They're still teaching with film

[mlg28]

<p>My 15-year-old daughter signed up for a summer course in photography. As she was preparing for it, she asked me at dinner time, a bit confused...<br>

"Dad?" <br>

"Yes?"<br>

(reading from class description) "For my course I need a, um, manual, 35, er millimeter, um film single lens, what the hell is that, reflex? Do you have such a thing?"<br>

"Why yes, yes I do."<br>

So my lovely Nikon FM2n came off the shelf, a nice Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8 went on the front, and presto...another goes over to the good side of the Force!</p>

[SCL]

<p>YEA - another potential convert! I hope she enjoys the class and comes to appreciate your classic camera.</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Nice tale, <strong>Martin</strong>. Film seems to be hanging on downunder in the high school arts courses, and converts are appearing. I was talking with an eighteen-years-old fine-arts student the other day who won't have anything to do with digital imaging when it comes to B&W work, and he was disappointed to learn that though I use film I tend to scan and print my work with a printer, rather than using my darkroom. I pointed out that I liked to move with the times and I felt I could achieve my vision better by using all the tools available to me, but I think he still felt I was letting the side down... So we went out and fired up the old Beseler and printed a couple of the negatives from his nice Wista, and I think we both felt happier.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>Good tale, Martin. Just the other day, on my lunchtime walk, I saw 10-12 SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) students out in Grant Park with their 4x5" view cameras doing some basic view camera assignment. Watching these young folks fussing and struggling with the big cameras brought a smile to my face. It took effort to stop myself from going over and helping them out and work the assignment with them.</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>yes I admit sometime I use the "film free"<br>

cameras. but I still lover the real cameras.<br>

and I still have several enlargers and a roll film camera.<br>

There may be reasons for this. 24 or 36 exposures is not the same as 500 on a sd cazrd.<br>

and this reduces " chimping" and allow an understanding on what is really going on.</p>

<p>but still some ol;d 35mm slrs are litytle more than a P&S. all you do with a canon T50<br>

is set the iso and focus.. my 1965 sensorex is match-pointer. but that is not a chore.<br>

My daughter-in-law refused to use my Konica C0-35 because ir tequired RF focusing.<br>

but it is a very good thing when younger folks see how real cameras work.<br>

they lear more and that is a big important step.<br>

There is sometimes a lot to hate about newer cameras.<br>

My former boss take photos at the zoo and all he gets is a sharp fence and fuzzy animals.<br>

those camera sd cards are good for one thing. I download books and listen to them on my reader.<br>

I do that more than use them for photos</p>

[Andrew in Austin]

<p>The photography classes at the Fine Arts Dept of UT Austin still get the ball rolling with film cameras. First semester students use a 35mm SLR and Tri-X, which means my favorite film is usually in stock at a book-store that is a couple of blocks from where I work.</p>

<p>Second semester students can be seen using either a Hasselblad or a Mamiya 7 rangefinder. Some do use a 4x5.</p>

<p>Best Regards,</p>

[Rob_the_waste]

<p>There is hope. :-)</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>I taught a high school photography course two years ago. Although we mostly worked with digital, we did spend some time with film, even doing some developing and printing. One of my students, a sophomore at the time, really took a liking to using classic film gear. I let her shoot a roll of film through my Minolta SRT 100 with 50mm lens and ever shot was properly focused and well-exposed. Later in the year I had a contest for the class with the winner being awarded a NOS Maxxum 400si with 35-80 zoom. <br>

Glad to see the interest is there.</p>

[steve_levine]

<p> Nearby State U of NY at New Paltz,NY photo students use film for several semesters in their BFA program. They even teach large format photography.</p>

<p>In an unrelated story Yale school of architecture starts students out with pencil and paper !<br>

Both seem to want their students to have a feel for the processes, rather than letting micro chips do the "walking".</p>

[Glenn McCreery]

<p>My daughter wanted a cool looking camera to take to ComiCon in San Diego last week, so I gave her my Canon FT-QL with a 28mm lens and a few rolls of film. She used the camera, but, the images that she posted on Facebook were all taken with her iPhone.</p>

[Rick Helmke]

<p>I'm starting to notice a trend among newer (not neccesarily younger) photographers who have only ever used digital. They are starting to discover the film process in much the same way many of us discovered film and later digital. They are discovering that isn't all the same and one isn't better than the other, that they can get different results with different tools. I'm glad to see that more than a few schools are keeping it in the curriculum. At our university here they have purposely eliminated every darkroom on campus under the guise of environmental issues. More's the pity.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

[Brad Cloven]

