Article: 'The zen feeling of shooting film on vacation'

 

Link: The zen feeling of shooting film on vacation

 

Worth thinking about.

 

IMHO, the key to not getting bogged down while travelling is to take a small camera, regardless of type. It could be a Pentax or Olympus SLR; a Voigtlander Bessa RF; an RX100; a phone; and so on. Film does take up space but you don't have to do anything with it, except either store it or post it home. You could of course shoot JPEGs too.

 

I think that many people are too concerned with image quality, but you normally aren't shooting your travel photos to sell. Making photos worth looking at is the key, and you don't need a big sensor or film format to do that.

I have no idea what a "zen" feeling is, but for most of my personal holiday snaps over the last few years I've used a digital bridge camera. The wide zoom range eliminates a bagful of lenses, and a pocketful of SD cards takes up much less space than cassettes of film. Especially getting several K images to the card.

 

Batteries? A couple of spares and a universal charger takes care of that.

 

As for post-processing back at home, that takes up far less time than developing and scanning. Only to end up with what? Another bunch of digital files!

 

If "zen" means that I don't fret over camera (cheap and not a disaster if it's lost or stolen) or media, then I suppose I do take a zen approach.

Zen is not interjecting zen into the film/digital war.

 

:eek:

I do think that spending hours on post processing during your vacation is a choice and not a requirement with digital cameras. If you can't resist the temptation, then maybe film is a good idea.

Vacation: First we take photos, zen we go for some beers!

Unless I'm going on a "photo" vacation, I'm more likely to use digital than film and I have for a long time.

 

My family usually enjoys seeing the photos I've taken, and they like sitting around my laptop screen(or the TV screen if I get adventurous) and looking at them as I sort through them. Yes, they get "warts and all" but at the same time the instant gratification translates into fun for everyone.

 

I still take film for myself on vacation, but it's usually a higher percentage digital than film.

 

Granted this is situational dependent. I'm planning to drive my MG down the Blue Ridge Parkway this fall. It will likely just be me, and I'm planning on shooting almost exclusively 6x7.

I remember back in 2013 a trip we took to Belize. My wife was very into Facebook at the time (not at all anymore). She took time every evening to post that days pictures. She was often griping about the wifi connection.

 

I was not much better. I was regularly fiddling with the new underwater camera I had brought for the trip. The evenings were usually downtime for us anyway and I don't think it detracted from the enjoyment of our vacation. I can see how it can be taken too far though.

"Zen is not interjecting zen into the film/digital war."

- There's a war?

If there ever was one, it was won and lost years ago.

 

The ex-combatants don't even think about it now, and it's just a few old skirmishers lost in the jungle that don't realise it's all over, with the truce signed, sealed and delivered.

i miss the film v digital war.

I don't miss the war. Too each their own. I think we need to stop comparing what someone shoots with and just let it be. You shoot with what fills your needs. Always film for me. I like the look and probably would not be happy shooting digital for that reason. I shoot for artistic purposes and exhibit my work so I do care what each photo looks like. The lab I go to knows not to color correct my photos.

I am confused by the article. I had expected some ravishing about the joy to twist the knob of an Agfa Rondinax on a camping table (as the booklet that came with that daylight loading tank advertised) and soaking yesterday's roll in 3 water buckets you taped the night before, to have it on temperature, after that, while the wife is adjusting the BMW's valves (as advertised in the only zen related book I read)... or on a higher level about spending almost an hour on a hotel toilet to reload your holders. But no: "I’m just making photos and putting the exposed film in a big ziplock bag. I’ll send it off to Richard Photo Lab in California when I’m back.

So liberating.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by all the camera gear and processing, just give the analog photography a try. You might just love it.

I know I do."

I don't get it. :(

I recall coming home from vacations spent burning 10 or 20 rolls of slide film in tele & WA body, receiving those sleeved and spending time to mount them and even harder; sort them into a somewhat chronological order. I also believe even with a Jobo doing 4 - 5 rolls at a time I was quite occupied to get wilder vacations just processed.

I honestly don't know a difference between mailing rolls to one or cards to another external service provider, if a few bearable proofs are all you desire. I also don't understand the fuzz about digital camera surrounding stuff. Why would one need more than a battery charger to enjoy a vacation? Changing cards is a choice nowadays.

