Why 35mm in the age of digital

sjw617 said:
When did grain become a good thing? You do not see grain when you look through the viewfinder, so why want to see it when you look at the results? It is a distortion of your image.

Steve
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while it's not in the viewfinder, i see grain when i view the scene before me in my imagination. far from ansel adams' examples of image making, but true to his idea of pre-visualization. it's debatable that it's a distortion of the scene, but for my intentions it's not a distortion of the image.

i respect that grainy images are not for everyone, however for me, it is an intrinsic part of photographing things. if it weren't i wouldn't shoot 35mm.


-j.
 
btgc said:
On Friday at party I got K100D in my hands and made some nice shots (I think) of host. I quickly realized that I need to force myself not look at LCD after each shot. Anyone there did so - and missed hidden exposures between ones they took.
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And there's one of the reasons why my (evil, cough 😛) dSLR is not usually set to display previews. I choose to use its feedback on my terms.
 
sjw617 said:
When did grain become a good thing? You do not see grain when you look through the viewfinder, so why want to see it when you look at the results? It is a distortion of your image.

Steve
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There are lots of things you dont see in reality as compared to any captured image. If you produce a B&W image then you certainly dont see life that way; even in colour, you dont see colour, contrast and saturation the same way as presented in the captured image - film or digital. Selective DoF, exposure latitude and tonaliity are all removed from a true reality to some degree.

Unless youre into medical or forensic photography, most genres tend to introduce various degrees of reality abstraction. Grain is just one of those degrees, and outrightly dismissing grain as bad and to be avoided suggests a narrow and sheltered view of photographic possibilities and emotions.
 
Frankly, I think chopping the introduction completely off, starting from, "A camera is an interface to the world..." and deleting the one reference to digital in your conclusion makes for a much better essay.

You open purporting to defend 35mm film in the digital age, but you don't really do that. The brief discussion of digital in the opening plus one afterthought feels very tacked-on as the spirit of the writing is focused on comparing 35mm to medium and large formats. In other words, film vs film.
 
In some half-finished piece some time back, I wrote that the one salient virtue of film in general, and (for me) 35mm in particular over digital was that is wasn't a moving target. Whichever 35mm camera might be in my hands at a given moment, so long as i know the film that was in it, I have a certain handle on imaging particulars, and I'll also have a handle on what I'll be dealing with in the process of creating prints from the processed roll. The camera might be my Fred Flintstone-primitive Holga 135, my auto-everything Ricoh GR1 or Konica Lexio 70, or my somewhere-in-between Hexars, but the film is the constant factor. The light gets bent, diffracted, and rationed somewhat differently, but the film reacts a certain way in all these cameras, and if I know the film well, I have an Approach.

How well does this play out with a sensor? It depends. Frequently, it can work out rather well. Sometimes I can get blindsided by its limitations in a crucial moment. Sometimes a forgotten sub-menu creates a "gotcha" that can be infuriating. And, this, among a host of other things, changes with the particular digital camera in my hands. This is why I can have a huge appreciation for digital imaging technology, while harboring a healthy distrust for the vast majority of digital cameras of any price range, and continue to work primarily with film for both my own work and whatever for-hire work I might still do from time to time.

Thus, my "philosophy" of film lies strongly in the pragmatic, prosaic realm as opposed to the poetic. That said, the beauty of the "filmic" image isn't lost on me at all; I wouldn't bother to use the stuff otherwise.

The piece was a great read, and adds stuff for the mind to chew on. Thanks very much for this!


- Barrett
 
I vote for the idea that photographs made by film are tangible phyiscal art ....and the negative or slide is much like the hard stones that make lithographs , or etching plates, engraved plates function in creation of a print that can not be altered in it's output. Digital on the other hand is not actually a proven archivalbe method that will assure a nongraded source....unlike glass negatives or BW "film" materials. Also the papers that modern digital prints are on have not even surruived 25 years. Most degrade so quickly that it is almost crazy.

Now many companies claim archive duration inks or papers that will last 75 years.....try and get a refund on those products. what laugh.

When you get down to the real bottom line digital is the ultimate disposable technology. Oh yeah there are new gold CD and DVD's that now assure non degrable files. Store on and print it out in 50 years and lets see what it looks like. What computer and operating system will still have the ability to read such "stone age" items like even todays hard drives.

