There is hope for the younger generation of photographers.

[Keith]

I enjoy all threads and all topics Frank because there is usually something in most of them to keep a viewer warm on a chilly evening ... but the same protagonists preach the same sermons in too many of these types of threads a lot of the time!

Digital verses film has many guises ... like the devil! 😀

 

[Darshan]

Rather than film OR digital, I would use film AND digital. They both have their roles and we are lucky to have both media. Film was not so cool when there were no digital cameras. I love to go to a vintage car show, guess why?? 😉

Dan.

 

[Keith]

There is hope for the younger generation of photographers.

Who decide to use film ... the ones who don't are destined for a life of photographic emptiness obviously.

The premise of the title of this thread is where the problem is for me ... it was a bait for the zealots!


but as Frank reminded me ... there are other threads! 😀

 

[SimonSawSunlight]

Who decide to use film ... the ones who don't are destined for a life of photographic emptiness obviously.

The premise of the title of this thread is where the problem is for me ... it was a bait for the zealots!


but as Frank reminded me ... there are other threads! 😀

I agree, it felt a little awkward.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I started with Digital when I was 23, used film since I was 6. Digital was still pretty new when I was 23. Film was somewhat new when I was 6. Kodachrome II had just come out, moving Kodachrome from ASA 10 to ASA 25. I still have some Kodachrome in the Fridge. The ASA 10 kind.

Started with a Brownie 127. Upgraded at age 8 to Verichrome Pan loaded into an Instamatic 150- Woo Hoo. Spring Wound Motor. I still have that camera.

Cannot buy Panatomic-X anymore. Bummer.

 

[back alley]

Who decide to use film ... the ones who don't are destined for a life of photographic emptiness obviously.

The premise of the title of this thread is where the problem is for me ... it was a bait for the zealots!


but as Frank reminded me ... there are other threads! 😀

it's like two camps are being set up...and frankly i'm tired of the attempts made by others to make me feel 'less than'...just because i use digital.

 

[atlcruiser]

I shoot digital every single day...usually for work but also jsut to knock around with a camera...the M8 with 28 elmart does that rather well 🙂 Great PICs, easy, not at all cheap. I hate computers, printers, scanners but I use them every day and through necessity have found the "good" in digital for me.

I love film. I love to touch it, mess with it, soup it, enlarge it just love to use it. I try to shoot film every day and average 5 rolls a week of assorted formats.

As much as I hate all of technology I am firmly in the hybrid process camp and will stay there. it makes too much sense time/money wise not to do it this way....again; for me.

When I get E6 120 from my mamiya 645AF i am always floored. Digital cant do that and i doubt it will ever be able to do that. Not that it is better than the MF digital but it is VERY different and I believe more different than 35 mm film is to 35mm digital.

I see lots of folks with Holgas and older SLRs. Good for them no matter the age. Just go take pictures 🙂

I really think if easy, cheap, consumer level scanning technology had been available 10 years ago we would be in a slightly different situation but the internet and digital pictures jsut sort of go together...thank you porno! Porno drove many of the early advances in the internet and I think directly helped the market for digital camera and video.


The debate is null as I think there is nothing to debate.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

This has turned into a film vs digital, with a lot of venting going on.

More film vs digital threads turn into venting.

From the post above, words of wisdom.

"The debate is null as I think there is nothing to debate."

Can I use that quote? It is much nicer than my normal "Face it Flounder, you trusted me".

 

[bucs]

I started with film around a year ago because i couldn't afford a digital slr kit and i desperately wanted to try photography. i found an old spotmatic with 50mm lens for $40. I was forced to learn black and white developing because photo labs here in the Philippines don't offer it anymore.

I think it was a great choice because i was able to appreciate photography more with film. now I have a fed-2, rolleicord, yashica-d, and a moskva folder. hoping to get my first leica next year for my 20th birthday gift/ graduation gift.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I've given away at least a dozen film cameras to the younger generation, and think it is wonderful to see them used. None of them Leica's- but Kodak Retina Auto III through to a Nikon N6000 with zoom, with mostly SLR's from the 60s and 70s in between. As the "older generation" looks at the horde of cameras accumulated, maybe look around for some good hands to put them in.

