Why film?

[RichC]

I re-read a lot of this thread again, and I'm starting to wonder whether most people use digital cameras instead of film to compensate for their own failings. For instance:

If you're hopeless at metering and composition, compensate by shooting two hundred digital shots.

If you have no faith in your photographic skills, you would certainly be too afraid to shoot a wedding on film. The screen on the back of a digi-cam gives you the same peace of mind that comes from experience and skill. Ditto a fashion shoot with a £50k a day model etc.

Too lazy to carry equipment? The high ISO of digital means you can dispense with the tripod. You don't need to carry and fiddle around with boxes of filters. Instead, spend hours sat on your ass fiddling around in Lightroom. Much more comfortable.

Too impatient to wait for your photos to be developed? Shoot digital and they're right there, right now.

Actually more interested in gadgets, computers, software and shopping than photography? Digital is your friend.

Maybe I'm wrong and just feeling cynical this morning, but it does make me wonder.

You're wrong - for me. I use mostly digital, and learnt photography digital only. But I don't machine gun, and use my camera (a bells and whistles Nikon SLR) only in manual mode - aperture, shutter speed, focusing (I don't own an autofocus lens). The metering is set to centre weighted, so compensation is with my brain! I've had the camera 4 years now, and have never used aperture priority let alone programme mode!

I also try to get as much right in front of the lens as possible.

However, I do not consider it a failing or some lack in myself that I want to see an image immediately. If I screw up - and no one's perfect - I want to know at the time, not when it's too late! And "chimping" allows you to experiment and possibly even improve a shot you thought - until you saw it - was perfect. Unless you're that mythical photographer who always gets the shot and never makes mistakes...

Also, it's not a weakness not wanting to carry round extra equipment! - and weight. Leaving the tripod at home because a digital camera has high ISO and antivibration does not make you lazy photographer but a savvy one! Unless part of being a photographer is to be macho and to suffer!

I'm sure I speak for everyone on RFF who uses digital when I say that your post slights them!

To finish, I'll point out again that I also use film.

 

[PKR]

Thanks for the tips. I agree that getting most of the essentials right first time is the best policy for sure. I do put effort into that. I hate sitting in front of a monitor too; did that for 12 years straight 8 hours a day. That is why I do what you do. The most difficult camera for me to get horizontal planes level is 6x6 on my Rollei or Hasselblad. I also hate tripods but when I need them they are a blessing.

Getting back to topic - FILM ALL THE WAY! 😉

Are you using a ball head with your square format camera? I found a standard two adjustment head much easier for me to position with a square format camera.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Are you using a ball head with your square format camera? I found a standard two adjustment head much easier for me to position with a square format camera.

+1 agree........

 

[ptpdprinter]

I re-read a lot of this thread again, and I'm starting to wonder whether most people use digital cameras instead of film to compensate for their own failings.

I'm sure that's it. Maybe when they become competent, they'll shift to film with all of its convenience. The superiority complex of film shooters is staggering.

 

[Michael Markey]

I was out covering an event today from nine this morning until four in the afternoon.
There were many participants and everyone wanted a shot of themselves jumping combinations of about thirty different obstacles.

That adds up to a lot of shots even though you're taking single shots.

Even so I'm sure that I'll have missed somebody somewhere .

Sometimes digital is just more practical ... the cost in film would have been astronomical.

Sure if your doing stuff for yourself you can choose but 600 shots + to support an event .

I can afford to give my time but not the materials it would take to shoot the whole lot in film and that's my typical weekend shooting.

Competence doesn't figure in the calculation.

 

[PKR]

+1 agree........

Adjusting The Ball Head with a square format camera would make me goofy, especially if I had more than one cup of coffee in the morning.

I figure you fly with your camera? When hanging out a chopper doorway with one eye closed, I sometimes got really dizzy until I took my eye off the finder and opened both briefly. Then back at it with no issues. I got used to it. Same frustration with the square and a ball head.

 

[ptpdprinter]

Adjusting The Ball Head with a square format camera would make me goofy, especially if I had more than one cup of coffee in the morning.

Why would it be any different with a rectangular format camera? You level a square format the same as a rectangular format. The little bubbles don't know which one you are working with.

 

[sojournerphoto]

I was out covering an event today from nine this morning until four in the afternoon.
There were many participants and everyone wanted a shot of themselves jumping combinations of about thirty different obstacles.

That adds up to a lot of shots even though you're taking single shots.

Even so I'm sure that I'll have missed somebody somewhere as I was the only one covering the event.

Sometimes digital is just more practical ... the cost in film would have been astronomical.

Sure if your doing stuff for yourself you can choose but 600 shots + to support and event freely given?

I can afford to give my time but not the materials it would take to shoot the whole lot in film and that's my typical weekend shooting.

Competence doesn't figure in the calculation.

Couldn't agree more. I use film and digital cameras. Recently I shot a project day for my older daughters music teaching group. Inside in very poor fluorescent light. My Pentax K1 produced amazingly good output at iso3200. I wouldn't consider film for that.

On the other hand, I use my M4 for much of my own everyday stuff, because I like it and the volume is small.

Both have their own strengths and I like both - sometimes interchangeably and sometimes for particular looks.

Mike

 

[gnuyork]

Adjusting The Ball Head with a square format camera would make me goofy, especially if I had more than one cup of coffee in the morning.

Could always use this - it has a tilt lock feature:

 

[Bill Pierce]

My family keeps photos in the boxes. Sometimes in the albums.

I think this is incredibly important. We've talked about this before, but a lot of folks won't recognize those hard discs or even a box of negatives as a family history. I don't think it's terribly important whether it silver or digital, but when it comes to family albums - print, print, print.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Adjusting The Ball Head with a square format camera would make me goofy, especially if I had more than one cup of coffee in the morning.

