Using mostly film for weddings?

[uk]

This is not intended to be a "which is best debate?", but rather, "I'm still here using film

because I value it's qualities".

 

A search through the archives indicates that it's nearly 12 months since the question

"Anybody still using film?" was asked and I'm wondering how things have moved-on in

that time. Then, there was quite a number of wedding photographers using film, but

some of those have transferred over.

 

This Forum is well supported by digital capture users doing great work, but have the film

users disappeared, or are they just a quieter bunch? On the church steps there appears to

be a higher proportion of film shooters than is reflected on these pages.

 

I'm particularly interested in hearing from those who have chosen to stay with film, or

returned to it after using digital for a while and have it scanned ready for Photoshop

because film provides a quality that they need. What are those qualities you value so

much?

 

Also, is anybody still shooting B&W film for wedding work, rather than converting it in

Photoshop, or do you now just hedge your bets and shoot colour only ?

 

Gary

[fotografz]

Hi Gary. I still use film for a % of wedding work. That has been a constant for the past few

years despite the exponential improvements in digital technology and having the high-end

digital tools at my disposal ( no pun intended : -)

 

I will continue to do so for the single reason that I like the look and feel of film more than I

do digital. In truth, it doesn't make much difference to the clients ... but I don't do everything

just for the client.

[steve george]

The wedding I shot 2 weeks ago was 100% digital for colour, 100% film for black and white and I anticipate this being the future for me. I like the look and the "wow" factor from a nice black and white print shot with a Summicron and hand-printed - something I've not achieved with a digital b&w conversion and print, but for colour I don't think the difference is that apparent any more, (for most purposes anyway).

[steve george]

ps. Interesting point about the church steps and the number of film using pro's - I think I must have been to around a dozen weddings as a guest in the past 12 months (as opposed to going as the photographer) - only one of these weddings had a digital using pro, and he used it as a fail-safe "making sure the shot's in the bag" after taking a shot first with his ETRSi, then with his 35mm.

[steve_levine]

We still shoot almost all film. We do use an S2 FUJI, for some candid's, but film is the way for us.

 

 

IMHO,digital is for "computer geek's" that have days on end to play with their images. Because if you lack the post production, "tweaking" skills, your work becomes mediocre with a capital "M".

 

 

Film is much more forgiving in it's contrast, over exposure latitude and it's ability to handle much higher "brightness ranges" than digital.

 

The confidence we get shooting low contrast, portrait films, is out the window with digital. Suddenly we are walking on thin ice, doing the "NY Times" crossword puzzle in ink.

 

 

The pros that I know that went digital from the gitgo (c1990's), are now on their 3rd or 4th generation cameras! How much have they saved by going digital? Most walk around kicking themselves in their ass-sets. And quite a few have un-mothballed their medium format cameras.

 

 

I'm personally skeptical of new unstable technology. By unstable, I mean when hardware loses value the way the "state of the art" DSLR's do. The first generation cameras were tens of thousands of dollars, now they are worthless "doorstops/paperweights". Even our FUJI S2 was $1500, eighteen months ago, now they are $500 used. Sorry, too fast for my hard earned money.

[sean_flanigan]

100% Digital, almost. I always bring my M6 with me to a wedding with 4-5 rolls of hp5. Other than that it's a d200 and d2h.

Regards,

Sean Flanigan

http://seanflaniganphotography.com/detected.php?page=&pass=

[r.m.]

I still shoot 100% film, and a good deal of that is silver based b&w film. I have everything scanned at hi-res, and I have to say the process of having the b&w scanned is tedious given that my main labs don't scan b&w so I'm having to dev & print in one place and drop off at another for scanning, but it's worth it to me. I love the look of true b&w - especially the medium format stuff. Not ready to part with it yet...

 

Best,

Reina

[matt_needham]

A year ago I was 100% film for weddings, but it began getting harder and harder to get good local film processing services. I do my own BW, but I need a lab for C41 and E6.

