Does film have a future?

[BradS]

somebody once told me..."live in the present. not in fear of the future nor regretting the past."

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Color and slide may not last. B&W? Definitely. Kodak or Fuji? Who knows. All I know is 10+ years ago predictions on sites like photo.net were saying film would be really hard to get in 2-3 years and dead and pretty much impossible to get within 5 years and if so would be $15 or more per roll. Again, that was 10 years ago...

I got enough b&w 35, 120 and 4x5 in my freezer for at least 15 years or more...

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

somebody once told me..."live in the present. not in fear of the future nor regretting the past."

Someone, I think it was Buddha, once said: "Do not worry about the past, for it is already gone. Do not worry about the future, for it is not here yet. Do not worry about the present, because I did not bring you one."

 

[Brian C. Miller]

Is film dead? I don't care. I'm not dead.

I don't care what film costs. I don't care that there's nobody convenient around here to develop it for me. I don't care about its limitations.

I care that film is what it is, and does what it does.

What more can I ask? What more can I desire from it?

It's my death that means my end to film. When I'm dead, I won't be worrying about it much. Until then, I'm alive and film is alive. This medium is alive. It will continue to be alive. Yes, film has had its heyday. But I'm not dead and it's not dead.

Today I bought my first book of street photography. "Vivian Maier, Out of the Shadows." That's the sort of photographs I do, but I like wandering the countryside. Psychotically going out and going out and going out and going out and going out and going out. One roll after another, one sheet after another.

I can't hoard years of film. I can only buy what's available, and use it up, and buy some more next week. Again and again. The only stash I have is of developed negatives. I will feed my Pentax, my Rollei, my Yashica, my Graflex and my Toyo. Again and again.

I'll stop when I drop.
I'll be mellow when I'm dead.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

To ask a question like this on a forum that's devoted entirely to film photography is like walking into a church and enquiring where the nearest mosque is.

Or walking into a mosque and asking where the nearest church is... or walking into McDonald's and asking where the nearest Burger King is.
If film runs out, just coat your own... B/W, that is.

 

[PKM-25]

This...so true...

Except the internet, the greatest POS to wreck the lives and minds of those in it's path will always try to tell you different...

Is film dead? I don't care. I'm not dead.

I don't care what film costs. I don't care that there's nobody convenient around here to develop it for me. I don't care about its limitations.

I care that film is what it is, and does what it does.

What more can I ask? What more can I desire from it?

It's my death that means my end to film. When I'm dead, I won't be worrying about it much. Until then, I'm alive and film is alive. This medium is alive. It will continue to be alive. Yes, film has had its heyday. But I'm not dead and it's not dead.

Today I bought my first book of street photography. "Vivian Maier, Out of the Shadows." That's the sort of photographs I do, but I like wandering the countryside. Psychotically going out and going out and going out and going out and going out and going out. One roll after another, one sheet after another.

I can't hoard years of film. I can only buy what's available, and use it up, and buy some more next week. Again and again. The only stash I have is of developed negatives. I will feed my Pentax, my Rollei, my Yashica, my Graflex and my Toyo. Again and again.

I'll stop when I drop.
I'll be mellow when I'm dead.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

When I had to give up film photography for a while due to general life stuff and having babies, I took up another antiquated pass-time: I learned to knit. Now I knit, dye yarn, and I'll be designing several patterns next year. You'd think that making your own clothing would go out of style because of the fact that buying it is so *cheap* nowadays...but, yeah, not so much. With the cheap price comes cheap quality, which I'm not exactly happy with, to be quite honest. Sweaters made out of ACRYLIC? Not for me. Same with cameras made of plastic and images in solely digital format.

I mean, you can pry my DSLR from my cold, dead hands, but I've held onto the Burke & James 5x7 and the Mamiya C3 for the last three years. I don't really see myself giving them up any time soon.

 

[Photo-gear]

Film will survive amongst amateurs, but it will be an artcraft, not a massive pastime as it was the case before. We all know professionnal photographers use digital because of the competition. Only a few of them get to work with film for specific clients willing to pay extra bucks. Some others pro, of course, use film as their pastime as well.

 

[Chan Tran]

I can't tell the future because I don't know. If I can still buy a roll of 135-36 color negative film for less than $10.00 and cost me less than $10 to develop it (not including print cost) then I will continue using film as my main type of photography. If I can't buy film or can't get it developed or even getting the chemicals to develop myself or the price went much higher then I can't afford to use film any more.

 

[Roger Cole]

This...so true...

Except the internet, the greatest POS to wreck the lives and minds of those in it's path will always try to tell you different...

The Internet taketh away, but it also giveth. Without it, we wouldn't be using this site and sites like LFPF and FADU and Rangefinder forum to connect with other film users, and we wouldn't get current price and inventory on whatever traditional film and paper we wanted to purchase, easily comparison shopped and delivered to our door just a mouse click away. Oh yeah, I used to order a lot in the old days, from catalogs and ads in magazines (and there wouldn't be any of the latter for film products in most magazines, just as there aren't now) and the telephone but the Internet sure is better.

