Browsing through some older shots, I realized film still rules 🙂 These colors and tones are pretty good.
Why I still love film
- Thread starter MP Guy
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 42
- Views 4K
jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
I love film, too -- I just hate scanning it!
Just out of curiosity, were these scanned from negs, slides, or prints?
Just out of curiosity, were these scanned from negs, slides, or prints?
These were scanned at a BestBuy lab in Phoenix Az on Ray Road and a Costco in Willsonville Or from film.
pizzahut88
Well-known
Agreed.
Agreed.
And I concur accordingly.
Scanning is painful indeed, and . . . . . s l o w.
Agreed.
jlw said:
And I concur accordingly.
Scanning is painful indeed, and . . . . . s l o w.
5nap5hot
Pest at large
I love film too ... I have all my negs scanned high res at the time of development. A modest price, I don't have to buy a machine, and no dusty negatives.
MadMan2k
Well-known
I love slide film and B&W, it's just sexier than digital, even after post processing. Only problem with slide is that it's expensive, and it takes a couple weeks to get them back.
Especially Kodachrome... I just paid 24 bucks for a 36exp roll of Kodachrome 64 and a mailer. I'll be waiting until I have something really worth shooting to use that.
Print film is alright in perfect conditions, but the results in harsh sunlight that I've gotten with Fuji Superia and Kodak 400UC are what you'd expect in harsh sunlight with digital. Slide film has a way of looking nicer somehow, maybe it's the grain and the way it handles shadows.
Especially Kodachrome... I just paid 24 bucks for a 36exp roll of Kodachrome 64 and a mailer. I'll be waiting until I have something really worth shooting to use that.
Print film is alright in perfect conditions, but the results in harsh sunlight that I've gotten with Fuji Superia and Kodak 400UC are what you'd expect in harsh sunlight with digital. Slide film has a way of looking nicer somehow, maybe it's the grain and the way it handles shadows.
c.poulton
Well-known
Jorge
I with you on this one. I just love the versatility of film, and the fun you can have shooting different types of film under different conditions with different processing. - Yes, I guess you could do the same with digital and photoshop, but somehow it's just not as fun to do it this way?
I with you on this one. I just love the versatility of film, and the fun you can have shooting different types of film under different conditions with different processing. - Yes, I guess you could do the same with digital and photoshop, but somehow it's just not as fun to do it this way?
Harry Lime
Practitioner
Give me Tri-X or give me death!
😎
The only digital I've ever seen to come close to film is the Fuji Finepix Pro S3 (soon to be S5 PRO).
HL
😎
The only digital I've ever seen to come close to film is the Fuji Finepix Pro S3 (soon to be S5 PRO).
HL
pizzahut88
Well-known
Lucky you
Lucky you
Where I am living, there is no one who can do a decent job of scanning and development at the time.
The results were horrible.:bang:
Manfred
Lucky you
5nap5hot said:
Where I am living, there is no one who can do a decent job of scanning and development at the time.
The results were horrible.:bang:
Manfred
lZr
L&M
I like film - Its character can't be visualized digitaly. Scanning, printing, PSing are minor drawbacks for me
pvdhaar
Peter
I like film as well..
I divide my photography 50/50 between film-RF and dSLR. Numerous times have I thought about dropping film for digital because of the convenience factor. But each time I was about to do so, I decided to stick with film a little longer.. Its character is suffuciently different that I think it worthwhile to use it as a separate means to capture an image, not as an interchangeable means.
That, and the smell of undeveloped C41 film. Ever notice? Inspiring, if not invigorating..
I divide my photography 50/50 between film-RF and dSLR. Numerous times have I thought about dropping film for digital because of the convenience factor. But each time I was about to do so, I decided to stick with film a little longer.. Its character is suffuciently different that I think it worthwhile to use it as a separate means to capture an image, not as an interchangeable means.
That, and the smell of undeveloped C41 film. Ever notice? Inspiring, if not invigorating..
clintock
Galleryless Gearhead
MadMan2k said:
Kodachrome!
The best deal i've managed to find so far on the stuff is to buy it from this ebay seller:
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZjasminehdQQhtZ-1
If that link fails, it's seller jasminehd. For processing, no matter who you send it to, it all goes to the same place anyway, so I just use clark-
http://www.clarkcolor.com/helppricing
You gotta add 1.40$ for postage, so it comes to around five dollars a roll of kodachrome for development all told. It is nice to have it just show up back in the mail box, despite the week and a half wait or more sometimes. Kodachrome slides come back in kodak box with kodak on the cardboard mounts. So far they have not lost or botched anything.
Nothing beats Kodachrome, unless you like the color purple, then you may have to use something else.
Ronald M
Veteran
I have a cheap digi cam for when I need a pic in the computer fast. Other than that film works fine and there is more tonal range and no purple areas or banding and no archiving issues.
kshapero
South Florida Man
I have the same problem, what is the solution? Right now I send my film to a prolab and get it back in two weeks; negs and really really hires scans on a CD (18megs per exposure) for $12.75. When I just need snapshots like for some kid's birthday party I go to Walgreens.pizzahut88 said:
😕
boilerdoc2
Well-known
Scanning can be a pain and slow. But it offers the best of both worlds. What will happen to your digi files in 50 years? Who knows. Probably no DVD readers by then. Still I'll will be able to print from a negative/slide I'll bet. I shoot digital when I know I'm not interested in archiving the photos or for sports stuff. But for fine art I can't get film out of my system. And I've fallen back in love with the darkroom for B&W. I'll scan color and print film to make prints. We are in a new wonderful world of photography with all the choices. But choice is a good thing folks.
