How necessary is learning to work with film?

<p>Too much verbiage in this thread. This is the 21st century-- learn on digital. In a few years, if you have a specific reason, try out a film camera. (And incidentally, I'm a 100% film shooter.)</p>

<p>I grew up on film cameras. I now have a dslr. Both are just tools to produce an image. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.</p>

<p>While a fully manual film camera can allow you to learn the basics about light and exposure, so can a digital camera in full manual mode. The last of the good film cameras often had automatic modes that approached what is now common on digital cameras. I have a Pentax ZX-60, which wasn't even the best that Pentax made, and it has auto-focus and several programmed exposure modes. It can be used as a simple point and shoot, with everything automated and requiring no thought on the part of the photographer. In that mode, it isn't much good for learning anything, but it takes nice pictures.</p>

<p>My son has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, with a major in Illustration. He works as a graphics artist, designing visual user interfaces for a software company. In college, even though his major was illustration, he was required to take courses in pencil drawing, watercolor, oil painting, sculpture and woodworking. My point is that, like those disciplines, film and digital are two different media for producing images. You can learn things from either one that will help in the other. You may find a personal preference one or the other.</p>

<p>There are woodworkers today who have every power tool ever made, and produce some fantastic works of art. Then there are those who don't even own a power saw and do everything with hand tools. Some even specialize in antique hand tools. Is one a better artist than the other? No, not in my opinion. They're just different. Like photography, though, the ones who wish to make a living producing utilitarian pieces, usually use modern techniques. The ones using older, "obsolete" techniques are producing hand-crafted products, in smaller quantities, at higher prices, for those who appreciate the special qualities of the medium.</p>

<p>Film is no longer the medium of choice for most photographers. Digital offers workflow enhancements and speed that are better for someone who wants to produce high-quality images quickly and deliver them electronically. Film has become a niche market for the hand-crafted approach. Virtually no one uses film for commercial work, such as weddings or advertising any more, but it still has a place in the photographic world.</p>

<p>I think that learning the basics is more a matter of self-discipline, than technology. I admit that it is easier to stay disciplined, if the technology doesn't allow you to get lazy. But, if you have the self-discpline to put your dslr in manual mode and actually think about the resulting image, before you trip the shutter, then you can and will learn. If you simply "spray and pray", with either film or digital, you won't learn anything. There were a lot of crappy pictures taken on film, because the photographer didn't bother to think before pushing the shutter button. Likewise, the best digital images usually result from a knowledgeable photographer who planned the resulting image in his/her mind first. Its more about the user than the technology.</p>

With an old film camera lens, one can hold the aperture pin, turn the aperture ring and actually see the aperture opening get smaller and larger. the full aperture stops are on the aperture ring. To open up one stop one simply goes from f/11 to f/8. When looking at an LCD what is one stop more than f/6.3? One can open the back of the camera, fire the shutter at various speeds and actually see the shutter movement. An old Speed Graphic is the ideal tool to show how a focal plane shutter works. Its shutter curtain always moves at the same speed; it is just the opening size of the various slits that regulates the amount of light that passes over the film.

 

Can fighting through the various menus on the LCD panel of a digital camera really be easier than this? Everything one needs to know is right there:<div></div>

<p>This is a philosophical answer, but I think there's something artistically questionable--or at least disingenuous--about imitating film effects if you have never used film. In that case, it is simply one medium slavishly faking another. The unfortunate artistic aspect of digital is that so often this starts to approach parody. </p>

<p>If the film course are taught by a well-regarded professor, a film class will add depth and dimension to your knowledge of photography. You can learn about digital techniques anywhere, including online, but where can you learn about the zone system, film exposure, and the darkroom "hands on" these days?</p>

<p>Shooting film requires discipline, because you can't see your results instantly. How can this discipline not improve your photography?</p>

