Digital explosion - spill over to traditional?

I'll agree, as I'm another one of those spill over people, and I know others besides myself. The photography bug bit me about 1 1/2 years ago, starting with an entry-level DSLR. Now I'm shooting 35mm through 4x5 and have the construction of my first darkroom well under way.

As a newcomer, I find that my perspective contrasts with some folks, in that I perceive film photography as already having largely transformed from a mass-market phenomenon to the realm of enthusiasts and professionals. Put another way, I'm not unduly burdened by the perception of loss (e.g. favorite films, papers, etc. no longer available). This leaves me comfortable being much more interested in what I can do rather than what I can't...

spillover or no spillover
i am glad paper and film makers
like ilford will cater to our needs for a while longer
and when they stop we will be able to by a mowrey kit
or wet plate &C supplies so we can make our own.
i don't mind the 1800s coming back...

I guess I am also one of those crossover folks as well. About 6 years ago I wanted to take a photo of a flower with my wifes P&S 35mm. The photo came out blurry because I was to close to focus. At that moment I had to have a camera. Only an SLR would do. A Digital SLR was not a option for me at the time so I got a canon rebel 2000. Besides, my wife thought it was just another waste of money.

After about 6 months my wife was tired of the money spent on film and processing. Not to mention I was not getting any better. So after some talking and a little backing from my father in-law(a former portrait and wedding Pro) I was able to get the original Canon Digital Rebel with that cheap kit lens. That was 5 years ago. I did not touch film for 4 years but I got good enough with the digtal that I now have a small business doing weddings and portraits. I now shoot with a 40D, a 5D couple of L lens and a selection of primes. Not to mention all the trimmings like a couple of 580EX flashes and so on.

I have always liked manual cameras and what do you know, I recieved a box of nice users. Includeing a Nikon F, Konica III, Retina IIIc, Petri 7s, and a few others. Then I bought a Yashica A in mint condition. Just today I recovered my Mamiya C330 and shot a roll of Ilford Delta 3200. I also love my Mamiya RB67. Medium format kicks butt. I love it. All this with a Epson V700 scanner. I started to develop my own B&W film and I plan to start E6 processing and C41. If I had not been laid off in January I would most likely be printing my own as well in a dark room I have planned out. Large format is my next step.

I have FAR from mastered digital but I was to a point I was able to consistently produce great results that my clients love. My site Dead Link Removed

Now I look to produce those wonderful images that inspire me made by the masters of film. I think this will take a lot more than 4 years.

So I was ready to tackle something else and see what I had been missing with analog capture. The learning curve is steep to get the results I desire and I am riding it straight up. Thankfully I have enough film in the freezer and chemicals to last pretty much the rest of the year. When I can start to print, I will have a nice collection of negs to learn with. The experience and using mostly fully manual cameras has made me a stronger photographer for sure.

I learned photography with digital using books from the 70s. Film and digital can live together very well and I see no reason for either one to go away. Many think that digital makes a photographer lazy…that’s silly and not true. A lazy photographer is a lazy photographer and his/her work will show it. No matter the method of image capture.

I think my post is going somewhere it was not intended.

thanks

Jason

Could this all be a regional issue?

John W said:

Put another way, I'm not unduly burdened by the perception of loss (e.g. favorite films, papers, etc. no longer available). This leaves me comfortable being much more interested in what I can do rather than what I can't...

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It is this kind of attitude I wish I saw more on sites like this one. There seems to be a hobby dedicated solely to the doom and gloom of it all or waxing poetic about the good old days and then I go to look at the work some of these people do and it is, well, blah at best. Yes, we have less film than we used to, but we still have it!

If we want people to take analog photography and photographers seriously, we really ought to stop complaining about what we no longer have and instead, thrive on what we do have.

I mean, think about this for a moment....some of the greatest photographers who ever lived shot for decades with one film like Tri-X.

I think you have the right idea John..

When I was 13, my father bought me a Canon AE-1. He shoots digital now. However, after looking at my Velvia slides, he has decided to get his A-1 re-sealed and take some film photographs as well.

