Why Do You Still Shoot Film?

Florian1234 said:
There's a software, called Dxo film pack, which enables one to get the grain of several traditional films, but it is all digital.
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While the list of films they claim to emulate is certainly large (20+), only one of my favorite films is in it. It also seems to be lacking in the slow to medium speed B+W films. (25-200) No Plus-X!?

Another problem I have with programs like these is, I tend to print full frame.
Even with the same camera and lens, variations of exposure levels give the borders on my film negatives a personality of their own.

That's something you cant get with digital, the edges of the image are the limits of the sensor. Always the same, always perfectly straight.
 
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I still shoot film because I like to wind a lever on and see the top of the spindle rotate. I like to have to manually wind it back. I like to have to develop it using chemicals that rot my eyes and mess my hands up. I like having cow bone covered negatives, a camera that hasn't heard about these new fangled 'battery' devices and I like the sound of the shutter.

I also shoot tons of digital because it's free and instant and after 10-12 years in Photoshop I can make the images look like anything. This is cheating to some, art to others. Digital gives me more freedom to do whatever I want, but I'll always shoot film because it reminds me of a world when health and safety didn't exist. 🙂
 
Film is more fun, because I can do my processing and scanning. You can use the same camera but just switch to a different roll of film and get differenet result.
 
I shoot film because I love how the image looks. I love cameras without batteries (or at least the knowledge that I can exist without the meter in my TTL). I love the simplicity of film. I love developing it and making it do strange things. I love looking at negatives. I love slides. I love slide-shows. I love the organic cerebral nature of mechanics in tune with physics chemistry and art. I love no computers. (I love computers too) I love paper and Ink, paint wood, bust mostly I love that steel and brass self lubricate...
 
irq506 said:
I shoot film because I love how the image looks. I love cameras without batteries (or at least the knowledge that I can exist without the meter in my TTL). I love the simplicity of film. I love developing it and making it do strange things. I love looking at negatives. I love slides. I love slide-shows. I love the organic cerebral nature of mechanics in tune with physics chemistry and art. I love no computers. (I love computers too) I love paper and Ink, paint wood, bust mostly I love that steel and brass self lubricate...
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Very nicely said, Sir.
Bravo!
 
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*sigh* I'll revive this film thread because I want somewhere to groan that one more camera store in the town I visit decided to stop carrying film and supplies. I just can't bear to post this on one of those "film is dead" threads. I hope that everything will still be around on the internet for quite a while. I imagine that those who work with film will increasingly be considered artistic...just like those that do processes like cibachromes.
 
I am the one who bagan real photography from 20D and then bought a 30D last year, but sole both of them half a year later. And now I am a pure film shooter. The only DC is my wife's, which I use to shoot my gears.

I really like the tones and the way film shooting gives me. It gives you the time to think about the frame, light, theme, emotion you wanna express. It is not a machine gun like a DSLR that you can choose one from a bunch. And I am trying to set up a darkroom at home too, so that I could enjoy the fun of developing and printing B&W.
 
Short answer: Because I can 😀

Long answer:

- Because digital black & white looks fake
- Because buying used film gear (Leicas excluded) is dirt, dirt cheap, even state of the art
- Because my all manual Nikon FM feels so right in my hands
- Because the way the settings of the Nikon D200 can be customized is just plain silly.
- Because I hate clipped highlights
- Becauee I grew up with images made with film, so film looks more 'real' to me
- Because my latest acquisition, a 20$ Canonet is WICKED
- Because Tri-X and Diafine is a marriage made in heaven
- Because I bought a 400DPI film scanner with ICE only last year
- Bcause people love my old fashioned B/W work

I went digital for the obvious reasons: Convenient, color fidelity without much hassle, fast (much, much, much faster than having film processed, scanning the negs and remove the dust spots...) and frankly brilliant results under a wide range of circumstances. But my hobby has shifted from high pressure concert work to leisury fun photography in available light. And for that I use film almost exclusively now.
 
Since a few months and I am considering to occasionally use a digital camera on weekends, but I am unable to leave behind the joys of film based photography to use a digital camera. To me, my digital camera is just there whenever I need a photo of an item that I am putting up for sale once in a while. Why would anyone use a digital camera for photography when film is still available at a great price? This is confusing. 😀 :angel:

I just cannot enjoy digital photography. I guess, to each his own.

Your question: So, why would I use film? The answer is obvious.
 
raid said:
Why would anyone use a digital camera for photography when film is still available at a great price? This is confusing. 😀 :angel:

I just cannot enjoy digital photography. I guess, to each his own.
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Hm, yes, to each his own 🙂

I need/want a lot, if not most, of my pictures digital in one way or another. So I scan almost every film and curse curled films and dust and the time it takes to scan and and and.

On the other hand, I really enjoy taking pictures with my Contax Gs, so much so, that I later curse curly film ....


Where others have a digital P&S with them most of the time, I carry a Contax G with Classicpan 400.
IMHO the best combo for almost anything 🙂

On the other hand, the digital SLR is what I take when I know I will shoot pictures.
 