 

[amateriat]

Last night, I was tweaking the computer of a client in the neighborhood when her younger daughter said she was going to write her friend a letter. For a moment, I thought she was going to need the computer I was working on, but she said she was going to use her new typewriter. Yeah, typewriter. She'd just gotten a lovely portable Royal, and when I saw this eight-year-old haul the case holding the 50s-era Royal down the stairs I couldn't help but grin. "I think typewriters are so cool, and I've wanted one for a long time", she told me, so I have the feeling this was more than a sudden fancy for her.

Then I got into a conversation with her dad about technology, and, in reference to his younger kid's fascination with typewriters ("Mom, where's the Wite-Out?"), I mentioned how I do most of my writing with fountain pens, not from nostalgia but because I find writing much more comfortable and pleasant with them. Then I handed him one of my pens (for the record, a Pilot Custom 823...here comes trouble for mentioning that here), he was amazed at how it felt to write with it.

I'm not using my Konica POP much these days. I should ask her folks if that girl has a birthday coming up soon...


- Barrett

 

[ampguy]

nice story

nice story

I like that the Pilot pens you get at the big marts and Walgreens are still made in Japan (last time I checked). Although the pen closest to my hand right now is a nikko hotels international by Bic China.

In college, I worked p/t as a chemist in the Gillette paper-mate factory when they were doing the first erasable pen inks. Who would have thought, pens made in Santa Monica!

Last night, I was tweaking the computer of a client in the neighborhood when her younger daughter said she was going to write her friend a letter. For a moment, I thought she was going to need the computer I was working on, but she said she was going to use her new typewriter. Yeah, typewriter. She'd just gotten a lovely portable Royal, and when I saw this eight-year-old haul the case holding the 50s-era Royal down the stairs I couldn't help but grin. "I think typewriters are so cool, and I've wanted one for a long time", she told me, so I have the feeling this was more than a sudden fancy for her.

Then I got into a conversation with her dad about technology, and, in reference to his younger kid's fascination with typewriters ("Mom, where's the Wite-Out?"), I mentioned how I most of my writing with fountain pens, not from nostalgia but because I find writing much more comfortable and pleasant with them. Then I handed him one of my pens (for the record, a Pilot Custom 823...here comes trouble for mentioning that here), he was amazed at how it felt to write with it.

I'm not using my Konica POP much these days. I should ask her folks if that girl has a birthday coming up soon...


- Barrett

 

[remegius]

Parker 51's and Vacumatics...that's all I write with.

Cheers...

Rem

 

[Pindy]

This may be correct, but it is hard to get them to use the 'manual' setting (which is the only way they will learn).

I think this is more important than the film vs. digital debate.

Yes! I couldn't stop thinking this, reading through this thread. Honestly, my only problems with digital are that the cameras are too automated by default and you must be disciplined if you want to avoid the camera thinking for you. A kid learning on an OM-1, say, will develop a skill in exposure-making. Limitations are almost always good for us. You can go back to it once you've earned your stripes.

 

[Richbuckle]

I use both, and I find some things are much harder to achieve with digital than film.

Film is so much easier to get good results on bright days, because of greater exposure latitude and better rendering of image areas of lesser-sharpness, and I find digital really doesn't perform well at smaller apertures. People generalise about seeing instant results with digital and simply retaking the shot: there's certainly no digital with a screen that can tell me whether a shot was good or not within my budget. I only find out if a shot was good or not when I go to process the RAW file. Sure, it's cheaper to bracket with digital, but a machine-gun approach is never pleasurable (and rarely productive).

I find it easier to achieve what I want with digital in low light conditions, and with fast moving subjects.

Actually, shooting with digital I find no less pleasurable than film. Just don't choose a massive DSLR (for goodness' sake, you need to be able to make eye contact with your subjects), and set aperture and speed manually. Use an old-style optical finder and scale focus rather than chimping sometimes.

Would I want to go fully digital? Certainly not with the quality of digital cameras currently available in the price-range / at the size I want.

If these caveats could be removed by new gear releases next week? There's still an element of 'character' that's introduced by film that is enjoyable - an element that is left somewhat beyond my control (at my experience / skill level, anyway). I suppose when the availability of the technology improves significantly, I'll cut my film consumption a good deal.