If B&W is the goal, DIY seems the way to go.

The only thing I am sure about: Sinking cards into domestic storage once you are home demands not much attention and you can even share untouched RAW files with others. - Did you ever hand out files of neg sleeves to others to print their share from those?

I feel closer to an odd RAW than to a neg I should have somewhere.

Edited August 5, 2017 by Jochen

I don't get it. :(

 

The author apparently took a bunch of electronic crap with them and spent a lot of time post-processing images while on vacation. To the point that it was detracting from the enjoyment of the vacation itself.

 

Of course they could just choose to leave the computer and iPad at home and not post-process the digital images until they got back. I don't really see the difference there except that maybe shooting film helps them avoid the temptation.

 

I like film but this doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to choose it over using a digital camera. However, if it works for them...

"Of course they could just choose to leave the computer and iPad at home and not post-process the digital images until they got back."

Or they could just do what people did with film -wait until they got back and drop the SD card off at the lab to have prints made. What is with this attitude that people have to post process digital images themselves? That would be like telling a film user that he had to build his own darkroom to post process his film images.

JG -- Imagine the enormous frustration of not having immediate gratification, and beyond that, the ability to edit the results. Horrors! On big trips in film days I bought a supply of mailers for the slide film so they would be waiting at home when I got there. That was pretty creamy. Tri X had to wait till I got back. Nowadays, on my annual digital photo trips, I chimp and later, may view the day's shots on my kindle fire. I don't post process much, can't imagine burning up trip time when I could be actually out doing other fun things that I can't do at home.

"Of course they could just choose to leave the computer and iPad at home and not post-process the digital images until they got back."

Or they could just do what people did with film -wait until they got back and drop the SD card off at the lab to have prints made. What is with this attitude that people have to post process digital images themselves? That would be like telling a film user that he had to build his own darkroom to post process his film images.

 

Well, that's what the person who wrote the blog post did on their vacations, - edited photos. I don't know that it's so much that people feel they have to post-process digital images themselves. They do it because they can. Post-processing/photo editing is one of the things that the digital age has brought to the masses. You don't need a darkroom with expensive equipment and a lot of training. You don't even need a computer.

 

You can edit photos right on your phone, using either photos taken on the phone itself or photos uploaded from a professional level camera.

 

And Sandy is right, it is a symptom of modern society's penchant for instant gratification. Why wait until I get home to share my vacation photos? I can do it immediately after I've taken them. The author forces themselves to delay that gratification by shooting film. Self discipline could also solve that problem, but I'll admit that sometimes removing temptation is a better tactic.

I don't know that it's so much that people feel they have to post-process digital images themselves.

Well, if the author is going to choose to spend time post processing on his vacation, then he shouldn't complain about it. Instead he could choose not to post process on his vacation and not complain about it, but then he might not have a silly article to write. He's the one who says it's a burden, and he lays that at the feet of the digital process instead of taking responsibility for the way he uses it.

Why wait until I get home to share my vacation photos?

One reason would be so it doesn't become a burden that distracts you from the Zen of your vacation. I would think Zen would suggest that if processing digital photos is a burden when on vacation, one might not want to blame the digital process as much as one might want to work on their own self control. A little Zen practice might help with that self control where blaming digital equipment is pretty much bad faith and denial.

Tom, I just got home from a 2-week vacation. I took hundreds of digital photos. I had with me a camera, a couple of batteries, a charger, a couple of cards, and an external flash. It all fit nicely in a backpack which I took on the plane with me.

 

I don't think I even looked at the images on the camera's screen at the end of each day, much less considered processing them while I was away. For me, that didn't take thinking in terms of Zen or self discipline. Processing while on vacation wasn't something I had to consciously avoid. It was something that didn't even occur to me, because my evenings and nights were spent enjoying dinner, taking starlit walks, making music, and having conversations with people I was traveling with and people I'd newly met.

 

I actually do enjoy post processing my own photos quite a bit, and don't ever feel it as a burden. It's something I love to do, especially on foggy, damp, cold, windy San Francisco days in August. So, I'll spend a couple of hours a day processing what I want when I want to and losing myself in doing so.

 

I don't concern myself with society's supposed need for instant gratification. It's probably a little over-hyped to begin with, likely affects me to some extent and is certainly not a prism through which I view my own decisions and actions.