Yep, the joy of viewing slides is something that cannot be denied! Let me suggest that he consider taking some medium format slides and perhaps consider medium format emulsion lifts with the fuji fp100c. That is a slidelike pleasure.

Unfortunately, the only medium format camera I have at the moment is a Holga. I love the camera but I would prefer to have a proper medium format slr for use with slides.

There are very good MF cameras that very inexpensive. For ~$350 you can get a fully functional mamiya m645 or rb67 kit and be shooting MF slides...

Consider MF RFs and TLRs as well as SLRs.

There will always be a percentage of people who want a "real" image on Film. As you get older, looking at a computer monitor (i.e. Photoshop) for extended periods of time strains your eyes, and this will dispose many photographers to try a little Film. I don't know how many are aware, but the top quality Digital Pictures are printed on Photographic Paper! Printing a Picture with Ink one pixel at a time has inherent problems which you don't have with a Laser Printer on Photo Paper. So, this will ensure that Photo Paper and developing chemicals remain reasonably inexpensive and widespread. This is fundamental for people to be able to use Film. As we've seen over the past five years, the reports of Film's death are greatly exaggerated! Also fundamental is the ability to buy a new Film Camera. If you know anyone looking for a Film Camera, copy the following Link and E-Mail it to them: (save the Link in your Drafts Folder)

Links for NEW Film Camera sales including 120 Format
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

lorirfrommontana said:

On the thought of useing older processes/equipment: I am a quilter/seemstress (hobbiest). My newest sewing machine is a 1924 Singer treadle. ... I am currently quilting a quilt on a 1885 Singer. I belong to an international group with over 1000 members who not only collect but use these old machines. I beleive that I am helping to save the heritage of past quilters/seamstresses by saving the few machines in my small collection from becoming a table or lamp and by educateing people that grandma's sewing machine under the plants in the corner probebly still works and will for another hundred years if you take the plants off it and add a little oil?. My "forever car" is my 1955 Willys Wagon although I drive a minivan for every day. I have to add a lead substitute to her gas. She is not as easy to buy parts for but I would never give up the raw climbing power of that old beast! I am still in the process of restoreing her but "Isabella" (cars have to have names right) is a car that I will die owning because she is an example of the simple but effective enginering before computerization. ... / I really love those old non computerized autos and everything else obviously!

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Here here! I have two of those old Sewing Machines from my Grand and Great-Grandmothers, but I will admit they are only used as tables -- but they do still work! My Great-Grandmother (1885-1969) was a seamstress, and I still have many of her quilts and the like in her original hutch. I keep it preserved as part of my family history. It has old WWII Ration Booklets! Film is also the only way to preserve family memories -- digiusers will be sorry some day!

I also have my late father's 1963 Oldsmobile, and I drive a carbureted '86 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. Like your '55 Willys, these carbureted cars will last far longer than today's computerized fuel injection junk. The huge expense of designing computerized cars is what made the Big Three unprofitable. Manufacturers of Digital Cameras aren't making much money either! That's why they charge a fortune for their Ink! They suck you in with the Camera, and get you on the Ink.

Defiantly looking at TLRs. I am college student, so money is tight at the moment. Thanks for the information.

I am sure that 86 Cadillac has a feed back carburetor which means it has a solenoid in it that is controlled by an ECM to determine fuel mixture. Takes the place of the needle and float.

Computerizing cars did not kill the big three. If that was the case, how did all the other manufactures make it by. The computerization is due to the ever growing regulation on emissions. It is becoming a real issue in the Diesel industry. Caterpillar says that 2010 the exhaust of their engines will be cleaner than the intake air in most cities. What they are not saying is that is burns about 10 to 20% more fuel to do it. Doesn't make sense, but the regulations don't care about actual fuel burned, but rather particulate count in the exhaust.

The big three killed them selves with a host of screw ups and greed. Not by useing electronics.

ANY car will run for decades with the right person caring for it and assumeing parts can be had.

