How many still use film?

<p>Just thought that I would ask. <br>

How many people out there are still using film? 35mm, medium/large format etc.<br>

Although I have recently, couple of years ago, bought a digital camera I am back to using film. I am waiting on a roll of slide film returning from the lab and had forgotten that wonderful feeling of expectation tinged with anxiety.</p>

 

<p>I`m currently using film (and digital as well), last shots on past week (TX400). I use to process it on my own darkroom. It is almost nothing in comparison with my digital shots, thought.<br /> Lately, 35mm format - 50%, 6x7 format - 50%. B&W only.</p>

<p>Only 1 roll in the last several months, though I feel guilty about it given how much film is in my refrigerator and freezer.</p>

<p>Using film with a Hasselblad 500CM, Mamiya RZ67 Pro II, RB, 645 Super.<br>

Just purchased a mint Canon 1N and a Minolta X700.<br>

I still shoot digital too, but trying to go more and more back to film.</p>

<p>I'm still using my Canon FD gear in tandem with EOS film and digital gear. About 1/3 of my images are taken on print film, and the rest are digital.</p>

<p>Since shooting my first roll of Kodak Ektar 100 short after it's release, it's become my favourite film. While it may not render skin tones as authentically as does Portra, its resolution is quite simply astounding.</p>

<p>Frank, you've very well described the feeling I get while waiting for film to be developed.</p>

<p>I spent yesterday stauking whitetailed deer in Shenandoah Nat'l Park with an F3hp & FE2/MD12 combo. While I shoot with a D80 most days now, & own F80 & N90s 35mm AF bodies, nothing gives me the feelings of creatvity & self satisfaction that matches using a quality film body. My rolls of film are in for development as I type & will be put on a photo CD with no prints so I can download to my computer, play, tweek & print as I see fit. Best of both worlds!</p>

<p>I use it and prefer it, although I also use digital at times.</p>

<p>I went completely digital about five years ago but in the last twelve months I've gone back exclusively to film. I shoot with old Nikons and Leicas for 35mm, Hasselblad and RZ67 for 120 and a Cambo and a Speed Graphic for 4x5. It's good to be back!</p>

<p>100% film here. I had a D100 in 2003 but I luckily my wife decided she was going to have it!</p>

<p>It's the hours spent in front of the computer I can't stand. I may as well be at work!</p>

<p>I spend more hours in front of the computer scanning my 35mm than I spend postprocessing my digital landscape shots. And the computer scans still require just as much post processing. And then there is the development time if I'm doing it myself or the wait time if I'm waiting for someone else to process the film.</p>

<p>Of course you could do all your film printing in the darkroom, but I never was able to afford a color darkroom in the old days so I never had the control over the prints I needed. I guess I don't mind working in Aperture to post process because it seems quick and easy. Still, like I said I have an awful lot of film sitting in the fridge and some of it I would really like to use, like the Tech Pan and the HIE. But for me it's MORE work not less.</p>

<p>I just received my first digital camera over Christmas. So I use it to accompany my use of my EOS, FD, and Mamiya M645 gear. JR</p>

<p>For my own work I mostly use color and b/w 35mm and 120 film; digital is for work and the occasional snapshots :)</p>

<p>Just a couple months ago I bought Nikon F5 body, was 100% digital until then (not counting my film P&S-camera back in the 80's when I was a kid). I still use mostly digital bodies, but I must admit I love shooting film. For me film is for those moments when I take the time to slow myself down a bit and really enjoy about photography.</p>

<p>I can shoot a hundred pictures on digital in under an hour. Usually, I'll be satisfied with about 5 of them. That's 5% keepers and only 5 an hour, with frantic shooting in between. When I'm shooting film, I'll take maybe 15 pictures in an hour, and I'll be satisfied with 10 of them. I'm keeping 66%, yielding 10 an hour, and I'm a lot more relaxed as I shoot. It's hard for me to identify a style of shooting where my results would actually improve by using a digital camera.</p>

