"There is a very real resurgence for film"

[Sonnar Brian]

I am going to cry.

Okay! Post your Pan-X shots here!

 

[tomalophicon]

Sigh, I suppose I'll have to just start buying a 1000ft roll per week.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

They still make it for Aerial applications. We could split it.

 

[RayPA]

I am going to cry.


Okay! Post your Pan-X shots here!

I haven't used the Rollei version, but you can probably get very close results with the Rollei Pan 25.



/

 

[Wahoo]

I am going to cry.

Okay! Post your Pan-X shots here!

Brian, Have you bought a new scanner ? These scans look much better than the Epson 3170 ones.

 

[retro]

We (photographers) have about zero impact on film sales- the vast majority of film goes to Hollywood & Bollywood.

Having worked in Hollywood for nearly 2 decades I doubt that that
is true. Could you support that with some documentation or
evidence of some sort?

 

[Soothsayerman]

Film will always be with us...

until it disappears ;-)

 

[Fawley]

Wal-mart is pretty much out of the film processing business and Costco has announced they are ending it. You live in an unusual place.

I guess it depends on your location. The nearest Wal Mart to me (Victoria, BC Canada) they just finished building a new larger store, and their new, larger photo finishing area is still doing film (this would have been and ideal time for them to nuke the film). I asked the staff about the outlook and they said they have been told by management that they are staying in film, that it is profitable for them because there is almost no competition.

 

[Fawley]

I'm writing this from a hotel in Wales where I have just shot 18 roles of medium format film in three days. And I still have another 4 days here yet! But when I look at what that film is already costing me I'm not sure that I can continue to shoot that much when I retire from full time employment in a few years time (by which time it will be even more expensive).

Cost is always a consideration, but in historical terms, film and printing paper are actually cheap. I recently unearthed a couple of old film boxes and paper boxes from the early 80's. The price tags on them weren't a lot cheaper than I pay at my local supplier , without accounting for inflation. If you consider that it is now easy to buy from discounters like Freestyle, film is very cheap in historical terms.

 

[semordnilap]

Are you waiting, really?? Sorry to keep you in suspense. I simply scan it using the 'Generic' film profile, rather than using one of the presets listed under 'Kodak' or another manufacturer.

/

Always happy to hear good scanning tips. I find it a consistently frustrating process, largely because every piece of software I've tried just feels so backward. I wish I could just scan in lightroom... 😉

Anyway, is there anything else you do in vuescan? Just set the profile and be done with it?

 

[shadowfox]

"A lot of people that were completely digital are now accepting film again for certain things – or they do like the workflow. And the most exciting thing is to see the younger people adopt film. It’s almost a generational thing. They have not shot film growing up, but once they do get a hold of film in a university, they just seem to fall in love with it. And that’s exciting. It just seems to have a lot of influence."

That is actually quite a fluff-less statement coming from a marketing guy.

I need to get some of this new film. Scanning is what I do with color negatives unlike B&W.

 

[RayPA]

Those are excellent scans.

Thank you.




/

 

[bwcolor]

Film will be around for decades. The diversity of film won't. The digitization of the movie theaters will not result in the death of film, but will put it on life support. Kodak continues to put R&D money into film for motion pictures, so they must expect it to be around for some time to come.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

"A lot of people that were completely digital are now accepting film again for certain things – or they do like the workflow."

Having used both film and digital as an amateur first, and also both of them as someone earning money with photography, to me it's perfectly clear that some digital only users -most of them obviously young as for not having used film before- can fall in love with film easily after seeing how great AND easy film results are...

Some say with digital we need to process the original image as much as we can to take it to the best it can get to be after great and qualified processing only, while with film we need to preserve the original image as much as we can because the original image is already the best it can be. That's how film technology was designed and evolved to perfection for more than 150 years...

If I had shot digital only for some time, looking for great results with all the technological hassle and time it implies before, during and after shooting, and suddenly someone gave me a small film AE camera and a roll of Portra, honestly I'd be totally amazed after picking up 36 perfect photographs at the lab one hour after shooting, having done nothing except hitting the shutter.

Film is so lovely...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[RayPA]

Always happy to hear good scanning tips. I find it a consistently frustrating process, largely because every piece of software I've tried just feels so backward. ?

And Vuescan is probably the most backward-feeling of them all! 😛 Seriously, I like it a lot. It takes some time and patience to get the hang of it, but it's been worth for me. It rarely crashes on my PPC Mac.

Anyway, is there anything else you do in vuescan? Just set the profile and be done with it?

I usually mess quite a bit with the the settings under the color tab. I use a lot of different film types and will use any profile that gets me close to a neutral cast. (Most of the profiles are pretty cryptic anyway). I generally try to scan to get the best possible result out of the scanner (I know some folks scan flatter or scan as a positive). But I have no special techniques other than knowing program and knowing the difference between how the image will render when I open it in PS as opposed to how the image looks during scan adjustments.


/

 

[emraphoto]

I guess it depends on your location. The nearest Wal Mart to me (Victoria, BC Canada) they just finished building a new larger store, and their new, larger photo finishing area is still doing film (this would have been and ideal time for them to nuke the film). I asked the staff about the outlook and they said they have been told by management that they are staying in film, that it is profitable for them because there is almost no competition.

Costco here (London, Ontario) still does film. Knowing someone in management of said dept. The word is business as usual with no plans to stop. They have even added super 8 and 16mm transfer service.

Don't know about wal-mart as I don't go there. My neighbor seems to think it's still available at $2 a roll.