 

Now I'm almost all digital for weddings. I'm happy with the change. I'm spending less time post-processing in PS than I did when scanning film. My clients, whether they know what they are talking about or not, express a preference for digital by a large margin. I still offer film services and hand printed gelatin silver prints if anyone is interested, but I only had one bride last year ask for all film coverage, and she ended up eloping. Sometimes I shoot a few rolls of 120 BW film, or 35mm in my Widelux if I think the B & G will appreciate it. I still shoot lots of film for myself, and have no intention of getting rid of my film cameras or darkroom, but to be honest, digital makes shooting weddings a lot more fun than it was with film.

[al_kaplan1]

I'm still 100% film based for everything I shoot, and mostly all conventional B&W. The local colleges are still teaching traditional B&W, and while I see plenty of students snapping digital of one another, and chimping the camera, I also see much more careful composing when their Pentax film camera is being used. These are all potential wedding customers in the next few years.

 

Digital isn't going to go away, but the same kids who can hear the difference between Dad's (or maybe Gramp's) analog 12 inch vinyls of The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan compared to the CD re-issues of the same albums can also see the difference between a silver gelatin print and an ink jet.

 

I feel that depending on conversions ignores another major difference. I "see" differently when I'm shooting B&W. Black and white is about tones, light and dark, high lights and shadows. What makes a good color photo doesn't always translate well into a dramatic black and white image.

 

Another selling point is the archval qualities of silver gelatin images. I currently have an exhibit of 16 of my photos at the local Starbucks. One image is from an ongoing personal project that I shot last year, obviously a recent print...LOL, but the other fifteen are mostly rock stars from the 1960's and from a series I did on the Miccosukee Indians in the 1970's. Those prints came out of my files. They're thirty to over forty years old and still look as good as the recent print. And the old negatives? They're still in great shape also. I recently made some new prints of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan from negatives shot in the 1960's. There are plenty of claims about how archival today's color prints are, but we really won't know for another 50 or 100 years, will we? We're warned to recopy every 4 or 5 years all those CDs and DVDs where the images are stored. Welcome to the twenty-first century!

[stacy]

Wow Sean! What great photos on your site!

 

Other than that- I don't have a point to make...I love film, but I'm having really good luck with the 5D so I'm not sure how much film I'll be shooting this season- probably less than last year. We'll see though :)

[timcorridan]

i wonder if events, ( weddings), will be the last hold out for pro filmers?

[scott levine]

For Weddings I am shooting 100% Medium format film. I prefer the "look" as others have

also said. Exposure latitude, soft focus lenses, vignettes, higher flash sync, more accurate

color, predictable light balance and less time on the computer. The lab I use scans all of

my C-41 and I have access to the hi res files for PS if I feel I need to. For B&W, I have been

letting the lab convert the color negatives. I still have a full B&W darkroom, but haven't

used it in a while. Although I just picked up a couple bricks of PXP and TRiX to get me

back in the darkroom.

 

I have a D200 which I will use for Corporate Head shots and table top for web use, but If

given a choice, I would prefer to shoot film. It can always be rescanned at a higher

resolution for Banners and such.

[lex_jenkins]

I shot an entire event as a favor for a friend using only film (a roll of Fuji Pro 400H and one of Kodak Gold 100 - don't laugh, it's all I had left in the bag). She's in her 80s, nearly died last year from a heart condition, and this year was runner up at a statewide convention honoring folks who'd safely lost weight in a healthy way to improve their physicial condition. I was really happy for her and wanted to treat her to something personalized that the hired pros might miss.

 

I got the 4x6 proofs and put together a small album of 70-something photos for her within a few days. I couldn't do that with my usually sluggish digital workflow. And the photos looked great (well, as good as flash in a convention hall can look).

 

As long as there are events that demand relatively few shots - say, no more than half a dozen rolls - and quick turnaround with little or not input from me - I'll keep using film whenever possible. It's not a better/worse thing, just a personal preference in working style and materials.

