Why I'm Shooting Film Again

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Well, I never imagined my simple question would trigger so much discussion! I think, Chris, that your film cameras should be considered different tools in a toolbox that includes both them and digital. Your film results are very different, and in many ways feel more appropriate to some of your subjects. It's up to you; decide which one works best in any given situation.
Additionally, I think that too much attention is given on this forum to topics like film, lens, and scanning resolution. A strong image is a strong image, and higher resolution won't improve the viewer's experience of it substantially. By the same token, the best scan won't save a weak image. This reminds me of discussions years back about how certain photographers' images just wouldn't stand up to reproduction on the printed page. Personally, I feel that an image that's so entirely dependent on its technical quality is perhaps weak on the vision/content end. Not always, but often enough!
And I'm glad to hear that your son's success (a team effort, really) is enabling you to live without that financial sword over your head. Nothing stifles creative work like money woes. That "starving artist in a garret" routine is BS.
A parallel perspective: I'm substantially older than you, so I find myself in a position of "not enough time" simply by virtue of age, rather than health concerns. I don't have a big income or substantial savings, but, within reason, I buy the equipment I want (within reason!) and indulge my passion for photography to the fullest. It brings me tremendous joy, and in the time I have left, I want to experience quality, if not quantity.

I'm not going to stop shooting digital; I'm just using film again for some stuff. There are photographs that I have done that could not have been done with film. I enjoy using my old film cameras, like many here do. I started out with film. Not only for fine art but for my commercial work. I'm old enough that digital wasn't good enough for that when I started my career. It is now; and I wouldn't dream of shooting any commercial work on film unless a client asked for it and was willing to pay the extra costs involved and suffer the long wait to get it processed and scanned. Few clients are willing these days.

Technical quality alone won't make an image good, but lack of it destroys an image. The platitude that so many amateurs on photo forums keep repeating, that technical quality doesn't matter, is simply false. I had to satisfy commercial clients who expected the image to be sharp and with the right resolution for the final printed size; they don't accept excuses and they don't compromise. I've had to tell people who bought fine art prints that some images I have won't look good printed large. I could have sold them the print, taken their money, and hoped they didn't complain; but that's not how I do business...and art IS a business. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

 

[CMur12]

Chris, you said you shot slides before. Why color negative film now?

I've always shot slides. I like having the positive and being able to view it on a light box, in a viewer, or under a loupe, as well as being able to print it. (I'm discouraged, however, that one can't get higher resolution scans off medium format.)

- Murray

 

[wlewisiii]

I'm not going to stop shooting digital; I'm just using film again for some stuff.

This.

I love my Leica M 240 & my D810.

Likewise my Nikon F4, Nikon S2, Rolleicord III, & Super Ikonta 531.

Film and Digital have their uses and places just as each lens and each format has different (fun!) ways of showing us the light.

Hopefully I can shake this cold and get out and shoot some images tomorrow 😎

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Chris, you said you shot slides before. Why color negative film now?

I've always shot slides. I like having the positive and being able to view it on a light box, in a viewer, or under a loupe, as well as being able to print it. (I'm discouraged, however, that one can't get higher resolution scans off medium format.)

- Murray

I need faster film. I never shoot anything slower than ISO-400 film in 35mm. The problem is that I have trouble handholding a camera; I am not as stable as I was before the stroke. Kodak still makes ISO 400 and 800 color print films. No one makes a slide film faster than 100.

My digital cameras have in-body image stabilization, which really makes handholding easy for me. You might ask: "Why not use a tripod?" Generally, I think that 35mm is for handheld work. If I use a tripod, it is in very low light where long exposures are needed.

 

[CMur12]

I need faster film. I never shoot anything slower than ISO-400 film in 35mm. The problem is that I have trouble handholding a camera; I am not as stable as I was before the stroke. Kodak still makes ISO 400 and 800 color print films. No one makes a slide film faster than 100.

My digital cameras have in-body image stabilization, which really makes handholding easy for me. You might ask: "Why not use a tripod?" Generally, I think that 35mm is for handheld work. If I use a tripod, it is in very low light where long exposures are needed.

Good point about the film speed. I have a slight tremor in my hands, so my handholding is compromised, too.

I love shooting TLRs on a tripod, but, like you, I prefer to shoot 35mm handheld.

