread that film will at some point in the near (or medium?) future become unsustainable for any company to produce. As everyone knows (disclaimer: I don’t know this everyone), vinyl LPs were on the edge of the cliff back in the 80s, fell off sometime after that, and have recently clawed their way back a few inches toward a new life. As a math failure and phobic, I realised way back in high school I needed a career in anything but business. So could one of the marketing experts on this thread explain the existence, let alone sustainability, of these things I see on this link:
http://www.needledoctor.com/Online-Store/Show-All-Turntables

Clearaudio Statement Turntable Price: $150,000.00
Clearaudio Master Reference Turntable Price: $27,500.00
Roksan TMS-2 Turntable Price: $19,995.00
EAR Disc Master Turntable Price: $17,000.00
Clearaudio Maximum Solution
AMG Wood CMB Turntable Price: $16,000.00

There are cheaper models you can look at on the linked page, but note that these ‘tables come without a cartridge. Clearaudio has one for its interestingly named Statement ‘table: Clearaudio Goldfinger Phono Cartridge Price: $10,000.00

LPs? Audiophile LPs tend to go for $50 and up, the cheap stuff starts at around $16 from what I glanced at here: http://store.acousticsounds.com/

How is this sustainable, and where is the market? I thought everyone (the person I don’t know) downloaded all of his/her music for free onto MP3 players. Don't you get one free on your iPhone?

Oh yeah, no connection of any kind to either of the linked vendors. I buy locally, not this gear, not at these prices. I’m curious how something dead can be sold at these prices.

The LP analogy is hardly comparable to film.

I was one of those LP types [had a cheap Oracle at $5000, a few cartridges at ~$1000 each, a few tone arms...some 10 years ago].

I also had ~400+ LP then.

The ~$10,000 investment yielded a sound richer than CD, rivals CD quietness, and spacious sound stage...all subjective...but a pain in the ass to tweak and maintain...and also had to ban people walking while I play my music...foot fall vibrations.

And, no MP-3 on any iPhone could even come close in sound quality.

I have CD's now for a decade...after waiting a decade for CD technology to mature [likely will also happen to CCD], but my CD player cost $1,500 used, trade-in from an audiophile who had to buy the latest and most highly-rated.

Turntable makers will all gather at CES in Las Vegas in a week and show their latest. They don't sell in any volume...hence the price [my original Oracle was purchased in the early '80's for $1000 only]. They target audiophiles who have much larger LP library...I know a few who had upward of 10,000 LP's, they also collect Leica's, but not for photography.

May be one day, surviving niche film manufacturers will hand coat emulsions for those same Leica collectors...at $100 per roll. 🙂