We're so lucky today. Do we really appreciate it?

[David Hughes]

Yes, think of all those people going on a 3 month cruise worrying about their house catching fire and destroying their negatives or the computer being stolen and losing all their jpg's...

Luckily there's good and bad about old and new equipment, we can use either and sometimes both. So what does it matter? And aren't we lucky? And for light relief we can post on threads like these and make matters worse or better.

Regards, David

 

[Pál_K]

... The subjects themselves are long gone, not that they cared much about which cameras or film I used when I was stalking them over the decades.
...

In my experience, they're interested only if you're using a Yashica Lynx.

...
My partner has been after me for some time to sort out and cull the feline shots, keep the best, maybe do a book or two for family to enjoy in the future, and destroy the non-keepers. Very sensible indeed.
...

You might enjoy making such a book or album. Go for it!

 

[Deleted member 65559]

Dear Deardorff38 I was not denigrating anyone and certainly not you (if that is your impression). I am simply making the point that we have been here many times always with the same outcome "

Peter, I did not have that impression, I was commenting on your phrase:
"I can see this is just going to quickly degenerate into yet another film v digital debate.

There has been none of that, yet since we all participate in photography in different ways, any discussion allows for differences & I ( as have others) simply took the opportunity to reflect from my point of view.

 

[Richard G]

My first digital the Nikon Coolpix 4500. Macro that didn’t require a special lens or bellows or even tripod. Waist level finder without the investment in Hasselblad and three lenses.

Rediscovering the marvel of my M2 thanks to RFF and, by extension, the www.

My Leica C Lux 2 in a small pocket in the arm of my skiing jacket.

The iPhone 3GS, dreamy render. I miss that phone.

The M9-P digital Leica. Attach my 1980s Summicron, press the shutter, attach the cable (yes I used to do that) and there is the picture on my MacBook Pro.

More lenses like the ZM C Sonnar I’d never have known about without the web.

Buying a perfect Hasselblad online here from its capable and careful owner in the US.

Knowing so much more about photography for coming here to RFF.

The OP is correct. And I do appreciate it.

 

[robert blu]

Yes, we are lucky today. Technology is what allows us to share our opinions and images in a forum like RFF ! Unimaginable a few decades ago 🙂

 

[David Hughes]

Hmmm, whilst some wonderful equipment exists, I can't help thinking that you have to be incredibly rich to afford it. What it would cost to buy the latest digtal equivalent of my old M2 or M6 and lenses frightens me.


OTOH, what robert blu says about technology, forums etc is true and more than makes up for it.


Regards, David

 

[Bob Michaels]

Yes, we are lucky today. Technology is what allows us to share our opinions and images in a forum like RFF ! Unimaginable a few decades ago 🙂

Yes, back in those old days we had to make local friends, go outside, and actually speak with others face to face. And people were know by their real names back then. We even had to print photos so we could put them in an envelope to carry around and show people.

Sorry to sound cynical but ..........

I think I going to log off and go outside to chat with the neighbors.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Yes, back in those old days we had to make local friends, go outside, and actually speak with others face to face. And people were know by their real names back then. We even had to print photos so we could put them in an envelope to carry around and show people.

Sorry to sound cynical but ..........

I think I going to log off and go outside to chat with the neighbors.

OTOH I knew no one "into" photography, other than those I met in photo classes.
My one visit to a meeting of the local camera club was a real turnoff.
Books and magazines were my only regular source of inspiration.

Unscrupulous camera stores continued to do business, aided and abetted by the photo magazines.
My local shop charged as much for photofinishing then as I pay now - and that was 1970's dollars!

Chris

 

[robert blu]

Yes, back in those old days we had to make local friends, go outside, and actually speak with others face to face. And people were know by their real names back then. We even had to print photos so we could put them in an envelope to carry around and show people.

Sorry to sound cynical but ..........

I think I going to log off and go outside to chat with the neighbors.

You are not cynical but absolutely correct..it's a good point specially about printing and showing real prints to real people...this is true ...I still do it ...when I find anyone interested in the area where I live...of course I like this but so rare to find anyone interested...everybody is ready to take out his super-phone and show how he's good at....but prints...hm it's another story ...
Thanks for your words 🙂

 

[airfrogusmc]

I am part of group that meets about 3 times a year. And the price of admission is you have to have new prints of new work. And this group consists of not only some amazing photographers but a few artists to. They need finished work also. In my way of thinking the work isn't finished until it is a finished print.

