Why I'm still with film

The advantage to film being tangible (in a dictionary first entry kind of way) is that it was tunaleg's opinion that this was a positive, compared to digital. For him and many others who prefer film, being able to physically hold the negative and see the image is an advantage, real or imagined. The process of exposing film to light, developing and fixing, then shining light through the neg onto photo sensitive paper, is more organic (I know the chemistry is inorganic but I'm using the term in a non first dictionary entry kind of way) and easier to understand (for some, if you want a qualifier there) than what happens inside a computer, managed with program software.

Anyway, and again, I prefer the traditional tools, materials, and processes of photography. That's what this thread is about. Of course everyone is free to do what they wish.
 
I like film because:
  • I don't want to keep up with the endless stream of new digital cameras
  • I like the fact that I have a limited number of shots on a reel
  • I like the fact that I don't see the photograph instantly
  • There are many high quality film cameras available for reasonable prices
  • I find reading about film techniques more interesting than reading about the latest release of Adobe X/ Aperture....etc
  • It seems amazing the quality of image that is achievable from a 70+ year old camera
  • Digital (in some ways) seems too 'easy'

I like digital because:
  • When I'm listing a camera on eBay, I don't want to wait around to get the image
  • There is no way I want to photograph my sons' football or rugby team games - with perhaps 500 shots - with film!

So far as the tangible/ intangible debate is concerned, I'm sure I saw in someones' signature 'it's not a picture unless it's printed.' I think I'd go along with that.
 
FrankS said:
Anyway, and again, I prefer the traditional tools, materials, and processes of photography.Of course everyone is free to do what they wish.
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But sometimes its not about preferring the traditional ways.
Its sometimes about what can do the job.
I was taking shots of horses tonight in a sodium lit indoor arena.

A minimum shutter speed of 500 required to stop action ,try to maintain a decent aperture ergo the ISO climbs through the roof.

I had an M3 and GR V in the bag.
 
I have an old school friend and her partner is absolutely fascinated by steam trains. I don't just mean watching them, but I mean building them and repairing them - and driving them.

Frankly, steam trains don't float my personal boat, if anything I prefer the deep-throated roar of a diesel any day, but if that is what he likes, that's fine by me.

Having said which, I like the tangible quality of old film cameras. I love the fact that they still work after 50-60 years (or more), that they can still be (in many cases) repaired and kept working. It means that I can have some high-quality toys I could NEVER have afforded when they came out - Contax G's, T's and TVS's, Nikon 35ti and 28ti, Oly rangefinders, Mamiya rangefinders. They're all beautiful, especially the Contaxes, and functional too.

I have learned slowly how to use film for the best, how to expose it for varying circumstances, and I'm still learning. I actually look forward to getting film back from processing so that I can have fun selecting and scanning film in different ways, post-processing, coming up with images I like. Tinkering with the thing - like a steam train.

Digital killed it for me - it just came down to point and shoot. I'm sure it's not, if you understand the menus, but I couldn't be bothered to lug around a giant DSLR. My Mamiya 7 is lighter. I can understand a digital compact, so convenient, but then why bother with a camera at all - just get a good smartphone.

The question is not whether film can survive, it's more whether the digital revolution will kill camera manufacturers, as it has so simplified everything.

So that's why I like film, and gave up digital.

rjstep3
 
Unfortunately, a digital file is not tangible in the way film is. It is essentially just a set of instructions for a machine. I'd much rather look at and hold a negative than study a list of numbers meant to be deciphered by a computer. Simple as that. If one wants to argue that a list of instructions for a machine to build an image from is essentially the same as a negative or slide - they're being deliberately obtuse for the sake of argument.

Now if one can look at a string of instructions for a computer, and tell what the image looks like from that, and enjoys that, I cannot tell them not to - but it is still fundamentally different from creating a physical artifact through your action of photographing. You put the film in the camera, you expose it when you make your shot, it's developed and fixed, and it's there on the film - what you saw, when you saw it, where you were - that film was there and it is the only piece of film that was there in your camera, in the film gate, when you took that photo. The card in your DSLR can be wiped and reloaded with info repeatedly, practically infinitely - convenient yes, but it's hardly as interesting to me.
 
tunalegs said:
Unfortunately, a digital file is not tangible in the way film is. It is essentially just a set of instructions for a machine. I'd much rather look at and hold a negative than study a list of numbers meant to be deciphered by a computer. Simple as that. If one wants to argue that a list of instructions for a machine to build an image from is essentially the same as a negative or slide - they're being deliberately obtuse for the sake of argument.

Now if one can look at a string of instructions for a computer, and tell what the image looks like from that, and enjoys that, I cannot tell them not to - but it is still fundamentally different from creating a physical artifact through your action of photographing. You put the film in the camera, you expose it when you make your shot, it's developed and fixed, and it's there on the film - what you saw, when you saw it, where you were - that film was there and it is the only piece of film that was there in your camera, in the film gate, when you took that photo. The card in your DSLR can be wiped and reloaded with info repeatedly, practically infinitely - convenient yes, but it's hardly as interesting to me.
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It's different, yes, but presumably you don't take photographs to make negatives, you take photographs to produce images. Both digital and film are used to produce images to be viewed on screen or in print, I don't see why your post should have began with "unfortunately."
 
nongfuspring said:
It's different, yes, but presumably you don't take photographs to make negatives, you take photographs to produce images. Both digital and film are used to produce images to be viewed on screen or in print, I don't see why your post should have began with "unfortunately."
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I'll put it this way: there is no digital equivalent to a slide. Functionally, you can transmit your image to a projector, but with digital that is all you have, code to transmit to some machine to read. You don't get a direct image. There is no direct connection between a digital image and the scene it depicts. That is one of the most interesting aspects of film to me.

