Film is Great !

[joshloeser]

<p>I have shot so much film lately. I must say that I cheat and drop off my negatives for developing to a pro photo lab, but getting them back is always fun, and seeing a great shot is a rush. </p>

<p>I own a D700, yet my N80 and shooting film is where my passion is. I like shooting digital as much as the next person, but shooting black and white film makes me something close to content, and not many things do that. Give me an unlimited supply of Delta 400 and Pan F 50 and let me shoot. </p>

[luis_vernon1]

<p>My dear Mr. Henneberger:<br>

My remarks in support of film are no more gratuituous and inflammatory than all those who embrace and espouse digital photography as the greatest thing since sliced bread.<br>

Anyone is free to use any media to achieve the art of photography.. I don't really think you or anyone will lose sleep over my endorsement of film...will you/they?</p>

[joshloeser]

<p>Well, I think the point is that you don't need to bash digital in order to be supportive of film. </p>

[luis_vernon1]

<p>My dear Mr. Henneberger:<br>

My remarks in support of film are no more gratuituous and inflammatory than all those who embrace and espouse digital photography as the greatest thing since sliced bread.<br>

Anyone is free to use any media to achieve the art of photography.. I don't really think you or anyone will lose sleep over my endorsement of film...will you/they?</p>

[pat trent]

<p>Yes, film is great, and that's why I got a used mint-condition 35mm film camera for Christmas. I have 2 great digital cameras, but I also love film and use it in 35mm and 120. It's great to have the variety. I load Pan-F+ in one 35mm body and will be loading Ektar 100 or Reala in the new 35mm body, and 400TX in the C220. All my cameras are laid out on a shelf so I can grab whatever strikes my current mood--B&W film, color film, or digital (shot in color and sometimes converted to B&W later).<br>

Long live choice!</p>

 

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>My remarks... ...are no more gratuitous and inflammatory than all those who embrace and espouse digital photography as the greatest thing</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, actually they are much more so since merely embracing and endorsing something does not, itself, amount to bashing others as you have here.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I don't think you or anyone will lose sleep over my endorsement of film.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No one, myself included, discussed your endorsement of film. Moreover, its obvious that my post embraces the enthusiasm shown here for film, even calling it "good". I even went so far as to highlighting the commentary that I took issue with. Commentary that has nothing to do with any enthusiasm for film and everything to do with directing unnecessary and inaccurate insults at others. I hope this resolves your confusion as to the matters being discussed.</p>

<p> </p>

[john_h.1]

<p>I enjoy film and will in the future. Right now I have all sorts of discontinued Agfa films frozen. Optima 100, Ultra 100, TMX B&W, a bit of Scala and even a roll of Ultra 50 as a souvenir of sorts. How long can I keep this stuff before it noticeably degrades?</p>

[brian_m.1]

<p>I never crossed over into DSLR territory. In fact, I am going the other way; buying film cameras. I love all the rituals that go with film; buying it, loading it, cocking the camera, rewinding etc. etc. One question that bugs me is that if all that people will ever see are digital scans of my pictures, am I really shooting film? </p>

[john_h.1]

<p>Well Brian, you get to enjoy the rituals. As to seeing prints, about as many who saw them back when ought to be able to see them now. It was shooting film then and it is now. All the pictures in magazines, TV and other formats just added extra steps before the pictures were shown long before digicams. It was shooting film then right? Scanning for computer use is just one more output format. Nothing has changed technique-wise for capturing photos with film. </p>

[DB_Gallery]

<blockquote>

<p>I note that you've been using digital long before it went mainstream. What did that Nikon based Kodak cost back then? $30,000?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not sure as I did not pay for it, the newspaper did. I do recall two NC2000 cameras on my person being close to $30,000 with the glass on them. In a few years, I am hoping to get my photography as far away from a computer as possible, all darkroom, scanned only for self promotion on the web if I even decide to do that. </p>

[DB_Gallery]

<p>Have a magazine assignment I want to shoot with the Blad, want some grain, ability to get great detail, so I went out a few hours ago and shot a roll of Ilford Delta 3200. Just souped it, scanned it in, I like it, straight off the scan, no toning / sharpening. I think the editors will like it too...</p><div></div>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>As an amateur only, one of the things I like most about photography is that there are so many different ways to converge on a similar result. Digital is fine when I expect a high rate of discardables (moving bugs and birds etc) but film is much more fun for landscapes and other situations where there's time to actually plan and compose.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Harry, yes, "Film is great." It's great (for you) because you feel it's great, and a happy photographer is a better photographer.</p>

