Film is Dead!

This afternoon I did some shooting with a friend using his Hassy and the Kodak digital back. The resulting 16mb images were so unbelieveable that I almost dropped deuce.

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After shooting we printed his images on an Epson 10000 at 30"x30". Let me tell all you digititaldoubters, these images blow away anything I have seen produced using wet photography.

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For this dude, film is dead. I will be selling my film cameras asap.

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Jon Adermeyer

Adermeyer Photography

Denver, Colorado

Which Kodak digital back? Are you prepared to do a head to head

comparison with film and drum scan? From what I have ascertained,

Kodaks best back still can't match 4x5 film but comes very close...

would you agree with this?

Can we develop a separate subsection away from the main forum for

these types of posts? They seem to pop up every week or two, say

basically the same thing, and fill bandwidth that could probably be

put to better use.

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(Sigh.) Yes, Jon, a lot of us have seen MF digital and are choosing to

stick with film, thank you very much.

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I was at Calumet about a month ago and I said to the Kodak digital

sales guy, "Show me your best digital prints." He pulled out some--you

guessed it--Kodak/Hassy prints, probably about 30x30, made from some

enormous file size (far larger than 16mb, Jon; 48mb?), support for

which would be extremely expensive for field work. I said, "They're

very nice, but they look REALLY digital to me."

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Am I alone here, or are there others who can spot even the best MF

digital prints from a couple of feet away? (i.e., no loupe

needed--they just look, well, digital) Every photographer has

different standards, I know, but I can't get over the low quality that

many digital proponents call "better than film."

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Will the day come when digital equals film in both quality and economy

for the majority of LF shooters? Probably. Is that day here yet? Not

from any evidence I've seen--not even close.

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So sure, dude, go do your gnarly digital stuff. If you're running a

studio, it probably makes economic sense (for many photo businesses it

already did a couple of years ago; some catalog guys I know have been

shooting digital for almost a decade now).

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But please don't assume that those on this forum who stick with film

haven't seen the light; it might just be that they can see things that

you cannot.

Well, Film isn't dead yet. The Fat Lady hasn't sung, but I swear I

can hear her clearing her throat!

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I've spent the better part of the last 20 years trying to become

proficient in large format photography, and presently use 4x5,

5x7 and 8x10 formats.

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I'll be keeping my Wisner and Deardorff equipment and using it

for the rest of my life (I hope), but for me and my business to

survive I've made the plunge into digital and can't believe the

results I'm getting (D30 using stair interpolation for up-res-ing).

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That being said, I also think there's an inherient "depth" to a fine

black and white print that digital can't (yet) match, so when I need

to express something photographically in which that "look" or

"depth" is important, it's back to the analog (film) capture

methods.

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But for most everything I do to put bread on the table, the new

digital world offers too big an advantage to ignore.

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I see it as another tool in the box, to be used when called for.

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Just my two cents.

I like the digital process and will be happy to use it when it

becomes economically feasible for me, and as long as I am satisfied

with the quality (no 30x40" prints from a 640x480-pixel file). Also,

I like being able to make simple corrections and changes in Photoshop.

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One of the reasons that I often prefer film-based prints is that,

<b>in my opinion</b>, the image quality degrades gracefully; if the

film does not have great detail it will look soft and fuzzy, whereas

a digital print will have hard edges that may look pixelated. This

may not be the case all of the time, but I've seen it often. My

preference may be due to that fact that I have seen film-based prints

my entire life, and digital ones only in the last several years. Had

their positions been reversed, I may well have felt more comfortable

with digital prints.

I hate digital. It's Monday so I hate everything today. I'm also a

film hugging Neanderthal who hasn't seen the light and doesn't want

to. When (as if!) film ever dies, I have the chemical formulas. I

can make my own paper negatives (it's called Kalitype or Nickelodian

or sumpthin). Us uneddicated Luddites cain't spel none too gud

neither. Better yet, I will buy all that nasty yucky smelly film as

scrap, a few dollars per ton and cram it in the freezer. Sell us

all your bad bad bad wet photo cameras too... Just dry them off

first. Whatever I can't use up will go on EBay at ridiculous prices

to collectors. I'll be a rich guy. :) :)

I find it odd that in order for something (digital imaging) to be

considered good or worthwhile or good enough, that it has to be

compared with something (photography) that already exists and is

readily available and is already quite good enough. Its amusing for me

to watch digital try to be something it never quite will be. It will

always be trying to be as good as, or better than, and compared

against, photography. Maybe someday it will find its own self, but its

looking in the wrong place, trying to be an imitation. If photography

had stayed on that route, imitating painting, we never would have seen

a Weston, or an Adams, or a Cunningham...

Geez, when I finish shooting I just love the feel of negatives in my

hand as I load them onto reels or into tanks. The pyro sloshing

around my fingers, slowly seeping into my skin through small pores.