<p>Think about it this way: Is it necessary to learn Latin in order to be well-educated? There is little practical use for Latin today (outside of biology and teaching Latin). You can't go to Rome or the Rive Gauche in Paris or the Latin Quarter of New Orleans and speak Latin on vacation. No one speaks it anymore. But given Latin's importance in the history of Western language, history, and thought, how could a scholar fail to benefit from the exercise of learning it?</p>

<p>Despite the analogy, film photography has more practical utility than dead languages do. I'm not implying that film is dead. Rather, I'm trying to convey the idea that a subject that may not be directly applicable to your goals can still be beneficial to your education. This highlights the difference between education and training. Training teaches you the things that you need to do. Education teaches you things that enhance your understanding of what you do.</p>

<p>David, as others have mentioned, let's forget for a moment the type of medium one uses for photography and concentrate on what YOU envision you want photography to do for you. What emotion do you want your images to convey? Do you want your images in a gallery, somebody's wedding scrapbook, or do you want them to permanently reside in a drawer or as electrons on a hard drive somewhere?<br>

People like to choose their medium and then support their choice by claiming how easier it now makes their lives, or how a certain look could only be achieved through specific and well developed means. Don't get caught up with all that. Simply focus on the fundamentals of photography as they are analogous to each other regardless of medium. The technical fundamental techniques remain the same whether you use a camera from 1953, or one from 2010.</p>

<ol>

<li>Learn the idiosyncrasies of your preferred tool to get a good exposure. Notice I did not use the words "Correct," or "Best" as these are merely subjective. A good exposure is one YOU are happy with conveying, not what others say, and certainly not what some blinking parts of an image in some software image processor say.</li>

<li>Learn how artists and others use composition and light and learn how to use it with your vision of what YOU want to produce.</li>

<li>Learn the techniques to get YOUR vision on to a medium where you can share it, whether it's print or some other electronic means. </li>

</ol>

<p>A lot of people get caught up with the technical means of producing an image; exposure, cameras used, film used, sensor formats, Lens MTF numbers, number of exterior controls, how a camera feels, or how much more money they have compared to you, but less is really spoken about how an image pops out at you and the emotional response it creates within you. The reason is, it's a lot easier to become good at learning the technicalities of photography, then to actually make something that's expressive or communicative.<br>

It's a lot harder to create wonderful images and it is a skill that could only be learned by trial and error. You just have to be able to go out there and shoot and experiment. In your photography classes, you'll learn to master the technical aspect of photography, but at the end it's still up to you how your images end up, regardless of the medium. I don't believe you'll be missing out if you take either a film or digital approach to photography as I mentioned earlier, the fundamentals are the same. The medium you want to focus on will ultimately depend on your resources. A good investment would be general Art classes where you can learn about composition, shading and even color.</p>

<p>Things to think about. Real artists or people who love art in general will not look at an image they like in a gallery and ask what camera it was made on; (Only gear junkies obsess about these things) anymore then a person reading a good book will ask whether it was written with a pen, typed on a typewriter, or computer. It's always about the content, the technicalities like grammar are only there to help you create your vision.</p><div></div>

<p>The above painting is beautiful, but I can't check its EXIF information. With that size, I wonder how many megapixels were required to make it, how many colors the artist was actually used to paint it and what is the size of the smallest dot he could make</p>

<p>I also question the whole concept that "you have to get a college degree to do anything" syndrome that seems to be permeating the US educational system. Next thing there will be a degree in lawn mowing. It just dumbs down recognition of the rest of the valuable degrees one can do.<br>

Photography is not like Law or Medicine, where one needs formal qualifications to practice ones vocation. Entry positions into a photography career are not won by waving a piece of paper at an employer. They are won by showing skill and good craft....things that you only learn by actually doing it. And thats the beauty of this industry. You can be any age, have any background and can start at any time. Its your output that matters.<br>

