Film Photography "Slows Me down."

[wiltw]

Saw a journalist photographer in a movie once and she was shooting 4x5 handheld with range finder, changing sides and refocusing every 5 to 10 seconds.

Journalist...the expense was on someone else's ticket, not his own. One 4x5 is equivant to a full roll of 135, in relative film cost and processing cost.

 

[mshchem]

And in a year or two, wondering what to do with 10^5 digital snaps and RAW files, and how to back up to the latest version of hard drive or cloud, and how to annotate the EXIF data on each file. And then wondering if when you die, will your descendants look at your 10^5 or 10^6 perfectly preserved files?

The only readily available family photos I have are (mostly) Kodachrome slides. My Dad's starting in the 40's, mine starting in the 70's, I processed my own Ektachrome, briefing before going back to Kodak processed Kodachrome.
I took advantage of the great Carousel purge, at work, and other sources. Everything transferred from my Dad's ancient Argus 300 . All nicely stored, cool, dark and dry. That and my Dad's black and white scrapbook.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I don't think it necessarily has much to do with format but rather with subject matter, circumstances, as well as personality. I was just reading Ansel Adams' description of his photograph of Buddhist funeral stones in Hawaï. As he was starting to set up, a rainbow appeared right behind his subject and he had to move very fast - chose an angle of view, change the lens, put on a filter, focus, etc. - before it would disappear, this on a 4x5 field camera.

Sure, doing street photography with an 8x10 would be like Woody Allen playing the cello in a marching band in Take the Money and Run, but I still hesitate generalizing about which format makes you go slower.

 

[Down Under]

Me too. If I shot film like I do digital I would be bankrupt in less than a year.

This is my main reason for slow-going with film and I believe many others will say the same.

 

[Valerie]

Either way, my post wasn’t to start an argument about which format is slower, or how one person thinks themselves better than the other. I only posted simply to state that *I* have never slowed down enough to really appreciate what I was photographing, and the constraints of what I was doing yesterday opened my eyes to just how much I might be missing.

carry on.

THIS is perfect! Appreciation of what is right before our eyes.

 

[awty]

Journalist...the expense was on someone else's ticket, not his own. One 4x5 is equivant to a full roll of 135, in relative film cost and processing cost.

My Bolex can do up to 48 frames/sec. 100' of film gone in a few seconds.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Me too. If I shot film like I do digital I would be bankrupt in less than a year.

This is my main reason for slow-going with film and I believe many others will say the same.

I think I might scrub the layer of dust off the D700 and take it out and act like it’s the RB, avoiding any technology it possesses.

 

[Brendan Quirk]

The "slows me down" thing is BS. It's how film snobs convince themselves they are better photographers because they use film as opposed to the "spray and prey" approach. The same nonsense is often uttered in the large format world: "large format slows me down...." going on to explain that it forces them to concentrate more on composition etc. etc. baloney.

If you enjoy film, excellent. That's all there is to it from an art perspective.[/QUOTI tend to think a lot beforehand - but work pretty fast when actually shooting.

I tend to think a lot beforehand - but work pretty fast when actually shooting.

 

[MattKing]

I think I might scrub the layer of dust off the D700 and take it out and act like it’s the RB, avoiding any technology it possesses.

Don't forget to avoid looking at the screen on the back.

 

[markjwyatt]

Oh boy, about $25-30 spent on film and processing every 10 seconds! The expense causes folks to rethink burst shooting.

Try cinematography with film. Obviously insane

 

[markjwyatt]

Even when I shoot my Fujifilm XT-2, I don't "spray and pray". I frame the subject and shoot an image, and quite often do not look at the LCD screen afterwards. If I am uncertain about what I took, I may check it and reshoot. Of course, I do not have to worry as much about changing film, what ISO to pick this time, etc. I also find regardless, I am not doing it much. I am enjoying shooting my film cameras.

 

[radiant]

And in a year or two, wondering what to do with 10^5 digital snaps and RAW files, and how to back up to the latest version of hard drive or cloud, and how to annotate the EXIF data on each file. And then wondering if when you die, will your descendants look at your 10^5 or 10^6 perfectly preserved files?

I don't need my 10^5 snapshots. I've already picked the best ones (quite a few usually), usually shot/miss ratio is better with digital, unfortunately. I usually don't even transfer all photos from cards either, I make first pick from the card. Others go down the drain..

I print photo books and photos of the best ones so as long as the books and photos maintain, I'm golden. I've just stopped worrying about hard drives, probably no-one will be interested in those anyways ..

 

[Maris]

Like the OP I went out with my Mamiya RB67. In my case it was to shoot a roll at a local lake for water's-edge scenes. And this thread reminded me to total up my time budget for the entire photographic cycle.

It took me about 1 hour to shoot the ten 6x7 negatives that a RB puts on a roll. That's 6 minutes per negative.
Developing that roll took about 1 hour from putting the film in the developing tank to hanging up the wet processed film. That's another 6 minutes per negative.
I've had a lot of practice and work quickly but it still takes about 20 minutes to produce a good, better, best print off each of those 10 negatives.
Print washing, drying, flattening, spotting, annotating, and cataloguing take time too. Maybe 10 minutes per print.
Simple arithmetic suggests that every click of the RB67's shutter committed me to more than 30 minutes constant labour for each one of those nice looking photograph.