The smeel of fixer and stop in the morning goes with my coffee like

bacon goes with eggs.

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Silicon is like a waffle soaked in syrup for hours. Yuch!

It sort of bothers me to contribute to a troll post, but oh well....

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If you are an audio enthusiast, then you might remember the

analog/digital flame wars that heralded the debut of CDs. Go read

some back issues of "The Absolute Sound" or "Stereophile". Same

stuff.

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My point? I don't know that we can draw perfect parallels, but

twenty years after CDs "killed" vinyl, you can still buy records.

Not as full a selection as before, but you can still get them. Some

still say a good vinyl pressing is better than a CD. Others claim

(more accurately, IMHO), that vinyl is different from digital, but

has it's own inherent sonic qualities. Whaddya you know, they might

both be good.

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And, there may be those among us that choose to work with film even

if digital really is "better", just 'cause we want to. That's why

they call it art.

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I thought about making some bumpers stickers that read, "Film isn't

dead...there's plenty of it on my bathroom tile", but that's just too

much to read while your're driving.

ooohhh eyahhhhh...

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wait till the next digital back knocks your socks off..wait till the

next printer back knocks your socks off.. wait till the next XYZ

computer knocks your socks off... and so on....

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digital is 1 and 0... you have nothing to hang on...it's ok for

commercial and that's it...

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I will stick to films...

While I really think digital is great, I have to say posts like this

read like someone who just sobered up and found a new

addiction be it religion or AA, or a new drug. Once he finishes

spending the $30K -60,000 K (which next year will be worth 1/3rd

to maybe half of what he spent this year) on a set up similar to

his friends toreplace maybe $8K forth of cameras he should

write back.<P>Like I said I think digital is great.<P>And yes I

have worked with that Kodak back.

> I said, "They're very nice, but they look REALLY digital to me."

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yep, really digital. where's the grain? where's the scratches?

where's the fingerprints? where's the uneven processing? where's the

film-flatness artifacts? well .. you get the point. there's room for

both analogue and digital. I know that you can synthesize a very good

cello tone electronically these days. but still, I get up in the

morning and draw a bow across gut strings and play Bach. my fingers

connect bow through strings through wood, to feel each note in my

chest as I play. it's organic. I won't have a problem making my first

digital CD.

Well I have my 8x10 and my 12x20 negative right here I dont see any

scratches, fingerprints, uneven development and/or did not need any

kind of film flatness gizmo....Darn I must have had a digital back

all these years and did not know it!! :-)))

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Those attributes are not solely the charachteristics of a digital

back, like I said in a previous post, I have not had to spot a print

in many years. Sure my technique for loading film holders is anal

retentive and takes a long time...but no dust, etc. So sorry, your

argument does not convice me Daniel.

I spend about 50-60 hours a week in front of my computer, so why in

the hell would I want to spend more 'processing' photographs?

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I've been doing LF for just over a year, and I'll do it until I die.

With film.

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Keep your digital camera, and sell your analog cameras. While it may

work for you, it doesn't work for most of us.

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BTW, if film is dead, you might as well give your equipment away.

You probably won't get very much money for it, since, as you put

it, 'film is dead'.

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Hell, you can give your equipment to me if you wish. Save you the

trouble of trying to sell your old, outdated equipment. :-)

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-klm.

> So sorry, your argument does not convice me Daniel.

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uh ... don't drop that negative Jorge. I wasn't arguing either way. I

could care less about these silly comparisons. and like I said,

there's room for both. the main point is to enjoy your photography.

the process and results.

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there's no arguing that using equipment of this calibre will yield

grand results. however, how much is invested in a digital back for my

Hasselblads and an Epson 10000? I had a wonderful time today, walking

through downtown Portland in the rain with just my Rolleicord and

Holga.

In a recent photo magazine article, one of the proponents of B&W

digital (maybe Chip Forelli or Huntington Witherall) was reviewing

the latest and best (for that moment) Epson printer and how they had

a closet full of printers they had previously tried. All I can say

is the last time I looked I did not have a closet full of Omega D-2

enlargers. Yes digital is wonderful, but to get the quality equal to

a fine print from LF negs is still a rich man's game.

Digital, way to expensive with a very short life span.

LF, cheap, the cheapest format I own, and lasts a life time.

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Film is alive and well. A mature business making money. Digital is

still climbing that steep upward slope of its product life cycle.

When it gets to the top, if it gets to the top, I don't think it will

be a "King of the hill" type contest.

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By the way, I don't think any two people have seen that hill from

quite the same angle, or in quite the same light. Even if they are

standing side by side.

I have a friend who owns a photo lab. He does both digital and

wet film processing. He uses digital for all his commercial

work and wet film for all his fine art work. Digital allows him to

easily recover from screw ups and create images that would be

expensive to do with sets and wet film. For fine art work his

emphasis is on clarity. He does big crystal clear images and he

says you cannot get that with digital. Wet film is his preferred

solution for landscapes.

