Why Do You Still Shoot Film?

[ywenz]

Yes, I agree. Ban me. In fact ban everyone who disagrees with ywenz. Ban everyone who has their own opinion. Lets create a forum where everyone thinks the same things and says the same things. Gosh how interesting that will be.

My distaste in you is not your opinion, it's the fact that you are almost always the instigator of taking a fierce 'd v a debate' into sarcastic personal attacks. Your history backs up my claim.

 

[ray_g]

The big cheese and joe are here to please the majority.

No, they are not.

As for me, I shoot film because my leica's don't take CF cards. When I consume my film and developer supply in ten years or so, I will go digital and full frame will be as cheap as a Dell PC.

 

[Andy K]

And Andy is not the only one doing personal attacks here.

Thank you for noticing.

 

[ch1]

Now - as to the original query:

I shoot film because I have a ton of film-based cameras and would feel like an idiot if I didn't use them!

 

[GeneW]

Late to this thread. Why film? I've always liked B&W film and agree with those who maintain that digital B&W is not as rich a B&W medium. I will continue to shoot B&W film and develop it myself as long as the film and developer are available. A corollary is that I like my film cameras more than my digital ones from an aesthetic perspective. I like the heft and manual controls.

I'm on the fence though when it comes to colour. I like digital for my nature photography work, but I haven't given up on film yet. This year I'm going to have a go at colour slides again, something I haven't shot regularly for a couple of decades. It's not that I find slides superior to digital except for the obvious advantage of being able to project slides easily. It's more that I enjoy shooting with hefty, solid, smooth film cameras and am willing to put convenience on the back burner for some of my work.

I'm unable to get religious about film or digital. They both work, and the biggest impediment to quality in either medium is me, the photographer.

Gene

 

[back alley]

ya know, i promised bertram2 that i would be cool and back off and not be nasty, but some of you are making that promise hard to keep.

banning someone is not something the mods or jorge take lightly but in the end it is our decision and not open for a vote. if we voted there might end up being 3 or 4 members rustling about an empty forum.

i really don't want to lock this thread as the intial question is valid, but these tangents are killing it.

so, maybe back off and cool down a bit. everyone...please.

joe

 

[planetjoe]

Good Question.

Good Question.

I'm with GeneW here, as I think that I am the biggest obstacle to making either recording format work as well as I'd like them to. That said, there are several reasons why I still shoot film:

1. I always have, and so I have a lot of real, visceral experience with it
2. I have TONS of film cameras, all of which I'd like to shoot with
3. d-RFs don't exist in large, readily-affordable numbers, and I LOVE RFs
4. I like browsing negs/slides, and looking through them on a light table.

That said, I'm with those who state "the best tool for each job", etc.; I bought a 10D kit to chase around my new son and feed the digital workflow. In my personal case, there's no way that film images of him would make it to the internet quick enough to satisfy the "hunger for cuteness" that his grandparents and great-grandparents suffer from, all the way across the US.

So, I'm learning the dSLR dance, and I like it - I really do. I carry it everywhere we go with the little guy. But I still carry an RF loaded with Tri-X with me when we're out. This, because for me, digital doesn't do all those above-listed things, yet.

As for whether it ever will...I don't think I care either way. It's inevitably a question for physics, engineering, and economics. But I'm a stubborn fool and I'll probably pick one over the other in any case. Or not.

Thanks for the chance to throw my hat in.


Cheers,
--joe.

ps. let's at least keep it polite, people; eh?

 

[bmattock]

ps. let's at least keep it polite, people; eh?

http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire040802.asp

Politenessman, a comic-strip superhero who appeared briefly in the old National Lampoon, back in the 1970s when the Lampoon was a really funny magazine. Politenessman, impeccably dressed in a double-breasted suit and trilby hat, armed with a steel hankie to be hurled at wrongdoers, would turn up at the scene of some crime or disaster and correct everyone's manners. One strip opened with some people trapped in an elevator in a burning building. Politenessman comes crashing in through the ceiling of the elevator and starts telling off the men for not removing their hats in the presence of ladies. At the end of the strip, as firefighters haul charred corpses from the elevator, Politenessman says to the reader: "At least these people died in an atmosphere of good breeding!"