 

For monochrome I still prefer film, altho' I'll usually shot XP2 Super. I'm too slow in the darkroom to process and print myself. And there are a couple of local labs that can produce very nice neutral monochrome prints from XP2 Super.

 

I might have shot this event on digital had my D2H not been in the shop for a tuneup, but I didn't really miss it. Film worked fine and was a helluva lot easier to prep. For high volume stuff I'll still go with digital - it's more cost effective.

[35mmdelux]

100% film for all my work. All film scanned at the lab.

[nicola inglis]

Two words: dynamic range. Film has better dynamic range so it continues to have its place in our camera bag! And another prviously unseen advantage; the film gear is now pretty cheap so I'll shoot film at the beach when I'm still too anal to shoot digital there (plus I need the dynamic range there more than anywhere).

[afs760bf]

So far, 100% film, using both MF and 35mm. Now if I could convince myself it was worth it, though, that 5D is pretty enticing. But then there are more lenses, flashes, etc. ......maybe later.

 

Barry

[scarolinael]

100% Film,2 EOS-3's and adding a Eos-1v. Still love the quality film brings to the finished product and I just have to send it off to the lab.

[aleskoubik]

Still 100% film + scan. I just don't see need for change yet. Yes, the 5D is pretty nice but $3K is a lot of money.

[gregoryc]

I shoot 100% film. Medium Format film for formals. Film 35mm for reception candids. All film is scanned and my lab e-mails me thumbnails that I use to order final prints from my computer upto 11x14. (larger prints, get printed optically). I love the digital workflow, but don't want to spend hours adjusting images, archiving images, burning CDs, converting formats etc. With film, I save time and the color is more "Real" to my eye.

 

Just my thoughts, Greg :)

[uk]

Many thanks for your input. Appreciated.

 

I have many years of shooting experience with film, mostly B&W, mostly MF and mostly

landscape. Good B&W darkroom experience and now after thousands of hours I'm

competent with scanning and Photoshop.

 

I've got Hasselblad 503 and SWC, Mamiya 7 and a Leica M3 that I bought last year

specifically to enter the pj style wedding market after observing Jeff Ascough and Marc

Williams. Their approach was new to me and my previous tripod style and i love it. I've

now discovered many more of you that excell in this sector.

 

Last year one of my commercial clients that you know as Chrysler insisted that I only

submit digital images for their perss releases and I put my toe in the water with a D70.

Well it was returned this week for a full refund, so at this very moment I only own film

equipment.

 

I really enjoy Photoshop work and my local lab does a great 35mm C41 package for film

develop+scan to 18mb. My own Nikon 8000 scanner will take a 35mm way up into the

hundreds of megs if required for poster prints. So I can have digital control of the output

at reasonable cost. After process, I need no input at all in the process from others until

I'm ready to print large colour images. I've everything I need for silver B&W processing.

 

Recently on my truck/van shoots, I've been shooting a card full of images and backing

them up with a roll of 120. Although I accept that the angles have been discovered with

the digital, it's been the 120 pics that have been going to the client and on two occasions

this year I've been asked to supply 6 off 36" wide prints for exhibition. The D70 could not

cope with that, maybe the 5D can.

 

So my conundrum is that my wife says no more big cash into cameras, I have the

D70 $1,250 money in my pocket and can keep it, or add a mint MP to my M3 for an

additional $550, or buy a 5D with one 24-70 zoom for the D70 money plus $3,300! To

fund that I'd need to sell the Leica M3/50/35mm and the Mamiya 7/80/65mm. Hence my

interest in whether film-only works for you with weddings. I know it was all there was, but

now it's not.

 

I met Jeff Ascough and you all know that he was shooting 80 weddings a year on his Leica

kit. [i'm hoping to do 8 this year]. Jeff told me that he misses his Leica dearly as it made

him invisible in a way that the Canon doesn't and his pictures suffer as a consequence. He

said "I raise the 1Ds and people back-off, whereas I could poke the Leica in their face for 5

minutes and they would not react". Marc has expressed similar, if different remarks and

recently said he enjoys shooting film. Nevertheless, they are both committed to digital

capture in a big way.