Camera work may be done quickly but the practical production of actual photographs is an inherently slow process that entails effort-full work. Actually this operates in my favour. If the scene is not good enough to deserve all the foreseeable and burdensome follow-ups then I don't fire the shutter. Slower is easier.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Don't forget to avoid looking at the screen on the back.

That was in my morning writing this morning. I think I'm going to turn off the auto playback feature and fabricate a black cover that I can tape to it so I wont be tempted.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Right before re-discovering film I was losing interest in digital because brute-forcing works so well.

For me it's not even digital vs film, it's just about life in general. I work 12 hour shifts listening to adults complain about how they can't take a nap because their neighbor is mowing their lawn, and ridiculous things like that. TV, radio, social media, and even a trip to the convenience store sometimes overwhelms me with negative influences. Now that I've crossed the center divide and life is downhill from here, especially times like these, it seems that days go by faster and faster and faster. Time is flying. What I really appreciated when shooting on Monday was the time it took me to meter, re-meter, and re-re-meter my scene. The minutes it took to set up the tripod and compose the shot, and the time I was forced to take to really look at, walk around, smell, feel, and touch the scene I was shooting. At one point, I was so immersed in what I was doing that I didn't notice the lady with her garden cart trying to pass me. I have no idea how long she had been standing there, but she finally built up the courage to say "right behind you". I apologized and told her that I didn't see her there. All of it combined was a very welcomed escape from the thoughts of boat work, bills, work work, cleaning, chores, and any other adult responsibilities that we deal with on a daily basis.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

For me it's not even digital vs film, it's just about life in general. I work 12 hour shifts listening to adults complain about how they can't take a nap because their neighbor is mowing their lawn, and ridiculous things like that. TV, radio, social media, and even a trip to the convenience store sometimes overwhelms me with negative influences. Now that I've crossed the center divide and life is downhill from here, especially times like these, it seems that days go by faster and faster and faster. Time is flying. What I really appreciated when shooting on Monday was the time it took me to meter, re-meter, and re-re-meter my scene. The minutes it took to set up the tripod and compose the shot, and the time I was forced to take to really look at, walk around, smell, feel, and touch the scene I was shooting. At one point, I was so immersed in what I was doing that I didn't notice the lady with her garden cart trying to pass me. I have no idea how long she had been standing there, but she finally built up the courage to say "right behind you". I apologized and told her that I didn't see her there. All of it combined was a very welcomed escape from the thoughts of boat work, bills, work work, cleaning, chores, and any other adult responsibilities that we deal with on a daily basis.

Cheese gets better with age. Also, the photography you described keeps you centered in the moment rather than in yesterday or tomorrow. It does that for me too. Driving a car in the countryside also works for me. It's all about right now.

 

[Down Under]

I think I might scrub the layer of dust off the D700 and take it out and act like it’s the RB, avoiding any technology it possesses.

Me too. I have two D700s and I cannot praise them enough. Also a D800 which is so good and had so few actuation (+/-900) when I bought it as a shop demo camera in 2019, it may well be be my last ever DSLR, tho' that pair of D700s may yet outlive it...

when shooting digital I often play Let's Pretend and shoot as if I am working with larger format (in my case Rollei TLRs, so 120 film). Tripod, slow composing, limit the number of images I shoot of any given subject.

Last year I devoted two months go going thru my film archives and put the scissors to about 20,000 images I no longer wanted. So far I am resisting doing deletes in my digital image archives. At my age I may not have enough time left for this chore...

 

[Down Under]

For me it's not even digital vs film, it's just about life in general.

I work 12 hour shifts listening to adults complain about how they can't take a nap because their neighbor is mowing their lawn, and ridiculous things like that. TV, radio, social media, and even a trip to the convenience store sometimes overwhelms me with negative influences.

Now that I've crossed the center divide and life is downhill from here, especially times like these, it seems that days go by faster and faster and faster.

Time is flying. What I really appreciated when shooting on Monday was the time it took me to meter, re-meter, and re-re-meter my scene. The minutes it took to set up the tripod and compose the shot, and the time I was forced to take to really look at, walk around, smell, feel, and touch the scene I was shooting. At one point, I was so immersed in what I was doing that I didn't notice the lady with her garden cart trying to pass me. I have no idea how long she had been standing there, but she finally built up the courage to say "right behind you". I apologized and told her that I didn't see her there.

All of it combined was a very welcomed escape from the thoughts of boat work, bills, work work, cleaning, chores, and any other adult responsibilities that we deal with on a daily basis.

This has the makings of a new thread. How photography can keep us sane (or alternatively, make us insane).

So why don't you? I for one am looking forward to your musings on this topic which will be of great interest to us late-lifers.

But please, please, break it up into paragraphs. As I have above, and I believe it reads much easier. Good text and excellent ideas throughout. Bravo to you!

You are revitalising this web site and I applaud you. Go for it.

 

[gone]

For me, LF was just too slow (as well as being too heavy/big/expensive, etc). I've been using AF Nikons w/ manual focus lenses for 10 or 20 years, and w/ the AE and motorized film advance, 10 shots can zip by. Never was a digital shooter, so there's been no transition to anything slower.