Learning on film

[Bill Pierce]

Why do teachers of photography often start their students with film cameras in the day of digital? In the long run film is more expensive than a memory card, and even if you are shooting black-and-white and processing it yourself (much less sending color film to a lab), there is considerable delay between shooting and seeing the results. And, at least in terms of the small cameras that most of us use, today’s digital cameras can deliver a technically superior image in terms of sharpness and tonal range.

I think the answer is relatively simple. Film slows you down. It’s somewhere between difficult and impossible to blast off a huge number of frames with the hope that one will be OK. (The ultimate slow down is a sheet film view camera.) ’Nor will you see that image right away and be able to correct the mistakes you’ve made with a second attempt. You really have to run a tech check in your head. All in all, you have to think more just to get the picture to come out.

To me, the sad thing is that the photographer who works in a technically optimal way, composes well and then pushes the shutter at the right moment when he works digitally often backslides. For me, it’s think film, shoot digital.

Your thoughts?

 

[Dave Jenkins]

I shot film as a documentary and commercial photographer for 35 years. I worked mostly with transparency film, metered most exposures with an incident meter, and had a technique so precise that I could tell if my E6 processing lab was running a little hot or cold at any given time.

I'm embarrassed to say that I became a much more lax photographer when I began to shoot digital. Ease begets sloppiness.

 

[f16sunshine]

It seems learning on film will help students learn the language of photography.
Why ISO is the standard we still use. From where did the standardized frame sizes appear.
Digital photography has sprung out from the old film standards.
It's great younger students can get their start like some of us less well.... less younger students 🙂

 

[CMur12]

I think the issue may be more the camera than digital vs film.

An old match-needle SLR would be the ideal training camera, in my opinion. You have only the most basic controls and learning to use them is a more natural process. When you only have a shutter-speed dial, an aperture ring, and a focusing collar, it is easier to visualize what these controls do. I think this reduction of variables to a minimum is valuable for learning.

I, personally, find it much more difficult and confusing to learn manual control of a modern, electronic, multi-mode camera. I can certainly do it now, but I think the basics of control tend to get lost among all the buttons, dials, and menus. I am from a different generation, however.

Then again, digital may be such a completely different paradigm that a totally different approach to the basics of photography may be warranted. Can a photographer now just recognize the image s/he wants, choose the appropriate exposure program (portrait, macro, landscape, etc) with evaluative metering, allow the camera to choose the focusing point, and release the shutter? Will this provide an adequate recording of data in order for the digital photographer to get what s/he wants through post-processing?

I have to admit that I don't know this brave new world of automated photography. If a photographer no longer needs to learn the basics of manual control, I grieve.

- Murray

 

[Ko.Fe.]

All I was doing with film is looking at the exposure chart which was coming with ORWO color slide film and following it with camera settings. Sun symbol related to aperture number and shutter speed. I was doing it for more than ten years. Slides were OK.
I only learned about exposure with digital camera in M mode. It took me one year and tens of thousands of images.
So, I guess, technically, film isn't much help for those like me. No help at all, to be exact.

Composition, feel, artsy stuff. Yes. For me with film it comes naturally. Perhaps, inability to see it right away helps. I also think film is more artsy media, if photographer is less concern about "sharpness and tonal range", but more on following his internal vision, instinct or just goofing around. 🙂

 

[DwF]

When I recently handed my son the X E2 and taught him a bit about it, I never mentioned P mode to him. We discussed exposure a bit. Like anyone, he needed to sit and contemplate the relationship of aperture and shutter speed to say nothing of depth of field which I held back as long as I could so he could focus on getting "good" exposure. I think that I decided to use aperture priority to begin.

When I did introduce DOF, I demonstrated the diaphragm on a manual Leica lens. As he brought questions to me about ISO I realized that there was a big difference in learning on film, where you may have had a slow , and fast (400 ASA 🙂 speed to work with, and that this was not a parameter you easily messed with. In fact, when in days past you picked up a film camera, it was important to know what film speed was before you used the camera.

And taking notes by hand so whenever you saw the results of your efforts on film, the notes could facilitate progress in honing the craft, so yes it is way different. And it is probably too soon for a "pedagogy" on photography in the digital age to have developed.

 

[Chris101]

Is it because anyone can shoot digital pictures = I mean you don't really have to go to school to learn how to use your phone, right?

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

Why do teachers of photography often start their students with film cameras in the day of digital? […] For me, it’s think film, shoot digital.

