How film cameras won over a younger generation

[TJones]

I hate to break it to you, but most mid level smartphones have at least 128Gb internal storage and many can have a terabyte micro SD card. More often than not these days kids have unlimited data plans and save everything direct to the cloud. Memory is simply not an issue at all. People do take a hundred shots of the same thing and then look through them. That's part of the problem with scattergun photography. It works, but you lose your sense of being in the moment.

You frequently see people do this? A hundred shots of the same thing? On their phone?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

At 77, it's nice to know I'm in the youth group.

 

[MattKing]

On the attitude toward cost issue, it probably is important that none of the young people experienced the relatively inexpensive prices that formed our (quite a bit older) experience base, or paid $8.00 for a ticket to a really good concert!

 

[Cholentpot]

You frequently see people do this? A hundred shots of the same thing? On their phone?

Honestly in my small circle of working photographers I rarely see anyone put their DSLR on burst mode.

 

[MattKing]

The only time I use burst mode (on an older iPhone) is when I push the wrong way on the "shutter release", and accidentally fire off a dozen shots. And when that happens, it is a PITA.
I don't see a lot of people using burst mode, but I've seen a fair number of examples of people quickly taking a 6 - 20 fairly similar shots, and then being faced with having to choose between them.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Burst seems like a nice feature for a sports photographer.

 

[jtk]

I GAVE a perfect condition Pentax MEsuper along with a baby Century Graphic along with a bunch of lenses for 6X9 to a young woman who works for our only surviving photo lab. She was excited to be able to play with that stuff and undoubtedly does good work at that lab. However, I kept my several digital cameras, my Nikon scanner, and my superb Canon Pro10 printer.

I kept a bunch of Nikor reels/tanks in a closet, along with darkroom apron and Weston thermometers. Don't know why...maybe because I put so many hours into their use.

My main camera is a fabulous Pentax k70.

 

[madNbad]

I’ve mentioned this in another thread. The repair shop I use on a regular basis is next to a high school that has an active photography program. Students often drop in during their lunch break or after school has ended. They are always full of questions and excited to share what they have learned. This spring, I was shopping for bulk rolls of Tri-X and knew one of the local stores had some remaining stock for considerably less than any of the online sellers. I wasn’t having any luck finding it until a young man asked if this was what I was looking for. He was in his very early twenties and was picking up some recently developed film which he laid out on the light table so we could both view it. His work was good but what struck me was his statement that moving from digital and knowing he had a finite number of exposures had made him more aware and a better photographer. Film may not be quite dead yet.

 

[Europan]

There’s no revolt in the cinemas, that youngsters would throw paint bombs on the screen, tear down the curtains and demolish loudspeakers hollering WE WANT FILM!

No, movies are binary numeric. All around the globe, of course with the exceptions of museums, archives, and special venues, motion pictures aren’t made with scissors and cement anymore. The mechanical editing of work prints, the optical benches, say Oxberry and Petersen, the humming projectors, it’s all gone.

Thank you, Quentin Tarantino, you revived 70 mm! Thank you, client XYZ of 2007, you made a short with an ARRIFLEX on 35 mm ORWO UN 54 that I had the joy of developing, printing, and presenting to you on a Steenbeck! Thank you, universe, that I was lucky to have known the photochemical-mechanical cinema, all the better and worse films we have seen projected!

Hipsters won’t change it. What are the 35 mm stills cameras in comparison to the Mitchell and the Panaflex that sit unused now? The printers that get sold or scrapped, the brutes

Sad. As Kevin Brownlow has put it: The Parade’s Gone By.

 

[Helge]

I GAVE a perfect condition Pentax MEsuper along with a baby Century Graphic along with a bunch of lenses for 6X9 to a young woman who works for our only surviving photo lab. She was excited to be able to play with that stuff and undoubtedly does good work at that lab. However, I kept my several digital cameras, my Nikon scanner, and my superb Canon Pro10 printer.

I kept a bunch of Nikor reels/tanks in a closet, along with darkroom apron and Weston thermometers. Don't know why...maybe because I put so many hours into their use.

My main camera is a fabulous Pentax k70.

Why are you here?

 

[Helge]

There’s no revolt in the cinemas, that youngsters would throw paint bombs on the screen, tear down the curtains and demolish loudspeakers hollering WE WANT FILM!

No, movies are binary numeric. All around the globe, of course with the exceptions of museums, archives, and special venues, motion pictures aren’t made with scissors and cement anymore. The mechanical editing of work prints, the optical benches, say Oxberry and Petersen, the humming projectors, it’s all gone.

Thank you, Quentin Tarantino, you revived 70 mm! Thank you, client XYZ of 2007, you made a short with an ARRIFLEX on 35 mm ORWO UN 54 that I had the joy of developing, printing, and presenting to you on a Steenbeck! Thank you, universe, that I was lucky to have known the photochemical-mechanical cinema, all the better and worse films we have seen projected!

Hipsters won’t change it. What are the 35 mm stills cameras in comparison to the Mitchell and the Panaflex that sit unused now? The printers that get sold or scrapped, the brutes

Sad. As Kevin Brownlow has put it: The Parade’s Gone By.

There is a surprising and increasing number of films filmed on film.

Print film for the silver screen would be nice to have back in bigger numbers, but quite often the projectors was and is terribly maintained, with the residue of the stupid short lived 3D craze ten years ago, still hurting projection of real film, because 3D screens installed everywhere has terrible gain which increases flicker and decreases dynamics.

In Copenhagen alone however, there is serveral cinemas with well kept projectors and several showings of real celluloid every day.

