My mother likes film better than digital

<p>I was surprised when my mother who is 80 years old said tha she likes film way better than digital. The reason is she can't stand getting on the computer which is even more technologically challenging for her than her digital camera. With film all she does is take it to Walmart and and a couple of hours later she got her pictures. She has yet to figure out her computer. </p>

<p>My parents are the same way, Harry. As a result, they no longer take any pictures, not that they did that much anyway. I am buying my mom (my dad could care less) a new-used film camera, and a bunch of film, this year for christmas. I will have to do all the developing, but it's a small price to pay for having those precious family photos in their autumn years. I've given up on reprogramming, it don't work :D</p>

<p>Mr. Joseph…</p>

<p>Your mother, even for such a young gal, still has wisdom. Perhaps she knows that her grandchildren may have some pictures of her parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents. That means that your kids have an important American connection. Will your grandchildren have that connection with their great grandmother, considering the life of digital media?</p>

<p>You may think of your mother as old, but she probably had not even started school when I left home for the USNA (my college).</p>

<p>So, perhaps despite your inference, I see her as neither old nor foolish. Could it be that you are simply not old?</p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

<p>P.S. Without reference to my comment above, thank you for contributing to Photonet to help support that which you use.</p>

<p>Mom's got it right but there's no telling how long Walmart will see it her way and keep its mini-lab open.</p>

<p>All said & done, it is nice that people still have the option to choose which they prefer to use. !'m 69 and I use both...unfortunately often the film doesn't get developed and scanned for quite some time after I've shot it, whereas the digital usually gets worked on by the next day. Them's the tradeoffs.</p>

<p>I am relatively sure that film is an OK option for people like your mom for <em>at least</em> the next few years. After that, it will still be an option, but you may have to provide mailers to send the film off to processors after that.<br>

In fact, that may not be a bad idea even now.</p>

<p>I'm with your mother on this one and I am still (relatively) young. Forty-two is young, right? The new eighteen? Anyway, I used digital for a number of years and switched back to film. I used to get the film scanned and then edit them on my computer. Now I don't even bother to do that. I drop off the film and pick up the prints. My lab man gives me the scans for free but I told him he doesn't have to do that any more. That said, I do organise my photos and film very carefully with a numbering system so I can find them easily.</p>

<p>Oh, um, a question I was going to pose on another forum, but it seems to relate here too, is how is it that everybody knows how to text and operate their cell phones so well but, a few years back, nobody could figure how to program their vcr?</p>

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<p><em>"With film all she does is take it to Walmart and and a couple of hours later she got her pictures."</em></p>

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<p>My Dad (82) is the same way. Film was simple. All he ever wanted was 4x6 prints. He has only recently (and quite reluctantly) switched to a digital P&S. </p>

<p>I am a film devotee but I really don't think it's right to complain about the computer with digital. If one doesn't want to mess with the computer simply take your camera to walmart give them the memory card and couple hours later getting the prints. <br>

If Walmart doesn't want to offer that kind of service I will.</p>

<p> She is 80 years old and she can like whatever she wants. </p>

<p>Your mother is a smart woman, you should listen to her. She raised you to be the man that you are, and I am sure that was no easy task. She could just as easily have left you outside with the dog, but she did not. </p>

<p>Instead, she nurtured you, fed you, clothed you, encouraged you, and despite all your faults, God knows what a chore that was, and what an intelligent woman your mother must have been to get you this far. So listen to your mother. Buy a few bricks of film to show her you love her, and that you listen to her wisdom. Get her a Nikon F6 for Christmas/Hanukkah or whatever reason you have to celebrate this wonderful season and mother. Perhaps you will ask to borrow it, and when she says "no", remember her wisdom.</p>

<p>THE problem is: most do not print the images<br>

IF they carefully save images on a SD card or a cd/dvd<br>

after they are gone this media may be overlooked or discarded.<br>

if it is not and a grandchild attempts to vies it<br>

it may be unreadable or technology may make that format obsolete.<br>

a Paper print is recognizable. but when a card holds 500 images few will print more than a few.<br>

if stored on a pc- well we have had many pc's pass thru our hands in the last few years.,<br>

friends get the data saved and burned to cd. strangers ? if the pc came from a scap pile, we have no way to return the images.<br>

this, I think, will be the fate of many digital images.<br>

At least with film, there will be a print and hopefully a nagative.<br>

the negative should last 100 years.</p>

<p>It is possible to set the digital camera on Auto, turn off the LCD/Review and just take the card to a local lab for printing, isn't it?</p>

<p>I think film will come back and be a force in the next few years. I think your mother is ahead of the curve.</p>

<p>I would give her whatever she wants. Maybe find an OM MJU-II in great shape, get her a dozen or more rolls and visit to pick them up and deliver prints.</p>

