Film photography - do you take different or the same photographs?

It's been a year since I shot any film and I have film in my freezer and I do enjoy it. Those of you who still shoot some film, do you shoot it differently to what you usually do? I know film you cannot take heaps and delete. I obviously won't shoot sports or events with film. From what I seen with others I can see some shoot film with maybe streets, documentary, portraiture, walkabout as one wanders around and think.

 

My usual photography is landscapes and cityscapes, I have shot mainly slide film but have gotten into b/w film which I develop my own film. I sometimes find that scapes can be captured on digital so much clearer, why am I shooting film with it. Also that after sun down, slide film is difficult to work with. I have been thinking if I should shoot a bit more b/w and color neg film.

 

 

Like to hear your thoughts :)

I share between digital and film, and with film, I do shoot slightly different. I mostly shoot B&W film, so there are colour filters to be considered, plus grain/contrast based on the film and ISO used. While with digital I usually know up front that an image will end up in B&W, the actual choices for conversion (colour filters, grain) take place during post processing. Also with film I tend to shoot somewhat more conservative when it comes to wide apertures, or maybe better to say that with digital I experiment a lot more and use more extreme large apertures and shallow DoF.

In a way, a lot of my digital images work as studies for things I later re-do in film; but whether I ultimately end up with more keepers in film than with digital, not too sure.

I tell myself all the time that the result is all that counts, and it should make no difference how you get there, be it film, or digital. For me though, film is more of an art than a science, and digital more a science than an art. Call me soft, but there is more romance in film, digital is colder, harder. I know I can get better resolution, great colour, the ability to take and re-take and the ability to post-process the bejeezus out of a good digital file, but when you get a great print from a great neg, knowing that it was YOU that got all those processes correct, it just feels good.

With 35mm slide film, pushing the shutter button was the final act. Better be perfectly composed and exposed because there is no where to go if it isn't. With digital, pushing the shutter button is just the beginning of the process.

The only reason I have used film in the last 15 years is precisely what the title of this thread suggests - to make comparisons for the disbelievers, and to satisfy myself why I'll never go back.

I do enjoy shooting film and I do shoot differently because I use prime lenses when shooting film and mostly with digital I'm using zoom lenses. I pretty much only shoot b/w film, recently I've been toying with the idea of shooting monotone photos with digital and see how they compare. The biggest problem I have is that I no longer have a darkroom so shooting film is a bit of a pain.

There are films that I have loved - such as Kodachrome, Polaroid Type 52, etc.-but mostly I shoot film these days because I like finely made, mechanical devices (Praktica, FGS??). If the bogus "digital insert for film cameras" (link) were real, I'd shoot even less film.

Not so many responses so far so I thought I'd weigh in. I'm a purely digital photographer (at least since I last took some film 'snaps' 25 years ago). So in a lot of ways I'm not qualified to comment on this post. But I would just like to add three points:

- the fact that a digital photographer can (technically) take multiple shots without using up film doesn't mean they actually do so. With the exception of sport/action shots, there are generally only a few shots of a subject/scene that might prove useful. A film photographer with a couple of extra rolls could take exactly the same shots.

- IMHO, most photographers (digital or film) want to limit the time they spend sifting through shots to find the 'one best shot'. So as a digital photographer, I really don't want to have to browse through a whole lot of images that are pretty much the same.

- as you gain experience in photograpahy (digital and/or film), you hopefully become more discerning. You gradually develop what Michael Freeman (and probably others) call 'the photographer's eye': the awareness, framing, etc. of what makes an interesting shot (and what doesn't).

 

Back to your question. If a film photographer has enough film rolls, I don't see why he/she should - in principle - be any more resticted than a digital photographer. Yes, sport/action photos in 'DSLR burst mode' are an exception.

I only shoot color so there is no different in term of color or B&W. I do shoot the same things with both digital and film except I do not shoot film at higher ISO than 100 (I use Portra 160 but shoot at 100). With digital I would use up to 12800. So I don't use film whenever I need speed above ISO100.

I shoot both and mostly shoot them similarly except for exposure (I give film a bit more than I do digital). With film, I'm usually shooting 120 or 4x5, so I don't have issues with clarity or softness (unless I screw up). I also shoot mostly B&W film and I do have my own darkroom. I shoot it because I enjoy the process. I have shot sports with film - even with manual focus. I wouldn't do it now, but mostly because they wouldn't be for any major reason, just snapshots. Anything that's going to be more of a snapshot gets done with digital. Also anything that I think I might want the color version.

I shoot sports with film. Actually there is not much difference than shooting sports with digital. The trick is knowing when press the shutter. Of course with digital cameras with high buffer rates it is much easier, all you have to do is keep your finger on the shutter, but that does not guarantee a good shot.