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I started serious photography, including darkroom work, way back in 1961. Film just seems natural. I can still make great prints fom my B&W negatives from the 1960's. I'm still making money from these images, as well as the Kodachrome color shots from that era. Nobody knows how long the digital files will be retrieveable. Film just seems natural to me!

Then there's the cost factor. My friends who have embraced digital are constantly upgrading cameras, optics, computers, etc. Maybe at some point the technology will stabilize a bit, but for now I'm happy shooting my Leicas and printing with my Omega and Kodak enlargers. Most everything I use was bought and paid for at least 35 years ago. There's no money saved in printing digital over wet process, and I don't mind the little money I spend on film and chemicals.
 
I`ve been a digital user for the past 10 years.
3 months ago I tried out a beat up old Zorki 4 rangefinder that a forum user sent me free . I have since bought a few more old soviet rangefinders and I now shoot film 99% of the time. My brand new Nikon dslr rarely comes out of the case. Not to argue what`s better but film is giving me much more enjoyment.
John
 
Film is better !!

Film is better !!

I shoot digital sometimes when I am lazy but dot not want to miss some quick 😕 😕 "captures".... when I want to make pictures, I get my Rolleiflex xenotar, the contax RX with 85 mm 1.4 lens or the Contax II a with 50 mm 1.5....
It is the same difference as a quick coffe at work versus drinking a duvel bier in the afternoon with friends ....😉 😛 😛
 
The smartass answer: because shooting digital is like sex without foreplay.

The (slightly) more serious answer (not that the above is totally flippant): It's really the gestalt of the photographic process with a film-based camera. The cameras I'm used to using have fewer buttons, dials, knobs and levers, but allow me just as much direct control over general parameters as your typical dSLR, without nearly the fuss. When I gave up my tech'd-to-the-max SLRs some six years back, I left behind AF, multi-mode AE, multi-pattern metering, five-frames-per-second motorized firepower, and wireless TTL flash. (Okay, I sometimes miss the last one, but I can deal easily without.) The photographic experience for me now is wonderfully uncluttered, just as my viewfinder is. Not that I've gone totally caveman; my Hexars advance and rewind my film for me, which I appreciate.

I also understand and appreciate the characteristics of my film choices.I know full well what I can and cannot get away with. I know how to scan the stuff. I know how to handle the stuff in Photoshop. I (uaually) know how to strike a pretty good print from the resulting image file. I don't have to deal with or compensate for any digital peculiarities intrinsic to a particular camera. I don't "do" software/firmware updates with my cameras; doing this with computers and certain peripherals is enough, thank you.

And, I do have a digital camera in my life: a little Casio Exilim EX-850, which I happen to be quite fond of, and which packs a lot of useful stuff into a quite small package without making it unweildy. It gets used mostly for a lot of utilitarian stuff, but I also hail it out when I'm in the mood for something a bit experimental or just out of the ordinary (like the lunar eclipse thread i started a short time back). A pocket full of pixels can be fun somethimes.


- Barrett
 
My friend Al wanted to show me his latest Canon digital SLR earlier this evening. He told me that he had another bigger zoom lens back at the house as he struggled to get the camera, fitted with the "small" zoom, out of the his bag. To demonstrate the camera he decided to shoot a picture of me. He had a flash which he put in the shoe, then fired off about five or six shots while adjusting "something" until he was getting the exposure he wanted. There was a horrid side shadow because of the vertical orientation of the camera. I asked him if he had a cord for the flash. "Not with me" he replied, then complained that the cord didn't allow him to take advantage of all the automation. Finally he decide to take a horizontal shot which required resetting the zoom to encompass a angle to get my entire head in the photo. On the back of the camera it did look like a pretty good picture of me.

While he was fiddling and fussing I set my Bessa L for 1/4 second at f/4.5. No reading was required because that's what I always use there when I'm shooting at night on the patio at the nearby Starbucks. I braced my hand against a nearby column and squeezed off four or five frames. I don't think he was even aware that I was photographing him.
 
Film, or Digital? It's like a Frankenstein (stien?) monster that keeps coming back year after year. I wonder if people were asking "horse, or car"? years ago.

No need to go through the reasons in detail, as so many others here have nailed it. In my eyes, if digital B&W could give me the type of shots that film does I would go for it in a minute, even if I had to use a DSLR. Of course, it can't, at this stage. Even in color, I am not fond of the wierd over sharp digital images, although sometimes you can get a film like (good) look w/ a high end DSLR. The lighting is off in digital shots too. The background and foreground are lit w/ the same light in many pics, and that is just not possible in real life. I am digital on the back end though. I have never even been in a darkroom. It would be fun to learn it. But I like being able to work on an image and talk to the ol lady and pet the cat and grab the phone and eat a bite all at the same time, and I don't think all that would fly in the darkroom. What I really like is getting an image to a halfway point and saving it for another day. Again, I doubt that would work w/ a chemical print.

But there are times when I get so sick of looking at expensive, finicky scanners and printers and computers that I dream of going to Large Format and contact printing the big negatives just to make the whole process simpler and saner. So if you see me list a whole lot of stuff for sale here it will mean I finally got smart (or less dumb).
 
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