We have a 30% stake in one of Sydney's better know commercial photography studios. We have never hired anyone who knocked on the door waving a degree, but we have hired a number of gifted young photographers who, after spending time with us learning film before progressing to digital, have gone on to be successful freelancers. One of our most valuable photographer employees is a single mum, 55 years old, who came to us after her divorce to be a receptionist. She showed a great interest in what we did in the studio and we did some training on the weekends for her. She showed a natural eye for portraits and composition. She is now one of our three professional photographers. She shoots MF film and scans to digital. (Hint to the OP!!).<br>

When one looks at the costs of degrees etc, I think that money would be better spent on industry-run specific courses which are plentiful. What are you going to get more benefit from: Sitting in a classroom having some unknown telling you about the physics of light, or spending a week on location, learning first hand from the likes of a Michael Reichmann or Moose Peterson? Talk about instant knowledge transfer! I know where my money would go.<br>

It might be different down here, but thankfully we place more emphasis on what you can do that is verifyable by example or with a simple phone call, than what a piece of paper says you can do.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I also question the whole concept that "you have to get a college degree to do anything" syndrome that seems to be permeating the US educational system.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I agree (although I am in the UK, not the US). I am an electronic and mechanical design engineer and I do not have a degree.</p>

After reading some of the posts on why you don't need to learn film, I understand why anybody starting out

needs to learn on film. (With an actual manual camera.) You'll thank me later.

<p>Steve...<br>

That right. Its like that here...Having a degree is not a right of passage here at all, as it seems to be in the US. Before I got into this business I spent 20+ years in IT and running divisions of 3 international vendors. I also don't have a degree and in the half dozen or so jobs I have had at very senior level, I have never been asked if I do.<br>

See in Australia, we also don't have this intermedite level of tertiary education called "college". We have school>>>technical apprenticeship training or University...and I mean fair dinkum university with 30,000 students and degrees like medicine etc. University is not a trivial pursuit. You have to get into the high 90% range in your final high school exams to get to just apply. So 3/4 of students don't go to university and get a degree. They either do a trade or get an internship with bags of on the job training.<br>

And we forget, some people have to be blue collar workers...but guess what?...All those jobs have gone to China, and we have 25% unemployment in the 18-25 age group. All the world hears that we are the wonder country, untouched by the recession and with 5% unemployment. This is bullshit. We have the highest interest rates in the western world, hidden structural unemployment, unaffordable housing and a farming sector that has been decimated, first by a 10 year drought and now floods. Its a nightmare.<br>

Its a huge issue here...water...You are in the UK...Imagine if the Thames dried up completely...as dry as the Sahara....well thats what happened here to our biggest river. It stopped flowing and they had to seal up the entrance so the ocean would not reverse the flow inland with salt water. I could go on...Off topic. But I am passionate about helping young people into good careers and the factors affecting that are as we have discussed above.<br>

My middle son just wasted 4 years doing a communications and marketing degree which cost he and I a lot of money. What's he doing now? Joining the Navy to do Hydrography.<br>

Here we encourage students to have a gap year after high school finishes...Go out, get a job (any kind, if they can), do some traveling and get a better idea of what they might want to do, before they waste time and money doing the wrong or unnecessary thing.</p>

 

<p>Let's say that 20 years ago, you were starting like this, and you had the choice between using a 35mm film camera, or a high-end Polaroid with full manual exposure controls (yes, there were such cameras) and an endless supply of film packs for it (wouldn't have happened in reality because of the cost per picture with Polaroid).</p>

<p>Which one do you think you would learn photography fastest with, the one with instant feedback, or the one where you had to wait a significant amount of time until you could see the results?</p>

<p>Either way, go with one, and then most of it is transferable to the other, and you can then experiment with it on your own. Many photographers who used film were self-taught anyway. Making high quality fine art prints in a darkroom requires a lot of practice and skill, but making ordinary prints and developing the film itself is not exactly rocket science. You just follow the directions and pay attention to the temperatures and times, basically. The real photography is in the subjects, the light and the composition... makes no difference if the camera is digital or has film in it.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/ishootfilm/">www.flickr.com/groups/ishootfilm/</a></p>

 