I still shoot film as well. Back in the day when the newspaper was buying the film I probably used quite a bit more in a given event than now when I have to pay for my own. Yesterday I was in Birmingham shooting a Lemons race and while I had digital there I also had some motor driven F2's and had a ball. For me film is still mostly a b&w application, color is so much easier to do in digital.

 

Rick H.

I shoot sports with film. Actually there is not much difference than shooting sports with digital. The trick is knowing when press the shutter. Of course with digital cameras with high buffer rates it is much easier, all you have to do is keep your finger on the shutter, but that does not guarantee a good shot.

 

Yes, learning timing was a critical part of learning to shoot sports. Especially for those of us who could not afford a motor drive. And as I tell the kids today, we shot when speed was measured in 'seconds per frame,' not 'frames per second,' or as fast as out thumb could crank the film advance lever and then hit the shutter.

I found when shooting tennis, that for the serve, I got the shot I wanted more often when shooting single frame than at 6fps. It is about timing.

Even today, I have the shutter set to continuous high (6fps), but I usually fire off single shots, or a burst of 2-3 frames. Old habits die hard.

I shot film, mostly black and white, all formats from the late 60's until about 2004, when I got my first digital camera, Nikon D70. Even at 6 mp I could see where all this was going and I never looked back. I already had scanners for my 35mm and 4x5 negs and transparencies and was exploring digital printing. I could also see where that was going too. Started shooting color a lot for the first time as well with the D70. I can't say my photography changed at all, I just found it easier to be get the results I wanted with the tools available in ps.

I use to not think so . But as a film photographer who moved on with the times and shoots all of my jobs in digital and lost interest in photography other then a way to make money, then recently started shooting film again for fun. I can honestly say that I am excited about photography again... One--- its not work... Two---- its the mechanical camera feel . Three--- Its looking at contact sheets again. (I rarely ever look at my digital images after a typical shoot) Four-- The anticipation of waiting for results has its own appeal . Five-- Maybe its another mid life crisis way of recapturing my youth Edited February 5, 2019 by wadeschields

I was never happy with my film exposures and I was a stickler for development temperatures and times. So exposure was the only variable. Don’t know why I didn’t bracket the film exposures. I relied on my Nikon FTN meter. Perhaps that was a mistake.

I shot film (mostly slides, but also a good bit of color neg) until about 2014 when traveling became possible, and I went to digital. I have shot little film since, but still keep thinking I'd like to occasionally, probably black and white, since I think true B&W has a quality that color digital is hard put to match, and it's something I can still develop myself.

 

When I did shoot slides, I used for many years a Nikon FTn, and did OK with the meter, but with the perpetual proviso that that meter is only the starting point, and most images would be fine tuned from that, depending on their balance.

 

I do think I shot differently on film, perhaps more carefully on the whole, but also less inclusively. Something I did very little of on film but do a lot of now is macros and attempts at flying insects and birds. Sometimes I feel as if I've gotten more careless or complacent about precise composition, knowing that I can toss a bad shot or crop it at will, but at the same time I also am more likely to grab something promising that I'd have passed up before.

In recent years, I try to take one film camera along on vacation trips, along with a DSLR.

 

Sometimes I take the same shot with both, other times not. It somewhat depends on my

mood at the time.

 

Yes digital shots cost less than film, but I don't use the "shoot now, ask question later"

method. (My daughter sometimes does that.)

 

While the costs for digital are lower, there is still time to go through and look at the shots.

 

OK, in my early film years (such as 7th and 8th grade yearbook) I would buy 100 foot

rolls from Freestyle for $5. Not that I would waste film, but I could (and did) take a

lot of pictures.

 

On the other hand, I didn't always get around to printing many of them.

 

So, now that I can digitize the negatives, and post them to web sites, many of them

are now memories from up to 50 years ago. (Back to 5th grade, with a Canon VI

borrowed from my father.)

Different photographs but only because of the differences in approach. With film I'm extremely cautious (financial reasons, as well). With digital, it's like "Shoot first, ask later."

I shoot B&W film because I enjoy the workflow. Darkroom printing is relaxing, and it gets me away from the damned computer. But I do shoot digital when necessary - indoor basketball lighting is usually dreadful, so I often bump the ISO to 6400.

Just whatever you want to do. It's just taking pictures of stuff. I shot 35mm for years and gave it up for MF film and then a couple weeks ago my son gave me a Leica M6 and now I am back to 35mm. I have a digital camera and it works fine. It's not a fun camera to me but I wanted it for travel and a bit of video. I think digital camera's should have wifi so you could use it like a tablet.