oh my god, film is dead...!!!

... even if some of us haven't noticed it.

What to do with film? I shoot 35mm and 120 films and i like it! I

also process B/W films at home (Bathroom). Problems come next. What

to do with all those negs? I have a flatbed scanner but hardly get

acceptable images with it (on 35mm, forget 120 film scans...).

Sometimes i get them scanned in a photo lab, but quality is far from

good. SOLUTION: buy a decent drum scanner... for at least $10 000!!!

For that amount i could buy a (very) good digital camera and

accessories.

Oh my God...

Calm down. You can get a good film scanner for $2k which does an excellent job of both 35 mm and 120 film.

Ilkka, that may be true, but for that price I can still get good digital cameras...

AMongst other formats etc I shoot Fuji 69 and slow film. I select a few frames every hundred to have printed at the highest quality, I like the results. In other words I go for quality not quantity, of course, quaintity is nice too, but beggars can't be choosers. I also use digital point n shoots for banal things like my profile photo here. Can you afford the new Kodak 38 megapixel chip? Anyway, it's nice to slow down and use a tripod.

 

Cheers.

Stop acting the hysterical fool. If you want to keep shooting film get a decent scanner and

learn how to use it. You won't need to pay anywhere close to $10,000.

 

35mm always does bad on flatbed scanners.

 

For many people Film will die as a viable photographic medium when they can't get

decent processing locally.

With all due respect Rumi take a step back and do some research, the sky is not falling. Flatbed scans of 35mm leave much to be desired, but in terms of general use I've been pretty happy with my 120 scans with the EPSON 3200; anything super important I send to the lab...what equipment are you using? For $2K you could buy a dedicated multi-format film scanner...for half of that you could buy a decent flatbed plus a dedicated 35mm (only) film scanner...there are options. Digital is great also, shoot both!

oh my god, film is dead...!!!

 

You bastards!

Thanks for starting yet another "Film is Dead"post. Do you really want me to suggest what

you can do with your film....

OK, not very nice. Print it or scan it.

You shoot 120, you process b/w film yourself. That sounds like more than an average photo enthousiast to me. You have invested in a 120 system (I suppose) and you put time and money into developing yourself. That all makes me really wonder why you ask "What to do with all those negs?". The answer is easy though, buy yourself a decent 35/120 film scanner. A drum scanner is NOT what you need to get high quality, every good quality film scanner will do. For example the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED or the Microtek ArtixScan 120tf. Both are capable of scanning 35 and 120 format and are well under "at least $10 000".

So is Kenny...but he keeps coming back...

And if you really think that "film is dead...!!!", then buy yourself a digital system and forget about film and this forum forever.

Yes, of course film is dead.

 

<P>Just as motorcycles killed off bicycles. <BR>

TV made radio extinct. <BR>

Horses are extinct because of cars.<BR>

WordStar killed all the typewriters. <BR>

Outboard engines ensured the death of sailing boats.<BR>

Sony's Aibo will ensure that dogs become extinct. <BR>

Simple 35mm film cameras made professional photographers extinct... ;-)<BR>

35mm film quickly made medium format and large format film extinct. <BR>

As we all know, APS film then killed 35mm film stone dead over a two week period a few

Christmasses ago. It just vanished from the shelves in a puff of smoke, sometimes before

the very eyes of startled consumers.

 

<P>

What I'm waiting for in ten years time is the scream "Oh my god - SD cards are extinct!"

and the weeping and wailing that will accompany that one...

And what about turntables? I bought a new one only two years ago. And guess what, I can still buy new records for it because most record companies still make records of most albums they bring out. Sure, I can't buy those at most record stores but I can buy them directly from most record companies. This even though records and turntables were declared 'dead' in the early 80's.

Based on reading those threads what Les S. knows about this subject would fill a thimble.

A small one.