<blockquote>

<p> Do you feel that it's necessary, or more true to the medium as a fine art, to learn to work with, develop, etc. film?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>In a word, no.<br>

It's all about light.<br>

That's all we ever photograph. It's all that any camera, digital or chemical, can record.<br>

It may be that some things are easier with one or the other, but in the grand scheme of learning how to pull a compelling image out of the world that you see, it makes so little difference as to be irrelevant.<br>

You're at the stage where you should be concentrating on how light behaves. Later (MUCH later) there may be artistic or commercial reasons to use one or the other. But understanding light will help you understand why you'd need (or really want) one or the other, and it will help you effectively use whichever one you choose.<br>

Digital imaging offers a superb way to learn photography. There will be plenty of time and (perhaps) reasons to explore film after you've mastered the basics.</p>

 

You have nothing to lose learning both mediums. If you enjoy a hands on approach you will love the darkroom. Even if its just for a hobby. IMHO you cannot beat a B&W print on fibre based paper. And with that comes a whole plethora of different toning techniques and alternative printing processes. Kind regards

<p> Digital it seems is the future of photography. However if you go into any of the many photo galleries in Carmel or Monterey Calif the fine art pictues will all be film based and most of them B/W. However I just do not know what a person should do. For myself as a hobbyist I am going to shoot B/W film and have fun with it.</p>

<p>Oh there is no doubt that digital will be the way to go. And you don't lose anything by having a good grounding in film as a learning exercise.<br>

Most of the fine art gallery prints are from film....especially panoramas, sometimes large format and then scanned. Learning to take the shots on film and then processing the negative or slide through a scanner to deliver a digital image to your post software....this is how its still done and you have to know your film craft very well too. It combines both. And its relatively cheap. You can buy a Hassy or even a Horseman kit for less than $1200. Add a scanner and a good A3 printer...another $1200 and you are in business for the cost of a new D300. Its a no brainer. You will be producing 100mb Velvia images to play with. Yes, there are negative developing costs, but thats peanuts. Costco will even do you a deal and do a high res scan to CD of your slides or negatives for about $8.<br>

I do much more film than I do digital, but I'm about to invest in the new Epson V600 scanner and a new printer and combine both disciplines. If only to do my own prints at least.</p>

<p>digital will teach you how to 'upgrade' your equipment - at great expense - every month, or so. that's its big plus.</p>

<p>The fundamental concepts are the same - quantity and quality of light hitting your film/sensor, composition, "capturing the moment", etc. So, if you want to learn the absolute fundamentals, the choice of medium doesn't matter a lot. But, regardless of medium, please do yourself a favour and learn basic things like depth-of-field and how to manipulate it, and also how to estimate exposure without your camera's meter (eg, the "sunny 16" rule and it's variants).</p>

<p>After the basics, I would say that each medium is unique. You can manipulate a lot of variables when shooting RAW with digital, but on the other hand each film is designed to capture the light and/or colour in a specific way, so if you want a specific look you can choose a specific film from the outset (as a starting point - exposure and post-processing can be unique to each person). Sensors and film also have different "dynamic range" characteristics (and it's also different among films themselves, such as slide films vs. colour neg or B&W), so they do tend to respond to the lighting in a particular scene a bit differently. As well, while the digital tech improves, some people (like myself) don't like the high-ISO noise that digital produces, and prefer the film grain that high-ISO films produce instead.</p>

<p>Finally, as has been mentioned, if you want to shoot in formats larger than 35mm, film cameras and film itself is still a fair bit cheaper than the equivalent digital capture for the same size. This may not matter to a beginner, but it's a nice option to have. Many argue larger formats force you to slow down, which may improve your photography overall, as well as (arguably) increased enlargement and potential resolution (this is much debated - not interested in revisiting this here, but it is one of the "usual reasons").</p>