- Murray

 

[CMur12]

Good point about the film speed. I have a slight tremor in my hands, so my handholding is compromised, too.

I love shooting TLRs on a tripod, but, like you, I prefer to shoot 35mm handheld.

- Murray

Another question, Chris.

Do you shoot color negative film at box speed, or do you underexpose?

- Murray

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Another question, Chris.

Do you shoot color negative film at box speed, or do you underexpose?

- Murray

Color neg film should never, ever be underexposed. It quickly gets very grainy with dull color when underexposed. A lot of people overexpose it, which makes grain slightly finer. I'm shooting at box speed with Portra 400 and 800. Both work well at their box speeds. Portra 800 looks especially bad underexposed. If in doubt about correct exposure with color neg film, over expose a little. It has a lot of overexposure latitude, and no underexposure latitude.

I've done bracketed exposures and found that normal box speed exposure scans best; the files are easier to edit than either over or under exposed negs.

 

[CMur12]

Yes, that was a slip. I often slightly underexpose slide film, but I meant to ask about overexposing color neg film.

Thanks for the explanation. It's worth knowing that these Portra films scan and edit best at box speed.

- Murray

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Yes, that was a slip. I often slightly underexpose slide film, but I meant to ask about overexposing color neg film.

Thanks for the explanation. It's worth knowing that these Portra films scan and edit best at box speed.

- Murray

Yeah, slide film, if slightly underexposed (like 1/3 to 1/2 stop) gives slightly more color saturation and helps protect highlights from blowing out.

 

[raydm6]

Yeah, slide film, if slightly underexposed (like 1/3 to 1/2 stop) gives slightly more color saturation and helps protect highlights from blowing out.

I found that true as well and remember clipping a newspaper article by Albert Moldvay in the late-70's or 80's I believe that supports underexposing slide film (Item 1):

Albert Moldvay

Photographs by Albert Moldvay

www.nationalgeographic.co.uk

 

[wlewisiii]

Probably never knew that because I never shot slides. HATED sitting through people's un-curated slide shows and never wanted to inflict that on anyone. Stuck to negatives and prints instead.

Give me a nice C-41 film at either box or slightly overexposed instead & god save me from Kodak Gold or now Fuji C200 🙁 I mourn Fuji Reala even more than I mourn PlusX. Part of that is that my son was adopted from Vietnam and Kodak stocks handle Asian skin tones ... poorly ... in my experience. shall we simply say. At least C400 appears to be tweaked to Fuji specs rather than just a straight reboxing of Kodak film though I need to shoot more to be sure.

 

[Mcary]

Chris,

Can you share a link or the name of the lab? I'm looking for a lab that I can send my 35mm C41 film to provides 16bit Tiff files.

Thanks Mike

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Chris,

Can you share a link or the name of the lab? I'm looking for a lab that I can send my 35mm C41 film to provides 16bit Tiff files.

Thanks Mike

https://gelatinlabs.com/
Gelatin Labs

They're in New Jersey. They charge $7 a roll to develop the film and $20 to scan at the highest resolution with the 16 bit TIFF files. They send you a download link for each roll after they finish the scans; each roll is 6GB!

I found another place, in Texas, that also offers 16 bit TIFF scans but their prices were very high. Developing and scanning was a total of about $45 a roll, vs $27 at Gelatin Labs. I haven't tried them. The only downside to Gelatin is they're very busy and so it takes about 10 working days to get an order processed and scanned. They offer a rush service, but its expensive and I'm not in a hurry.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Probably never knew that because I never shot slides. HATED sitting through people's un-curated slide shows and never wanted to inflict that on anyone. Stuck to negatives and prints instead.

Give me a nice C-41 film at either box or slightly overexposed instead & god save me from Kodak Gold or now Fuji C200 🙁 I mourn Fuji Reala even more than I mourn PlusX. Part of that is that my son was adopted from Vietnam and Kodak stocks handle Asian skin tones ... poorly ... in my experience. shall we simply say. At least C400 appears to be tweaked to Fuji specs rather than just a straight reboxing of Kodak film though I need to shoot more to be sure.

Yeah slide shows were painful. I never projected mine; I scanned them for printing. I miss Reala, too. It had both high color saturation and perfect skintones, which is a hard combination to get. I liked their 1600 speed color neg film, too. Kodak's Portra films are great, but it sucks that they're really the only choice for pro-level color negative films now.

