anybody go back to film or shooting both?

[clay2]

<p>Still shooting film and still have wet colour darkroom. Use digital for quickie shots that I<br>

need in a hurry.<br>

Best regards,</p>

<p>/Clay</p>

[tom_harvey3]

<p>Still shooting film for B&W, digital for color.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Many of us never stopped shooting film.<br /> I had transitioned to shooting negatives and scanning them in before I got a quality digital camera.<br /> These days, for serious work, I use one of the digital SLRs. But for FUN I shoot any of a number of old film cameras. Aside from E-6 and C41 processing, you just have to do it yourself. But even in film days, most commerical B&W processing was pretty lousy.</p>

<p>It was like the pops, clicks, and hisses on vinyl records--people just learned to ignore it.</p>

[charles_stobbs3]

I had a bathroom closet that became my darkroom when I lived at home but when I moved to a rented room in Connecticut I had no space. So I bought my first Kodk Retina and tried Kodachrome. I was hooked instantly. I doubt if I've taken 5 rolls of B&W in the last 50 years. I've dabbled in digital in the last 10 years but still prefer color slides in a hand held viewer for personal photos. For EBay sales and obligatory holiday relative photos I use digital, otherwise film. But the handwriting is on the wall for slidesand I am experimenting more with digital.

[hjoseph7]

<p>"Shooting films or digital are as different as eating rice or bread."<br>

Some labs these days will scan your smooth tone negatives and then make prints off those scans. In my opinion the prints look lousy. Ask the guy at the lab that you want to eat bread, please don't convert my rice to bread, or make bread from my rice. Thank you.  </p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>I was an old-school film photographer, first doing darkroom work in the late 60's. I went digital in 1998 and stopped shooting film. However, when I considered how to do photography on the water (e.g. in a canoe) starting around 2005, I decided I really didn't want to risk an expensive digital camera. Instead I used an old T-70. However, film got really expensive, the lab results (for color film) were horrible, and digital cameras came down. I eventually went back to 100% digital. It was cheaper, and given the quality of lab work I was finding, it was much better too.</p>

<p>I might someday set up a darkroom again, so that I can shoot and process my own B&W film. However, it will mostly be for the fun of experimentation and the nostalgia of the medium. Otherwise, my serious photography will still be digital. It's truly amazing what can be accomplished with color digital photography and monochrome output. Traditional wet-darkroom work would be step backwards in capability.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>One thing I miss about film is the old double exposure. Almost every decent camera had an Double exposure button. Of course some digital cameras such as Olympus camera can now shoot DE, but I heard its not reallly the same. You can also simulate DE in you guessed it Photoshop, but it's not the same as actually being there and planning the shot.<br>

The other day I was out with my 4X5 view camera which had been collecting dust for a while. I shot some wicked double exposures without having to do anything but leave the film in the camera and take a second or third shot. I have not printed these yet but so far, the negatives look good. </p>

[mfophotos]

<p>I never left. I use both, depending on what I'm shooting.</p>

[the celt 2]

<p>I never left. I only use my digi for ebay, or for an emergency email photo. Glad you've returned to the light.</p>

[doug grosjean]

<p>I never completely left. But while unemployed and in college, my shooting is biased in favor of digital, just to save time (drive time for color negs, or b/w processing, or scanning), and money.</p>

<p>If I shoot film, it's either 35mm in some oddball camera (Widelux or Stereo Realist), or medium format or 4x5 b/w sheets. Something fun and exotic, that isn't easily replicated with digital.</p>

[art_thomas1]

<p>In the late 60/s early 70s there were a lot of bumper stickers with the slogan "I found it!" as the born again movement started to arise. I remember being in a bank parking lot and next to a car with a bumper sticker on it with a Cross followed by "I found it!" was another car with a bumper sticker on it containing a Star of David on it with the words "We never lost it!".</p>

<p>Each to his own.</p>

[BernardMiller]