<p>One of my great joys is turning over a good 35mm set to a fresh young potential artist. I've had two take me up on Pentax K1000s that I've reconditioned.<br>

Right now, I'm sitting on a Nikon FE with a Series E 50mm, and another K1000 with 50mm, 135mm, 28mm, and 70-200 zoom in a bag. I love buying them cheap and cleaning them up into Grade A shooters.<br>

I just got back from France where I took that backup Nikon FE (I got it for $10.00) and a Nikkor 24mm f2.8 N.C. ($25.00). Got fantastic shots. </p>

[chuck_foreman1]

You do find folks interested at all degrees and levels. My colleague wants to have it both ways. Shje want't

the convenience of P&S etc in blackandwhite with film perfs on her prints and out of focus LOMO effects

as surprise effects .

I'm slowy working here around to using classics but she will have to "learn" exposure so she can undo it!

The biggest downside for these artsy types is no preview. But she keeps coming back with questions so..

[walter_degroot]

<p>I recall reading here a few years ago<br>

that some college "renseleer?? had<br>

switched to all digital? not sure who itr was.<br>

seems there are many who dislkikew the word " chemnuical"<br>

and feel it violates their sence of enviromentalism.<br>

I also recal;l the bride who insisted the photos all be diugital- no film and those "dirty" chemicals.</p>

<p>On the other hand when we were given old computers they oftem are full of "family memories" and we do not know who owns them.<br>

But I saw a photo of President lincolns inauguration..<br>

so what does the future hold for old photos?</p>

[Andrew in Austin]

<p>Walter - it very common for laptop users to loose all their photos when either the hard drive or mother board fails on their personal computer. There's money to made by retrieving such data.</p>

<p>Best Regards,</p>

[fred_haeseker]

<p>I taught a b&w darkroom course at an artists' society. Lots of interest among people under 25.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>The fellow that I buy film from here has a shop that specializes in darkroom supplies and film. He is kept busy setting up darkrooms in schools and colleges. The niche is still there, quite small these days, but solid.</p>

[steve m smith]

<p>A couple of years ago I donated a spare enlarger to a local high school who were planning to enlarge their darkroom facilities.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>As much as I love film, I have mixed feelings about schools using film to teach at this point. It's great that young kids are learning the fundamentals and that film knowledge will be preserved for another generation. But I think digital is probably the more efficient method for teaching.<br /><br />Take simple exposure and focus for example. With film, you have the kids shoot, then you have to wait anywhere from hours to days to get the film developed to see what they got, by which time most have forgotten what the camera settings were (even if you told them to write them down). With digital, you can show them immediately how opening up or closing down the aperture affects exposure, how the shutter does the same, and how combinations of aperture and shutter work. You can see whether something is in focus or not. You can even demonstrate in focus and our of focus, especially for kids who think "focus" means "emphasize" or "concentrate.<br /><br />I wouldn't tell schools not to teach with film. But at this point it might be something I would do later in the curriculum after I took advantage of digital to speed up the learning curve.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

I'm not that pessimistic about youth's ability to remember something, Craig.<br>Teach them the basics. Tell them the basics, explain what how and why, and let them understand. Then, and only then, have them see for themselves that what they are taught is no nonsense.<br>They'll work from what they know. And not be tempted not to bother to understand, because they can always check using the immediacy of LCD screen feedback.

[c_watson1]

<p>Another example:</p>

<p><a href="http://betaboston.com/news/2014/06/17/darkroom-over-digital-film-photography-still-popular-at-some-local-schools/">http://betaboston.com/news/2014/06/17/darkroom-over-digital-film-photography-still-popular-at-some-local-schools/</a></p>

<p><em>"They'll work from what they know. And not be tempted not to bother to understand, because they can always check using the immediacy of LCD screen feedback."</em></p>

<p>Film, paper, chemistry and staff costs amount to expenses many school boards in N. America can't always justify. There's no particular pedagogical advantage to teaching analog over digital photography. Seems evident by now that there's no "trend" back to film, only these scattered, isolated instances.</p>

 

[q.g._de_bakker]

<i>"There's no particular pedagogical advantage to teaching analog over digital photography."</i><br><br>And vice versa. Teach first principles. When those are understood and remembered (and we're talking about photography: three technical parameters, which are extremely simple and interact in a ditto way), there's time enough to put them in practice.<br>In days of old (and people learned what photography is about even then, the days before instant feedback, Craig), two of those parameters, shutterspeed and aperture, were often explained using the image of a running tap filling a bucket with water. An analogy. It worked pretty good (and is cheaper than both 'wet' and digital), and i think there is a pedagogical advantage to teaching 'analog'. ;-)