 

[mfunnell]

Give me a nice C-41 film at either box or slightly overexposed instead & god save me from Kodak Gold

I have to say that in that now (in retrospect) very brief period when you could get C-41 negative film developed, with fairly hi-res scans (3000x2000) done relatively cheaply in a single hour - I dearly loved Kodak Gold as cheap and easy-to-find film which gave very good B&W conversions from the scan.

Not so much the colour prints, nor scans - but they converted well (IMO) to B&W. They could look pretty good, for not a lot of dollars or effort.

True B&W film, at the time (at least here), was far more expensive to have developed and scanned at a (way less convenient) lab, and took more effort (and time) to develop yourself. Sure, there was XP-2 - but that wasn’t cheap, While Gold 100 or 200 were.

But that was a long, long, time ago in what now seems a galaxy far, far, away.

…Mike

 

[wlewisiii]

I can get XP2 for about the same price (and same dev/scan) as Gold so I shoot it instead. Nice film, lots of latitude. I can go from EI50 to EI800 on the same roll according to the data sheet. I haven't pushed (heh) my luck that far yet but I like having the option especially if I pop a yellow or red filter on the lens.

 

[Mcary]

Professional Film Developing & Photo Lab - Tristate Area (NYC + NJ)
Gelatin Labs

They're in New Jersey. They charge $7 a roll to develop the film and $20 to scan at the highest resolution with the 16 bit TIFF files. They send you a download link for each roll after they finish the scans; each roll is 6GB!

I found another place, in Texas, that also offers 16 bit TIFF scans but their prices were very high. Developing and scanning was a total of about $45 a roll, vs $27 at Gelatin Labs. I haven't tried them. The only downside to Gelatin is they're very busy and so it takes about 10 working days to get an order processed and scanned. They offer a rush service, but its expensive and I'm not in a hurry.

Chris,

10 Days I can live with that, it took 32 days to get back 5 rolls of C41 that I sent to Dwayne's and that was just for processing, plus the negatives came back really dusty/dirty so even using the SDRx plugging for PS took a while to clean up the scans as my old Minolta doesn't have ICE or the function doesn't work with Vuescan.

 

[css9450]

I've always shot slides. I like having the positive and being able to view it on a light box, in a viewer, or under a loupe, as well as being able to print it. (I'm discouraged, however, that one can't get higher resolution scans off medium format.)

Same here; color print film never had the same kind of impact to me that slides do. A shame it is so hard to get now (I should clarify: I realize the new Ektachrome is available but I much prefer Provia over it but Provia seems to be perpetually out of stock and outrageously expensive).

 

[justins7]

I used to shoot 35mm slides and color negatives throughout the 90s, until around 2009. Then I bought a Panasonic micro 4/3 camera and used vintage lenses with it, so I put my Leicas away at that point. Sadly I sold my M6 for a pittance a little later, which in retrospect was the bottom of the market.

In the last few years though I started seeing so many young hipster types walking around with film cameras so I decided to dust off my film cameras and start shooting film again. I now shoot both film and digital with a Leica M9.

I always despised the process of home scanning, since it is so labor-intensive; not only is the scanning slow, but then you need to spend so much time removing dust, etc. But lately I started using my Panasonic to shoot negatives on a light box, which works pretty well. Not amazing, but good enough. This way I've brought the cost down to around $8-10/roll for developing. (I tried using the M9 with Visoflex, but that was so cumbersome.)

Even though my M9 is spectacular, I still enjoy the process of using my film Leica M3, IIIF, CL, Kievs, Olympus Pens and medium format cameras. The can exist side-by-side digital.

 

[css9450]

I tried camera scanning just using a macro lens and using the film carrier from my dead film scanner to hold the film, but I could not get good results. Always one side of the picture would be sharp and the other soft. I know my lens isn't decentered; I think I just couldn't get everything perfectly aligned. The camera-scan device that attaches to the lens looks like it would keep everything aligned. If you get one, let us know how it worked out.

I "scan" my negatives using the DSLR and macro lens pointed straight down on a tripod, with the film in a negative holder placed on a small light box. I have spacers under the negative holder to raise the film up high enough so any dust specs disappear. The key to getting everything in perfect alignment is to start by placing a small mirror on the light box, then turn on Live View and be sure the center circle in the VF is centered in the screen. It takes just seconds and is real easy to do.