There is hope for the younger generation of photographers.

My young lady friend who was visiting new york asked if she could borrow a digital point and shoot.

I said no. I gave it away last year.

I lent her a Yashica Electro 35 and gave a 10 minute lesson in how to use aperture, lightmeter LED's and focus.

We took a ride on the statan island ferry and walked brooklyn bridge.

The neopan 400 that she shot came out looking AWESOME, with no retouching at all. There is a distinct and utterly beautiful quality to her snapshots that day she knows would not be there with a digital point and shoot.

She loves and adores those photos. She cant wait to shoot more film. It's also kinda humbling how good her shots came out considering it was her first ever time shooting film.
 
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I find this thread relates to me since I'm an 18 year photographer.

My first experimentation started on my father's D5000 just last Christmas. I messed around and shot hundreds of photographs of the same subject, hoping that at least one of them would turn out alright (as many digital photographers do). I kept this up for a while, with the camera on Auto of course, until I had a few glimpses of the analog side of things.

A photographer himself, my grandfather introduced me to his collection of cameras and told me of his darkroom he had as a kid. It intrigued me, but I kept going back to heavy computer editing and HDR scenery. I signed up for a photography course this past year in high-school and kept with my old ways until our analog unit came around. I fell in love with it all immediately, the K1000s the teacher handed out felt so much different than the digital cameras I was used to and darkroom work became an obsession. I bought an OM-1, and loved to use it, but I hit a block once the school year ended. I no longer had a darkroom to use, I was moving to an apartment and onto university and would have no time or room for darkroom printing; so I went digital.

I mainly shoot a D90, but as much as I can, I shoot the way I would with the OM-1. My 50 1.8 stays locked to the front, I turned automatic previewing off so that the screen stays dark while I shoot, I shoot in manual modes only and I think about what I'm shooting before I do. All the HDR processing has been ditched along the way in favor of black & white.

To a young photographer like myself, the process of shooting film made a huge impact on the way I shot and processed. I'm sure that once I have more free time, more money and more space, I will begin to shoot more film than ever. Until then, I'll follow my photographer heroes with the new-age D90.

I would highly recommend that any new photographer should try black & white film at least once and get a feel for photography's roots.
 
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Yes I'm quite sure my university does, I'm going to have to look into it to see if it's up and running. I know it would probably even out in the end cost wise compared to digital, but I may not be able to afford buying film along side my D90, which was partially a gift. I will for sure keep shooting film, but not at the rate I would like.
 
mgeary:

An easy solution for small apartment living.

Diafine: a 2 part developer that is not temperature or time critical. no heating water to temp just use room temp, and around 3-4 mins in dev time for almost any bw film. Lasts forever and is cheap. Diafine can produce excellent results. Its fine grained on slow films and can make tri-x look great at asa1250.

get a second hand tank and reel from ebay $10-15, get a new darkbag $25. developer $12 Fixer is $7 thats all you really need.

Also buy a bulk loader of ebay for $20. A 100ft roll of film is only about $40. works out at penny's per shot.
 
You guys have convinced me to try harder to get back into film. Oh man, there goes a good chunk of my food budget 😛.
 
mgeary said:
I find this thread relates to me since I'm an 18 year photographer.

My first experimentation started on my father's D5000 just last Christmas. I messed around and shot hundreds of photographs of the same subject, hoping that at least one of them would turn out alright (as many digital photographers do). I kept this up for a while, with the camera on Auto of course, until I had a few glimpses of the analog side of things.

A photographer himself, my grandfather introduced me to his collection of cameras and told me of his darkroom he had as a kid. It intrigued me, but I kept going back to heavy computer editing and HDR scenery. I signed up for a photography course this past year in high-school and kept with my old ways until our analog unit came around. I fell in love with it all immediately, the K1000s the teacher handed out felt so much different than the digital cameras I was used to and darkroom work became an obsession. I bought an OM-1, and loved to use it, but I hit a block once the school year ended. I no longer had a darkroom to use, I was moving to an apartment and onto university and would have no time or room for darkroom printing; so I went digital.

I mainly shoot a D90, but as much as I can, I shoot the way I would with the OM-1. My 50 1.8 stays locked to the front, I turned automatic previewing off so that the screen stays dark while I shoot, I shoot in manual modes only and I think about what I'm shooting before I do. All the HDR processing has been ditched along the way in favor of black & white.

To a young photographer like myself, the process of shooting film made a huge impact on the way I shot and processed. I'm sure that once I have more free time, more money and more space, I will begin to shoot more film than ever. Until then, I'll follow my photographer heroes with the new-age D90.

I would highly recommend that any new photographer should try black & white film at least once and get a feel for photography's roots.
Click to expand...

Great stuff! 🙂

If you want to continue to shoot film (and it sounds like you do), you can shoot C-41 and have it processed at a 1-hour lab. If you don't have a scanner, have them scan your negs to CD. There are options for processing at home easily and cheaply, and you can find decent film scanners on Craigslist.

Good luck!



/
 
It's a shame not trying all this spectar of different types of cameras, 35/120 (etc.) films, lens, developers, printing.. today, when everything is less expensive, before going to digital.

We can always go digital, and later even it's better, technology wouldn't be worse in future, but better.
 
Neare said:
Only people who have shot with film can appreciate it. Now most new photographers under 30 have not done that. Consumerism has won.
However, it seems these 4 children have been redeemed.

"He who saves one life saves the world."

🙂
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If someone chooses the digital medium to express themeselves without ever experiencing film I don't see the problem.

Would clattering around the streets in a horse and buggy for three months be a prerequisite to better driving skills in a car ... perhaps I shouldn't suggest such a hypothesis because there will be numerous zealots jumping up and down in their chairs right now going ...

"Of course!" 😛
 
Keith said:
If someone chooses the digital medium to express themeselves without ever experiencing film I don't see the problem.

Would clattering around the streets in a horse and buggy for three months be a prerequisite to better driving skills in a car ... perhaps I shouldn't suggest such a hypothesis because there will be numerous zealots jumping up and down in their chairs right now going ...

"Of course!" 😛
Click to expand...

Isn't an informed choice (based on experience) preferable to an uninformed choice?
 
Yes but when someone makes such a choice and we hear about it (choice being important I agree) there's this attitude around here of ...

"Hallelujah brothers and sisters ... another sinner has been saved!"

It's tedious IMO!
 
Someone like our Joe has tons of experience with film photography and has now chosen digital as his preferred medium. That's great. But there are many (younger) digital-only photographers who have never been exposed to film photography. Some may find that film suits them better given experience with both media, just as Joe has chosen digital based on his experience with both.
 
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