What was the final straw that made you switch/lean to digital?

[GarageBoy]

I started "photography" when I was in junior high - my dad let me use his Yashica FX-D/50 1.4 planar for photos of my friends at the end of the day, but he let me know that film and development was expensive, so I didn't shoot much

Out comes digital (canon A520) and bam- I'm shooting everything and anything

I notice films discontinuing left and right - so I go for it- a last huzzah
See the notice "Kodak P3200 is being discontinued" and run out and buy a brick- always liked B&W night life photos and always wanted to shoot it

Dig up a Nikon F2AS and the FX-D from my dad's stash, buy myself a few lenses and head out

Shoot/scan - compare to other people's examples- curse myself for not knowing how to use photo shop, curse my self for not being able to keep dust off- but the film look is all there and its beautiful (annnnd I could always wet print when I learn to do so)

See the notice that Neopan 400 and Provia 400X is discontinued - spent every last dime on buying 12 rolls of each ($16.09 a roll 😱) - develop the B&W stuff- WOW, those highlights, those skin tones
Get my first roll of 400X back- WOW those colors- why did you axe her Fuji? Why!?
Beautiful change of pace after the warm color bombs known as E100VS and Velvia - but scanning - ugh- not looking so pretty, and I can't share with friends without scanning

Pick up a Sony A7 and wow... just WOW - beautiful FF look, use all my beautiful lenses- default Sony JPEG is pretty good- sorta made me shelf my film system (at least til I learn to scan/post process and I hope this doesn't kill my motivation to)

I still want to get into MF, and go through some 120 Portra and E6 materials but the camera I want (Pentax 67II) costs $$$ (maybe I'll settle for an RZ or a 645)

So- what factors made you switch ?

 

[Jack Sparrow]

Bringing 120 neg/slide film to the lab, only to have it come back looking like ass - and then having to scan it, followed by retouching. Ain't nobody got time fo' that!

B&W I can do at home at least, and it comes out pristine. Just sayin'

 

[tunalegs]

I've never switched. Digital is not fun to work with. I have a DSLR but it rarely goes anywhere unless I'm out of film.

 

[Spanik]

Well, the last days have me leaning to digital. There is no Provia 400X anymore, Now Velvia 100 is on the block. And Velvia 50 is almost impossible to get. Makes the only slide around being Provia 100F.

But I cannot afford digital MF nor a freezer full of film. And while I expected a lot of Foveon it was a disappointment as well.

So I'm leaning to digital but I'm afraid I'll keep running film until I cannot find it anymore and then just give up. Digital is no fun indeed if you already spend more than 8h behind a screen. No interest in b&w. Only hope I have is that Ferrania can keep slide alive.

 

[BLKRCAT]

I wouldn't get discouraged. Film isn't something you just pick up overnight. Plus part of the enjoyment of shooting film is the investment you put into the image. Whether it be cost or time I feel like it makes you savour the images that much more when you have blood sweat and tears into them, figuratively speaking of course.

 

[rscheffler]

I have nothing against shooting film and certainly like its look. It's more the reality that I would never be dedicated/disciplined enough to spend the required time in the darkroom printing to bring the entire process to its proper conclusion (something that can be viewed/displayed). I'm also a prolific shooter, so there's also the matter of how to archive/store/display all of it.

The switch to digital was in 2002 and it was a matter of being interested in doing it, rather than being dragged kicking and screaming, as well as by necessity because I also do this professionally and deadlines/timelines for projects shortened considerably once enough people were comfortable with digital (I recall having to convince some clients early on that digital would provide suitable quality).

While my discipline in the years since has not necessarily improved a lot, eliminating the whole time commitment of processing and scanning/printing film by capturing images in digital format instead means I'm better able to keep on top of what I've recently shot. Storage isn't so much of a problem any more either, though display is still somewhat perplexing, because a nice print still demands space to be displayed/viewed. In the near future I'll probably stream to a large 4K+ display/TV rather than print anything.

I'm still sitting on a pretty substantial archive of film images and have been debating buying a scanner.. But options aren't as good as they were ~10 years ago, so I've been following with interest the home-brewed projects by some who are adapting the latest 24 or 36MP mirrorless cameras with enlarging lenses and copy stands to photograph their negatives and slides. Seems promising and might be faster, once everything is all set up, than using a dedicated scanner.

