OT-Film observations

[scipc]

Spent last week inside the Beltline and had dinner with a group of 30ish professional

people. The topic turned to my interest in photography and their experiences with digital.

They had "all" abandoned their various consumer digitals and returned to their old film

cameras. The primary reason was time. They did not want to take the time to make prints,

even using a digital kiosk. Following are some of their comments:<p>1. I don't have the

time to make prints, fool with the software, printer, or consumables.<p>2. Digital color is

always wrong.<p>3. The pictures are blurred, with the LCD at arms length a certainty.

:)<p>4. I can get double jumbo prints while I'm shopping.<p>5. I don't have time to

RTFM and learn the menus.<p>6. My batteries are always dead.<p>Admittedly these were

not photographers, merely picture takers who buy film by the five pack, stick'em on the

frig, slap another roll of film in. A friend who is a software trainer has a digital Fuji PS that

has never been out of the box, she may find time to learn to use it one day, but continues

to use my old AE-1 Program. Bless'em all!

[terry_rory]

So digital must be bad because they cannot be bothered to learn to read an instruction manual and learn how to use the correct white balance to get correct colours or a few other simple menus?

 

Presumably they would not know how to drop their media card (or a CD) off at the same lab and get prints made there?

 

They also have no time to find the optical viewfinder and prefer to squint at an LCD screen at arms length? (Why arms length? Does the camera emit harmful radiation?)

 

There is no comparison between an AE1 (or any similar decent SLR) and a cheap consumer digi-cam. Not a fair comparison.

 

(and before you flame me I use film and digital with equal enjoyment so I have no 'agenda' I just cannot be bothered with unfair judgements based on the opinion of people who admit they cannot be bothered to learn how to use a new camera)

[terry_rory]

Oh, and if they could be bothered to use their professional brains for 2 seconds they would have found a battery recharger in the box and would have realised the desirability of carrying a spare. (They are capable of taking a spare film to reload a conventional camera so a battery is less challenging - to load - and no more bulky.) I think we are talking about people who are ideally suited to film disposables here.

[Uhooru]

If what the man says is true and there's is a trend on the low end consumer photographer, it will effect film sales positively in the area where it has been both the biggest seller,and the most hurt by digital sales, that is the disposable use once and throw-away cam. What can this mean for us all???

[Prof-K]

I totally agree. Cars are for freaks, I still walk! E-mail is for lazy asses, I still use s-mails!! Digitals are for losers, I still use film!!!

 

Seriously, I think people who hate digital belong to any of the three following categories:

 

1) Either they are poor enough, or

2) They are jealous of others learning photography techniques so fast (that they took xyz years to learn), or

3) Thet are (mentally) verrrrrry old and afraid of any change.

 

I'm definitely in the first category.

[terry_rory]

No good telling us Pete. We cannot delete it.

[Karim Ghantous]

I see what you're saying, Skip, and I know that you aren't making any judgements for yourself. However I cannot sympathize with any of the points you mentioned. Not a one.

 

And who says film gets colour right any more than digital?? My goodness, emulsions are - or can be - all over the place. At least digital offers consistency.

 

Yeah, I know these people are not photographers, but I'd hate to see their line of reasoning applied to their professions. Be wary of those who limit their thinking.

[derek_d1]

I get much better prints at my local photo processors if I drop off a roll of film than if I just drop off the memory card from my wife's digital (which is not a bad one - Sony V1). Makes some sense to me.

[magumi]

Shakil: I don't hate digital, which means that I do not belong to any of you categories, but I still use film. I just don't care about what other people use to make their pictures. I like the ergonomics of my manual-focus SLR, the films I use are good enough for decent A3 prints and I don't mind a little darkroom work. Why should I switch to anything else, when I enjoy myself as it is? It's just a hobby. Would I have more time for taking pictures, if I bought a $5000 digital rig? No. Will shooting 100 rolls a year ruin me? No. Would my pictures be any better? No. So why should I care?

[brambor]

Yes. This a Voldemort thread. It should be deleted.<P>So are you guys saying that skip is lying?<P>either skip is lying or we are trying to patronize people<P>I don't know what to think of it. The current trends seem to contradict his report.<P>I have many professional friends (nonphotographers) who tried digital and went back to film but I'm afraid that I have more people who use digital. <P>I also use both (digi 10% film 90%) and I am not afraid of change. 2 years ago I was 90% digi and 10% film). I am, however, resistant to hype. I try things, take time evaluate and make a decision. <P>In my case (I do not belong in the three categories, Shakil), I simply enjoy using film more.

[Brad_]

<I>They had "all" abandoned their various consumer digitals and returned to their old film

cameras. </I><P>

 

And if this were true, or even slightly representative, then film and camera sales would be

on the upswing.<P>

 

Just more film vs digi nonsense...

[Prof-K]

Martin, please don't get me wrong. I explicitly mentioned that these are for ppl who hate digi. If you don't, why worry ;)? I did not say "if you don't shoot digi" OR "if you are not ready to switch" OR something like that.

[sam_portera]

"and before you flame me I use film and digital with equal enjoyment "

 

Aren't you selling your Bessa and summicron Trevor?

[Prof-K]

Yes, but only for a Rolleiflex 3.5 E2.

[jsbc]

I believe with extremely strong conviction that sales of low-end consumer digicams will plummet.

 

Equally film will die.

 

Handset with CCDs are the preferred tools for amateur photographers.

[sam_portera]

If thats true Shakil, Trevor please accept my apologies.