Your thoughts?

Let's compare your question with writing.

Namely: books that have been written solely on a computer, and books that have been written by their authors on a typewriter, or even by hand, with a fountain pen, or a brush, etc., before the texts were finally printed.

How many times can you find extremely stupid «copypasta» errors in a book where the author took their time to write it manually, and how many times do you find said annoying errors in a computer-only publication?

Hence: To me, it's very clear that the less computerised the entire proceeding, the better the outcome.

In the long run film is more expensive than a memory card, and even if you are shooting black-and-white and processing it yourself (much less sending color film to a lab), there is considerable delay between shooting and seeing the results. And, at least in terms of the small cameras that most of us use, today’s digital cameras can deliver a technically superior image in terms of sharpness and tonal range.

Well, I guess there's quite a big mistake in your calculation: AFAIK, a memory card alone isn't enough; you need permanently updated computers, hardware and software, and they're certainly not freebies, are they?

And what is the problem with «delay»?

Shall we all eat nothing else but fast food, because cooking takes too much time?

 

[Tompas]

I plan to give my children a digital camera (with a 40 or 50mm lens) first, when they seem ready to use a camera at all. (They are only 4 and 2 now.)

I believe the check-immediately-how-the-image-looks effect trumps all other factors when learning to photograph.

Later, much later I think, I will give them my Leicas or my Pentax 67 or my Mamiya C220f TLR if they are still interested. Or all of them.

 

[shimokita]

Working with film is substantially different from digital... e.g. with the latter ISO is almost irrelevant and if you work in color there is a different philosophy. As well DOF or CoC operate under different 'rules' or no rules depending on the kit. Things to unlearn when moving to digital.

It's often given as an 'advantage' that film slows you down and forces you to think... I didn't learn to drive a car by riding a horse ; ). Maybe if the goal is classic photography, other wise skip the Latin lessons...

There is plenty of time to revisit classics after the feet are wet. Bottom line, just because I learned on film doesn't mean the current group of image makers need to... just one idea.

 

[Nowhereman]

...I think the answer is relatively simple. Film slows you down. It’s somewhere between difficult and impossible to blast off a huge number of frames with the hope that one will be OK. (The ultimate slow down is a sheet film view camera.) ’Nor will you see that image right away and be able to correct the mistakes you’ve made with a second attempt. You really have to run a tech check in your head. All in all, you have to think more just to get the picture to come out.

To me, the sad thing is that the photographer who works in a technically optimal way, composes well and then pushes the shutter at the right moment when he works digitally often backslides. For me, it’s think film, shoot digital...

In my view, the slow-down is not the factor that makes film better for learning how to shoot. I would argue the reverse: shooting digitally the feedback is instantaneous and you can learn exposure and, more importantly, composition much more quickly and effectively. For example, you shoot a portrait with a "tree growing out of the subject's head": with film you learn the lesson when you see the print, much later; with digital you see the result on the camera LCD immediately and you reshoot the frame — lesson learned and reinforced, and the mistake is not likely to be repeated.

Nevertheless, I feel that photography education should start with shooting B&W film and printing in the darkroom. The key factor is that by making a darkroom print you learn much more easily what is a good print and the scope for deviating from that for reasons of expression. Why? It's easier to manipulate a digital file for contrast and gradation and also to burn and dodge — however, the ease of doing so makes and the number of choices available makes it difficult for most people to find a starting point for a good print — in effect the student is not "anchored" to a good starting point.

In contrast, shooting a well exposed negative and then choosing the appropriate grade of paper, simply and quickly gives you a "good print" as a starting point — from here you can easily go on to making an expressive print for any effect that you like. It's the idea of seeing what are the elements of that starting point that helps students to learn what they should look for in a print: it is this that makes darkroom printing such a good way of learning photography. You don't have to become a good darkroom printer, but from this learning experience you can go on to digital and more effectively learn digital image processing.

So, yes, once you've had the darkroom printing experience, it becomes, "think film, shoot digital".
_______________
Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

 

[Ronald M]

Best to learn on digital. The instant feedback trumps all. Composition, timing, lighting is common to both.

Most decent digital cameras have manual control and exposure can be learned from that and you don`t even have to use the camera meter.

One advantage to film is one is forced to learn exposure or struggle with every print in the darkroom and never achieve optimum results, but few have darkrooms today and do not even want them. Certainly there are some nuances with film like highlight recovery however this can come with experience.