If people are having fun using digital and magazines feel comfortable in using it for production and cost reasons that's fine. But......almost all of the archives that I come in contact with require very little care other than a cool and dry enviorment. Also clean cotton gloves. Anyone can look at them and see exactly what is there. Go try that with an old hard drive that has been sitting in storage for several years...Or an old Cd-rom that is just a few years old.

In the end real film produces real art that is lasting and also phyiscal. It is a real moment of life in an unaltered state. A tangible artistic expression. Produces an phyiscal archive artifact asa an end product.

Digital is like the footprint in the sand that the very next wave wipes away. Oh and one other small item....wait till you see what a strong solar flare does to image files not in sheilded containers. any strong EMP will "fry"any electronic storage device. something to think about.

Best Regards.....Laurance
 
if someone want to see world exactly like he see it through eyes - i think best solution is small p&s digi. when you look with your eyes you dont have that extreme bokeh like on 35mm film and on wide apertures. almost everything is sharp to the eyes.
 
nzeeman said:
if someone want to see world exactly like he see it through eyes - i think best solution is small p&s digi. when you look with your eyes you dont have that extreme bokeh like on 35mm film and on wide apertures. almost everything is sharp to the eyes.
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If you pay attention to the way your vision changes under certain conditions–differing light levels, focusing on foreground objects in your field of view, etc., you'll see (ouch, that was unavoidable 🙂) how wrong your conclusion is.

Way, way back (around 1969/70 or so) Bob Schwalberg had an interesting piece on the eye and how it reacts, particularly in fight-or-flight situations, in Popular Photography, and while I don't know if I buy everything he wrote in those few pages, I can confirm at least one of the basics he presented then: namely, that the eye is not simply pan-focus, and shallow DOF is not strictly a camera-borne phenomenon.


- Barrett
 
35mm

35mm

The day I have to defend shooting film is the day I will stop doing it.

DSLR and M8 users give proof every day of the quality of their equipment. The ease of use is enorm, compared to loading my M3 😉. And the things that can go wrong for a DSLR have their counterpart in filmcameras.

The only thing I can say is I feel better with film and the tactile factor of film, the waiting, develloping, sometimes getting it totaly wrong and losing a rol, ads to the pleasure of getting that one tacksharp neg on the lighttable.

But then I am an amateur (lover of) and dont have to deliver on time

And for the 35mm versus medium or large format discussion, as long as there is film I wil love all of them.

Regards,
Wim
 
I like film grain... But I dont like digital grain. Film grain is like vinyl record noise, analog, and therefore much more pleasing for my ears than digital one.
 
I'm pretty sure in future those who use digital cameras today will bash flawless 3D holographic scenes and argue that "back then digitals had soo nice noise, very easily adjustable with noiseware. Those holographs are too soulless for my taste!" 😀
 
btgc said:
I'm pretty sure in future those who use digital cameras today will bash flawless 3D holographic scenes and argue that "back then digitals had soo nice noise, very easily adjustable with noiseware. Those holographs are too soulless for my taste!" 😀
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Hear Hear!
 
I continue to shoot film outside my professional digital life. I agree with your ideas of photography and a connection to memory. I need to think awhile longer about it be specific to film in the way you describe.

Regardless, I think you did an excellent job with your essay.
 
My reasons for staying with film will echo much of what is said, however I also have reasons that are much more prosaic.

I'm at the time of my life where I like things to be simple. As ergonomically inefficient as some of my film cameras are I can easily remember where the controls are after 30 or 40 years of using them. The manual for my M2 has turned to humus long ago but the camera still magically exists and I remember how to use it.

Imagine that you have been driving a car with a standard transmission for so many years, then you are inserted into a new vehicle that will actually drive itself but only after you have studied a operators manual long enough to get you a BA. Then the next car you drive has a different manual.

I'd be dangerous on the road.
 
We Need a Contemporary Media Studies

We Need a Contemporary Media Studies

I'm of the opinion that electronic image capture devices (colloquially known here as 'digital cameras') and film cameras are, in theory, much more similar than what we have been led to believe based on the current product evolution.

Both film and digital employ the phenomenon of electron dissociation by photon bombardment as the means to create a latent image; in the case of the digital camera the latent image is then read off by charge coupling and amplification; in the case of film the latent image is read off by chemical development to metallic silver crystals that form an optical image directly within an emulsion.