David, lots of wonderful insights - I especially enjoyed "Regret builds character." So far as your choice is concerned it

depends on what the course is for. If it is to teach you the art of photography, composition, movements in photography

etc etc it might not matter that you are not being taught film photography. You could consider either option,

supposedly. But being given the option of one or the other leaves me stumped. It's all photography. If they are going to

teach you 'digital photography' as in how to drive a digital reflex camera and use software and digital printing then

that's great. A film photographer might want two at least out of those three also. Meanwhile, if you are so interested in

photography as to do a course in it (for what purpose, I cannot guess) then regardless of the benefits to your

understanding of photography practice or even just history, I would be amazed if you could actually resist getting into

film, at least a little. But the choice of one or the other.....To understand the genesis of that component of what is on

offer might not be inspiring. Most of us did not do a course, but many of us did not ever improve so quickly as when

we joined a forum like this. The others in the course will be one of the most important contributors to what you'll learn,

if they are good, and the course is good. Of the young people I know, my daughter and her friends just finished

school, I know what stream they'd be in. Film. And they also lament their dads do not have manual cars for them to

learn to drive in.

<p>That's a lot of discussion of a topic with no single answer. Some people can really benefit from having some of the discipline of film enforced upon them, while others benefit far more from the instant feedback and low-marginal-cost encouragement to experiment from digital.<br>

I will say that absolute statements probably don't advance the discussion. Not to pick on Ross, but "...if you go into any of the many photo galleries in Carmel or Monterey Calif the fine art pictues will all be film based and most of them B/W" -- well, when you say that *all* of anything will be from one side, it begs people to undermine the whole argument. (The cover image on the Weston Gallery site is one of William Neill's digital creations, and it doesn't make his older 4x5 work any less beautiful.)</p>

<p>David, without knowing your goals or the courses in mind it's hard to be more specific but I don't think this needs to be such a huge commitment. I should think it would be interesting and character-building to take at least one class in developing & printing film. After that experience, you'll be much better prepared to answer further questions yourself.</p>

<p>I wouldn't get too emotional with this right now. I have now been working and learning digital for about 21 months after many years of film. I am as tied to film as anybody but I think go digital for now and learn the film later as things progress. Personally I use Nikon Digital equipment and Hasselblad film equipment. All that really happened for me was in Feb 2009 I said OK, no more 35mm film, I'm done. I packed it up and just bought two Nikon D bodies to fit my old lenses and installed an old version of PSE 6 I had laying around and the Nikon software. I never gave it another thought, it's just a medium to work in, tools. 35mm out, digi in. Does it give me what my 35mm did, yep, I think better in many ways. Does it give Hasselblad black and white, nope, not really so that's not changing. If you decide to mess with film later, go for at least medium format if not learn 4x5, I see no real reason to bother with 35mm film unless it's something you urge to do like play with the Leicas or Contax/Zeiss glass and all that stuff.</p>

<p>I think digital has a lot more to offer than just endless upgrades. After all, learning composition and balance is learning composition and balance. Gelatin and silver don't necessarily help that. Immediate feedback helps that a lot in my mind.</p>

<p>Granted, I don't own a digital camera, and all of my hobby is with traditional materials. So while I do understand them far better than I do the digital stuff, I'm not blind to the fact that the digital stuff works.</p>

<p>As someone else said, you don't have to learn to ride a horse to before you can drive a car. You might <strong>*WANT*</strong> to learn to ride a horse, but it isn't necessary unless you're trying to go somewhere the car cannot take you but the horse can.</p>

<p>That said, traditional materials can take you a lot of places digital can only simulate. However digital can open doors that are either tremendously difficult or completely impossible with silver based methods.</p>

<p>I've said for years that the dichotomy between digital and chemical isn't that one is better than the other, but that they are different from one another. We should learn to exploit the strengths of each.</p>

<p>For a more Zen approach, begin where you are. Since you have a DSLR now, use it to its fullest. And see where you go from there. If you cannot get what you want, and like the results the artists you called out got with film, then prepare for that journey.</p>

<p>Once film is learned, digital is very easy to pick up but to go the other way is not as easy. I highly recommend the film route!</p>