Really want to...

[DCB]

...shoot all film, but I still have a push back because of the cost.

Locally it would cost around $18 for developing, scan and one set of prints. A little less without the prints. (color film)

Sending it off would be around $20 with no prints.

I do like digital for snap shots for the internet (very easy and convenient).

To put negatives online would mean I need to get a scanner of some kind (another cost, but only one time).

I love the look of film
I love the feel of film cameras
I love the smell of film

Digital... just pic it up can shoot until your hearts content.

Just venting a little.

Peace

 

[Godfrey]

I've been shooting a lot of Polaroid SX-70 stuff lately. $3 per exposure, whether it's any good or not.

It builds discipline and keeps your unused discretionary income down to a manageable piggy bank. ;-)

G

 

[cz23]

... Digital... just pic it up can shoot until your hearts content.

That's what I like. Shoot freely with no cost concerns. Liberating and good for creativity.

John

 

[Roger Hicks]

...shoot all film, but I still have a push back because of the cost.

Locally it would cost around $18 for developing, scan and one set of prints. A little less without the prints. (color film)

Sending it off would be around $20 with no prints.

I do like digital for snap shots for the internet (very easy and convenient).

To put negatives online would mean I need to get a scanner of some kind (another cost, but only one time).

I love the look of film
I love the feel of film cameras
I love the smell of film

Digital... just pic it up can shoot until your hearts content.

Just venting a little.

Peace

What's it worth to you?

What can you afford?

What can you give up to be better able to afford what you really want?

What IS your heart's content? Clearly not digital. Consider both words in "heart's content".

Just venting a little.

Cheers,

R.

 

[shadowfox]

Shooting film today makes little sense if you don't actually enjoy the process (I'm talking about taking it all the way to darkroom printing).

Just like growing your own vegetables, and making fresh meals from it; it makes little sense if you don't enjoy gardening and cooking.

The problem is, if you have never tried film, how then would you know?

The cost is the easiest to deal with, as Roger mentioned above, it requires sacrifice on some other spending you may have. But all things that are worth pursuing requires some sacrifice.

So try it, stick with it for a while, if in the end you can't stand it, I suspect it won't be because of the cost.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Shooting film today makes little sense if you don't actually enjoy the process (I'm talking about taking it all the way to darkroom printing).

Just like growing your own vegetables, and making fresh meals from it; it makes little sense if you don't enjoy gardening and cooking.

The problem is, if you have never tried film, how then would you know?

The cost is the easiest to deal with, as Roger mentioned above, it requires sacrifice on some other spending you may have. But all things that are worth pursuing requires some sacrifice.

So try it, stick with it for a while, if in the end you can't stand it, I suspect it won't be because of the cost.

Dear Will,

Beautifully phrased!

Thanks,

R.

 

[Spanik]

That's what I like. Shoot freely with no cost concerns. Liberating and good for creativity.

John

Strange you we can have different opinions, don't you think. I find it all but liberating. You just come home with a boatload of photo's and still feel you should have taken more because that best one isn't there. With film I feel I have done the best I can and find positive things in the results.

if in the end you can't stand it, I suspect it won't be because of the cost.

Well said.

 

[chikubi]

You just come home with a boatload of photo's and still feel you should have taken more because that best one isn't there. With film I feel I have done the best I can and find positive things in the results.

That's a somewhat odd assumption on your part. Why would anyone necessarily feel that way because they shot digital? I've been shooting it for near 15 years now and have never once felt like that. It feels no different than when I shoot film; when I get done shooting either "I feel I have done the best I can and find positive things in the results." Photography is photography. There's absolutely no reason to treat any frame in either medium with less importance than it deserves. To do otherwise is a weakness of the photographer, not one of the medium.

 

[noisycheese]

...shoot all film, but I still have a push back because of the cost.

Locally it would cost around $18 for developing, scan and one set of prints. A little less without the prints. (color film)

Sending it off would be around $20 with no prints.

I do like digital for snap shots for the internet (very easy and convenient).

To put negatives online would mean I need to get a scanner of some kind (another cost, but only one time).

I love the look of film
I love the feel of film cameras
I love the smell of film

Digital... just pic it up can shoot until your hearts content.

Just venting a little.

Peace

My solution to the cost issue has evolved to this: If I want B&W, I shoot Tri-X in my M4-P and develop my own film, which is a simple process. For color, I use my M240.

B&W film and chemistry is still affordable. Color is not (for me at least, in the volume I tend to shoot), particularly when shooting E-6. Whether E-6 images or digital color is superior in terms of image quality depends on a lot of factors, one of them being personal taste. I think in using the M240 and Leica M lenses, I can pretty much equal E-6 image quality.

The real mortal wound to analog color photography came when Ilford killed off Ilfochrome paper and chemistry, IMHO. I have yet to see any color process that can equal the beauty of a well crafted Ilfochrome print.

For B&W, a well made silverprint has a beauty that cannot be equalled by anything short of an M Monochrom IMO. Since I'm still recuperating from my M240 trade/purchase, I am not up for investing $8000 USD in an M Monochrom.

For me, B&W film still gets it done.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

When (I thought) digital started to become a reasonable proposition, I was shocked by the price of the cameras and media cards. Worse still, the cards held a few pictures and more had to be bought for the equivalent of two cassettes of 35mm film. In 1997 the camera cost UKP 1,650 and the 16MB card 40 each and held about 11 pictures at the best setting and that was needed as the best setting was 1280 x 1024 meaning A5 prints with a wide border but only 3" x 4" at about 300dpi.

So the camera and enough cards to do 36 photo's on holiday cost UKP 1770. About 3,000 today; plus the printer, ink, paper and card reader. And when I sold the camera I got about 150 for it and the card reader. Not even 10% of the cost. Digital was neither free nor cheap then.

Later on I'd progressed to a more usable camera but the cost of each photo from it as a computer file was the same as the cost of a 5 x 7 print and D&P'ing for a 35mm film. In other words, before printing.

Currently I've an elderly Leica Digilux and I know what it cost and what a replacement would cost, so I still have my doubts about free digital prints. And where are people getting the free printers from every few years and the free paper & ink cartridges?

Looking at my elderly Leica CL or Pentax ME super (a film SLR) I know I can get the film processed for two pounds and a scan for an extra pound. I don't think I'll lose the cost of the CL when, or if, I ever sell it.

If I had scrapped everything and was starting now - knowing what I do - I reckon I could get a second-hand film SLR (Minolta or Pentax) and a decent zoom (Tokina AT-X 28 - 85mm) for about twenty pounds and a decent P&S (Konica, Minola or Pentax) for my pocket with a zoom lens for a pound or two. Film's cheap these days and a "D&P + scan" isn't going to ruin me.

To me the question becomes who can afford these expensive digital cameras after doing the sums and taking everything into consideration like printing?

Regards, David

 

[Godfrey]

You know, reading this thread, all this worry about cost. Yet the author is spending for a $7000 camera, expensive lenses. Doesn't make sense to me.

If cost is such an issue, sell the $7000 camera and expensive lenses, use that money to pay for film and processing.

G

 

[DCB]

By author are you implying me?

I would never spend that much on a camera of any kind.

Peace

 

[David Hughes]

Nor me, never spent a dollar in my life, mostly because we use Proper Pounds Sterling here in Blighty...

Regards, David