Jason

Car Computers

jasonhall said:

I am sure that 86 Cadillac has a feed back carburetor which means it has a solenoid in it that is controlled by an ECM to determine fuel mixture. Takes the place of the needle and float.
...
ANY car will run for decades with the right person caring for it and assumeing parts can be had.

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Hi Jason,
You are absolutely right that by 1986 the carburetors were computer controlled via solenoid. However, they still have the needle and float -- at least on my engine. The solenoid operates to close a plunger 10 times per second to lean out the fuel mixture, but when the computer fails -- as is the case with my car -- the carburetor still works perfectly fine with the solenoid always open. However, the car can't pass an emissions test as exists in my Province of Ontario, and I wasn't about to spend $500 dollars to buy a new computer. I learned how the emissions controls work, and was able to 'fudge' the results by adjusting the idle mixture needles for the test. (Luckily I photocopied all these important pages from GM's Shop Manual before the a-holes at my local GM Dealer threw all their 1980s manuals in the garbage! Then they wonder why they're losing customers!) So, I can always get the car to pass an emissions test. However, right after the test I disconnect the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) Valve in order to maintain maximum fuel efficiency. Without the computer control working, the EGR Valve will cause your fuel efficiency to decline by as much as 50%! You would never believe the excellent mileage I get from its 5 litre (307ci) engine -- a great Oldsmobile engine! Even on a fuel injection car, the EGR Valve will cause your fuel efficiency to drop. In the long run, you won't be able to get the replacement computer components to keep a fuel injection car running. With fuel injection, when the computer fails the car stops dead! When the computer modules for the blower motor and A/C compressor failed on my car, I just substituted a $6 Headlight Relay, and now they work perfectly! When the climate control module for the air valve solenoids failed, I just wired them up to a $2 two-way switch -- one way for the Defrost Valve, and the other for the A/C Valves. That will work forever! A manual film camera like the Nikon FM10 is the same way. When you have a problem with a Digital Camera, however, it becomes an expensive paper weight!

TerryM said:

However, the car can't pass an emissions test as exists in my Province of Ontario, and I wasn't about to spend $500 dollars to buy a new computer.(

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TerryM said:

However, right after the test I disconnect the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) Valve in order to maintain maximum fuel efficiency. Without the computer control working, the EGR Valve will cause your fuel efficiency to decline by as much as 50%! (

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Well, with current gas prices running a 3 litre engine, you probably were better of replacing that computer... at least certainly with the prices here in the Netherlands. By the time you would need to fill up your huge tank again, the $500 bucks would have been wasted.

The relative demise of analogue photography is down to the law of supply and demand - much in the same way as vinyl went after the advent of the CD and as the CD is now going with the introduction of MP3, etc.

So long as people want film and are prepared to pay for it, it will survive - albeit in a much more restricted and 'niche' fashion.

I've used film since 1974 and will continue to do so. I've never had any difficulty getting hold of a decent 35mm or 120 film camera and 'now' is the best time of all as there's so much cheap gear out there.

I also love digital photography. Hell, we can either stick out heads in the sand, rubbish it and hope it goes away - or we can embrace it, work with it and get the likes of Nikon, Canon, Sony (et al) to improve it to where it is a viable alternative. You never know - you might just like it.

I also don't see why there's an automatic assumption that we have to choose one or the other. Although I no longer have any music cassettes, I do have lots of vinyl, CD's and an iPod touch.

Sorry, but we are deluding ourselves if we think that digital will never be as good as analogue - although I accept that some people will always prefer one medium over another.

(Incidentally, that last statement doesn't mean that I am in any way anti-analogue; just a realist.)

Marco B said:

Well, with current gas prices running a 3 litre engine, you probably were better of replacing that computer... at least certainly with the prices here in the Netherlands. By the time you would need to fill up your huge tank again, the $500 bucks would have been wasted.

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Hi Marco,
It's actually a 5 Litre Engine. Gasoline right now where I live is about 80 Canadian cents / 65 U.S. cents per Litre. I hope you don't pay too much more than that. :rolleyes: Try disconnecting the vacuum tube to the EGR Valve on your engine. You'll be very surprised by how fuel efficiency increases.