I suppose I'll reiterate the point, if I go on a trip somewhere and take a photograph, make a slide - I know when I hold that slide again, that that bit of film was there on my trip, there the moment I took that photo. I know that that slide was touched by the light reflecting off of the scene I photographed. There is a very real connection between that slide and that event, they are inseparable and part of each other. A digital print has no such direct relation to the scene photographed. It's an image saved basically as an electronic pattern to be transmitted to a machine for interpretation. It doesn't even use a common form of transmission, at least with a darkroom print the enlarger light passes through the film to transfer the image on the negative to the paper.

Does it matter practically? An image is just an image, and the process may or may not be important depending on what values a particular person has. But there are still people who enjoy learning copperplate even though keyboards exist. Or people who practice etching or lithography, even though they could use photoshop and a laser jet printer. For some it's about more than simply making an image. 🙂
 
Right. For some it's about more than simply making an image. There can be an enjoyment of a particular process.

Like the woodworker who chooses to use traditional hand tools instead of power tools. There is enjoyment in the time spent making the piece, not just value in the piece itself.

I suppose that one either understands that or not. If not, the argument is lost on them.
 
First, I like the way it looks. I don't like the way the other thing looks. People say why not shoot both, I don't see the point, I shoot the one I like the way it looks. Plus the tools available to convert raws are so so so woefully, miserably crude it's like fingerpainting. Maybe one day they'll come up with something better, but not yet, and film's easily available.
 
tunalegs said:
I'll put it this way: there is no digital equivalent to a slide. Functionally, you can transmit your image to a projector, but with digital that is all you have, code to transmit to some machine to read. You don't get a direct image. There is no direct connection between a digital image and the scene it depicts. That is one of the most interesting aspects of film to me.
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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think digital C type prints are often made with a projected digital image onto a surface coated in layers of silver halide (same process as slide). Also, if you make a print from a negative, that print wasn't physically at the location of capture any more than an inkjet, so properly speaking unless you do wet plates or polaroids, the output of your photographs will always be a step or two removed.

Having said that though, I understand what you mean. The negative is a hand made memento of sorts, and I certainly can't criticize another fellow's fetish when I probably have plenty of bizarre rituals of my own! Maybe it's even the inconvenience and excess that makes it worth doing in the first place.
 
It's all very presonal.

I do have a DSLR, it is a Olympus E-410 from 2007 although I bought it in 2009 as a discontinued model. I thought I should see what this digital stuff was all about and the price had dropped $329 new in box so I thought, why not. Got home, unpacked it, charged the battery and played with it for perhaps an hour, looking at the 'quick start' instructions. I had no excietment or anticipation at all. About the same feeling if I had brought home a toaster. Then put it on the shelf and went back to my film cameras.

In 1974 when I got my first OM-1 I played with it all the time and was happy beyond words. Even today I get the biggest kick out of pure mechanical cameras, something a digital camera could never be. I don't think film is 'better' but the cameras are sure more interesting to me.

That said I do use the E-410 for family color snapshots, as a meter for my film cameras, and, with a legacy macro lens, to copy some of my B&W negatives into a digital form.

If I had to make a living at photography (first, I'd starve) then I'd use digital as it is the current image technology.
 
nongfuspring said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think digital C type prints are often made with a projected digital image onto a surface coated in layers of silver halide (same process as slide).
Click to expand...

But you wouldn't be making those prints at the location you are pressing the shutter usually- although it would certainly be possible. And even so, the image would be processed into a file by the camera and transmitted electronically rather than photographically to the printer. So it's not a direct image in the same way a slide is.
 
And yes I have heard Fuji still has some reversal stock, but I do did not like the look of it 20 years ago, I doubt my feelings has changed.
Click to expand...

Over the past 20 years, my feelings on just about everything has changed, but then I suppose 20 years ago I was a mere slip of a lad.

Also the film formulations themselves have changed in 20 years, or you could try the Agfa/Rollei slide films?
 
I've come back film... after first coming back to photography at all with digital. Digital cameras can be nice (I have a good one still) but I realized as the cameras got "better" they made me think about my shots much less. 4-5 frames per second, crazy high ISO noise reduction, auto focus. Aperture Priority mode is still a god send for me, but the rest of the stuff just makes me push the button, hope for the best, and fix it in post if I screw up. It has it's benefits, but I don't think it makes me a better photog... makes me a better computer editor.

The philosophy won't hold up for most people, I'm sure, but for me, I like to challenge myself a bit.

You can also buy a stellar film camera from decades past that looks better than a lot of digitals. I find the minimum cost for a reliable, very sharp lens manufactured today is $500... and even that's questionable. Look at what $500 will get you in the vintage manual focus film world.
 
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