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Of course, cost is not a consideration because he has access to

extensive equipment for either type. His preferences are based

soley on functionality.

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For me cost is a consideration. Digital is extremely expensive

and not cost effective. Advertizing commands big dollars. Fine

art does not. What I can do with five dollars of wet film is

amazing.

Custom Aspen snowboard, $750

Granny-killing SUV with chains, $40,000

16MB Kodak Digital Back for Hassie $40,001

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The feeling you get pulling soggy fibre print from final wash -

Priceless! (Some things in life ARE priceless... and for everything

else, there's Mastercard)

"What is art?" Many years back when photographers used to drag tents

with them to do their wet plate processing it was a struggle to

produce good results, yet they did and few among us(certainly not

myself) can reproduce what they did.

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Ever stood in a museum and looked at marble statue and thought: "How

the hell did they do it??!!". Move that hammer perhaps just a

fraction to quickly...? Unforgiving? But hey, today we have it

easy. I can have my heavy 5x7 unpacked and set up in a few minutes.

And can develop/print a few good negs in no more than a day's work,

with minimal exposure to toxic chemicals/fumes.

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10%. That's about how much of our brain we use - when we try really

hard. So how did they do it?? They used a few % more. They

excelled in what they did. A constant struggle with life - utterly

unforgiving. Becoming one with your environment - senses enhanced to

a point where a split second before that hammer strikes he already

knew with 100% certainty that the marble would shatter. We call them

Masters. And when you have mastered what you do(or strive to) and

your path there has challenged your boundaries and scarred you along

the way and when what you do in some way communicates to people,

then - and only then - is it art.

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Film might be dying, but when it goes I will in some other more

unforgiving medium continue to strive for that 'oneness'. As for

this specific tread... I suggest that 'this dude' take his digital

camera... and become one with it.

I have to agree with Steve...this subject appears weekly! Take it

somewhere else. I have to believe film will be available for decades

as too many people ENJOY photography with film. It may not dominate

in professional circles anymore, but too many people have a passion

for "doing it from scratch" to let it completely die. I don't have a

problem with digital other than resistance and fear. I would hate for

digital to KILL film altogether...but somehow I can't see this

happening.

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I became interested in photography in 1971. I instantly fell in love

with large format, although I also had a Nikon for general use. Back

then, everyone was debating over 35mm versus LF, over and over and

over! If there was LF website back then, this would be the hot topic.

I got so burned out on people telling me that large format was on the

way out and perspective control would be incorporated into small

formats...just you wait and see!!!! Thirty years later and large

format is still alive. At somepoint along the way the dust seemed to

have settled. A lot of the small format advocates took a different

point of view and started to dabble in large format with amazement!

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I am grateful to all of you on this website, along with others like

Graflex.org for helping me keep my love for film alive!

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J. P.

1)-I wouldn't have my child play on the computer and...ERASE all my

pictures !

2)-I keep my negative.

Negative will never be changed on photoshop by somebody. Negative are

negative (and solid, you touch them !), Digital pic are 1 and 0.

Digital pic has absolutely No Value if you are able to modify the

image endlessly. Even worse, you loose the last control of your

image.

I wonder how much experience and skill Jon has with digital imaging of

film-based originals. Anyone who says a 16-MB file outperforms film

sounds to me like they don't know much about the limits of what can be

gotten from film.

Film is far from dead. In Digital (Photo?) magazine, latest issue,

they said that film sales were higher in 2001 than in 2000. Trying to

ride on the coat tails of film, the writer theorized that the

increase came about because digitial got everyone excited about

photography again.

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Digital prints look crappy compared to real darkroom prints. Digital

has it's problems too: banding, high cost of digital backs, computer

software problems, etc.

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Commercial photogs have justification for digital. Most of the rest

have a longer return on investment. Oh ya, and don't forget that next

year the latest and greatest digital equipment will make all their

current equipment obsolete.

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My opinion from what I've seen is that most of the people shouting

film is dead are younger types. Not all, but a lot of younger folks.

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Can you see a digital wedding photographer with his Hasselblad and

expensive digital back, trying to sell his pictures to the client,

who already has been handed about a dozen disks of pictures taken by

friends and relatives at the same wedding?

1.) "Film is dead"<P><B>Funny, but I haven't used living film in a

very long tim</B><P>

2.) "Film is dead"<P><B> Long live the Film!"</B><P>

3.) "Film is dead"<P><B> Hey... wasn't that a Curtis Mayfield hit

song from the "Superfly" soundtrack?</B><P>

4.) "Film is dead"<P> <B>No it just smells funny (apologies to

Frank Zappa, who is indeed, quite dead.)</B><P>5.) "Film is

dead"<P>

<B>Please don't tell Mother, it will break her heart.</B>