You shoot 35 and 120 and you like it. You've got a darkroom. What do you do with the negs? You put them in your enlarger and you print them on paper and slosh them through the trays like you always did. What's the problem? If you really want to scan your 35mm negatives, there are countless film scanners from about $500 on up. Don't both with flatbeds -- they're not really made for film no matter what hype they try to sell you. 120 scanners cost more but do you want to scan for the sake of proceeding digitally or just to get a picture onto a web site. If it's the latter just scan your prints on a flatbed.

35mm cassette film introduced in 1934. Full frame sensors marketed by Kodak in 2000. 2005 film hailed as dead.

 

Edson Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen in 1884. June 10th 1943 Laslo Biro patented the ballpoint pen. The days of the fountain pen clearly numbered.

 

Need I say more.

Next thing you'll be telling us is that there is no market for 8-track tapes and CDs have killed off vinyl records.

Didn't artists stop painting after photography was invented...?

I'm so happy electronic keyboards were invented! Just picked up a SWEET Tiger Maple Steinway Grand to match my Black Ebony Yamaha with ivory keys on Ebay for 40 bucks! As soon as I learn how to plug it in I'm going to play it!

 

On a serious note: I'm running into a lot of people (not photographers) who are moving back to film. I ask them why and always get the same reply... after two or three years of digicams they don't have any pictures to look at.

 

Serious photographers are into backing up files and media and so forth, but the general public probably isn't. My wife is one of them. Yes, she like everyone else, uses a home photo printer but admits it isn't the same. She does not want to spend time editing snapshots. It's just easier to drop off the rolls at walmart/CVC and pick up prints an hour later.

 

I don't expect digicams to suffer sales-wise. But I do know a number of people who are blowing the dust off their film camera. I also don't think this applies to pros in any way. But if a small minority continues to use film I think the market may settle somewhere left of where it's been moving.

 

Maybe wishful thinking. We'll see. It might come down to photolabs sticking around long enough to see if the pendulum swings back at all.

there are a few things to be told after all these answers. I know that "film death" is a usual subject here, but my point wasn't to shout it to the world. I did some research before i posted this and most reviews i read were very critical about film scanners (all of them pointed at very expensive scanners as the only way to get proper results, especially with 120 film). Except for a few answers from people who really read my post, everybody else seemed to act as if they were the keepers of a sacred place. OK, film might not die. I surely hope not! Yes, we have some examples of deaths that never were. But than, painters still paint (and photografers will keep shooting) but are inks still made from the same materials they were?

And yes, i have to make a deep research on scanners. Now I have some clues(Thank's to all of you that point out solutions).

PS- Juergen F., next time i'll ask your permission to post. I didn't know that this was YOUR forum.

You better spend that $10,000 on buying a slide burner to burn your digital files onto film and then wet printing them with an enlarger.

 

Some people just have too much time on their hands...

8-track tapes were still being made as small custom batches by 3M? up to just a few years ago.<BR><BR> The older 162 Mhz band NOAA radio weather alerts were on 8-track tapes for several decades, and slowly phased out with digital recordings (the drunk swede is what my part swede EE friend who was working on the early voice called it). NOAA paid a fee to keep the 8-track tooling active, and small batches were made each year to keep the remaining older 8-track weather radio alerts still going. <BR><BR>The newer digital voice is remotely programable, and offers a quicker more custom localized weather report. There are over 850 transmitter sites broadcasting weather 24 hours a day. Since 8-track tapes didn't last forever, there was a healthy NOAA 8-track tape production line going up to just a few years ago.

bring your 35 mm to costco and get the $2.99 high rez cd. yes , i said high rez. try it once. you'll see. its the new deal there.

The reason 35mm is mentioned as being poor for a flatbed scan is because folks usually enlarge 35mm more than 120/MF and 4x5 negs. If one crops a 24x36mm "35mm section" out of the MF or 4x5 flatbed scans, they are not any better than a 35mm flatbed scan. The larger flatbed sizes can actually even be worse per unit area, since the scan time is longer, the negative supported not as well. There is a great chance of negative sagging. If anything, a 35mm flatbed scan is always better than a cropped 24x36mm section of a flatbed MF or 4x5 scan.

OTOH it does look like APS is dead. No?