...

Nadezhda Mandelstam, in one of her memoirs about the Russian Revolution, noted the dearth of kindness in the Russia of the 1930s, and explained it thus: "Once there were kind people. Kindness was considered a virtue, a social grace, so that even people who were not kind felt they should pretend to be. This pretense, this hypocrisy, was noted by clever writers, who exposed and mocked it. The result of all that mockery is that now there are no more kind people.…" Our time and place, like hers, is not very tolerant of hypocrisy; and what are manners but a kind of mild sanctioned hypocrisy? "Better a false 'Good morning' than a sincere 'Go to hell'," ran the old Yiddish saying. Less and less people agree with that.

Actually, it should be 'fewer and fewer' rather than "less and less." But you see? I've gone and been impolite.

Well, back to discussions of camera color and manbags. Very enlightening.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Doug]

Personally, if I had spent £1800 on a digital camera, and less than a year later a new updated version went on sale, I would be pretty pissed off at Epson.

I find this view very puzzling. Upset at Epson for implementing new technology to make improvements in their product? It's BAD to find ways of making it better?

It's not like that removes capability from the product you bought before. Should I be angry that Pentax brought out the 67II to make my 67 obsolete? I think it would be upsetting if Epson did nothing, made no improvements as other companies develop better gear. Or should ALL of them slow down and make sure every camera introduced has at least a 5 year life before obsolescence? Would that be infuriating or what? "We don't need no stinkin' progress!"

 

[titrisol]

Anyone lese have noticed that prints from labs (they use digital now) have noise and purpl efinring where there should be BLACK?

 

[planetjoe]

Slightly OT, But What Else is New?

Slightly OT, But What Else is New?

Goodness, Bill.

I'd never heard of Politenessman; I'll definitely look it up, as it seems apropos (and funny, besides). I especially liked the Nat Review's comment "...when the Lampoon was a really funny magazine..." Bravo.

I can almost imagine the Mighty-Mouse-esque "Here I come to save the day" tune playing in the background. Oh, cuturally defunct superheros, where are thou?

By the way, what's a Trilby hat? That's the second time in a week I've seen such a sartorial reference.


--joe.

 

[Jocko]

By the way, what's a Trilby hat? That's the second time in a week I've seen such a sartorial reference.

Joe, a trilby is very similar to the hat known in the USA as a fedora, but has a straight, uncurled brim.

It was invented by a British hatter in the 1890s, and popularised after being worn in the first stage version of George Du Maurier's "Trilby" (1894) - hence the name!

In British popular lore it tends to be the chosen headgear of reporters, bookies, used car dealers and other unmentionable rotters, cads and scoundrels!

Cheers, Ian

 

[planetjoe]

Who's Scruffy-Lookin'?

Who's Scruffy-Lookin'?

Ian - thanks for the information; much obliged.

If that's the sort of lot that would wear one, well, put me down for a Trilby. I've always considered myself a fedora-type. Especially since going bald, ha.

I figure, if I've got a FED hanging around my neck, I certainly qualify as a scoundrel. Perhaps even a "...scruffy-looking nerfherder."


--joe.

 

[bmattock]

Goodness, Bill.

I'd never heard of Politenessman; I'll definitely look it up, as it seems apropos (and funny, besides). I especially liked the Nat Review's comment "...when the Lampoon was a really funny magazine..." Bravo.

I can almost imagine the Mighty-Mouse-esque "Here I come to save the day" tune playing in the background. Oh, cuturally defunct superheros, where are thou?

By the way, what's a Trilby hat? That's the second time in a week I've seen such a sartorial reference.

--joe.

NatLamp used to be a real hoot - I don't know what happened. Victim of their own success, I suppose, like SNL.

As to the Trilby...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby

I'm getting to where I love Wikipedia.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

Joe, a trilby is very similar to the hat known in the USA as a fedora, but has a straight, uncurled brim.

It was invented by a British hatter in the 1890s, and popularised after being worn in the first stage version of George Du Maurier's "Trilby" (1894) - hence the name!