<p>However, you should also recognize that the kid at the local CVS can relieve you of all the levels, WB, sharpening, etc. BS with your digital photos too, if you simply take your CF cards to him for processing/printing. Personally I doubt you're going to see much difference between the two media, at least in a 4x6 print.</p>

[jim_douglas1]

<p>When using film, just make sure the film is properly loaded in the camera, otherwise your photos won't come out nicely</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p><strong><em>Sarah Fox</em> </strong> <em>: "... However, you should also recognize that the kid at the local CVS can relieve you of all the levels, WB, sharpening, etc. BS with your digital photos too, if you simply take your CF cards to him for processing/printing. Personally I doubt you're going to see much difference between the two media, at least in a 4x6 print. ..."</em></p>

<p>To be precise, the machine that the kid feeds will relieve you of the tasks that you mention. I would be delighted (... I think? ... ) if there was some human control over the process, but I have *never* seen the operators at my CVS do anything at their screens above loading and monitoring jobs.</p>

<p>If someone is happy with a drug store level of automated processing, various SW controls and plugins such as auto-levels, auto-WB, Xe847, etc. will do the same, but one will still have to load the card yourself (which the kid would have done). </p>

<p>;-)</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p> </p>

[swilson]

<p>

<p>I think Sarah makes a very valid point that if you don’t want to mess with the adjustments of your digital photos you can simply drop them off and they will look no worse and possibly a lot better then just dropping off a roll of film and getting prints. With digital prints there is less color correction that is needed since you can set the WB to at least close to the lighting conditions. With my digital images I find they all print very well at Costco when I simply let them do whatever standard adjustments they do. With my film photos Costco and all the other mini-labs seemed to have a hard time getting the colors even close to right.</p>

<p>So for me my film workflow ended up not being simply drop the roll of film off and get the prints back, it was get the film developed, scan the slides or negatives, adjust the images for contrast, brightness, BW, saturation etc and then get prints made. That is a lot more work then just dropping off the film, but when I compared the prints I get with scanner and doing my own adjustments over the prints the mini-lab produced direct from the film it was worth the effort. In the end I was spending way more time on the computer dealing with getting the film prints then I have ever done using digital. As always other people will have different views and I am more then OK with that.</p>

</p>

[gt1]

<p>I switched from digital to film because with slide film I do very little post-processing after scanning. Shoot, get film developed, scan, print. Overall I spend much less time processing than I ever did with digital. The only drawbacks for me with a film workflow are cost and waiting 24 hours before I can get to work on my images. </p>

<p>And I absolutely love b&w film, TMax 100 or Neopan 1600 depending on my subjects.</p>

[steve_swinehart]

<p>Oh good...another post that conflates HOW you make a photograph with making an interesting photograph. How about concentrating on WHY rather than how? That's what is really important.</p>

[swilson]

<p>Steve,</p>

<p>

<p>The discussion at hand is which media takes less effort to use. If we assume that you can get the same photo with either media then it makes sense to consider which one takes more processing. The answer is of course "it depends". If someone is happy with what they get from the lab, and clearly a lot are, then dropping off a role of film might be easier for them. I still think that once you are scanning, which is the only way I could get the quality I wanted, it take far less time to start with a digital image.<br>

　<br>

Making an interesting photograph would be a whole other thread, feel free to start one on the topic if you wish.</p>

</p>

[DB_Gallery]

<p>No, the subject line is "Film is Great", not how to make yet another excuse why digital is better. I have a good relationship with my local lab, they give me great results if I shoot print film, no re-do's, no problems. But I shoot film for different results, not because it is convenient, because I like the image quality and workflow better than digital, period. I just did 5 Kodachrome scans in 15 minutes on my 9000 ED, no adjustments, no toning, no B/S, done!<br /> I really don't know why in the hell people keep brow beating how to avoid using film and get great results using digital when some of us just don't LIKE the crap. After 16 years folks, I no longer like digital, bye bye! <br /> And my editors LOVED the stuff I got on that Delta 3200 yesterday, one said: "Wow Dan, film really does just get to the point, doesn't it."<br /> This was not a film / digital debate, but low and behold, here we are again. I make a living shooting film, that is the way it is, I get better results, it is better for me, there is nothing else to say, get it yet?<br>

