The golden age of film photography?

I say it's RIGHT NOW.

 

Sure, digital is all the rage. But, think about it for a moment: because of that, good, used film cameras are inexpensive and plentiful. Yet

film is still popular enough that you can buy it and get it developed at the neighborhood supermarket.

 

I don't think there's ever been the combination of inexpensive equipment and widespread availability of film that there is right now. Or ever

will be.

 

So use those classic cameras and enjoy them!

I was going to say the '60's and '70's, but on reflection, you are spot on. I'm going to take your advice straight away!

 

Tony

I think that as time progresses, film will once again start to build in popularity. Digital, in my opinion, is a better learning tool because of the immediate feedback. Once the digital shooters start to learn the ropes, I think they will be more willing to start shooting film, and not worry about having so many duds (like myself). I started the other way around and quickly realized that shooting fully manual was out of my league and went digital to learn the ropes. There's no doubt that I'm going to still end up using my 2 Praktica L bodies at some point when I learn more, simply because they are:

 

a) cooler looking than any digital body (IMO)

 

b) film still has qualities that are unmatched by digital (IMO)

 

c) they make me look cooler than being one of the zillions of people with DSLR's (IMO)

 

I seriously think that film will make a pretty raging comeback once people who are now just learning on digital, really come to grips with the fundamentals of photography.

One best think with the negative film is : just shot and drop it for the any print size, no need to work on computer. And with todays nice films and lab equipements, results are so great.

 

I recently bought a scanner for my 35mm work and ordered a battery pack / grip for my 35mm camera (Yes it is taking time to come for me because of sortage of film equips.).

 

More time is passing with my film SLR, I am more falling in love with this, when today we have plenty of DSLR options, but still those are unable to attract me at least.

 

Yes, I do feel there is sortage of films labs but every lab which was developing films in my town still develpes the C-41 films, but unfortunately I don;t found any E-6 lab today so I due to this I couldn't expereince that beauty, and I have a unshot slide roll in my bag.

 

When I bought my 50mm f/1.8, result were so great, earlier whenever I shot with my second hand 28-80 kit lensm results were not good always, but the 70-300 was paying well for me.

<p>"Digital, in my opinion, is a better learning tool because of the immediate feedback. Once the digital

shooters start to learn the ropes, I think they will be more willing to start shooting film"

 

<hr>

 

<p>Me ...

 

<p>2005 -> buy Canon 10D dSLR and take up photography for the first time

 

<p>2006 -> sell Canon, buy Epson R-D1 digital rangefinder

 

<p>2007 -> sell Epson (and my motorbike!), buy Leica M8

 

<p>2008 -> buy Certo-Six medium-format 6x6 folding camera and start using film for the first time

 

<p><grin>

 

 

<p> 

<p>-=Rich=-

He is right, B&W film has never been better, you can use more developers with greater ease of purchase than ever, Color film and Slides are as good or better than ever. Combine that with 75 years of interesting cameras and lenses which you can almost customize for your exact purposes. I feel like I am living in a combination candy store and toy shop.

Golden age for us who are probably in middle age and in golden years, but not for the average photog. Take a poll of everyone who answers this tread and you'll see. Film is deader than Elvis once we peer out past our own little world and look at the bigger picture.

Yeah George, we aren't getting any younger. When I tell people that I still shoot film, and use cameras that are older then they are, the people who know seem to have a quiet respect. I've also had many great conversations with much younger folks who are very curious about it, and some who actually want to learn. I for one hope, and pray that film will never die, and that there will always be some of us around to pass it on to others. I kind of diagree that digital is a good learning tool though, mainly because most people simply leave their digital on full auto, or program, and have no idea what the camera is actually doing, or why. Of course, the same was said about the first AE, and program 35mm cameras in the late 60s, and early 70s.

George, You may well be right about the bigger picture, but I'm seeing signs that many are starting to turn to

film either for the first time, or after getting into digital.

 

It's pretty exciting that Kodak either has, or is, coming out with several new films, including B&W and the new

color Ektar 100. http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/prodSupportIndex.jhtml

 

I just hope people will buy enough that economies of scale will keep prices from rising too much. It would be

really nice to have more local high quality labs, especially, but I suppose we can always mail it if that doesn't

materialize.

 

Incidentally, and I know this is off topic, but how well can non-dip/dunk processing compete with dip and dunk?

Hope I'm not sounding like too much of an ignoramus, as this is an area I am not familiar with. Reason I ask,

there is a gentleman doing above average processing in my local area, but it is not "dip and dunk" (I asked him).

I remember back in the mid 1980s when the US dollar was strong and new Japanese camera equipment was relatively cheap. There was an SLR camera/lens boom that I don't think we'll see again anytime soon. In New Orleans (where I'm from), new camera stores were popping up overnight as established stores were opening second stores. Nowadays, I can't think of a single camera store in New Orleans' city limits. They've all moved to the suburbs or gone out of business.

My usual process is have Costco process the film into 4 x 6 inch prints, and also digitize them onto a CD. $2.40

for the prints and $2.98 for the CD. This gives me the opportunity to make some mods and print 8 by 10s at home

or have Costco produce a 12 by 18 for $2.99. They can do the whole thing in about an hour. When I talked with

them yesterday, they said that they are still developing a lot of film, which is encouraging. In another thread

in this forum, I expressed some disappointment in a set of prints produced by a 24mm FD lens, with Fuji Superia

Ultra 400 film. They seemed to have a blue cast for the photos I took in the late afternoon. The Costco

employee offerred to run the negatices through the printing process again. I said I would hold off until I

looked at the CD, on which the photos looked just fine. I am pointing all this out just to illustrate that while

digital provides instant feedback, one can still get fairly quick feedback at a reasonable price and get friendly

support even at a very large store like Costco.