<p>Horses for courses. I use digital (Nikon D300) for most of my paid work: the client and I can see it immediately, it is more amenable to playing about with in Photoshop, it can be delivered quicker than film. If I'm shooting someone interesting, I also run a few rolls of film of various kinds through the medium format gear (RB67, Rolleiflex). When I'm just roaming about, I like to carry something small, light and uncomplicated: a Leica M3 or my Nikon FE, because I still love shooting black & white film.</p>

<p>Pretty much what it boils down to for me is this: practically the only 35mm film I shoot is black & white, because I like the way it looks vs. digital converted to monochrome. If I want to shoot colour, I almost always reach for the digital camera because--much as I like Provia, Astia (RIP) and a few C-41 films--digital blows away colour film at that size, unless you're going to go about drum-scanning it, for resolution, colour fidelity and ease of production of a final image. At least, if you're going to produce a photo that someone else is gonna see, besides you on your light table.</p>

<p>If I want to slow down, think about what I'm doing, plan out the image and lighting thoroughly before I press the shutter, practice a bit of visualisation <em>a la</em> Ansel Adams--all of which, I believe, makes me a better photographer when I do use the digital camera--I break out the film cameras, particularly the medium or large format gear.</p>

<p>While film is becoming a bit scarcer/hard to process, I think we're really living in a sort of Golden Age. We have really good-quality digital gear available with which we can do things nearly unimaginable a decade ago when film was about the only tool at hand, but there is still a huge variety of film of various types available for use, despite the many excellent films which have bitten the dust.</p>

<p>I'm very glad I can use both, depending on what the task at hand is or what I want to do. It's the best of both worlds!</p>

[BernardMiller]

<p>And I forgot to mention: holy moley, really good film gear is available incredibly cheaply! You can get a medium format kit from keh.com that would have caused photographers in the 90s to go green with envy for a mere pittance. Buy a basic RB67 setup with the stunningly sharp 127 lens and an Epson V700 or similar for much less than the cost of some mid-level digital SLRs, and you can get basically the equivalent of a 50-megapixel (more or less) digital camera that uses all the wonderful films still about. *Everyone* should have an RB67 at the prices those things are going for!</p>

[lisa_lowden]

<p>yhx for the inputs. the comments were very interesting. ll</p>

[the celt 2]

<p>for sure Bernard. I could only dream of the equipment I have today back in the 70s. I did have a rb67 with the 127mm lens, and one back. I was lucky to be able to afford that on my millitary pay. Forget any other lenses! Now, thanks to "the Bay" I have a body, two backs, and 4 lenses, including the 50mm wide angle. </p>

[jim_j2]

<p>I still do both but lately mostly digital. I do some wildlife stuff and I like the 1.6 crop factor with my 100-400mm lens.<br>

I still have two good film bodies, the Canon Elan 7e and the EOS 3. I wish Canon would offer the Eye Control Focus in a digital body, but it was one of those things, that some liked, but apparently I guess most didn't!</p>

<p>For myself, I feel more like I'm actually doing "photography work" when shooting film, and I actually think in the long run, I get better results. Think I work harder for each exposure with film.</p>

[rossb]

<p>I shot 35mm for many years and was using a Nikon FE2 100% of the time and got the digital bug. I bought a D200 and some AF lenses and then my FE2 broke a couple times so I decided to shoot just the digital for a while. The digital was pretty easy and all the programs and such kind of made the hobby boring so I bought a couple of 35mm camera's. The D200 is mostly stored away and I shoot the 35mm these days. I find film to be preferable as a hobby and I prefer the look to 35mm prints over the digital prints. I imagine I will just stick to 35mm from now on. I am not going to buy another digital camera but I will keep my D200 around as long as it works. </p>

[mjferron]

<p>B&W film is my favorite. Love the look and hands on process. Digital is used for the practical side of things.</p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>I also recently got back into film, in a small way. I got a good deal on an older 35mm film body that would meter with my older Nikon lenses. Took it out this past weekend and really enjoyed having to slow down and think about what I was doing. It was kinda cool using a camera with no AF and an actual split image focusing screen (something that I hadn't done since high school). Not to mention that it was nice to get back to a full frame format. Out of the 24 exposure roll, I got a more decent shots than I usually get blasting away with my digital. However, the processing and scanning those shots reminded me why I got away from shooting film in the first place. Maybe if I am able to set up a darkroom some day, I might shoot more film, but as for right now, it's only going to be an occasional thing.</p><div></div>