 

That's where I'm coming from and there's no urgency. Again, thanks for your input.

[ilkka_nissila]

I think it is bizarre how people who do good work on film feel the pressure to use digital - why do it? Consider yourself an artist, you have the right to choose how you work. It may put off some clients but if your work is good there will be others.

[ed_gerson]

Yes, film has a palette all its own. My film cameras still function and feel great to use.

 

After spending all week shooting with one dSLR I picked up one of my old

Pentax645's.

 

Did you ever come out of a dark tunnel into a big beautiful sunlit world? Yeah, its

sorta like that. -Ed

[fotografz]

Gary, my commitment to digital is based on very different reasons than Jeff's. It was

driven primarily by commercial client needs not weddings ... of which I only do 15 to 20 a

year. Jeff has said that film lab work in his area was becoming an issue, which isn't an

issue for me (yet).

 

For example, I've been shooting a huge 4 day commercal location job producing hundreds

of sequential pin-registered shots that will be animated for motion use. For such a job,

film would be a nightmare. In short, digital has increased our commercial business profits

considerably.

 

However, if I were only doing weddings it would be all film. I use digital for wedding work

because I already have the gear bought and paid for by commercail work... and it is very

convenient for color work in terms of personal asthetic control and SLR AF speed.

 

Here's a thought I'd extend to you for consideration as you move forward.

 

For commercial applications, consider a digital back for the Hasselblad. The cost of a used

Imacon 96V will be about the same as a Canon 5D and the L lenses you will need to add to

your gear bag. Regardless of what you do to 5D files, the Imacon files will murder them.

 

A 96C back will work on the 503 and the SWC, prolonging that gear well into the future.

The functionality you add over film scans is speed of delivery and assurance of having an

approved shot (if the client is present at the shoot). 36" commercial quality display prints

are a breeze for these big digital backs. Last week we did a digital catalog job in studio,

and the client has selected one of the shots for a 20 foot wide banner at their trade booth.

 

I'd say the expendable piece of gear you have is the Mamiya 7 system. It will never go

digital. The Leica will soon, and the Hasselblad already is a digital workhorse for

thousands of studios. I will no longer invest in any system that can't be converted to

digital in future. The lenses just cost to much.

 

e-mail me off forum if you want to discuss this further, I'd be happy to share experiences

with you.

[ernie_tangalakis]

I have just gone back to film for most of my shooting. Mainly BW. I just bought a used Olympus OM4 made around 1987 or so. How many will be buying a D200 or 5D 20 years from now? Make that 3 years from now. I am really enjoying dropping off the film at the lab and letting them do this part, instead of hours on the computer. Not to mention film just looks better. I still shoot digital for weddings but am going to add BW film into the mix. I am tempted to use all film. I have yet to see a BW coverted digital shot that can match film.

[perry_cooper]

ALot of great feedback on this subject. Heres my gig. Yes, I have a wedding coming up tom and I am shooting Tmax 400! The bride chose film over digital because of the obvious reasons. Depth, clarity, tone etc.... I think I have 15 rolls of B&W and 25 color. I just have the lab scan everything at about 4 mb for use down the road. The results from film to digital are obvious and to some more obvious than others. If I had my choice I would shoot digital mainly because of cost. Most honest photogs will tell you the same thing. I probably save around $400.00 per wedding by using digital. That includes cost of film as well as the small processing fee of about $3.00 per canister. It's kind of sad really But the market is pushing the digital age. I don't know if anyone's noticed but the last I heard Agfa is history and Ilford doesn't make B&W roll machine paper for printing labs anymore. Thats a sign for sure. Film is still superior but the advantages of digital and the rush of technology are pushing film and the by products of right off the map.