Steve
Steve
Jonathan_100
Jonathan
Maybe it's a reaction to the student photographers here who have never shot a roll of film, or possibly the instant culture that revolves around digital—I'm not sure which—regardless, I've jumped back on the TriX wagon last year. I'm processing film in my bathroom sink and bulk loading 50 foot reels. There's something about the hands-on that film offers. The lack of forgiveness. The serendipity. The feeling you get when you process a roll and remember that moment on frame number 12.
Film for me has a character that cannot yet be reproduced in digital. Things like the distinctive grain of TriX, the saturation of Velvia, or the soft human colors of Kodachrome. Yes, you can play around in PhotoShop and achieve similar effects, but in the end digital is still a collection of perfectly arranged pixels.
Jonathan
Film for me has a character that cannot yet be reproduced in digital. Things like the distinctive grain of TriX, the saturation of Velvia, or the soft human colors of Kodachrome. Yes, you can play around in PhotoShop and achieve similar effects, but in the end digital is still a collection of perfectly arranged pixels.
Jonathan
willie_901
Veteran
5nap5hot said:
I do the same. I'm lucky to be less than 2 miles from a great lab that will develop C41 and deliver ~5MB scans for $7.50 per roll.
I do res-scan negative I want to print. But the amount of manual scanning is greatly reduced.
For my B&W work the Canoscan driver will automatically frame the negatives. I do a quick automated scan to get the first set of images. Then I rescan those that are worthy. B&W does take more computer/scan time especially when I get lucky and shoot a good roll.
willie
climbing_vine
Well-known
boilerdoc2 said:
Steve, I don't mean to pick on you personally. I don't know if you've ever expressed an opinion on the theoretical issue of how long film will be around, available for purchase. Having said that...
It's amusing that *some* people say, "Film will always be around!" then proceed to make non-analogous "analogies" to things like, say, vinyl records still being available. But then suddenly they swing around to take a potshot at digital: "You probably won't even be able to read a DVD or a JPEG in fifty/twenty/ten years!"
I'd like to see someone explain why they think vinyl stuck around, why film will, but why (for example) DVD readers and DVDs won't? Or JPEG as a format won't. Maybe once people start thinking about this, we'll come up with some better theories on what the future course of film and digital may be.
(For the record, I can't think of a single public digital image format that's ever been used by more than ten people that I can't get a converter for. I also can't think of a digital storage media from the past 30 years for which one can't, relatively easily, get both the reader and the media. This includes ten-inch floppies. I just can't fathom why people think this will change, especially with DVDs and CDs--they are fundamentally different from 8-tracks in nearly every way, and will never disappear in a like manner. I say this to ward off the "8-tracks disappeared, so will CDs!" argument, which usually comes from people who love vinyl. The cognitive dissonance is brain-shattering.)
Last edited:
clintock
Galleryless Gearhead
Digital does not suffer from generation loss, so something on a 10" floppy drive can be copied to a USB key fob and the file will be exactly the same. I think maybe the 'They won't make it anymore' thing comes from how floppies and their drives went obscure so quickly, well, quickly compared to analog tapes and albums.. I once had lots of things stored on a MO drive, thinking it was archival and safe forever, but no, it was major pain to get off there. But once it finally scraped off, the data was same as it ever was, where a damaged analog source may not be so lucky.
Vinyl stuck around because it is analog, and free from the phase distortions due to the sampling at relatively low rates in the CD format: Vinyl has the potential to sound better, since it has an infinite sample rate. Note I say potential, like a charcoal grill has the potential to do a better job cooking a steak than a gas one. Like the charcoal grill, the potential to get it wrong is greater for vinyl too.
I really should shut up, because I was trying to come up with an answer to the above question- why film will be around but dvd not, but I can't think of any reason like that.
Maybe dvd will be gone someday replaced by something more dense and reliable, but the data on them will always be available, just like old cinemascope can be played today and transfered to any other media..
Oh one thing to add as long as I'm wasting time when I should be working, I have many CDs that I burned with photos on them that have somehow faded away or corroded- the metallic layer has perished to the point that it cannot be read, this in less than three years storage. I've got negatives that got too humid and stuck together in abusive storage situations that are 30 years old, but an image can still be pulled from them.. The corroded CD is hopeless- but redundantly backed up!
So I guess whatever argument one tries to make, one can.
Vinyl stuck around because it is analog, and free from the phase distortions due to the sampling at relatively low rates in the CD format: Vinyl has the potential to sound better, since it has an infinite sample rate. Note I say potential, like a charcoal grill has the potential to do a better job cooking a steak than a gas one. Like the charcoal grill, the potential to get it wrong is greater for vinyl too.
I really should shut up, because I was trying to come up with an answer to the above question- why film will be around but dvd not, but I can't think of any reason like that.
Maybe dvd will be gone someday replaced by something more dense and reliable, but the data on them will always be available, just like old cinemascope can be played today and transfered to any other media..
Oh one thing to add as long as I'm wasting time when I should be working, I have many CDs that I burned with photos on them that have somehow faded away or corroded- the metallic layer has perished to the point that it cannot be read, this in less than three years storage. I've got negatives that got too humid and stuck together in abusive storage situations that are 30 years old, but an image can still be pulled from them.. The corroded CD is hopeless- but redundantly backed up!
So I guess whatever argument one tries to make, one can.
Last edited:
SACD is all I can say.
Similar threads