 

[Godfrey]

I worked only with film and the darkroom for thirty years.

Then scanners happened and I started scanning my film and prints.

Then digital printing began, and I did some of that. And I stopped using the darkroom, and only processed film.

Then digital cameras started to become available at prices I could afford, so I started using them.

Then digital cameras that did as well as film cameras happened and I started using them.

Then digital printing became good, and I did more of that.

I still shoot with film. I still shoot with digital cameras. I make photographs. I print them, make books and cards and slide shows with them.

G

 

[agoglanian]

I started with film and I love the process behind it. I first switched to digital in 2005, but I quickly missed having some analog options and got right back into film the next year. I was shooting mostly 35mm with some 120 (I stopped shooting large format a long time ago) but this year I decided to stop shooting 35mm all together, sold all my small format gear and focused my film efforts on my Mamiya 7II and Hasselblad 500CM kits. I love the look of 120 film and thankfully I have access to a great lab for processing, and they will scan if I need them to (I usually save this for special images).

I shoot some color film, but mostly black and white these days. I'll shoot it as long as it's around, but I don't ignore the convenience of digital, though I still treat my digital cameras like film cameras in the way I operate them.

 

[Stuart John]

For color it was simple, I got fed up with poor results from labs. I still shoot some B&W film though.

 

[traveler_101]

I worked only with film and the darkroom for thirty years.

Then scanners happened and I started scanning my film and prints.

Then digital printing began, and I did some of that. And I stopped using the darkroom, and only processed film.

Then digital cameras started to become available at prices I could afford, so I started using them.

Then digital cameras that did as well as film cameras happened and I started using them.

Then digital printing became good, and I did more of that.

I still shoot with film. I still shoot with digital cameras. I make photographs. I print them, make books and cards and slide shows with them.

G

Godfrey's is a logical progression. Mine was more a back and forth.

I used film and a SLR, but shot colour and did not process it myself. I liked taking pictures with my manual 1964 vintage Canon SLR with the 50mm kit lens.

When my camera was stolen in the late 1990s I stopped taking pictures.

Digital came in and I felt I had to change. Bought a SONY point and shoot, but didn't have my heart in it.

Olympus came along with the E-P1 and I got interested in the idea of mirror less cameras and through that in rangefinder photography. Thought I could use Voigtlander lenses with the Olympus, but ended up buying a Bessa-T. I started up black and white film shooting while keeping up with digital.

 

[JoeV]

Mine was a bit more complicated than most. I went from color and BW film in 35mm in the '80s to BW home processing of medium and large format to pinhole and paper negatives in the '90s and '00s. Then mainly lots of homemade cameras, large format and paper negatives which required scanning in order to share online, which got me into a digital workflow. Then a bit of amassing a collection of point-&-shoot, toy and vintage 35mm cameras.

I had a Sony P&S digital something or other in the mid-2000s, whose zooming optical viewfinder I started liking for street photography, but was displeased with image quality, so in late 2008 I got the Lumix G1, the first mirrorless digital. I used the heck out of it, finally got a G5 and also a Fujifilm X10. The G1 I gifted to a family member.

Along the way I cut way back on pinhole shooting but have taken up the slack with paper negatives in glass lensed cameras.

I recently got a Minolta X700 body, with which to return to my old film SLR roots, but discovered that I don't like the 3:2 aspect ratio, preferring 4:3 instead. Both of my digital cameras shoot in 4:3. Which made me also return to using the venerable Bronica ETRS, since it too shoots a 4:3 aspect ratio image. Which also has me interested in dusting off several half-frame cameras, including an Olympus Pen D and plastic toy Superhedz half frame, since they too shoot 4:3.

So I'm still doing many formats, both film and digital, along with paper negatives. Keeps me interested.

~Joe

 

[BlackXList]

I love film, and I love my digital choices too, I had reached a balance where both of my methods were sustainable and worked well (I felt) alongside each other.

In terms of film choices, my only BW choice was Kodak BW400CN, I just shoot it and it comes out looking great, I've seen other people make XP2 Super look great, but I seem to make it look bad.

