If you want the look of film, use FILM! (Loctite #STFU applied.)

"One problem there is with digital is that the largest print a person can make depends on the size of their printer. While, when I had a wet darkroom. It wasn't difficult at all to make a 30" x 40" B&W."

 

I have printed my digital photos up to 30x60 inches.

 

There are lots of places that will do large prints from you.

 

Smaller prints, like 20x30 cost on the order of $10.

This is the dumbest thread to come along in longtime. Really... I just skipped over a whole whack of posts that started something like...

 

"John D. You did so say that... I saws you do it!"

 

Who cares whether film or digital... didn't this argument get worn out 10 years ago? Just take pictures... medium is irrelevant in the end.

de gustibus non est disputandum

Scott, I was refering to making 30x40" prints on my own, instead of from a lab.

I have used film for over 45 years. I have had a film darkroom for over 30 years. I scanned my first image in the mid-eighties.

 

I like having the choice of film or digital. I think I have learned the pluses and minuses of each format.

 

I can't understand why people care so much about what others use or what some anonymous poster might say.

 

Someone posts that film is dead. I look at my B&H catalog it it says they are wrong. So who cares?

 

Someone asks why you would use such an old technology. I say because I like to.

 

If you don't like what someone says go into your darkroom. It is nice and quiet there.

 

If you actually fear the end of film get yourself the latest Freestyle catalog. It will cure your blues.

If I take care of myself, exercise, eat well, etc., I may live another 350,000 hours. Let's see...reading each post and formulating a reply will take a couple of hours. That is about 0.00077% of my remaining time on earth. Hmmm....Nope. Not worth it.

I just want to know if the 131 posts (including mine) sets a new record for PN. Must be some sort of prize available for the OP.

Yes, the OP wins epic lulz, which he may collect from the kind folks at Encyclopedia Dramatica.

I can't resist one small contribution to the madness here...Justin made a pretty good point about the Weston Gallery and the 'highly valued' film based artwork sold there. There is actually considerable CRAFT involved with producing an optical print from a negative that you processed yourself and some of us enjoy photography for that very craft. Not that there isn't a learning curve and enough technical prowess required for good quality digital 'capture and output' to keep it interesting. Not that when it comes to "workflow", digital has film beat hands down. But then, unless I'm shooting a catalogue job, or maybe press work, I'm not all that concerned about workflow and high volume.

 

I know it's been said over and over and over and over again here, but I'll say it again: There IS a difference, admittedly, often an intangible one, between a well made, silver gelatin ( or better yet, platinum contact ) optical print from a film negative and an inkjet print generated from a digital file. Is it in the resolution? Not likely anymore. The "IQ"? Probably not. The tonality? Yeah, could be that, but probably not enough to really notice.

 

Maybe it's just me that thinks those beautiful, ethereal lights and shadows, that have been translated directly from something I glimpsed myself onto an archival expanse of silver coated paper just has more "soul" than the recollection of that same moment, captured by a light sensitive diode array, translated by a microprocessor into a billion bit long binary string, then processed, manipulated and translated by yet another microprocessor and finally, shot out of a printer nozzle onto a piece of super premium, glossy, extra heavy photo paper from W*L-M**T for a final rendition. Hey, the ever important IQ is right up there, and heck, maybe even better than film!

Out of curiosity, do you guys ever wonder if writers debate about whether the pen is better than the typewriter?

Wow, I am tired, I meant typewriter vs computer... two trains of though collided there.

Real writers use pencil and yellow legal pads while standing. Or scribble on napkins in bars.

"de gustibus non est disputandum" So, that's how you spell it!? Thanks, Wade. This phrase was the very first thing my high school photography teacher said to us. Great guy, great photographer.

Hi Marshall, thanks for the link. I'm relatively new to photography and I had been shooting film then scanning for a while, but recently bought a 5D. Until I read your post, I was seriously considering selling the digital because I prefered the results from film.

 

With digital I loved the speed from which I could go from a shoot to a finished print and the ability to change ISO without having to rewind, mark the number of shots then reload. However, I didn't love the flat, lifeless, brutally clean images that resulted.

 

Now, having downloaded Alienskin's plugin, I can get everything. Cheers!

personally i love film, ill have a look at the plug in but im very skeptical already. I use digital for my work because its

quicker and clients dont want to pay for film these days, but i wouldnt say it looks better, thats crazy talk.

Most of the time when people in

here tell me digital is superior they show me some example of an oversaturated, over sharpened and over processed

landscape that looks like it was shot on an alien planet. I cant wait to see the threads when photoshop brings out the

good taste filter or cannon comes out with the DTaste SLR

(Was that a bit harsh???)

 

<a href="http://www.dreamtimestudio.com/fashion_photographer.htm" target="_blank"><strong>fashion

photographer</strong></a>

I'm not gonna read this thread, just respond to the original OP.

<p>

It doesn't matter how you get there, all that matters is the final image. The best pro photographer I know uses Alien Skin Exposure to get a film look. He calls it his "secret weapon" and the stuff looks awesome. No dealing with labs, scanners etc. Just from camera to client.

<p>

I'm a musician. We got over all this crap in the '70s. The keyboardist in my band has a keyboard that can emulate almost anything incredibly well. We don't get people bitching that he didn't lug in a B3 or a Rhodes.

<p>

If you wanna shoot film, go right ahead.

People are now taking good photographs with digital cameras that they failed to do with film. One reason is that one can fire away with digital and at least get one acceptable picture. With film you have to THINK. It's the same difference as between a 50mm lens and a wide angle. If you pack enough into the frame it somehow looks more acceptable, but it's not necessarily a good photograph. Also film has a granular depth whereas digital is virtually just a print dye.

When Woody Allen made his film "Zelig" he engineered it to look like a rediscovered lost documentary from an decades earlier. Both film and digital are wonderful ways to craft our art. We have today the access to nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century photographic processes so go ahead, make platinum or albumen prints, pigment on paper, and digital media images, anything old or new. And relish the capability to do it all.

<I>"It doesn't matter how you get there, all that matters is the final image"</I><BR><BR>I would agree with this on a professional basis but on an amateur level, some people actually enjoy the steps in between - whatever the method of capture.

Steve, I would agree with you, but Ian was responding to the OP, who seems to think if you want the look of film you should shoot film.

 

If the OP wants to shoot film that is great, but he seems pretty mad that people would try to make their digital shoot look like film.

The ONLY way to fully understand exposure and photography is to use wet glass plates. When you breath mercury vapors you WILL understand how wet glass plates are superior to your fancy film and digital. If you can't shoot wet glass plates then you're an incompetent photographer! <p/> Film. HA! It's for losers. The same goes for digital. All that computerized gadgets. <p/>Never mind. You folks don't get it. <p/>Back to my absinthe.

I don't understand why so many people do not want to admit that film and digital can actually complement each other... It's like seeing old pre war cars, or an old 50's candy pink Cadillac so long you can fit a more recent car in it, and the latest Audi R6. Who says that it's not fun to drive both? Ah well...

"With film you have to THINK"

 

Anthony, are you saying that digital is for mindless people?

 

I do agree that digital and film should work together, and not compete. If we all did the same thing it would be boring.

This is better put as, "If you want the look of a film camera, use A FILM CAMERA.

 

It's easier to simulate film grain digitally that it is to simulate the subtilities of a 1930s Tessar lens. Digital cameras all seem to have zillion-element lenses that make images uniformly (& to me cloyingly) sharp and perfect.

<i>With film you have to THINK.</i><P>Wow, I didn't know that! I thought that with film, you have to take a photograph. I didn't realize that thinking made things happen.