Film Rules

Marvin · Oct 27, 2015

Popular Photography had and article this month called Film Rules. They talked about the future of film and it was a good article. I would disagree with the idea that C41 will be the last man standing. I think that with the simpler manufacturing of B&W film that would be the last man standing. They referenced 2040 that they thought C41 would be the only one. For others that read the article what do you think.

Jeff Bradford · Oct 27, 2015

I'm 47 and I'm not giving up monochrome. I'm just getting started.

gzhuang · Oct 27, 2015

You can't deny the fact that all these chemicals are not environmentally friendly over the long term. Anyway, enjoy shooting film while it lasts.

Sirius Glass · Oct 27, 2015

gzhuang said:
You can't deny the fact that all these chemicals are not environmentally friendly over the long term.

Not really, especially if one handles and disposes them properly just like everything else. Gasoline is much worse than the photo chemicals but you still insist on using gasoline to power your vehicles.

Hatchetman · Oct 27, 2015

I find it hard to believe that B&W will ever disappear.

accozzaglia · Oct 27, 2015

gzhuang said:
You can't deny the fact that all these chemicals are not environmentally friendly over the long term. Anyway, enjoy shooting film while it lasts.

Because the chemicals, glass, and rare metals involved in the manufacture of all the polymers, PCB wafers, movable parts, and plastics which go into digital cameras (nearly all models of which, from phones to professional FX DSLRs) — all designed from the get-go with planned obsolescence* and whose hardware is meant to be disposed of every two to eight years — is much more ecologically sound than the emulsions of films (much of it involving reclaimable silver and much less of it involving cameras designed with planned obsolescence).

Because the living conditions for the workers who live next to where these digital cameras are manufactured are located in Special Economic Zones where environmental regulations are left lax on purpose, but it's nothing which most consumers of these products will ever have to find themselves near.

OK.

* sole exception: high-end professional system cameras like Hasselblads

gone · Oct 27, 2015

No gasoline for me. Electricity and pedal power for the last 12 years.

I agree, the environmental damage done by the small niche film community is like a microbe on a beach ball compared to what is dumped into the environment from digital and computer production.

There is no real reason for film to disappear. It's a superior medium, so there will probably always be some demand for it from those who value quality.

accozzaglia · Oct 27, 2015

Also, film is completely impervious to an electromagnetic pulse and needs not a smidge of battery power to view.

momus said:
No gasoline for me. Electricity and pedal power for the last 12 years.

I agree, the environmental damage done by the small niche film community is like a microbe on a beach ball compared to what is dumped into the environment from digital and computer production.

There is no real reason for film to disappear. It's a superior medium, so there will probably always be some demand for it from those who value quality.

pbromaghin · Oct 27, 2015

gzhuang said:
You can't deny the fact that all these chemicals are not environmentally friendly over the long term. Anyway, enjoy shooting film while it lasts.

You believe this only because the pollution caused by our digital addiction happens somewhere else. Go to the google, enter "electronic waste" and click on "images". This is only on the disposal side. The production side is something else, entirely.

Malinku · Oct 27, 2015

Hatchetman said:
I find it hard to believe that B&W will ever disappear.

I got the same mindset. I don't feel like digital will ever be good enough to fully replace b&w films and enough people will want it around for the look of the final print.

Sirius Glass · Oct 27, 2015

momus said:
No gasoline for me. Electricity and pedal power for the last 12 years.

So you pedal you carcass around town?

gzhuang · Oct 27, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
Not really, especially if one handles and disposes them properly just like everything else. Gasoline is much worse than the photo chemicals but you still insist on using gasoline to power your vehicles.

Mankind has been supposedly disposing chemicals safely since the Industrial Revolution. Guilty as charged me included.

gzhuang · Oct 27, 2015

pbromaghin said:
You believe this only because the pollution caused by our digital addiction happens somewhere else. Go to the google, enter "electronic waste" and click on "images". This is only on the disposal side. The production side is something else, entirely.

Nature will prevail over Mankind. Watch out!

pbromaghin · Oct 28, 2015

gzhuang said:
Nature will prevail over Mankind. Watch out!

Yes, but I will be long dead before Nature prevails over you. Watch out yourself!

accozzaglia · Oct 28, 2015

She spoke "misandry"!

gzhuang said:
Nature will prevail over Mankind. Watch out!

"Mankind".

Ha. Please.

accozzaglia · Oct 28, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
So you pedal you carcass around town?

Yeah! I pedal, too! ::up-top to momus::

Why laugh? Don't you? Or do you slog around your ~100-kilo carcass in a two-tonne waste factory which doubles as a class of weapon responsible for killing over 33,000 people a year in the U.S. alone?

(Too soon?)

Poisson Du Jour · Oct 28, 2015

Observing the continuing consumer and professional decline of C41 and particularly E6 (this will be first to go within the next 2-3 years), I would say B&W will be the last of the materials left and continued to be used by hobbyists and the occasional, well-established professional working in that niche market.

Rudeofus · Oct 28, 2015

Marvin said:
I would disagree with the idea that C41 will be the last man standing. I think that with the simpler manufacturing of B&W film that would be the last man standing. They referenced 2040 that they thought C41 would be the only one. For others that read the article what do you think.