For myself, film will only remain a viable choice for as long as it offers qualities that digital can't, or can't at an equal price. I think it will remain a viable choice for a good while yet, and for a good while longer for those starting out on a tight budget.

This is, however, the perspective of someone who does not develop his own prints in a darkroom (perhaps at some point in the future...).

 

[Haigh]

If it means anything we have a fine photo shop here that is very high end film as well as digital. To my surprise I recently noticed an array of brightly coloured Holgas. The proprietor said that so many people asked him if he stocked them he decided to do so and they steadily sell.

 

[damien.murphy]

Most general photography college courses here in Ireland up to maybe the last 3/ 4 years would have been rooted in film, as a result of the investment required to fitout with computers/ printers/ scanners for digital, and the darkroom facilities already in place. I think this put a lot of people off, myself included, when the only courses with any digital content were dedicated post-processing courses. Things have changed in the last 3/ 4 years, with many colleges now dismantling some, if not all, of their darkroom facilities, and general photography courses now having quite a strong digital flavour.

I think people should be able to make up their own minds, without having film or digital exclusively foisted upon them, especially given the fact digital has brought many people to photography. Digital brought me to photography six years ago, although my current shooting habits are entirely film-based, with my film M's being constant companions, bolstered by my Rolleicord or Hasselblad.

In Ireland, there is a big swing towards film, and most people I know (that are not the photographic masses), shoot film in some capacity.

It is sad to see college darkroom facilities going to the wayside, and feel film is a great medium to learn photography with. That said, I'm not of the opinion that in order for film to do well, that it has to be foisted upon people. There is a nice niche developing for film here, and its devotees from young to old, are all film users by choice.

 

[-doomed-]

I have to confess, too... I am 22 years old and I shoot and develop ~100 rolls of 35mm tri-x per year, plus the other 35mm and medium format film. I feel more comfortable and secure with film rather than digital.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyxktRPuSrk&feature=related

At 25 I feel the same , I bought a digital SLR as my for sale shots and color camera. I love my film gear and use it daily.
Hundreds of rolls, and every time I pull the negs from the reel I am still amazed at the whole thing, the feeling doesn't change.
My digital SLR produces clean color images, but the process feels cold, and I'm never excited to just download and process the images on screen.

 

[clayne]

A "technical" quibble: everyone continually makes the same film vs digital comparisons - they forget one serious aspect of film: light. Film responds to light very differently than digital in the face of upper mids and highlights.

Digital uses linear curves. Beyond the curve == clip.
Film/analog uses non-linear curves. Beyond the curve == saturation.

This is not a minor thing - but ends up continually overlooked in the face of resolution and other arguments. It's one of the main differences between digital and analog technologies, in general (not just cameras).

How do you make use of this free tonal compression with film? By knowing how to extract what's been saturated after the fact. "Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights" isn't just some BS founded on old principles. There is a method to the madness. If you have access to an enlarger, do your own tests. Shoot a roll a +1, +2, +3, +4 stops beyond what is needed for balanced exposure of a scene. Then, after "developing for the highlights," enlarge (or even contact) the film with various grades of filtration (or straight graded paper) using locals (dodging/burning) to re-expand the tonal ranges which went off into the shoulder of the film.

Can't even come close to doing that with digital. You have nothing to bring back once you're past the limit.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Digital sensors have a Linear Response, film response goes non-linear at the extremes. This helps preserve highlights and shadows. This has been discussed on RFF before. Film can "saturate", at which point the image is clipped. It also has a lower limit, and has reciprocity failure at long exposures. In the early 70s, one company modified a Nikon F with small lamps to raise the "baseline" for sensitivity. A certain number of photons hit the film with no effect, and the idea was to use low-power electric lamps to overcome the baseline. Kind of like avalanche photo-detectors (APD's), but for film. ASA 1600 Tri-X without push-processing.

The Digital "equivalent": set exposure using Histograms, minimize clipping at each end. Use a lower-contrast lens to compress the intensity distribution and fill out the histogram. Post-process using Photoshop "Curves" or equivalent to attain desired contrast in the finished product.