Should digital users try film, and... vice versa?

[dennis_couvillion]

Let me give you a different perspective... I seem to spend half my life tied to a computer. I've enjoyed film photography for a long time and I don't want to give up that aspect that keeps me off the computer. Film photography is more of a real life experience, for lack of a better description, than cyber world. I like the idea of having a negative that I can hold in my hand and look at rather than an image residing somewhere inside a computer. When I look at a negative, or even through the viewfinder, I'm imagining what a print will look like, not how an image may look on a computer screen. It's just a different mindset that works for me. But, as has been often repeated, everyone should stick to what they like and feel comfortable with. Photographers in the real world usually don't have debates or discussions like this... only on the internet.

[al_kaplan1]

You're quite correct Trevor. The early forms of that technology go back to my teen years, when printed circuits were the wonder. By the late 60's one of my photography clients, Racal Milgo, was a Miami company that made "modems" that allowed computers to talk to one another over phone lines, amazing technology! "Beepers" were just becoming popular with attornies, doctors, and executives. You'd get beeped, find a phone, and call your answering service to get your message!

 

A "portable phone" along with its battery pack filled an attache case and only worked in areas close to where the towers were. Some still had rotary dials but "touch tone" was still in the future. A few of my political clients had them. An assistant carried it around.

 

Programming required learning computer "languges" like FORTRAN and/or COBAL and then putting your program on IBM punch cards. My wife was studying programming and our house was awash in punch cards.

 

Now you don't need a degree to hook up a modem, you don't need to learn a "language" to load a program into your PC, and it should be possible to do a whole bunch of other things with the simplicity of sending and receiving emails, but so far it's not.

[socke]

Ray, those who have to make a living out of photography use digtal as well as film or are celebrities themselves and made their career a long time ago and don't mind what an editor wants.

 

If you get your negative developed, scanned and sent to the magazin in less than 10 minutes you can compete against the digital shooters, otherwise they'll get the job.

 

If you're on a model shoot for a mail order catalogue and get 300 printable shoots to choose from in one day, you've got the job.

 

There is not much space left for people who insist on producing art and expect the world to wait for them :-(

[socke]

Al, it's COBOL - COmmon Buisiness Orientated Language - and it's quite easy. Compared to RPG or PL/1 it's a breaze!

 

Today most programs are in C or C++, Basic (yes, realy!) and Java wins more ground every day.

 

I realy think that every Computer user should have a solid training in a procedural language like Pascal or Java.

[al_kaplan1]

Sorry! It's been 30+ years. It's a wonder that I remember as many details as I do, considering that it was the wife who was taking the courses! I bet there are still some chads in the cracks under the baseboards.

[rick_waldroup3]

I shoot both. I shoot digital for work. I shoot B&W film for myself. Hands down, I would shoot a film camera any day of the week over digital. That is just the way I shoot. For my work, digital is great, but for myself, I will take film and a wet darkroom any day. Maybe it is just me, but I find digital DSLR's annoying and if a camera is annoying, who in the hell wants to use it?

[Brad_]

<I> Ray, at one time you were a prolific and enthusiastic Leica shooter.</I><P>

 

I remember Ray (sounds like an obituary) as a great photographer, knowledgeable about

photography and art in general, and fun to shoot with. It was clear he had a leica (an M7, I

think), but I don't remember it coming up in conversation, any more than a minute

anyway. So "enthusiastic leica shooter' doesn't resonate with me. Just as I doubt people

think of me as a Sony shooter.<P>

 

To answer Ray's question, I had a darkroom a long time ago - with an Opemus enlarger.

Was a lot of fun then and it really felt like magic... Today, now that I'm much more serious

about photography, I just don't have the time to deal with all the pix I shoot - I might

shoot 300+ pix in a few hours. Digital makes that so much easier to get through - it's a

time thing. It's not like I need MF quality for the type of photography I do. <P>

 

I have no negative feelings towards film. Before I went digi I used an Olympus XA for about

a year - a fine pocketable camera. As soon as I went digital, my ability to capture

interesting images skyrocketed dramatically. Probably because I could shoot lots of pix,

experiment heavily, and not have to sweat the costs. It's freedom to let your mind wander

and experiment...<P>

[dennis_couvillion]

"I might shoot 300+ pix in a few hours."

 

We have a saying New Orleans... if you go to enough parades, you're bound to catch SOME beads. ;>)

[Brad_]

Uh, well, OK then. Good luck to you on the beads.

[michael s.]

I'd say there's something to be said about the experimentation to which Brad refers.