Allow me to quote Niels Bohr on this:

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

Anyone telling you what is going to happen in 2040 either is, or wrongly claims to be master of the universe.

Xmas · Oct 28, 2015

Given that you can coat c41 or retained silver on the same machinery it is not very meaningful as a simple statement.
Indeed XP2+ is both...

Jurnos only exist to keep the presses running or ads coming in waste of time reading really.

Their masters may want your vote.

madgardener · Oct 28, 2015

accozzaglia said:
Yeah! I pedal, too! ::up-top to momus::

Why laugh? Don't you? Or do you slog around your ~100-kilo carcass in a two-tonne waste factory which doubles as a class of weapon responsible for killing over 33,000 people a year in the U.S. alone?

(Too soon?)

I literally live across the street from where I work, so I walk and have done so for the last 4 years. I do own a car and I do use it. When purchasing things like groceries, I admit to being lazy. Half a mile up hill with lots of food is just way too far for this middle aged old man.

Fact is, we all affect the environment and not in good ways either. Mining is tremendously destructive, formalin, and other chemicals we deal with are carcinogens, mutacides (SP), etc. Many of us are using a hybrid system for our pictures, etc. So lets just settle down and not have any name calling, please? It just makes the forums less enjoyable for everyone. Besides, I'm currently out of popcorn :munch:

accozzaglia · Oct 28, 2015

madgardener said:
I literally live across the street from where I work, so I walk and have done so for the last 4 years. I do own a car and I do use it. When purchasing things like groceries, I admit to being lazy. Half a mile up hill with lots of food is just way too far for this middle aged old man.

Incidentally, one of the things which is central not only to the future of urban planning and self-sustaining communities, but is also important to me as a planner is the necessity to restore neighbourhood grocery shops — especially so in the last seventy years, in places where master-planned tract housing development, built discretely, intentionally, and distantly from clusters of commercial-only development, have left entire neighbourhoods as food deserts.

As resident citizens age, the need for everyday goods and services to be located far closer to one's home increases substantially, even exponentially (if examining the question quantitatively). In having things closer to home (as in, a short walking distance or bicycling distance), it also has the positive side effect of resident citizens coming to know the faces and names of their neighbours even better — which over time strengthens community relationships as well as the very integrity and public health of the community.

Fact is, we all affect the environment and not in good ways either.

Completely. At this juncture, impact mitigation at all levels — individual, household, community, region, nation, global — is imperative if we hope to curtail our anthropogenic impact upon pretty much everything on this big blue marble.

Mining is tremendously destructive, formalin, and other chemicals we deal with are carcinogens, mutacides (SP), etc. Many of us are using a hybrid system for our pictures, etc.

Indeed. This returns to an imperative to examine the parasitic relationship between quarterly earnings for shareholders, the destructive practice of "planned obsolescence" in manufactured products which get churned out to urgently beat previous quarterly earnings, and how this alters our waste hierarchy. (Mining as a primary economic driver is the precursor to the secondary economic driver of manufacturing, and the interrelationship is inextricable).

Unfortunately, to simply bring that up makes anyone whose savings is locked up in investment funds which need those earnings to perpetually grow can make for a lot of crankiness. The amount of crankiness is inversely related to the amount of social equity prevalent in our localities.

So lets just settle down and not have any name calling, please? It just makes the forums less enjoyable for everyone.

Agreed! I dislike coming onto here to read about photography-related stuff, only to find that my body is being called a "carcass" or that all of humanity is being called "man" (which is not shorthand for "human", though even it it were, it's still lazy and misogynistic) — as if moving my body solely by my own power is somehow a net negative to anyone else or to the environment around me.

B&Wpositive · Oct 28, 2015

They were supposed to have 25 features in the article. I counted 17 and looked through every page of the magazine for the rest, thinking it was an error. The rest were nowhere to be found. There was no end marker at the end of the article, either. Where did the rest go?

hoffy · Oct 29, 2015

Marvin said:
Popular Photography had and article this month called Film Rules. They talked about the future of film and it was a good article. I would disagree with the idea that C41 will be the last man standing. I think that with the simpler manufacturing of B&W film that would be the last man standing. They referenced 2040 that they thought C41 would be the only one. For others that read the article what do you think.

Its curious to note - when I check out some of the film photography groups that I am aware on Facebook, I would say that colour film nearly appears to be the preferred medium. Why? Hipsters shoot colour!* I wonder if that article above has picked up on those trends

*OK, I'm being unfair. Colour film is great and I like to shoot colour, but it appears that many younger photographers are shooting colour mainly.

summicron1 · Oct 29, 2015

Marvin said:
Popular Photography had and article this month called Film Rules. They talked about the future of film and it was a good article. I would disagree with the idea that C41 will be the last man standing. I think that with the simpler manufacturing of B&W film that would be the last man standing. They referenced 2040 that they thought C41 would be the only one. For others that read the article what do you think.

I can't think why -- b/w is a lot simpler, so even if commercial processors go away, but film makers keep it up, you can always find a way to process at home. Heck, simple chemicals around the house can develop film. C-41 is more complex and temperature dependent, for most of us it almost demands a commercial processor.

B&Wpositive · Oct 29, 2015

Pop Photo wants people to submit recent film images before the end of November. They're going to pick one. It's a contest of sorts (or challenge) and is mentioned elsewhere in the magazine.

Film Rules

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