 

[KM-25]

I appreciate it more and more but not for the reasons you do.

The number two reason I appreciate it is that I am now in my 32nd year of shooting for a living and loving photography more than ever, best assignments ever, best pay ever, best work I have done ever and most freedom ever.

But the number one reason I am appreciative is that as good as digital is...and it is really good, it did not and will not kill of the best and purest photographic medium for me of all time and that is film and especially the silver print.

 

[markjwyatt]

I'm in two minds about this; when I'm holding the camera and taking the picture etc I like film cameras but after it's taken I prefer digital. Luckily there's good lenses for both.

It's the feel of the camera in my hands that causes it and the convenience of digital for the second like. A pity there's no diital cameras that feel like my old film ones...

Regards, David

My Fuji XT-2 feels like a film camera. Not as nice as my Contax iia, but it gives me some satisfaction to hold and shoot (and takes nice images).

 

[markjwyatt]

Chris, reread my last post. Those old Kodachromes were already deteriorating after just over 40 years. I've noticed that in some of my other Kodachromes as well. Something I can't explain since I always believed Kodachromes would last longer. But nothing like the old Agfa and Fuji slides. They have faded badly.

But nothing is forever. We should enjoy what we have while we have it.

I am recovering some old slides. My Uncle's Kodachromes from the late 1940s are still there, but the color is not great. My Kodachromes from the 1970s are ok. Ektachromes from the same time preiod are really poor, but interestingly I have some Fujichromes from the mid/late 1970s that are still quite good. I need to go through my Dad's slides still. A lot of 1970s Agfachromes still looking pretty good.

 

[markjwyatt]

When I restarted photography (in a more serious way) in 2018 I bought a Fujifilm XT-2. It is by far the highest tech photographic camera (specfically, because I have used high end thermal imagers) I have ever owned or used, and I like using it and get good images from it. At the same time I am really enjoying shooting some vintage cameras- Contax iia, Kodak Retina Reflex, M42 SLRs, just picked up a 6X9 folder, and feel I am getting some great images from them. I am perfectly comfortable being responsible for the exposures and confident about getting results without needing to check the back of my camera (of course sometimes I don't get the shot I wanted, but that's life and it's a lesson learned).

I am not super interested in having higher tech film cameras (maybe a Nikon F6 would be nice) because I have used so many point and shoots and often had to fool them into doing what I want, that I am happy to go back to manual. On the other hand with modern digital, the technology is much better (more along the lines of the F6), and if the situation is really tricky, I can look at the shot and see if I got it (often I do not look at the back of my XT-2, I shoot it as though it were film, but I cheat in that I can largely see in the EVF what I got). Basically, I can go either way- full manual film or full modern digital. I am not happy with a lot of the in-between stuff, and avoid it (though my Konica Big Mini HG, is a decent camera to have in lieu of just an iPhone).

I really like the optics in older lenses (especially German, but some Japanese also), especially for B&W, but I shoot some color also. I have played with adapting them to my digital, and will do it occasionally, but generally, I would rather use modern lenses on the digital that give me the full experience (I only have one zoom at this point). I also intend to use the XT-2 to scan film, and am slowly working towards that (have started with slides).

 

[robert blu]

I am part of group that meets about 3 times a year. And the price of admission is you have to have new prints of new work. And this group consists of not only some amazing photographers but a few artists to. They need finished work also. In my way of thinking the work isn't finished until it is a finished print.

This is good. I'm part of a photo-club but I'm there more because of a many years long friendship with a few member than because of photography...

But my wife (also a photographer) and I have two very good friends (female friends) whom we meet quite oft, they are both passionate photographers (one is a pro but now not working too much because got two babies) and we share our works, exchange ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism. In fact they are a good help for my editing and sequencing.

We also work on dummies for our books and confront ourselves with some well known photographers. This is very productive and stimulating.

But apart of them it is difficult to meet other people who see photography more than a research for "like" on any social forum...

