Resurgence in film?

Well it almost feel like there is a resurgence in film....... It does not even 'feel like', it is close but not 100% 'feel like'. And the Marketing Manager US should probably have access to Kodak's own sales numbers, he should know not 'almost feel'

Then again, my views about marketing is colored by Dilbert and Catbert.....
 
charjohncarter said:
Yes, and I would say the same of my favorite 35mm film; TmaX100. But the world (we) has/have probably lost the snapshot crowd. Unfortunately, that includes News, Sports, Travel, Wedding, and any other media disciplines.
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Yes we have lost the snapshot crowd - as well as the pros - but there does seem to be a steady (if small) stream of new amateur film shooters. My younger brother's never really been into photography but I recently gave him my old Minolta X700, a couple of lenses and some film and he's really taken to it. I think he digs the fact that he's shooting film while all his buddies snap away in digital. He's full of enthusiasm for learning the basics of exposure and for working creatively with the great Rokkor lenses I gave him.

Some of my own friends who are not really 'into' photography but who have expensive DSLRs couldn't give a toss about the craft of photography. They don't know what an f-stop is and they don't want to know. Half the time they don't even print their shots.

For me the main appeal of film is aesthetic. I like the 'look' of prints from film and I enjoy the process of making a darkroom print, colour and black and white. The other chief appeal of film is the fact that I'm creating something physical in a negative or slide. There are some great films out there at the moment. I'm a real fan of the Kodak emulsions, especially their colour films.

The enthusiasm of amateurs will sustain film. The vibrancy of sites like this are testament to that.
 
Last year I covered a computer student game writing project for the insitution I shoot gallery openings for and talked them into letting me use black and white film instead of digital which is their normal requirement.

They asked me to photograph another one recently and insisted I use the same black and white film again as they were blown away by the previous events images which they subsequently had printed into a small book for internal circulation.

There is a pro market for black and film documentation out there IMO but you have to push it in front of their faces to make them realise it has it's place in their digital world. 😀
 
It feels like a film resurgence is happening in Japan. I'm definitely seeing more and more (and younger) film shooters these days. I met these two girls last weekend at MAP Camera in Shinjuku while checking out the Shinjuku used camera stores with bobkonos. They were both shooting film only, and were carrying some very nice gear!


Film girls at MAP Camera, Shinjuku - Nikkor-O 2.1cm 1:4 by jonmanjiro, on Flickr
 
A friend who is a professional commercial photographer went digital a few years ago. He prefers to shoot digital and wouldn't go back but did say to me that one thing he misses with film is that the cost of drum scanning meant that clients had a vested interest in getting the shoot done perfectly first time. He says that nowadays, advertising clients can say 'I like the face on that shot but prefer the pose on the other one' and will want the face from one shot comped onto the other. Previously, when his clients were looking at film contact sheets they just had to choose the best shot. He says he finds this process of chopping and comping multiple digital images unsatisfying.

Meanwhile, in my amateur realm I can fill my fridge with Tri X and Kodachrome and not have to worry about any client telling me what to do!
 
jonmanjiro said:
It feels like a film resurgence is happening in Japan. I'm definitely seeing more and more (and younger) film shooters these days. I met these two girls last weekend at MAP Camera in Shinjuku while checking out the Shinjuku used camera stores with bobkonos. They were both shooting film only, and were carrying some very nice gear!
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Bob and you together in Japan, shopping.....very dangerous for the wallet! He has a few beauty queens on his shelf (great guy by the way). I was just joking with a friend about walking the camera stores of Tokyo...I think I'd need a sedative 🙂
 
kdemas said:
Bob and you together in Japan, shopping.....very dangerous for the wallet! He has a few beauty queens on his shelf (great guy by the way). I was just joking with a friend about walking the camera stores of Tokyo...I think I'd need a sedative 🙂
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Despite all the tempting goodies on display at the various shops, we both came away relatively unscathed, Kent. We did well to resist GAS and no new cameras or lenses were purchased that day 🙂
 
jonmanjiro said:
It feels like a film resurgence is happening in Japan. I'm definitely seeing more and more (and younger) film shooters these days. I met these two girls last weekend at MAP Camera in Shinjuku while checking out the Shinjuku used camera stores with bobkonos. They were both shooting film only, and were carrying some very nice gear!


Film girls at MAP Camera, Shinjuku - Nikkor-O 2.1cm 1:4 by jonmanjiro, on Flickr
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Ahh I thought I've seen that showcases before. 😀 Every time I visit Tokyo, I spend hours in those two buildings. They were very helpful and assisted me to fill out tax waiver form and let me use their phone so that I could unblock my American credit cards. 😛

That is one dangerous cave I fear to death. 😱
 
I am a generation X'er born in '70 who fondly recalls film and slides and flash cubes. I remember huge VHS camcorders. I was an art student in '90 who sketched Polaroid shots of people. I got married had kids and was given a P&S in 2000. Then the internet became what is has become and so I got into photoshopping images and putting them into the cloud. Then I rediscovered film because I have kids and in laws and family and longtime great friends.

My current goal with my photography hobby is to aquire whatever it is every drugstore in America has that does one hour processing of C41 so that I can essentially turn my film cameras into digital in so far as I can digitize as many rolls of film as I can afford easily.

Recently I attended a wedding where a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings were equipped with all manner of badboy consumer DSLR's and virtually everyone else there was carrying a P&S...I was the only soul carrying a film camera and my main one was purely mechanical! I was talking to one of these 30 year old Canon toters just the other day and she told me all of her friends were buying old film cameras...imagine that! 🙂

Yes I think film will remain viable for some time to come...perhaps it will even have a renaissance of sorts. The gun has definately ousted the sword but the sword is still there and as powerful as it ever was. Same with cameras.
 
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Backwash from "corrupted files"?

Backwash from "corrupted files"?

Small world - today's Washington Post Express minipaper had a newsette from somebody at the National Archives, warning that music is being lost from digital media because of "corrupted" files. The analog stuff is hanging in there, even the magtape, but little tiny Zeroes & Ones keep getting lost.

On the other hand, in DC "corrupted" could be succombing to special interests.
 
A great analogy is...do you think we'll see a resurgence in the pen, pencil, and book now that we have PC's, laptops, iPhones, and Kindle's??? The answer is - here to stay for a long long time coming!
 
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Riverman said:
Some of my own friends who are not really 'into' photography but who have expensive DSLRs couldn't give a toss about the craft of photography. They don't know what an f-stop is and they don't want to know. Half the time they don't even print their shots.
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Fstops, why know about them? That just slows down the fire hose theory of photography. As one of my friends says (and I not bragging, believe me), 'How come your pictures are so good (and mine are so bad) and you use old cameras.'

Prints: Costco employees complain to me that their volume is down, while the cameras sold in the store is up.
 
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