One distinct advantage of film

[Timmyjoe]

Frustrating day. Was covering one of the many rallies today and the location was pretty awful for photography, beating down sun, protestors with home made signs, skinny Black Sharpie on White poster board (pretty illegible in the intense sunlight) and then a small riot breaks out between opposing sides of the issue. But I felt good about the images I got and even though exhausted I headed to my vehicle feeling I had done good.

Got in the car and was transferring the SDXC Memory Card from the camera to its case and it dropped down between the driver seat and the center console. Immediately climbed out, slid the seat forward, and dove in. To no avail. Drove home rather angry and upon arrival, tore into the interior. Pulled up most of the driver side carpet, removed the center console, still could not find it. The Memory card has vanished. Can't express how frustrated I am. Four and a half hours of work down the proverbial drain.

Was sitting in my office just now thinking, a roll of Tri-X wouldn't have fit down that tiny slot between the driver seat and the console. Damn I miss film.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Not sure what it has anything to do with film. Because I just don't see any reason to deal with tiny objects while in the car. In my digital experience with digital for over two decades by now, I never had an urge to open camera to get memory card from it. Even if I posted pictures from event few hours later...
Film has zero advantage for publishing images few hours later after events. I have done it. Digital is huge advantage.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Way to miss the point Ko.Fe.

Film would not have been able to fall down between the seat and console, ergo, the images would not have been lost.

Best,
-Tim

 

[KoNickon]

No, he didn't miss the point. Sorry about what happened, but why did you feel the need to remove the memory card in the car?

 

[ptpdprinter]

Shooting film is not a panacea. There are a lot of dumb things you can do with film that will result in four and a half hours down the drain. Not that I have ever done any of them. Really.

 

[santino]

I think one has to take that story with a grain of salt. Digital is not perfect, so is film. The real problem are modern cars, there is just too much unaccesible space 😛

 

[Evergreen States]

From Dante Stella's Three Tired Tropes of Analog Photography
25 March 2021
https://themachineplanet.wordpress.c...g-photography/


Is film at all helpful for risk management?

Get too close to APUG (whoops, Photrio), and you’ll get schooled about how digital is so much less archival than film. Just think, if there is that nuclear war, you can still see 35mm transparencies or prints (assuming, of course, they were not incinerated along with their owners). Or if for some reason every one of the ten hard drives you keep as backups failed to work. I would posit that if there were an event that wiped out all electronic devices, looking at vintage photos of any type would be a sixth-tier priority.

The archival superiority of film may or may not be true (having seen my share of faded film from the 1980s – I can’t say that it is), but what is definitely true is that film photography is risky. Every single thing in the film imaging chain involves a risk.

• You could fat-finger your bulk loading.
• You could drop a reloadable metal cassette and have the ends pop off.
• You could get mishandled, spooled down bulk film.
• You could absentmindedly open the camera midway through a roll of film.
• Your subject could blink.
• You could blow the exposure.
• You could shoot an entire roll at the wrong speed.
• You could set the wrong ISO on the meter.
• You could blow it in development. Or your lab could.
• You could ruin wet negatives.
• You could even get defective factory-loaded film.

These things have small but real probabilities, and the terrifying range of ways things can go wrong continues to broaden with the passage of time. Everyone who has shot film over more than a couple of years has had at least one of these things happen. By comparison, a much smaller number of people has experienced an SD card failure.

A failure with film – because it stores a latent image until developed later – generally means the loss of a lot of time and often situations that cannot be repeated. It could be a foreign vacation. It could be a client job. It could be your young family. Time only marches in a forward direction, and subjects don’t like to redo whole projects.

Risk is part of life. Risk is definitely part of film photography. That’s fine. We all know that. But there is little that advocates for compounding risks by doing important things with untested cameras, with sketchy old film, etc.


That said, my condolences for your lost photos and time, Tim. I have lost important digital pictures of unrepeatable events before and it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

 

[markjwyatt]

I would not give up on finding the card. I have lost things and given up, then they show-up. It is possible it got caught on your pants and when you stepped out you may have lost it, but I bet it is somewhere in that car. Sort of like the time-space portals that sometimes opens up around a single sock, this is usually an illusion.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Whenever I finish a shoot I always take the card, put it in its case, and put it in a special pocket in my vest. Kind of a superstition, good luck charm, etc. And also I want to make sure any kind of mishap with the camera doesn't damage the images on the card. I didn't remove the card when I was heading back to the car today as the riot was still going on and I was distracted. When I got into the safety of my vehicle, I remembered I hadn't removed the card so I proceeded to remove it, fumble it, and it dropped into the black hole of my car.

I've been doing this for decades, and I guess I'm lucky that this is the first time I've ever had a mishap with a memory card. Just such a pisser cause I can't figure out where the heck the damn thing disappeared to, and I was really excited about certain images from the rally.

And the original post was tongue in cheek.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Pál_K]

Unless it fell in your pants cuff (do those exist anymore?), it’s gotta be in the car somewhere - under the floor mat, maybe in the mechanism that moves the seat, or even under the seat itself (but not on the floor).

As for film… I’ve told the tale a few times of my 300-mile, 12+ hour trip with two rolls of film. After development I had one blank roll and one double-exposed roll.

 

[boojum]

The artist is blaming his tools. His carelessness caused him to drop the card. Period. So blame the card. Right. If it had been film . . . If canaries had pianos on their backs there would be music in the air.