I am outta here for a week, I will be in New York City for New Years, 50 rolls of Kodachrome, one roll of 64 tungsten and not a digital anything in sight.</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>Well, Daniel, I wouldn't say 'crap'. :-) And yes, the subject is quite clear: 'film is great'. An equally valid claim would be 'photography is great'. No problems.</p>

[swilson]

<p>The title of the thread is "Film is Great", but the main point the OP was making was not that film was great but that film avoided the post processing that he did not like to do. </p>

<p>But as has be pointed out he could have dropped of a memory card at the same place he dropped the film off at and gotten the same level of photos.</p>

<p>

<p>Daniel you said you did 5 Kodachrome scan in 15 minutes, if it took me 3 minutes an image to get it ready for printing I would consider that a very long time. I have scanned a few thousand slide in my time and found it to be far more work then adjusting a digital image. But unlike you I often find that after the scan I need to adjust the WB of a slide, I find a photo taken at dusk will often turn out much cooler then I like. Of course I could use the auto-WB on the scanner software, but then I could do that on my raw converter as well.</p>

<p>There may be reasons to use film, but ease of use should not be one of them, IMO.</p>

</p>

<p> </p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Daniel, what I read over and over is that people don't like the digital workflow. I find this curious. I enjoy the digital postprocessing work every bit as much as I enjoyed darkroom work back in my film days (if not more). I don't doubt the legitimacy of those who only embrace SOME of photography and not the whole thing (i.e. from converging rays of light to to the final print). Still, I just don't understand it -- on a personal level, of course.</p>

<p>I also don't understand why people are so reluctant to compare digital and film on an equal footing by handing off both film and CF cards to the lab. I've personally known reluctant digital photographers who complain about their results, in comparison to film. However, I also know their postprocessing abilities are.... er.... rather modest, despite their insistance that they have "mastered" PhotoShop. I have not yet been able to talk any of them into letting the folks at their favorite lab have a go at it. Strange.</p>

<p>Regarding the brow beating, it seems to me, as a (mostly) digital photographer, that film photographers are constantly beating digital photographers over the head, screaming at them that they've somehow taken some erroneous direction. Why is that? Why does it matter to them so much? Why does it provoke them to such fits of anger?</p>

<p>And why would it anger a film photographer for a digital photographer to say, "I like my results too?"</p>

<p>Of course mud flies the other way too. I just don't see as much of it.</p>

<p>Just curious... about all these things...</p>

[DB_Gallery]

Sitting at the airport...

 

It's OK for you to not understand why some one has a different reason, a different approach, it would e best if we just

moved on. The digital workflow is ok, I have been involved with it on a level for nearly 20 years in publishing. There are

sooooo many ways to arrive at a printed or publised image, that it is really kind of silly to expect everyone to adhere to the

latest and greatest and what you think is best. Why can't folks just let a guy say film is great, give his reasons for doing so

without picking him apart?

 

Why is it important to anyone why I prefer the worklow, output and journey in life that is film? Who cares, it's none of your

business, it Is not going to change your life, nor is it meant to.

 

I have gone nearly completely back to film just because, that's all, and the people who pay me, buy my work agree that is what I should be

doing.

 

I am not living in the past or predicting the future, I am living as a photographer in the here and now and doing things my

way and it is working.

[sarah_fox]

<p>Daniel, I agree with you. I'm just not angry about it. I've said and will continue to say that people only do good work when they are happy with what they are doing. If you're at war with your tools of the trade, then there's no way your work product won't be "crap."</p>

<p>I suppose the flip side to this whole thread deserves mention: Digital photography has given me back control of my work, and for that I am grateful. For various personal reasons, it eventually became impractical for me to maintain a darkroom, so I had to depend on a lab to do my processing. I HATED that, because I didn't have the control I wanted. With the advent of digital photography, I again have complete control, from light rays to finished print. In fact I have much more control than I ever had when doing wet processing. That is what makes me happy as a photographer; consequently that is what helps me to be good as a photographer. You can bet if I didn't enjoy it, I'd be right back to film.</p>

<p>So to each his/her own, eh? And in closing:</p>

<p>Film is great!</p>

<p>Digital is also great!</p>

<p>It's all good! Enjoy the experience! :-)</p>