[nathangardner]

<p>I have a Canon A2 that I carry in my bag when I want to use the really wide end of my 17-40mm lens. I've had the same roll of film in it for about 6 months now.</p>

[dan_south]

<p>I have never stopped shooting film, but I shoot a lot less of it than I used to. Modern DSLR's are amazing.</p>

[BernardMiller]

<blockquote>

<p>To be sure, when Bernard states "digital blows away colour film at that size", I am sure he means that in the context of only what he can do with his film or that his digital is good enough and not a reflection of what can actually be achieved in film.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, what I meant was this: I have no doubt a good 100 speed 35mm slide film--Astia, say, which many believe was the highest-resolution transparency film ever--will outresolve my 12.3 megapixel sensor. I used to shoot it, and man it was sharp! However, getting all that information into a form that can be viewed by others (and not just sitting on a light table) generally involves losing a lot of that resolution.</p>

<p>If you drum scan that slide, you'll get most or all of the image information (depending on the skill of the operator and the resolution you pay for) that's on the film, and can produce a print containing that.</p>

<p>However, if you use some other way to produce a physical or electronic copy of that slide, you're going to start losing some to much of the detail that's contained on the film. There's a continuum--if you use a Nikon Coolscan 9000, you'll get a great scan, but not as good as a drum scan. If you use an Epson flatbed, like the one I have, you'll get a scan that might be okay for Web use, but which you wouldn't want to print very large. Making an optical print of your slide--if you can find someone who can still do that--probably falls somewhere in between. You'll pretty quickly, however, reach a point where the digital camera is actually going to produce a much cleaner, sharper image containing more (and better) information than your second-generation copy of that original 35mm slide.</p>

<p>If you go to 400 and 800 speed films, I'd say you can argue that under the best conditions they won't even capture 12.3 megapixels of good image information. And you certainly won't be able to manipulate that information nearly as easily as you can with digital data to get an image that you like/was what you saw when you snapped the photo. As much as I used to love Fuji NPZ, I sure wouldn't want to go back to shooting boxing with it. I get much higher resolution digital images--at higher ISOs--than I could ever get shooting and scanning that, and it's way easier to fix white balance, bring up shadow detail, etc., so that it looks like what my eye & brain saw ringside, digitally than I ever could do with film.</p>

<p>It's true that film does a few things better than digital--but overall, in terms of quality in 35mm equivalent cameras, digital has gotten to the point that in the vast majority of cases it's going to be superiour to 35mm colour film as far as the final image you get out of it and show off. I can see using 35mm colour film if you want a particular look--I still haven't found a digital Provia action that looks like real Provia, lol--or if you just enjoy using a certain film camera and want to shoot colour. And of course I'm only talking about 35mm film. Even with a mid-range Epson flatbed, medium format film destroys digital in terms of resolution--although you still have to work harder in post-production to get that image than you would with a digital image, as those of us who regularly scan medium format film know!</p>

<p>But like I said--right now is the golden age. Digital has gotten very good--and the crop of colour films that are out there now from Kodak & Fuji are the best that have ever been made. If you fancy many of the older emulsions, they're quite often still available on eBay or someplace (which didn't exist back in the heyday of film!) at somewhat reasonable prices. And for a few more weeks at least, we even have Kodachrome still. So, definitely, shoot whatever makes you happy and enjoy.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>However, if you use some other way to produce a physical or electronic copy of that slide, you're going to start losing some to much of the detail that's contained on the film.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just project it. That's what slides were for. Why does every image have to get itself onto a computer?</p>

[BernardMiller]

<p>Then you'd have to worry about whether your projector lens was capable of reproducing all the detail in the film. And if you have friends/relatives who remember the old days, they will probably flee precipitately when they see you bringing out the slide projector.</p>

<p>:-)</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>LOL! Yes, computers provide a less obvious venue for sneak attack slide shows. It's even possible to launch a remote assault via email. You can't email a slide projector! ;-)</p>