This is the reason for which I say that technology and internet are useful to exchange ideas or get inspiration. Of course not an equivalent substitute for meeting real people with real prints in the hands 🙂at the end it seems we can have benefits from both world, real and virtual...

robert

 

[Godfrey]

Yes, back in those old days we had to make local friends, go outside, and actually speak with others face to face. And people were know by their real names back then. We even had to print photos so we could put them in an envelope to carry around and show people.

Sorry to sound cynical but ..........

I think I going to log off and go outside to chat with the neighbors.

This is true, and is why so many never did find any others doing photography to enjoy the shared passion. See Vivian Maier ...!

I've been online from as far back as 1984, when it was DARPAnet and CompuServe, SUMEX-AIM, and locally hosted bulletin boards. Most of the friends I have today I found through various mailing lists and discussion boards on-line, and I've made the effort to go visit many of them, and have them visit me when they'r in the neighborhood, in person. Some of those folks have become my dearest buddies and family—we share motorcycles, racing, photography, movies, books, and life together.

I don't give a hoot if you prefer film to digital capture, or vice versa. The products of neither will last forever, and I'm unconcerned with that as well. I'm concerned only when I encounter a closed mind.

G

 

[brothernature]

https://youtu.be/LQCfdhmgfj8

This talk with Richard Benson is worth listening to. If you're feeling as if you under-appreciate where we are right now, it's hard not to get excited about the tools we have available to us after hearing his excitement and passion for printing.

This video is also 8 years old! Inkjet printing and digital sensors are already leaps better.

Regardless of what you like aesthetically, what's exciting to me is that we have so many incredible choices on how to get from being out in the world and seeing something that you respond to, to turning that into a physical print. You can shoot film and print digitally OR shoot digitally and print traditionally, or do any other combination of things. Crazy times.

 

[Michael Markey]

This is true, and is why so many never did find any others doing photography to enjoy the shared passion. See Vivian Maier ...!

I've been online from as far back as 1984, when it was DARPAnet and CompuServe, SUMEX-AIM, and locally hosted bulletin boards. Most of the friends I have today I found through various mailing lists and discussion boards on-line, and I've made the effort to go visit many of them, and have them visit me when they'r in the neighborhood, in person. Some of those folks have become my dearest buddies and family—we share motorcycles, racing, photography, movies, books, and life together.

I don't give a hoot if you prefer film to digital capture, or vice versa. The products of neither will last forever, and I'm unconcerned with that as well. I'm concerned only when I encounter a closed mind.

G

Couldn`t agree more .
The net and the ease in which we can share photographs and listen to others experience has been probably the single greatest achievement of recent times.

I don`t see it as anti social ,in fact just the opposite .
Its been the biggest single influence in furthering my photography , such as it is .

The only thing you have to avoid ,as Godfrey says ,is the closed mind.

 

[Guest]

Fake Photographers.

Fake Photographers.

I was in Sedona late last year and was at a location I had photographed some ten years before. It was overgrown badly but i decided to take three records. I had a Hasselblad SWC/M, Rolleiflex 3.5F and my late Fathers Zeiss
Super Ikonta 513/2. All were loaded with Black and White film. I only took one image on film. My wife who is also my Camera Mule handed me the one and only digital camera I own, it’s a good one but no Zeiss competitor.
I took three images with that and called it a day.
A couple who were on the riverbank close by started a conversation about what I was carrying. In the meantime a bloke of about thirty odd years old came by and set up a low end tripod for his digital camera. While we were enjoying our conversation, this bloke started to record hundreds of images of the same view. The bursts from his camera reminded me of when trainee troops where firing machine guns, blasting away at the target.
Even he couple we were talking with were making facial expressions about the stupidity of this bloke.
I recon he recorded a few hundred images of this scene. The light was getting bad when I took my few records, when he was wasting his battery power it had lost any quality.
So this is my view of the youth of today’s approach to photography, it’s pathetically sad.

 

[Michael Markey]

You took three he took a hundred and three.
Does that matter ?
I`m not sure why that`s a comment on why we are so lucky today merely that people go about things differently.
There were plenty of motor drives blazing away back in the day as listening to any old news broadcast event will demonstrate .

It`s not a modern phenomenon.

Again though …. why should that matter ?