 

[Bill Blackwell]

... Got in the car and was transferring the SDXC Memory Card from the camera to its case and it dropped down between the driver seat and the center console. Immediately climbed out, slid the seat forward, and dove in. To no avail. Drove home rather angry and upon arrival, tore into the interior. Pulled up most of the driver side carpet, removed the center console, still could not find it. The Memory card has vanished. Can't express how frustrated I am. Four and a half hours of work down the proverbial drain. ...

I've done the exact same thing, although not with SD cards, with small objects in the car. They almost always turn up eventually. Keep looking - It'll turn up.

But I have to agree with Ko.Fe in this case. Maybe a lesson learned to not remove the card until you get home - or when you're in a more controlled environment.

 

[lynnb]

If the SD card is black or mostly black it might still be hiding in plain sight somewhere under the seat or console. I assume you looked with a small bright torch? Maybe try using a vacuum with a keyboard attachment for those tight spaces? Sympathies with your dilemma.

 

[CMur12]

I didn't take Tim's post quite as seriously as some.

I saw an expression of frustration, followed by a tongue-in-cheek solution.
I doubt this will result in Tim unloading his digital equipment to return exclusively to film.

That out of the way. I am 70 years old and I fumble things a lot more than I used to. I have to change some long-standing practices because they no longer work as well for me.

- Murray

 

[Godfrey]

Frustrating day. Was covering one of the many rallies today and the location was pretty awful for photography, beating down sun, protestors with home made signs, skinny Black Sharpie on White poster board (pretty illegible in the intense sunlight) and then a small riot breaks out between opposing sides of the issue. But I felt good about the images I got and even though exhausted I headed to my vehicle feeling I had done good.

Got in the car and was transferring the SDXC Memory Card from the camera to its case and it dropped down between the driver seat and the center console. Immediately climbed out, slid the seat forward, and dove in. To no avail. Drove home rather angry and upon arrival, tore into the interior. Pulled up most of the driver side carpet, removed the center console, still could not find it. The Memory card has vanished. Can't express how frustrated I am. Four and a half hours of work down the proverbial drain.

Was sitting in my office just now thinking, a roll of Tri-X wouldn't have fit down that tiny slot between the driver seat and the console. Damn I miss film.

Best,
-Tim

I remember some years ago: I was driving a friend home after some event. He had his cell phone in his hand as he got into the car, and stuffed it into his pocket as we drove off. I dropped him off,.. later that night, he calls: "Must have dropped my phone in the car. Can you check?"

I tore the interior apart that night. Not a trace of the phone anywhere. "Heck," he said, " It must have fallen on the ground before I closed the door up in the city. Thx for looking." And he went out and got a new phone the next day.

A week later, I dropped something behind the seat and reach down to retrieve it. Got it.. and something else was there: his phone, sitting in plain sight right in the middle of the rear footwell. What're had it been? How did it get back there? Neither of us could figure it out in any way...

Mysteries of the modern world... Don't be surprised if the memory card just magically appears by your shoe some day soon.. 😀

G

 

[zuiko85]

Since none of my pictures are of any consequence I cannot comment personally on Tim’s assertion. But, I sure have lost small items in my car in the same manner.
Although the last item lost was of small cost it’s loss caused me to spend yet another gallon of gas and lost hour going back to the hardware store to get yet another 12mm long M6 cap screw. Never have bought excess fasteners that will will likely sit in a container until I die.
That metric cap screw never did turn up.

 

[joe bosak]

Always frustrating when something that should be simple and quick turns into a nightmare.

I have similar issues with getting into cars with things in my pockets - the number of times phones or credit cards fall out of my hoodie pocket as I get in or put the belt on... then exactly the same issue, they are somewhere under the seat or in some crevasse you didn't know existed (and wonder WHY does it exist, who the hell designed this and don't they test anything etc hahaha ) or for all I know, inside the chassis.

Worst one lately has been I put a credit card on the dash of my Toyota MPV, it's a sloping dash and I left the card next to the speedometer window. Forgot it was there, drove off, and the card slipped between the perspex window of the speedo assembly, and the dash itself. I didn't even know there was a gap (not the build quality I'd expect lol, and the gap isn't noticeable). Now the card is somewhere inside the front of the car - there's the speedo etc, the aircon, the radio blah blah blah, it's in there somewhere. I ordered another card and left the old one where it is probably still is...

 

[santino]

A friend of mine „lost“ his motorway toll sticker in the same place. 86 Euros were gone 😀

 

[Timmyjoe]

I didn't take Tim's post quite as seriously as some.

I saw an expression of frustration, followed by a tongue-in-cheek solution.
I doubt this will result in Tim unloading his digital equipment to return exclusively to film.

That out of the way. I am 70 years old and I fumble things a lot more than I used to. I have to change some long-standing practices because they no longer work as well for me.

- Murray

BINGO!!!

Thanks Murray, I'm glad some folks got the intend of my post. I realize an Internet forum is not the same as "shooting the sh*t" over a couple of beers, and many things don't translate well.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Richard G]

The problem is not cards. It is cars. I have dropped the remote for the sliding gait, credit cards, small notes, coins, keys you name it down the side of my driver seat, in-between my seat and the console, with others sliding off the passenger seat into similar areas. Moving the car, lying face down in the back floor well, reaching blindly under the driver seat. I have done all these things. I am hoping I will not be doing them again.

Tri-X 35mm? I think I could lose that somewhere where I am often doing this. Now a Hasselblad back being removed. That, I could not lose so easily. But I won't risk it.