 

Having started photography relatively recently, *everything* I take is experimental. -:) But if I pop a 1 gig card (a fast one is now approx $85 - $95) into a camera and I'm taking my dig camera's fine jpegs, the 'counter' shows that I have over 270 photos to take, starting from scratch. And I've got a 512 mb card in my pocket for good measure, so I'm ready for 400 shots, give or take.

 

I've never taken that many; I don't believe I've yet taken half that many in one outing. Of course I could go out with 10 rolls of film, 36 shots per roll, and have essentially the same capacity.

 

But I know myself: I won't look at it that way. I will somehow conserve the film in ways in which I do not conserve the memory on the card. When I do use film -- and I still do -- a little voice says, "C'mon, you took 8 shots of x already. How many are you gonna need?"

 

This is applicable to me, perhaps not to others. But it's a factor.

[Brad_]

<I>There are some on PN who think my pictures are "boring", "cliched" and, basically,

"suck". Wouldn't my time therefore be better spent learning to be a better photographer

rather than learning digital?</I><P>

 

Yes, absolutely!!!! It's not the medium or camera. And why learn digital if it doesn't

interest you?<P>

 

BTW, I liked your Reggie pic.

[dennis_couvillion]

Maybe I just need a motor drive...

[Spearhead]

<i>When I do use film -- and I still do -- a little voice says, "C'mon, you took 8 shots of x already. How many are you gonna need</i><p>

 

Michael, I've seen some Garry Winogrand contact sheets in which there were 36 shots that, for all practical purposes, looked identical. However, there were probably minor differences from frame to frame that made Winogrand want to see what they looked like with those differences.<p>

 

It's not about the technology you're using, but what you want to see. In Winogrand's case, he wanted to see those minor differences. You can see the same thing at the Arbus show - she would shoot a roll on a very simple subject. With only 12 shots on a roll, she obviously had fewer than Winogrand, but it was the same thing. Other people might have snapped exactly one in the same situation. It doesn't really matter, it's a personal style thing.<p>

 

Once you get into the professional arena, it's completely different. It's my experience that editors a) like very different shots than I do, and b) choose based on criteria that I don't care much about (like where the headline will fit.) In this case, the more you shoot, the better chance you have of getting a shot that's desirable to the editor. Interestingly enough, it really fine tunes the skill to have to shoot non-stop and produce good shots.

[gary_woodard]

if we all could just get some more mega-pixels in our cameras somehow this

uneasy feeling would disapear and we could lay to rest this digital angst.

[al_kaplan1]

Good point Jeff. I've worked with editors and art directors that just loved to put copy and headlines over the picture. They wanted large areas of very light or very dark with no important information and/or details, so the picture would still make sense but the headline and/or text could appear there also. If you're working with an art director you'll usually be supplied with a sketch of exactly what they want, but when shooting a story it pays to keep that in mind when framing some of your shots.

[daniel_taylor]

There are certainly some people who could benefit from spending a day with a DSLR. Gary is typical of that type of person.

 

I know I probably sound like I'm anti-film at times, but I'm not. I don't care what someone uses to make a photograph as long as it's a good photograph. And, yes, there's some film loaded MF equipment next to my 10D.

 

But I do get tired of hearing/reading the "myths of digital".

 

One myth is that lots of complex, difficult to learn post processing is involved. 99% of my digital shots involve nothing more than setting levels, minor color correction (if necessary), and a light USM. If it takes me 30s to get to printing I'm moving really slow for the day.

 

Chosing and, for RAW, converting the shots that get this terribly complex treatment takes more time, but not nearly as much time as reviewing slides on a light table and scanning.

 

If someone doesn't like computers and prefers a darkroom, fine. But when someone says that digital post processing is just too much to learn they leave me with the impression that they're not very intelligent (sorry). Either that or they're just too afraid of "new fangled technology". Get the shot right in the camera and the rest is cake.

[EricM]

"Should digital users try film, and... vice versa?"

 

of course. but what about the hybrids?

[lee_shively]

Okay. Listen up. Here's my final answer.

 

No.

 

I like what I'm doing. I get good results with the methods I use. I have no one else to please but me. I'm not interested in trying something else. I really don't need to justify myself.

 

Neither do you.

 

It's great if you're enthusiastic about your way of doing things. More power to you. Enjoy yourself. Live long and prosper.

 

Give me the same consideration.

[dennis_couvillion]

In every one of these amorphous globs of dissonant digital discussions I usually manage to glean something to better understand that some aspects of digital shooting are completely compatible with film shooting... but sometimes something jumps out that punctuates some possible fundamental differences.