 

[Alexis M]

The horse is so dead that it’s rotted, turned to earth, became fertilizer, then fed some grass that fed some horse, that died.

But that being said, when something like this comes up in my life, i focus only on the right now. Right now i have a bunch of film in the freezer, there are tons of it in several stores nearby and much more on the net...so i'm fine.

 

[benjiboy]

When I had to give up film photography for a while due to general life stuff and having babies, I took up another antiquated pass-time: I learned to knit. Now I knit, dye yarn, and I'll be designing several patterns next year. You'd think that making your own clothing would go out of style because of the fact that buying it is so *cheap* nowadays...but, yeah, not so much. With the cheap price comes cheap quality, which I'm not exactly happy with, to be quite honest. Sweaters made out of ACRYLIC? Not for me. Same with cameras made of plastic and images in solely digital format.

I mean, you can pry my DSLR from my cold, dead hands, but I've held onto the Burke & James 5x7 and the Mamiya C3 for the last three years. I don't really see myself giving them up any time soon.

Welcome back Stephanie, it's nce to see you posting again, my best wishes to you and your family.

 

[mr rusty]

Film definitely has a future. I am convinced there will be an art/craft market that will see me out. I am a convert. In the past I shot film, and used a lab to D&P. Then I shot digital and had a few cameras. Then on a whim I bought an old Kiev 4A which I couldn't believe was only £5 and then its just GAS. I'm a techie, even though not professionally trained. I take things to pieces when they are broke and >50% of the time I get them back together fixed. The other times I learn something. What I like about film is the *challenge*. There are so many variables - the quirks of the camera as a machine, the film, the exposure, and latterly the darkroom and all it's mysteries that I am just starting to get to grips with. If I take my camera to say a major event there will be 99.9% digital cameras and me and a couple of others trying to tease a nice image out of that bit of silver salt. Of the 99.9% digital pictures taken perhaps 1% will be outstanding and 98.9% will be *the same*. Mine, whatever I do will at least be *different* because they will be taken on film. better? - No! but the images I take will be my view, and my record - and they will be unique. And they might get kept for posterity and not erased or wiped or lost in the next "upgrade" in technology. I like that thought.

 

[redrockcoulee]

There are many reasons to shoot digital but the fear that film will not be available in the future is not one of them. Unless we all stopped shooting film for that very reason. I would not be surprised if many of the modern devices and supplies will not be around in the future either. Film is still here so if you want to use it do so. I cannot see SD cards being common twenty years ago so why buy a DSLR that uses them? Other than you can use them now and for the forseeable future. As long as enough of us still enjoy shooting film and keep buying it some one will still make it for us. Will enough young people also use film to replace us as we fade away, that is another question but it will be answered not in the next 3 to 5 years but at least a decade longer I believe.

 

[PKM-25]

Our local theatre went digi last week:

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/155358

My wife and I went and saw Argo on Celluloid before the transition.....damn this is going to happen fast....

 

[ME Super]

I read the article that was linked to. It is utter baloney that Digital projection is indistinguishable from 35mm. At the distances I usually sit from the screen when I go see a movie (the 1st 10 rows), I can see the individual pixels quite easily. That's not the case with 35mm projection. Heck, I can see individual pixels from a digital projector in our smallish conference room even from clear across the room. Digital projection sucks. Triple the resolution of the average projector and you might have something close to 35mm.

 

[scheimfluger_77]

... But it is a great life to live daily, the photographic one. Between the time I posted the reply about 45K images and now, my wife and I took a drive up a 14 mile 4wd drive road, hiked from 10,150 feet to 12,400 in 3.6 miles, put a camera with an underwater housing in a lake filled with golden trout and nailed a last minute request for a fly fishing article.....

......film and photography are alive and well, good night...

But it also doesn't hurt that you live where you do too.

Steve

 

[Prest_400]

Our local theatre went digi last week:

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/155358

My wife and I went and saw Argo on Celluloid before the transition.....damn this is going to happen fast....

Yes, it's quite a fast process.
My local cinema (has 8 theaters) partly went digital with 2 of it's theaters becoming Digital/3D 2 or 3 years ago; until recently. I remember going a few months back, look into the projection window, and see the projector and a strip of celluloid running next into it. Nowadays it's just a projector that looks like a box... I don't remember the last movie I saw in film, but in less than a month I began to see all of the projectors being boxy (digital)...

Seems to be a distributor thing, they are pushing for digital for their profits; difficult for small cinemas... For the consumer as well. The price has risen 50 euro cents in that month or two... For weekend and holidays, they charge 7.70 (before 7.20) € (10 bucks) And Spanish consumers mostly think about it twice.