Would you give it up?

[Mackinaw]

I already use digital for my color work (which isn't much) and will shoot B&W film as long as they make it. When they stop making my favorites (Tri-X, Efke 25) I'll buy a M9 (or M10, M11....) and shoot digital.

Jim B.

 

[Mablo]

I would grudgingly buy a digital camera. Previously I was 100% digital shooter for years. I can see it now that at the time I was slowly moving away from photography. I have only a few photos from those years. Only after I found my way back to film - which I imagined had been dead for years - my passion for photography was revitalized again.

 

[Benjamin]

Would you give it up?

Life? Yes.

 

[FrankS]

I would continue with digital photography, but it would be a sad day. Losing film, I imagine, would feel a little like losing a friend.

 

[c.poulton]

I would not have any other choice but to continue with digital as part of the 'joy' of photography for me is actually going out there taking photographs. However, once this action has been completed, some 'magic' would be lost for me......

 

[Ronald M]

The more I get into digital, the more I like it. Film is nice, but digi gives me control like nothing else.

One of these days, a dozen llike new Leicas are going up for sale.

 

[Trius]

My first reaction is to say I'd go through the seven stages of grief, and who knows if I would complete course before my passage to the next re-birth. 😀

 

[shadowfox]

If film is completely gone, I'd *come back* to digital.

Begrudgingly.

And probably more seriously do alt. process printing using digital negatives. If that route is closed also, maybe I'll stop photographing.

Going 100% digital does no excite me at all.

 

[bo_lorentzen]

Quoting Ruby: I'd mourn the retirement of my favourite cameras, and then wear out my dSLR while saving up for a Leica M9.

Yeah that's about it, though I already got a digital rangefinder, I would be sad to see film vanish, (my girlfriend on the other hand would cherish seeing the film banished from the vegetable box in the fridge.)

BUT, ultimately, I am a photographer, my art and hobby and work, is capturing images, not nursing film, ultimately film is part of the tool, not part of the passion. a new tool can be found to hammer the same nail. incidentally my carpenter have been using a pneumatic nailer lately, the guy looked at me with a completely blank stare when I asked him if he would stop being a carpenter if he were no longer able to buy wood shafted hammers, clearly he have to understanding of the real art of hammering nails.

.

Bo

www.bophoto.typepad.com

 

[oftheherd]

I like to take photos, so I would continue to do that. But it's a moot point since film will not go away in my life time unless God is amazingly good to me (I am now 68), and anyway, I do use a P&S digital a lot for snapshooting already anyway.

 

[MV72]

I would certainly miss using my film rangefinders, TLRs, and folders, and feel sorry to see them confined in a glass cabinets. But my D200 and Canon G5 get a lot of use, so I guess the total switch to digital would not break my heart terminally. Still I love being able to use my prewar IIIa or 50's Vito, and thinking about the fellows that used them and took them places before me. Plus I just love fondling well engineered full metal cameras. So being in my mid fifties, I hope I can keep on using them for quite a while like a lot of us user/collector minded people.

 

[mh2000]

I would really miss it and using a lot of my favorite old cameras... but I'd shoot digital. I had "gone digital" for almost 5years once... even with a modest Canon 10D I got some really good photos. When film does go away for real digital cameras will be so damned good and so cheap it will be hard to lament the lost though...

Actually, it won't take film being gone to make me stop using it... at some point the cost will get too high for me... when processing doubles in price I doubt I will shoot film any longer.

 

[Gid]

Like others have said, I'd miss using my film cameras, but I'd still be able to fondle them. I have no problem with digital - have used it since 2001 and most of my favourite images have been shot with digital. Its the cost of film rather than its demise that will cause me to stop using it.

 

[wjlapier]

In my OP I mentioned the subject of 'if and when' - re film demise, for what it's worth, I believe and hope that film will be around for the rest of my life ( I'm mid sixties ) but this has been speculated many, many times!. I was just curious that if it came to the imaginary 'crunch', and those freezers full of Tri-x and Velvia were not available, would you 'bite the bullet'.
Dave.

If the fridge was bare and no more existed, yes I would continue with digital. I have a bunch of photos from my first digital camera and I enjoy going over them from time to time ( my kids around the house or on vacation ).

 

[Steve Karr]

I would just buy as much 35mm as possible & freeze it. Film is never gone, if you make your own.

I shoot big cameras too & love home brewed, silver gelatin on glass, paper. Like everything "this too shall pass" and be replaced by ... that...

As long as there is gelatin & Silver Nitrate ... there's real photography.




Or we could break into Tom's freezer and be all good for the next 200 years of shooting !!!!

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

I would just buy as much 35mm as possible & freeze it. Film is never gone, if you make your own.

I shoot big cameras too & love home brewed, silver gelatin on glass, paper. Like everything "this too shall pass" and be replaced by ... that...

As long as there is gelatin & Silver Nitrate ... there's real photography.




Or we could break into Tom's freezer and be all good for the next 200 years of shooting !!!!

Amazing how people reply - without reading the question! :bang:

 

[Steve Karr]

Amazing how people reply - without reading the question! :bang:

I did read the question. Being one of the first adapters in the 90's ( a PhaseOne H10 serial 10XXX) I am all too aware of digital. But photography is not the film you buy from Kodak, Fuji ... it is making an image on silver for me.

Your question is would I leave photography if they stopped making film .... my answer ... make your own. There is life beyond 35mm.

 

[nikon_sam]

I would mourn the passing of film and then embrace the digital world...I will continue with photography by whatever means...
I like to fish but fishing doesn't like me so I have to stick with what likes me...photography...

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

One of my predictions for 2010, actually. And to complete my prediction, let's check back and see if you actually make any film. Let me know when would be a good timeframe.

Bill - looking at some of the correspondence lately....they would not know how to make a baby!...never mind a roll of film! 😉

 

[gilpen123]

if and when that time comes, digital can 'prolly replicate B&W film. I use the RD1 and to my eyes the B&W it produces comes closer than any other DSLR not sure of the M9 though.