My grandson took a first year high school photo class last year and it was all digital, light room and no darkroom. He learned quite a bit and did not struggle with exposure for months. The camera requirement was digital with manual control.

 

[user237428934]

I started taking photos in the time before digital cameras. I learned nothing there. Feedback from taking the photo to the final image was so slow. No information about the settings available afterwards. The first time I thought I made progress was with my first DSLR about 10-12 years ago. Now I can say that I'm really confident using film because I don't need instant feedback anymore.

 

[:: Mark]

Another vote for learning on digital. Aside from the rapid feedback, it is the medium that 99% of photographers are likely to end up using anyway.

And much of this discussion presupposes that the problem with learning photography is understanding aperture, selective focus, sensitivity and shutter speed - ie the mechanics of photography. Frankly, these are all fairly trivial things that can and should be learned quickly.

People should be able to use the technology to free their time for experimentation and to learn to create semantically and artistically meaningful content. This is vastly more important and difficult than learning to guess exposure on an unmetered 50 year old camera!

 

[Eric T]

Slowing down with digital can be done. I do it using Sigma cameras with a Foveon sensor.

 

[Timmyjoe]

When I took a photography class back in college, (mid 1970's), they started us with a pin hole camera we had to make ourselves from cardboard, when most of us had film SLR's. I think your point about slowing down is a good one. It was about making us think through the whole process, not just pointing and shooting.

I have a niece who has started taking pictures with her dad's iPad. She obviously has an eye, as the images she has made so far are captivating. My thought was to lend her one of my film cameras, light meter, and processing equipment, and teach her how to do her own B&W film work. But the response I'm getting from the adults is, "No, that's a waste of her time, just get her a digital camera."

I think, that in any art form, if you want to really be good at something, learning the history and where the process came from is quite valuable. The Master focuses on process, not product. Our current environment seems to value the product far more than the process. Which I think leads to quite a lot of mediocre product.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Oscuro]

Dear Bill,
I would take it one step further: Think painting - shoot digital.
Please, I understand your imparted value in the slower "tech-check" when working with film - an implication missed by many - but the "technicals" (exposure, dof, etc) are only perhaps 20% of the picture. What of the content and how it is framed? This is, from my limited and biased perspective, the greatest failing in most photography that I come across.
Perhaps the slower tech-check would allow the photographer a longer look at what is in the viewfinder and thus more time to evaluate more critically what they are looking at, not just how the camera is set.

Composition, form, balance, tension..... the vocabulary for visual art/craft is vast and operation of the camera is rather narrow by comparison. You can learn how to operate a film or digital camera in 20 minutes, more or less, via YouTube. To learn how to see, now that, that takes more serious and slower study.

Kisses,

Mme. Oscuro

 

[dasuess]

My daughter and son-in-law live in a small town in northern Minnesota. For the past year they have hosted a Foreign Exchange student from Norway. For her first semester at school, she chose to take a photography class, and while the class eventually turned to digital and Photoshop, the teacher started them out with a manual match-needle SLR and bulk loaded rolls of black and white film. Her first assignment was to find and photograph various shapes. This exercise not only taught them about manual cameras and exposure, but it also taught them to go out and look at things and really see them. I was recruited by my daughter to help this young lady load the film into the camera ;-)

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

I plan to give my children a digital camera (with a 40 or 50mm lens) first, when they seem ready to use a camera at all. (They are only 4 and 2 now.)

I'd urgently suggest: ask your children's ophthalmologist, before you give them an iPad, a Nintendo, or a digital camera. — Your health insurance does cover ophthalmology, I guess?

I believe the check-immediately-how-the-image-looks effect trumps all other factors when learning to photograph. Later, much later I think, I will give them my Leicas or my Pentax 67 or my Mamiya C220f TLR if they are still interested. Or all of them.

Wait, what the ophthalmologist says — unless s/he's a complete moron, s/he'll advise you to give them none of the aforementioned little computer screen apparatuses.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I learned on film in 70s also and in intro in 1981 made a pinhole camera from a Quaker Oats box also. I think that film, because something is really invested (time and effort) if I made a mistake I had something to lose because of the investment so when I made a mistake it really stayed with me and I really tried hard not to make that mistake again. With digital, the files are deleted, not much thought about what went wrong and on to the next image not.

I learned so much from film that helps me every day in the digital world. Not just technique.