I figure you fly with your camera? When hanging out a chopper doorway with one eye closed, I sometimes got really dizzy until I took my eye off the finder and opened both briefly. Then back at it with no issues. I got used to it. Same frustration with the square and a ball head.

Ha Ha being an old CH 46 crew chief I get it especially when you are a newbie first mech.

 

[PKR]

Ha Ha being an old CH 46 crew chief I get it especially when you are a newbie first mech.

My favorite jet ranger pilot was a nam vet. We were up in some mountains at 10k Ft, about the limit for a jet ranger. I had the door off and was workin away and glancing at the tail rotor coming within 3 Ft of some pine tree tops. I finally said something to him because I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing. He says: "Relax, no one's shootin at us". Great pilot and a sense of humor..

 

[victoriapio]

I think this is incredibly important. We've talked about this before, but a lot of folks won't recognize those hard discs or even a box of negatives as a family history. I don't think it's terribly important whether it silver or digital, but when it comes to family albums - print, print, print.

Yes but couldn't digital camera users print 6x4s (or any size) and stick them in an album just like film prints?

The simple answer to your question is people use film because they want to. You can rationalize or argue about quality, purity, or even look down some celluloid noses at digital users. But "because I want to" is exactly the same reason I switched to digital SLRs as soon as they were good enough for my taste, and ultimately switched to digital rangefinders. Because I want to.

 

[gnuyork]

Yes but couldn't digital camera users print 6x4s (or any size) and stick them in an album just like film prints?

Yes, that's exactly what Bill said.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Yes but couldn't digital camera users print 6x4s (or any size) and stick them in an album just like film prints?

Of course... I obviously didn't make myself clear. The point is to leave behind something easily recognizable as a family album and kept as such. There is always a chance that a box of negatives or a hard disc aren't going to be recognized for what they are and put in the trash. Believe me, it happens.

 

[Pioneer]

Yes but couldn't digital camera users print 6x4s (or any size) and stick them in an album just like film prints?

Of course... I obviously didn't make myself clear. The point is to leave behind something easily recognizable as a family album and kept as such. There is always a chance that a box of negatives or a hard disc aren't going to be recognized for what they are and put in the trash. Believe me, it happens.

I certainly agree with this. In my not so humble opinion, the sin qua non of any form of photography, digital or analogue, is the print.

Actually, if you look at it from the right perspective, at the very beginning and at the very end (if a print is made), both digital and analogue photography are analogue. It is really only the stuff that happens in the middle that differs.

 

[Bill Pierce]

The simple answer to your question is people use film because they want to. You can rationalize or argue about quality, purity, or even look down some celluloid noses at digital users. But "because I want to" is exactly the same reason I switched to digital SLRs as soon as they were good enough for my taste, and ultimately switched to digital rangefinders. Because I want to.

Absolutely true for photographers who are taking pictures for themselves. The complication comes when you are also being paid to take pictures for others. Those folks may, for good reason, ask for a specific medium or format or whatever. And, in the end, often for financial reasons, you can only juggle so many systems and so many different types of camera. Right now in the fields of journalism, advertising and commercial work you are most often asked for digital. I would expect that wedding photographers and others covering social events are expected to provide such a huge volume of images that they find it easiest to work digitally.

Some pros are going to choose a different type of camera for their personal work just because they want to take a break from the way they work. Others will use the same cameras they use for their professional work because they are most familiar with them and work quickly and smoothly with them. No rocket science there... You see it in the threads here. You pick the one you like.

 

[PKR]

Some pros are going to choose a different type of camera for their personal work just because they want to take a break from the way they work. Others will use the same cameras they use for their professional work because they are most familiar with them and work quickly and smoothly with them. No rocket science there... You see it in the threads here. You pick the one you like.

My case for the most part. My old F3s for my personal B&W film work, and work cameras for personal color, most times.

I couldn't do my work-work with a film camera. The photo world has changed.

As for printing: I often give small prints away. Most are on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, with big borders. I write notes in the borders; usually a greeting or comment on the event pictured. I do it a lot. The reward is visiting a friend, maybe a year later, to find the photo framed, hanging in a spot where family members spend time.

At an artist's friends wedding, I brought along a camera. I don't normally do that. He had a wedding photographer who did a fine job. I took a couple of snaps at the outdoor reception and simply put the exposed roll in my friend's jacket pocket before I left. Come to find 10 years later he and his wife have a print of one of my snaps on their bedroom dresser. He said it was the best photo taken of the two that day. This stuff means much more to me than any gallery or work related stuff I've done.

 

[zuiko85]

Not sure about the answer to Y Film.
But I know that A Film, D film, and XYZ Film are all pretty darn good.

 

[Bill Pierce]

My case for the most part. My old F3s for my personal B&W film work, and work cameras for personal color, most times.

I couldn't do my work-work with a film camera. The photo world has changed.

As for printing: I often give small prints away. Most are on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, with big borders. I write notes in the borders; usually a greeting or comment on the event pictured. I do it a lot. The reward is visiting a friend, maybe a year later, to find the photo framed, hanging in a spot where family members spend time.

At an artist's friends wedding, I brought along a camera. I don't normally do that. He had a wedding photographer who did a fine job. I took a couple of snaps at the outdoor reception and simply put the exposed roll in my friend's jacket pocket before I left. Come to find 10 years later he and his wife have a print of one of my snaps on their bedroom dresser. He said it was the best photo taken of the two that day. This stuff means much more to me than any gallery or work related stuff I've done.

That’s exactly what I used to do, small prints with big borders and messages. Still do it for holidays, birthdays, e.t.c.. But now I also send out 5x7 prints as postcards every week or so to a bunch of friends. More consistent “print quality” than a screen, but postage is definitely more expensive than internet jpegs.