<p>My grandmother is 84, and she uses a Nikon point-and-shoot digital camera. Sort of. She had it for quite a while before she started using it instead of her film camera, because most stores/labs aren't as service oriented as they once were. With colour film, there was essentially no "do it yourself" option, so labs either had to do everything for the customer, or not get the business. Today, most "labs" expect customers to operate a printing kiosk themselves, and often are unskilled at doing the work themselves, assuming they're even willing to try.</p>

<p>Once we finally convinced her that she can treat the card like film, and just hand it to an employee at a lab with better service, she started using the digital camera more often. She really likes the fact that she can see if people blinked, and take another photo. She was worried about the extra buttons on the camera, and accidentally pressing them. I told her, "Well I'll just put duct tape over them all, if you can't keep from groping the camera." She had a laugh, and it turns out that she only screws the thing up once in a great while. The only issue she has now is remembering to charge the battery, but she seems pretty good about it. I never ended up taping the buttons off.</p>

<p>She still uses film sometimes. I mean, why not? She has the camera, she likes the camera, and she knows that even if all the labs close, I'll still develop her film for her, even if I need to buy a kit to do it. What's the harm?</p>

<p>A lot of older people prefer film because they think it is more permanent. The fact is that while black and white negatives last basically forever, colour negatives absolutely do not. If you actually print the digital images, they will last just as long as those colour negs will last, provided you use a good printer and keep them in an album, and not on a sunny wall.</p>

<p>But then again, a lot of older people prefer film because it's what they know, and what they grew up with. If this is the case, then there is no reason whatsoever to try and change their minds. Let me ask you Harry: do you see the younger generation's music as crap? Do you think kids dress like idiots today?</p>

<p>Congratulations. You're old now too. It's really not all that different.</p>

<p>I hate these newfangled cars. I miss my horse. Used the manure in the yard, too. I tried emptying out the catalytic converter in the yard once, killed everything in sight. </p>

<p>Ouch, Vince. You mixed that metaphor so well, I would have thought the blender was powered by a 442 ;)</p>

With digital you just drop the media card off at the lab and pick up the prints a few hours later. With film you have to set up a darkroom to process the film and an enlarger to edit (filtration, crop, etc), buy and mix chemicals and spend a lot of time standing over a hot enlarger just to make simple 4x6 inch prints. Then you have all the clean up to do. For an older person, I would think that digital would be better.

<p>Since the digital photography age has taken the lead, it seems like people just aren't making as many prints anymore. There are more people out there taking pictures, more photos being made than ever before and yet most of it is being stored or archived on a hard drive, a phone, an ipad, a website, etc. Even myself... I only make prints when a client will request it. My portfolio is no longer something I carry and hold. I guess a good print is a rare thing today and I sort of miss that.</p>

<p>How many more years will we pretend that you can't do the same with a media card?</p>

<p>A number of places that use to do film now have Kiosk that allow you to pick the images to be printed from your media card. They even have staff personnel to help you. </p>

<p>I know my local Walgreen will develop my film and give me prints. They will do the same with a media card. I can also upload my digital images from home and they will make prints.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p><em>"How many more years will we pretend that you can't do the same with a media card?"</em></p>

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<p>Of course you can. But many "seniors" don't <strong>want</strong> to. They dislike computers. They despise "self-serve" kiosks even more. They grew up in an era when customer service actually had a "service" and an actual person associated with it. Now they have to spend their time doing the work that the store used to pay an employee to do (be it photo printing, pumping gas, checking and packing your groceries, etc.). With film, my Dad/Mom could walk up to the photo counter, hand over a roll of film, tell them they wanted n sets of 4x6 prints, and be done with it. </p>

<p>With digital, now they have to wait in line for a kiosk that they find confusing to use, or wait for an employee to help them work the "self-serve" contraption, sort through the photos on the media card to pick out the ones they want to print from the ones they have already printed (but haven't deleted), then select the print sizes, then select the print options, then select the quantities, then submit the order, then wait for a printout of the order number, etc, etc. Or just say to hell with it and give me the SD card and ask me to get some prints of their photos of the grandkids. The easy convenience and simplicity they enjoyed with film is gone, replaced with the frustration of working with an impersonal machine.</p>

<p>There's not much easier than dropping off a film and picking up prints a day/hour later.</p>

<p>It's true that you can do the same with a memory card but what's the point when the camera you already have gives the same end result?</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>my dad could care less</p>

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<p><br /> <br /> Couldn't, surely!</p>

My father is just shy of 80, shoots digital and is a computer wiz. His age is irrelevant except to even out forum theads

suggesting older people are disinclined to be into on new things.