When Kodak Alaris spun off, I did the "please get in touch and tell us what you want from us" routine.
Then BW400CN got discontinued, and to be honest I took it personally haha, I bought up a bunch of it, but I had to face up to the fact that one of my tools had been removed.

I got a fixation on futureproofing my workflow, and that meant digital, I spent time and money on digital that could provide what I want, and I had to put some time into that equipment to get my comfort level up.

I still have a bunch of film gear, and a bunch of film, and I'm looking forward to shooting it. It just hasn't made it out to shoot just recently.

I think I need to take some of my film gear out and fall in love with the results again in order to get back to where I was. (or go full digital)

 

[airfrogusmc]

Two words clients and space. It was the perfect storm. Forced to downsize because of divorce (lost my darkroom) and at the same time lost a big client. So when I moved I lost the darkroom and I also had to rethink my business. I do miss film and I someday may go back but for both my personal work and my professional work it's all digital and has been since 2005. Love both film and digital. They both have their place.

 

[css9450]

I shot slide film exclusively for nearly 30 years, although various forces conspired to make me shoot almost nothing from 2002 to 2006. When I picked it up again, the first thing I found was that slide processing had gone from mediocre to bad to worse. I hated waiting 2+ weeks to get E-6 processed! Having lived through Kodak's switch from Chicago to Findlay to Minneapolis to Texas (for Kodachrome) and from Kodak to Qualex to Kodalux (and all the wide and varying swings of quality of the finished product) waiting 2 weeks for friggin' E-6 was more than I could take. I haven't touched film since 2008.

 

[Daniel Teoli Jr.]

OP...I shoot mostly digital. I just don't have the time to deal with film anymore. But, if I had my choice I would do film. But my projects have to come first, so I have to get it done with digital. That about sums me up. My M6 and SWC are my favorite cams of all time.

 

[samuelphoto]

There were a number of definite factors for me:

1. I could no longer get Ilfochrome prints from my transparencies.

2. After running out of time to print B/W myself, I started using the one and only good B/W lab in Atlanta (David Russell/Russel Image Processing). They went out of business.

3. Then E-6 Lab and Moakler went out of business.

4. Professional Photo Resources, a rental house, dropped all their film products - Leica, the exotic Fuji stuff (GX617, GSW690), Hasselblad V-series and XPAN. I used to especially rent some of the Fuji gear and the XPAN and the Blads for portraits.

5. Fuji discontinued my go to color film, Astia

6. Nikon discontinued the ED5000 scanner and support for it.

It's the last one I don't understand. Not that Nikon dropped their scanners but that neither Fuji nor Kodak, both with excellent digital imaging technology, don't make the strategic move to support their film business by offering affordable, yet top quality scanners. I mean, DUUUHHHH???!!! I'll bet everyone on this forum would pay the cost of a top lens (say up to $2K) to get their hands on a really good, affordable scanner. The stuff on the market today is complete crap. I need to get hold of the Atlanta Fuji rep and talk some sense into him/her.

So many forces working against film. Still, I'm hanging in there, thanks especially to Dwaynes, who has very affordable processing and scanning. Yes, the scans are only 4 MB, but that's all I need unless I'm making a print, a digital contact sheet, if you will.

 

[Lawrence A.]

Never switched, at least in the sense of giving up film for digital. I shoot both, and enjoy shooting both. I was a professional black and white printer and darkroom technician for many years, and it's hard to let go of something you know you can do well. I love my 35mm film Olympus 35SP, but I love newly acquire Leica X1 too.

So for me it is all my color is done on digital, but my black and white work is split between the two. There's room for both in the world, but I suspect it is harder and costlier to use film is you depend on others to process it.

 

[GarageBoy]

I'm beginning to lean more towards MF for color- if I'm going to use film - might as well use big film, no?

 

[Pioneer]

I absolutely love digital!!

But there is still so much I want to learn about film I just don't have the time!

😀

 

[Daniel Teoli Jr.]

Got a bad back, bad lungs, no time and no space for a darkroom.

I started with a darkroom in my bathroom when I was a kid. Then the darkroom kitchen. That progressed to the garage darkroom. But just can't do it now.

My love is the M6 and the SWC. If I had a butler to do my wet work I'd gladly stick with film.