Paul Jenkin said:

Sorry, but we are deluding ourselves if we think that digital will never be as good as analogue

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With Film, ISO Speed is very important to this comparison. With Digital, Speed is not as relevant to the comparison.

AgX said:

I don't see any more analog cameras being carried around than before. At photokina I saw 1 analog camera outside a booth...

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That must have been mine.....

From my experience at my university's photographic society, all of us who are really interested and dedicated to photography started on digital and learnt the basics. But we quickly became disillusioned with the constant pixel wars in digital, which we being students can't afford to keep up with due to student expenses (read:beer, we've been described as 'A drinking society with a photo problem'). There was a quick and complete shift towards film for the stuff we cared about shooting, we all develop and print our own film, B&W, E-6 and C-41, in the society's darkroom and print from it and our members shoot almost every kind of film camera, no glass plate yet.

However, we are hybrids, we are of the internet generation and all use Flickr and dA, we scan our film and prints to put online and we still use digital to shoot things like gigs and sports where the volume of film that would be used is more than we could afford.

The way I see photography advancing is that those who want the camera to do everything for them will solely use digital for ease of use and this will tend more towards combined video and still cameras with high ISO capabilities. But those who take their photography more seriously will dabble in film, to what extent will depend entirely on the person, they will all try film to at least say that they've tried it out and to experience the old medium of the photography they grew up seeing, but in all cases some level of hybridisation will occur.

Digital is here to stay, but film isn't disappearing into the shadows either. They will take the positions that they are best qualified to do, digital for ease of use, volume and instant gratification; film for resolution, a certain look and the undefinable allure of the smell of darkroom.

Welcome to APUG, suicidalsnowman. What uni are you at?

This past Thursday, my wife and I spent some time in NYC at various galleries and finally at an opening for a show of Beth Dow's beautiful platinum prints (printed by her husband, Kieth Taylor). Obviously, those platinum prints were not digital (although the contact negative might have been...I didn't think to ask...but I doubt it).

What I found interesting was that most of the prints I saw were either inkjet or silver gelatin, but ALL of the images were taken on film. There were absolutely gorgeous, ginormous digital color prints at Bonni Benrubi, but the negatives were made with an 8x10. The monochrome prints by Josef Hoflehner, and Hiroshi Watanabe were analog all the way I believe, as were most if not all the prints I saw there by other photographers.

Stopping for a while at a Borders store on Park Avenue, and 57th Street, I found two books that I plan to purchase eventually. One by Richard Sexton, and one by Debra Bloomberg. Both use digital processes to make their prints, but both use film to capture the images in the first place.

So...the state of film, at least where I looked, is still very, very strong. Digital, however, has made enormous inroads in the production of prints.

Commercial photography is a whole other situation, and you can read about it at length on the Large Format Photograhy Forum. Film has pretty much died in those applications.

I'm at Warwick Uni studying Physics.

Small world. I'm also at Warwick. I was a member of the photo soc back when I was a 1st year undergrad (I'm finishing my PhD now).

Small world indeed, you should come down and visit us all sometime, you can find out about pretty much anything we're doing on our facebook group.

I'm of the spillover.
In August, I started to look for a nice camera for some aviation photography. And looked at those bridge cams. Started to gain interest in photography and by september I wanted a DSLR. In october we had a family meeting, and I took dad's Nikon F401s with some kodak ultramax 400. When the negs and prints came back from the lab loved the colors, the graininess... Then I started to look at the film world. Wanted a SLR, the nikon was ugly and clumsy.
When I wanted a DSLR (olympus) I wanted a camera that was able to last; but I seen that D cameras are replaced every year, so "pff" spending 600€ for a DSLR and two lenses was like, no. I'm a student and have no budget. Looked back at the Olympus SLR family and found the OM1. I don't shoot much, so film costs shouldn't be that high. Found it nice, robust and mechanical. Finally I bought one refurbished on ebay, bought a tele and wide lenses. And here I am! Wanting to climb up MF and LF.

And here I am! Wanting to climb up MF and LF.

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Come on up! The view is great!