The differences we perceive between the two forms of image capture really have to do with the evolution of the devices themselves. In the case of digital we really have a technical legacy of the point-and-shoot camera and the video camcorder. Particularly with the legacy of the video camcorder do we find the bothersome LCD or on-screen menu with its embedded controls that are less than ergonomic. So, too, with the legacy of the point-and-shoot, do we find lacking the kinds of elegant manual controls that we appreciate in the classic mechanical cameras of the past.

I firmly believe that camera design itself has led us to the place where we seem to think that these two forms of photography are worlds apart. It would be easy for a manufacturer to make a digital camera that operated like a classic manual film camera, without the LCD screen at all. Or, if there is to be an LCD, let it be for monitoring and setting the camera's deeper functions, and not for chimping, like the late model film SLRs from Nikon, for instance.

I think there is a lot of value in placing the camera up to one's eye when capturing an image, and also for concentrating on the scene and activity being studied, rather than constant introspective navel-gazing at the immediate result on an LCD. Forcing the user to have to wait till they get home and upload the images I think is a valuable exercise in learning patience and confidence in one's ability to use the camera as a tool for image capture.

Finally, there is the title to my response. We need to be media literate. Meaning that we need to understand the evolution of the systems that have brought us to where we are at in photography. And we need to be able to parse out the distinctions between fact and mere manufacturer's marketing hype when we engage in discussions about the technology at hand. We exist within a cyclic, iterative process of technological development, which implies that what we are offered in the way of camera technology is as much a product of the past choices we have made as it is of any futuristic visionary appeal. Manufacturers are as much chained to the technology treadmill as we users are; they fearfully limit themselves to new product development that falls squarely on what they perceive will sell well at minimal risk to the stockholders. Which means sticking to what has already worked. No LCD image review? Manual controls? Sounds risky; old-fashioned; out-dated. Let's stick to embedded software menus and a few tiny buttons. It's much safer.

~Joe
 
amateriat said:
If you pay attention to the way your vision changes under certain conditions–differing light levels, focusing on foreground objects in your field of view, etc., you'll see (ouch, that was unavoidable 🙂) how wrong your conclusion is.
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To add to your comment: I have noticed that my eyes create rather crappy bokeh. One day I was reading a magazine in a cab, and noticed in the corner of my eyes that the bright spots of the traffic were out of focus, and what's more, that they had the dreaded doughnutty shape of bad bokeh! So I plucked my eyes away and called Leica...

Thanks too for the kind words, from you and from other people.

Leighgion: I prefer to leave the essay as is, it follows from the organic unity of its composition. But if I were to tackle this issue again in another essay, I would of course present it differently.

To all: let's not get too carried away in the film v. digi argument. It's not so much an issue, as I think both technologies have their merit.

I propose we focus more narrowly to the reasons for sticking to 35mm.
 
literiter said:
Imagine that you have been driving a car with a standard transmission for so many years, then you are inserted into a new vehicle that will actually drive itself but only after you have studied a operators manual long enough to get you a BA. Then the next car you drive has a different manual.

I'd be dangerous on the road.
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Saying this from the perspective of a professional software developer: it's not just you. True simplicity in modern toolmaking is elusive and difficult. As you and others have pointed out, film developed a certain status quo that made its intricacies accessible over time. Digital technology (in general, not just in photography) has caused a giant shake-up. Many tasks that were never amenable to having tools, or which could never have even existed without computers, now sprout complex new solutions like weeds. The complexity is sometimes man-made, in that the tool design is poor (think "feature creep".. companies battling with bullet-lists) or just not yet sufficiently developed. In other cases, the problem domain itself is complex... poor attempts to hide that inherent complexity can often make matters worse.

All of this is both daunting and exciting. It's daunting because finding simplicity (some would say "good design") is itself a complex task, and exciting because of the opportunities for creating fantastic new tools.
 
jwhitley said:
True simplicity in modern toolmaking is elusive and difficult.

The complexity is sometimes man-made, in that the tool design is poor (think "feature creep".. companies battling with bullet-lists) or just not yet sufficiently developed. In other cases, the problem domain itself is complex... poor attempts to hide that inherent complexity can often make matters worse.

All of this is both daunting and exciting. It's daunting because finding simplicity (some would say "good design") is itself a complex task, and exciting because of the opportunities for creating fantastic new tools.
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Yes, it is about design isn't it? Designing a modern tool/system/camera that is reliable, simple and useful, seems to be difficult. Sometimes I think it's us, and the intricacies of our wants, which the designers try to give us.
 
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