In British popular lore it tends to be the chosen headgear of reporters, bookies, used car dealers and other unmentionable rotters, cads and scoundrels!

Cheers, Ian

In the USA, a Trilby or a porkpie often had a 'press' ID stuffed into the hatband. The trenchcoat was obligatory as well, I suspect.

If you've ever seen a photo of a typical 'Graflex Graphic' photographer such as Weegee, and wondered why they turned up the brim of their hat in front (like Art Carney in The Honeymooners wore), it was because the camera and flash pushed the brim up in front when they held it up to their faces. Like Weegee.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[planetjoe]

Ah, the porkpie. Now, I'm beginning to see the light. That bit about Weegee's hat-brim is pretty compelling, too...didn't know that.

I should hang out with Speed Graphic shooters and jazz players more often. Sort of a "Weegee Mingus" bunch, if what I'm seeing in my head makes any sense.


Cheers,
--joe.

ps. i was just on wikipedia myself, looking up the canon t90's "leader out" mod. funny.

 

[sf]

> A ten year old digital camera cannot hope to match the results from even a basic contemporary digital camera, and is therefore obsolete.


Oh Yeah!

I'll pit my 14-year old Digital SLR against any new Digital camera in IR any Day!

Stupid Bayer Filters.

Of course getting the 80MByte internal SCSI disk going again was a real trick.

but there will be a point after which it will be difficult to market digicams. I mean, people, like my mom for instance, buy the basic 4 mp cameras or 6 mp cameras because they produce images that are just about on par with their sketchy little P&S 35mm cameras. It will be hard to show such a market that 12MP or 22MP is a reasonable upgrade since they never look further than a 4x6 print or what's on screen - and pixels only go so far. Not to mention, the data just gets to be too much after a certain point. People don't want to be wrestling with 10 or 20MB jpegs. Of course, computer science will push onward, and such file sizes will become less and less of an issue. . . .

I don't know. Marketing genius will tell, I suppose. Perhaps we will see, years ahead, cameras with magnificent dynamic range, color density, etc. Then the upgrades will mean something more for people NOT printing poster sized prints. ANd like Doug said, a digital camera becomes obsolete from a marketing standpoint only - its functionality never quits (theoretically). So, if you've spent 35 years loving your 35mm consumer camera . . . and you shoot snapshots for albums. . . .you're probably very happy with a nice 6MP sensor, and it would take some pretty heavy marketing to get you to spring for a whole new camera.

I tried to get my mom to buy a DSLR for years now, and she never wanted to. Her claim is that the 4 MP she gets from the Kodak is perfectly fine, and she doesn't see the point in spending $1500 on another camera that is just going to make it harder for her to store her pics.

But then, I despise digital. I'd like to see it become suddenly expensive as heck so people would stop the madness - so our planet will not become a huge mass of digicams and cellphones in the next century.

 

[dexdog]

I use film mostly because I like using my old Contax and Canon RFs. I also enjoy being able to use different films to get different results. For example, for photographing flowers my preferred film used to be Kodachrome 25, but nowdays is Velvia 50- I just love the strong saturated colors of these emulsions.

OK, I understand why a Trilby is called a Trilby, but would be interested in the history of the name "porkpie".

Bill, Walrus of Wisdom is abbreviated WOW.

dexdog, WOW

 

[Sonnar Brian]

in the early '80s, I worked on some of the original IR focal plane arrays, A/D's, data acquisition systems, image processing displays like Gould Deanza 8500's and Ramtek 9465's.

Blame the whole Digital thing on me if you want.

But the debate of film vs digital is really way past all logic and just emotional now.

I use film whenever I want cheap prints. The prints from my Tektronix Phaser IIsdx are nice, but Dye-Sub is about $3 per page. For $1 more, I get a whole roll of 24 developed and 5x7 prints made. Ink cartridges aren't that cheap, and the output is still dithered.

 

[Twigs]

I shoot film becasue it's more fun.

Acutally it was digital that brought me into this wonderful hobby, then I discovered film and boy am I hooked.