I usually bring one film camera and one digital camera on vacation, though usually with many more digital camera pictures.

 

I pretty much don't post-process, except for big misteaks. Mostly that is setting the color balance wrong, and not noticing until later.

 

I do cropping for printing, but otherwise mostly don't do that, either.

 

In film days, I used VPS for its natural, not exaggerated, color, or Ektachrome 100 for slides.

 

Also, when you upload to FB there is a higher resolution option, where it saves the image in higher than normal resolution.

Normal is about good enough for screen images, but barely for printing. Higher isn't the full resolution of the original, but enough

for prints to 5x7, and probably even 8x10.

"That would be like telling a film user that he had to build his own darkroom to postprocess his film images."

 

- And that's a bad thing!?

My counter argument would be: "If you're only going to turn a film image into a digital one; why bother with film at all? And further; if you're going to give over half of the creative process to a machine or a technician who has no idea what image you pre-conceived (you did do that before pressing the button, right?), then that's just rank amateur random snapshooting and it doesn't matter what capture medium was used."

"That would be like telling a film user that he had to build his own darkroom to postprocess his film images."—James

 

- And that's a bad thing!?

No one said it would be a bad thing. James suggested that, historically, many people didn't have darkrooms and didn't post-process their own images. Saying that no one HAS TO process images, digital or film, is not the same as saying it's a bad thing to do so.

 

Many of the great photographers we've come to know and love didn't do their own darkroom work. That's not right or wrong, and it doesn't make the difference between a great photographer and a rank amateur.

My counter argument would be: "If you're only going to turn a film image into a digital one; why bother with film at all? And further; if you're going to give over half of the creative process to a machine or a technician who has no idea what image you pre-conceived (you did do that before pressing the button, right?), then that's just rank amateur random snapshooting and it doesn't matter what capture medium was used."

It happens I post process my images and love that part of the process, as I said. For me, it's part of the art and craft of making photos. And yet, I don't have to condescend and come up with names like "rank amateur snapshooting" for folks who don't think and act like me. I just accept that they put their efforts elsewhere and have a different sense of photo-making than I do. I'm secure enough in what I do not to have to look down on others who don't do what I do.

What is with this attitude that people have to post process digital images themselves?

For me it is an essential part of the image creation process. With film, I could never do it myself (OK, B&W would have been feasible, color not so much) and I got very much fed up with the results I got back from every lab I tried. In the end, I was shooting only slide film out of mere desperation; at least I was safe from any "lab interpretation" of the results. With digital I got the control over the image creation process that I never enjoyed with film.

 

The "zen feeling of shooting film on vacation" - utter BS. The guy choose one path over the other not realizing that digital offered him EXACTLY the same option as film; he's got no one to blame but himself for the choices he made. Zen has nothing to do with it, clear thinking and self-discipline do.

"That would be like telling a film user that he had to build his own darkroom to postprocess his film images."

 

- And that's a bad thing!?

My counter argument would be: "If you're only going to turn a film image into a digital one; why bother with film at all? And further; if you're going to give over half of the creative process to a machine or a technician who has no idea what image you pre-conceived (you did do that before pressing the button, right?), then that's just rank amateur random snapshooting and it doesn't matter what capture medium was used."

 

Valid questions. I would say that a scanned film image doesn't look the same as an image that was captured digitally. I'd also say that medium format film cameras can be had much more inexpensively than the equivalent digital equipment, though I'm sure that will change over time. Scanning medium format film can deliver some fantastic results.

 

And further, there's nothing to stop you from both scanning and then later printing in the traditional method.

Edited August 6, 2017 by tomspielman

he's got no one to blame but himself for the choices he made. Zen has nothing to do with it, clear thinking and self-discipline do.

The guy is not on trial, you know.

 

I would say that a scanned film image doesn't look the same as an image that was captured digitally.

I would agree. Sometimes it's very close, sometimes it isn't. By physical necessity they can never be exactly the same. Not to mention the fact that different emulsions have different characteristics. Compare Fuji 400H to, say, Ektar 100.

Then take your film and memory cards to a competant lab and you should be fine. Instant gratification is a tad over rated. Our fast food society.

The guy is not on trial, you know.

If he doesn't want to be judged, he shouldn't publish his stuff.