 

I am reading an interesting book by fly fishing guru John Gierach devoted to the subject of fine bamboo fly rods.

Even though fiberglass and graphite rods provide good performance at reasonable cost, there has been a

resurgence of interest in bamboo fly rods, especially those that were hand made by the masters in to 1930s - 60s.

Of course, collectors, who will never take these near any water, are driving up the prices merely to display

these rods in a glass case. Sounds familiar.

Vincent Peri there are 2 camera stores that I know in the New Orleans limit. The Darkroom on Sophie Wright Ave. near

Magazine St. and Moldaner's on Carrolton near the bend, right next to Camellia Grill. They both process B&W, C-41,

and E-6. Moldaner's sends out everything I think, and I know that The Darkroom processes B&W in house.

 

In response to this thread, I'm 19. I shoot with a Canon Rebel G and a Mamiya RB67. I learned on the Rebel ( my dad

passed it down to me). After a year or two I wanted to buy a new camera. At first I wanted to get a DSLR, but after

doing a lot of research I decided to get the Mamiya. Most young people shoot digital, but there are more than you think

that shoot film. You can help keep film alive by educating young people about film and its processes. I have also seen

many Holgas being used by those who want to experiment with film.

I think it is a kind of Golden Age.... while a few emulsions have gone the way of the dinosaurs, there are quite a few new ones that are better than anything ever made.... of yeah, and you can even get your hands on many types of film (like 127) that used to be impossible to get, with the help of the internet. And through photo.net and online sources like butkus's site you can get manuals for just about every camera ever made. In the 1980s, if it wasn't something current you were pretty much stuck with guessing and hoping you got it right. It's interesting... the announcement of the "death" of Polaroid films was almost immediately followed by a huge surge of interest in the cameras.

I too, hope that there are still enough film shooters who will support the new films and firms such as Cosina-Voigtlander, otherwise we may be referring to this golden age as film's last gasp.

 

And I left out Leica on purpose. They are no longer relevant to me as they certainly don't have any products that I would pay anywhere near the current prices for. I'll just keep my M6 and older Leica lenses, thank you.

"...there are 2 camera stores that I know in the New Orleans limit. The Darkroom on Sophie Wright Ave. near Magazine St. and Moldaner's on Carrolton near the bend, right next to Camellia Grill."

 

 

Well that's good news. I thought Moldaner's moved out of the city, since they weren't on City Park Ave last time I looked. I was flooded out of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina and moved 200+ miles north to St. Joseph, LA. There are NO camera stores here!

If my kit bag from 1970 materialized in front of me, it would hardly differ from today's, except instead of a

Nikon rf, these days there's a Leica, but otherwise same camera models, same film...Spotmatic, PlusX, TriX.

 

What is different is the lack of local shops and labs, replaced today by the internet.

Ed,

Wow, you jogged my memory. I'm also old enought to remember the doom and gloom Photo mag articles that said the program and AE SLRs were going to kill creativity and there'd be nothing but well-exposed but boring shots since photographers wouldn't have to think any longer!

I feel that if the young folks learn that there are other ways to take pictures besides using digital cameras, computers and film scanners, that more will use film. AS for 127 film, I have film in a 3x4, 4x4 and an old 645 camera now.

If film ever does die, there will still be those doing tintypes, etc.

>>I think that as time progresses, film will once again start to build in popularity<<

 

You can hope, but film is a "niche" hobby like collecting vinyl records. There will likely be aficionados like the participants in this forum, but outside our little backyard probably very few ordinary photographers, much less the general public, will bother. I suspect even now that the manufacture of film is still done by Kodak more for reasons of company history than of profit.

It's definitely now. I have just set up a friend with a Pentax KM and a couple of lenses. He was getting fed up with lacklustre results from his digital camera and wanted something film and manual. And it's not just us middle aged and old geezers. I have come across many youngsters who are interested in and actively using film.

My son took a photography class in High School last year. The first part of the class they had to shoot film. I bought him a Rebel Ti figuring he could have a nice path to digital.

 

After shooting film the first half and digital the second he went back to film. He still uses digital for snapshots, but for anything he likes it is film.

 

He said film make you think first, shoot second.

The Golden Age of Film photography was 1925-28, just before the Talkies and Technicolor.

Dave, I think it's wrong to claim that digital cameras are more "learners' tools" than serious instruments. Liking film, even preferring it, is fine — I, myself, am fond of the medium — but it's condescending and snobbish to imply that those who shoot (exclusively) digital are somehow on a level below film-shooters'. Digital probably immediately struck people as potentially hazardous to film, and, in fact, it was; the technology simply had to be around long enough to improve enough in quality and drop enough in price, and, now (since maybe 2004), that's happened to an adequate degree.

If you measure the golden age by the number of formats in use and the number of people using film then that time has passed. If you are a collector and user of film cameras then the last few years have been an unusual time when you could buy all kinds of equipment for a fraction of its original price. The film choices we have are fewer than they used to be but we still have many fine products and a few new ones. There aren't nearly as many papers as there once were, especially b&w papers. Digital printing of scanned slides gives a lot of control over contrast and color but doesn't have the same look as Typr R paper and doesn't show the film's original grain pattern. I do use a digital camera sometimes but I woudl like to use film as long as I can. It looks like slide film will disappear first so I am using more of that now.

Elvis is dead?!!!!

 

Tony