 

I was honestly a little taken aback to read one person's comment that digital enables him to take over 300 shots in several hours and, as I understood his comments, to quickly edit those. I have no idea if that number of shots is unusually high, low or pretty standard for a DSLR street shooter. Compared to the kind of film based street shooting that I do it struck me as high, although other film based street shooters may use more film than I do. (FWIW, I know about Garry Winogrand... Winogrand was an aberration, a famous photographer, and IMO his blast away style did not always produce stunning results.)

 

Years ago (pre-digital) I used to hang out with some newspaper photographers and watched them work up close. Armed usually with motor-drive Nikons they would literally blast away and chew up film like it was paper. Then it was up their photo editor to find something he liked out of the bunch. In some respects, it might be argued, some styles of DSLR shooting might be akin to newspaper shooting... shoot everything and then sort it out later. Maybe you caught something... maybe you didn't. But the greater number of shots increases the likelihood that you may have caught something. Apparently digital DSLR shooting enables you to take prodigious amounts of shots and process them quickly.

 

Some people may use their digital cameras to take good pictures at office parties or family gatherings; others may take pictures of landscapes; others, more abstract compositions. Some may use auto-focus; some may not. Some may use auto-exposure; some may not. You can take the same kinds of pictures with a Leica M, with a point and shoot or with any other type of camera imaginable. In that respect, that type of digital photography is not much different from film photography. But what I'm curious about are the amateur DSLR street shooters.

 

My question (and I don't mean this argumentatively, but simply out of curiosity) is how do amateur DSLR shooters work. I am sure there is diversity there. I am not talking about newspaper shooters who actually have to take tons of images to provide an editor a wide selection of shots. I'm talking about the amateur shooter who uses a DSLR. How many use auto-focus? How often? How many use auto-exposure? How often? How many use use a motor drive? (How many frames per second?) How often?

 

Also, how do you edit your shots? If you take 300 shots in one outing, what percentage are keepers? What do you do with the rejects? How long do you keep rejects? (For example, I keep all my old negatives and go back and look at them from time to time. I look at my old mistakes quite often. It's a learning tool.)

 

I'd be intersted in hearing some responses before commenting further. But it strikes me that, in some instances, the camera may be an important element in dictating the style and mind set of the photographer. I am not passing judgment or criticizing any photographers or types of photography... but the comments mentioned above piqued my curiosity.

 

Dennis

[travis1]

I shoot film and play with them in PS.heheh

[Brad_]

Some answers:

1) I wander around areas that feel interesting. Usually they're large cities.

2) AF 99% of the time (MF if I'm concentrating on something special)

3) AE all the time

4) My new Canon dSLR can supposedly shoot at 5 fps. I have that turned off. That's

wasteful for what I do. <P>

 

How do you edit your shots:

When I get back from shooting, I download my memory cards into a "project" (named by

the date and city - for example 2005-4-20 SF) of an image management program (mine is

iView Media Pro). From that I see all the thumbnails for the day's shooting. I quickly look

at those (can click to make pix full size) in a first pass. If a shot looks interesting, I can

click a button which opens it in photoshop for processing. Simple processing for the web

usually takes about 30-60 seconds. Simple processing for a print (that's tons better than

any minilab) takes about the same time - maybe a bit more. Something I really like and

want to put the attention on it can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour (or so)

depending on the work/edits needed. <P>

 

Percentage of "keepers" varies. When I was first starting out I paid attention to that. I don't

anymore. Maybe it's a few percent. That doesn't mean the others are crap. It means

they're not interesting and have no deeper meaning - ie boring. They may still be fine

snapshots that someone else would say are nice. They may also be multiple shots of the

same thing - with different angle, lighting, etc. I keep all the files and never throw

anything out - storage (and backup) is cheap. Sometimes I go back a year and find

something I missed earlier. Attitudes change.<P>

 

All of the shots I process go into an "edited" project file. iView let's me create an html

presentation, which I upload to the web. Each presentation on the web (I probably have

close to a hundred) represents a days shooting. For example, <a href= "http://

pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Images11/SFWeb%203-20-05/">here</a> are some edited

pix from shooting in SF on 3/20/05. Looking at these again today, a month later, I'd

probably toss half of them out, or reprocess some differently. When I have time, I'll do

that.<P>

 

By the way, the 300 shots in a couple of hours is definitely an upper-bound. I was in Las

Vegas until yesterday. On Tuesday, I shot 335 pix in 3h 16min. I wasn't timing this, it's

just information that's recorded in the digital files and easy to see. I don't view that as any

kind of metric (of goodness or badness). When I go out and shoot, many times I'll do

multiple shots of the same thing, different angles, exposure compensation, a person

approaching, a storefront, etc. It's rare when I go out shooting in SF for a couple of hours

and don't come back with at least 200 shots. It's free.