<p>As a result, I'm shooting about 75% of the time with 35mm film. I have an easier time getting negatives developed, and I like the results, so I'm moving away from slide film.</p>

<p>Not having used a full-frame digital, I can only compare cropped digital with 35mm film. I like the narrower DOF of 35mm better than digital, which seems to want to put everything in focus. I like the heft of film cameras, vs the chincy little digital ones. I like the wide angle lenses better on 35mm, too. Wide angle technology for cropped frame is still lagging behind.</p>

<p>I've spent the last year getting into film - all medium format save for one 35mm roll shot through an old SRT-101. I started by doing all my black & white dev at home in a Paterson tank, and in the last few months decided to pick up a Jobo and chemicals to do color neg and slide as well.<br>

It's certainly much more time consuming, but for me it's a labor of love and appreciation of the "old ways" of doing things. I was never really interested in the process of photography when I was younger, but after the last decade learning the ropes of photography with nothing but digital cameras, it's been very rewarding to read through Ansel Adams' books and learn this film stuff.<br>

One day I hope to be able to do some prints (probably use one bathroom for short durations as a makeshift darkroom)... but til then, scanning and tweaking in Aperture / Photoshop, then printing to an inkjet is good enough.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I spend more hours in front of the computer scanning my 35mm than I spend postprocessing my digital landscape shots. And the computer scans still require just as much post processing.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But I don't do scanning.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Of course you could do all your film printing in the darkroom.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because I do that!</p>

 

<p>I shoot Elitechrome 100 and 200 if I need the speed. I am going to drop off some at the lab today. They will develop it and make a high quality CD for me that will print out to 8x12. I then can scan the positive for a larger print if I am motivated.</p>

<p>I shoot digital then get the best shots on film as well. Usually 8x10, sometimes 5x7 or 6x7cm.</p>

<p>I shoot 35mm and medium format, color, slides, B&W, whatever. And digital. They're both good for different reasons. I could be doing everything I want to do with digital, but I often find film shooting enjoyable and I love retro stuff like old cameras.</p>

<p>Film only. 8mm thru large-format. But mostly 6x6 medium format. Its great to be square!</p>

About 95% transparencies, very little scanning except for what I may want to Email.

<p>Film only too, 35mm & MF. The thing is that I don't see anyone else in my circle shooting film these days, and it happen that I know quite a few keen photographers, all digital shooters now</p>

<p> Why do you care, and why is this important?</p>

<p>Maybe Photo.net moderator can make this into an ongoing poll so the question doesn't get asked at least 2x per month...how is this even germane to making interesting photographs? </p>

<p>i have been shooting more film in the last 6 months than i have in the last 3 years, my only problem is i don't work in a lab anymore so i don't get my old huge discount on processing, so now my rolls will sit around 3 or 4 weeks waiting for a paycheck that doesn't all go to bills. I have stopped getting cd's on them however because i figure if I'm going to shoot film, i want to really commit to shooting film 100%. i shoot a little bit of 35mm (OM1), a lot of 120 (Rolleicord, holga and pinhole) and i just getting back in to 4x5 too.</p>

<p>I shoot digital and medium format. My high end portrait work is done with traditional retouching and artwork, printed OPTIVALLY form an enlarger, didging and burning to control color & tonality. Need to find a lab that will print color optically though. It's relevent only as an indicator of what people are accepting as a quality image. All I know is that as a film and digital portrait artist, film portrait images I create and display have much more emotional appeal to potential clients. SO much so, they usually ask "What is this?" . As the acceptable standard for color, dynamic range and tonality has lowered with the prevelance of digital capture and printing, a well made, custom printed and traditionally artworked medium format film image takes their breath away. Why else would clients choose my work over other talented professionals shooting digital? There are 4 high end portraitists in my area, we all charge about the same, $150 per inch, with average individual portrait sales of $7000. I have to attribute at least a portion of my popularity and success to film images & enlarger printing.</p>