[bobtodrick]

Who knows where it's going!? As many of you know I am employed by Western Canada's largest independent photo retailer. After 5 years of astounding growth in digital, and subsequent decreases in conventional we just received the stats for the first 3 months of 2005. Digital is up 4% over this time last year. Convention cameras are up 22%...the first time they didn't suffer a loss in 5 years. Now 3 months is not enough time to make sweeping generalizations, but (as with skip's post) I hear every day now from photographers, amateur and pro who are picking up their film cameras more and more.

[larry_kincaid1]

Calm down. Doesn't anyone remember trying to use the first personal computers with the MS-DOS operating system? Anyone want to have one of the old computers in my basement? Regardless of quality, digital cameras are still in a rather immature state. If you don't believe it, revisit the issue in 5 years. Or ask yourself how you like working with Windows XP. (You don't work with it at all.) Film is totally developed and does exactly what it is supposed to do, including today, optimization for digital scanning. On a historical note: When the first typed pay checks came out people didn't want them at first, they wanted to be handed a hand-written check or cash (can you imagine switching from gold coins to paper currency?). My 22 year old son has to "mail in" check to pay for something and he said he felt very uneasy just dropping it into some strange mail box, commenting "I just don't trust it unless I can see it going electronically from my computer." !!! The only difference for myself is that I am more patient now. I know film with Leica cannot be matched today, but I also know that within 5 years I will have a digital Leica as well. So, these debates are more about whose got patience than anything else.

[scipc]

Merely an observation, as the title suggest, and certainly unscientific. I have no view to

peddle, for me there is no issue, and I need not judge other peoples choices. I use a CP

5700 almost daily ( a perfect tool to document construction projects), have a complete

digital darkroom, am proficient in Photoshop, and write a quarterly photo column for

Access. (a computer society newsletter). What I haven't had time for in almost a year is

using my beloved M2/50 Rigid or my FM3a kit. That bites!

[paul_de_zan]

I think many of us do not realize what a rarified world we live in. Every damn one of you is a gearhead! All of you! You might be an artist too, but first and foremost you like (or at least can live with) the technology of photography.

 

People who know what f stops are represent the tiniest fraction of the photography market. To get a good sense of what passes for "photography" among the masses, just spend 10 minutes clicking on a dating site like Hot or Not and behold the thousands of unbeliveably bad pics that are supposedly designed to impress others!

 

This is why there is such a thing as a "professional photographer."

 

Most digital cameras are being purchased by people whose VCRs are still flashing "12:00." It is inevitable that a lot of them will get left in dresser drawers because their owners simply won't spend the half hour it takes to figure out how to use them. Kiosks that read memory cards and dispense prints are the future of retail photography because it's the closest thing to the conventional film processing model. Which is what people are used to and are comfortable with.

 

Most people can't use their computers; what makes you think they can learn to use a sophisticated peripheral like a digicam? Or Photoshop? Hell, just using e-mail is a challenge for most non-techies I know.

 

Too much too soon, like "The Man Who Fell To Earth." Billions more disposables to be sold.

[Spearhead]

<i>Most digital cameras are being purchased by people whose VCRs are still flashing "12:00."</i><p>

 

This was true of film cameras before there were digital cameras. It has nothing to do with digital, another irrelevant effort to prove that there is something wrong with the general public and with digital cameras. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.<p>

 

<i>Most people can't use their computers; what makes you think they can learn to use a sophisticated peripheral like a digicam? Or Photoshop?</i><p>

 

The interesting thing is how untrue this is of most people under 25. The next generation has no problem with this stuff. My son was using a digital camera and a digital editor at the age of 11. <p>

 

However, even in my parent's generation (old people), many use computers every day and can do minimal operations with a digital editor. My father (80 years old) teaches computer skills to recovering drug addicts and is amazed how quickly everyone picks up, usually due to desire to learn rather than any fundamental inability, which is what the quote implies.<p>

 

I suppose it's easy to suggest that people are incompetent, easier than trying to change that or find out what is really going on.

[paul_de_zan]

It's not incompetence, Jeff. It's laziness and habit. And the comparison to film camera technology is bogus because we've had generations of snapshot taking; we learned about loading film because our dads did it in front of us. Just like my kid is learning digital from me. Because I'm a gearhead.

 

What is happening is the upending of a process for getting prints that people have been compfortable with for several generations. That's future shock and I am damn right that disposables will be the largest portion of the snapshot market for years to come, in terms of actual prints that actually get created.

 

You examples of older folks and drug addicts taking to tech like ducks to water are outrageous corner cases. Perhaps you come from a family of prodigies, too. I don't and I'm the only member of a large family of college-educated people that is even slightly capable of dealing with the gearhead world we are now living in.

[stephen_w.]

I went to the public library the other day to pick up some tax forms. I passed a university student studying photography. She was taking some still life photos lit by the sun coming from a window. I watched for a while and asked her: "Are you shooting wide open?" She said: "Yeah, 1/30th of a second." I looked at her camera (SLR) and it was set at f4.0. I then explained the concept of f-stops and shutter speeds to her.

[eugene_scherba]

I went to a student workshop yesterday, and there was a student who

didn't know what slides were. Surprisingly, though, her photos were

much better than most of what you see on this site.

[mustapha_abdelrahman]

Paul is right on. jeff you seem to travel some based on your photos don't you have any idea that there is a whole world out there that is still using film.. in my country people are interested in digitall from a consumer aspiration point of view there is no way because many people, almost no people have computers to manipulate these pictures. we will be using film for many years.