[barefoot]

<i>For example, here are some edited pix from shooting in SF on 3/20/05</i>

<p>

You shot these in <b>one</b> day? I've a good mind to scratch your eyes out :-) - note the grin symbol. I was hoping to convey a sense of jealousy.

<p>

Brad, thanks for the feedback on a day-in-the-life. That stuff is very useful.

[lee_shively]

An article ran the in local rag a couple of weeks ago that hit on something I never thought of before. In the "old days" of family snapshots, all those pictures got stashed in boxes without regard to the quality of the photos. There were no rejects--people kept everything. I guess the idea was that you weren't wasting film as long as you kept all the pictures you made with it. Along came digital photography and every shot that's not considered perfect gets deleted. Shoot 'til you get it right.

 

What's wrong with that? Nothing in the short term but in the long run, there might be an unforeseen consequence. People could lose their connection with their past.

 

The theory is that those old snapshots that are poorly composed, poorly focused, poorly exposed and, in many cases, embarassing for the subjects, are really connections to moments and memories people later treasure. By deleting these photographic mistakes, our connection to the events photographed is severed. I know from experience that personal connections to photographs of loved ones who are no longer living are stronger than the aesthetics of the photographs themselves.

 

As far as the statement that it is a poor argument for someone to say that they don't shoot digital because they don't like computers, they don't understand Photoshop, their photography is just a hobby and they prefer shooting film--I actually think that is the best argument there is. It's doing what you want to do with the tools and materials you feel comfortable using. The concept that I should embrace every possible aspect of every possible photographic nuance that exists escapes me. It's the equivalent of telling Cartier-Bresson he should use an 8x10 or telling Clyde Butcher to try sports photography.

[Brad_]

<I>Along came digital photography and every shot that's not considered perfect gets

deleted. Shoot 'til you get it right.</I><P>

 

Not true with me, Lee. As I said above: <I>I keep all the files and never throw anything

out - storage (and backup) is cheap. Sometimes I go back a year and find something I

missed earlier. Attitudes change.</I><P>

 

I still have my first digital shots from 3 years ago.

[yochin]

were formally "crippled" because they charge an extra $100 per camera to be able to use a de-crypting software program that de-codes the proprietary encrypting format that Nikon used on their RAW files, but now those dudes that wrote the "dcraw" software have reverse-engineered it so you can incorporate the Nikon RAW image conversion into your own software if you're a software programming company like Adobe for programs like photoshop for instance.<br><br>

 

Wow! I can't believe how much money these companies charge to allow you to use something that is supposed to be, without all of these little limitations, for practical purposes supposedly "free".<br><br>

 

They charge you for the camera. They charge you for the flash card(s). They charge you for the batteries. They charge you for the software. They charge you for the lenses. They charge you for the printer. They charge you for the computer. They charge you for the paper. They charge you for the ink. And you end up doing all the post producing work. My, what a bargain! No wonder Leica is supposedly "going under" they don't charge you for any of that kind of crap... past the lens and camera body.<br><br>

 

So, the point is, the pictures might be the same, practically speaking wise, but no matter which way you go, be it "digital" or "Leica / film" you're going to end up spending a butt load of money. It just depends where you want to spend it, realistically speaking. I mean, do you want a really good lens? Or do you want a crappy lens and the supposed "convenience" of being able to shoot 300 pictures in 3 hours. I mean, that's like 300 pictures you have to yawn... I mean, sort through and then you've got to open up photoshop and you've got to edit those pictures and then you've got to get your printer out and open up another box of premium photo glossy at $1 a pop... You get the picture.<br><br>

 

No matter which way you go: Leica or digital, you're going to be spending about the same amount of money. I mean, you don't really save any money on one hour photo "printing" costs because you're spending the same amount of money, or more, on paper, ink, electricity, time, labor... I mean, these companies are not stupid, they know how to make money off of you, be it by making you pay for the film processing costs, or buying all that digital accessory crap off of them. I mean, it seems like they're trying to pull business away from the mom and pop and the walmart one hour photo centers and rake it in for themselves without doing any of the labor that these one hour photo places do; by shunting the work off onto the "consumer" or should they say: extended unpaid employee / slave. <br><br>

 

HahHah! You know, I'm being facetious, don't you? Don't take it personally. It's all about making money for these companies. I mean, really, practically speaking, it doesn't really matter which one you use, just enjoy photography in general, I mean, this website is called "photo.net"<br><br>

 

<a href="http://news.com.com/Nikons+photo+encryption+reported+broken/2100-1030_3-5679848.html?tag=nefd.pop">link to story about reverse engineering Nikon's photo encryption.</a>