 

[Helge]

The only time I use burst mode (on an older iPhone) is when I push the wrong way on the "shutter release", and accidentally fire off a dozen shots. And when that happens, it is a PITA.
I don't see a lot of people using burst mode, but I've seen a fair number of examples of people quickly taking a 6 - 20 fairly similar shots, and then being faced with having to choose between them.

An iPhone is a fantastic tool for prototyping a shot. Especially iPhones with an approximate normal lens.

You can shoot your way into or “empty out” a location in a way not even possible or hard with a regular digital camera.

It’s what the looking frame was in days of yore. Except the geometry is compressed for you.

 

[AgX]

Print film for the silver screen would be nice to have back in bigger numbers.

What for? Which movies are still printed?

 

[Helge]

What for? Which movies are still printed?

I’m sure there is a place you can look it up.
I don’t keep count, but I regularly watch new 70 mm prints in one of the main cinemas in Copenhagen.

I don’t watch many new movies though. Never have.
Hollywood is generally and increasingly uninteresting during the last 25 years.
That is mirrored in dwindling attendance and flight to other media and the insistence on so called tent pole movies

Print film clearly still exists.
What might be more questionable is whether intermediate negative film exists, for a full analog editing process.

 

[AgX]

I know of these 70mm prints. But the majority even of the Imax cinemas went over to digital projection.


One of the reasons I stopped a 35mm movie project of my own years ago was that there were no more cinemas that did film projection.

 

[Cholentpot]

I know of these 70mm prints. But the majority even of the Imax cinemas went over to digital projection.


One of the reasons I stopped a 35mm movie project of my own years ago was that there were no more cinemas that did film projection.

Hollywood forced this btw. They knew that they couldn't force cinemas to play what they liked as long as they had projectors. They forced the switch and had thousands crush their projectors so they could send them the digital copies of films with a time out stamp embedded.

No more Wizard Of Oz weekends in July or unlimited B film weekday afternoons. You play what we tell you to play.

 

[Helge]

I know of these 70mm prints. But the majority even of the Imax cinemas went over to digital projection.


One of the reasons I stopped a 35mm movie project of my own years ago was that there were no more cinemas that did film projection.

Not talking IMAX, though that is also a possibility.
Dropping a movie project because of the. vagaries of display tech is the worst excuse ever.
Unless you some relied on the artifacts print film.

 

[Helge]

Hollywood forced this btw. They knew that they couldn't force cinemas to play what they liked as long as they had projectors. They forced the switch and had thousands crush their projectors so they could send them the digital copies of films with a time out stamp embedded.

No more Wizard Of Oz weekends in July or unlimited B film weekday afternoons. You play what we tell you to play.

Exactly. Cinemas has basically become giant public TVs with the programming carefully controlled by the studios.
Film is freedom.

The Cinematek in Copenhagen regularly has cavalcades of famous directors. Much of the material is 35mm prints from their own or others vault.

A well maintained projector on a good screen, projecting a not beat to hell print, is capable of fantastic quality.

 

[Don_ih]

Film motion picture cameras are a nearly-extinct breed. Use wears on them terribly and there are no new ones being made. How long until no movies are shot on film?

Projection is a lost cause. It is totally senseless for cinemas to pay someone to run a film projector. Over the past two years, most movie theatres have almost gone out of business. Digital projection is a relief to those businesses. They don't care how the movie is made.

And you can digitally project The Wizard of Oz, too. You just have to pay for it.

 

[Helge]

Film motion picture cameras are a nearly-extinct breed. Use wears on them terribly and there are no new ones being made. How long until no movies are shot on film?

Projection is a lost cause. It is totally senseless for cinemas to pay someone to run a film projector. Over the past two years, most movie theatres have almost gone out of business. Digital projection is a relief to those businesses. They don't care how the movie is made.

And you can digitally project The Wizard of Oz, too. You just have to pay for it.

Cameras are mostly rented and will get serviced between projects. They are very repairable.
There are still Mitchells from the 30s and 40s seeing regular pro use.

Projection might be out for the majority of cinemas but for big and specialty cinemas it can be a very real draw.
I and many others will head specifically to see the film projection of a given small or big new film, if it’s available.
All it takes is a good projector and a projectionist.

 

[Cholentpot]

Cameras are mostly rented and will get serviced between projects. They are very repairable.
There are still Mitchells from the 30s and 40s seeing regular pro use.

Projection might be out for the majority of cinemas but for big and specialty cinemas it can be a very real draw.
I and many others will head specifically to see the film projection of a given small or big new film, if it’s available.
All it takes is a good projector and a projectionist.

The really big independent guys and really small hipster places will keep running projectors and repairing them.

Film motion picture cameras are a nearly-extinct breed. Use wears on them terribly and there are no new ones being made. How long until no movies are shot on film?

Projection is a lost cause. It is totally senseless for cinemas to pay someone to run a film projector. Over the past two years, most movie theatres have almost gone out of business. Digital projection is a relief to those businesses. They don't care how the movie is made.

And you can digitally project The Wizard of Oz, too. You just have to pay for it.

I mean, if you have it on Blu Ray or something and ya know...project it...it's still free.

 

[AgX]

Dropping a movie project because of the. vagaries of display tech is the worst excuse ever.
Unless you some relied on the artifacts print film.

I could have chosen for digital filming but wanted to do it on film, projecting it from a file then made no sense to me.

 

[KerrKid]

I haven't seen anyone around here with a film camera, yet. I'm not sure I've even seen anyone with a digital camera out and about. Everyone I see is taking pix with their phone.

Film is a fad. It will come and go like a lot of other things. I'm enjoying it while I can.

I think men will always outnumber girls 10-to-1 with any mechanical pursuit. It's a matter of interest rather than a matter of ability.

 

[AgX]

I think men will always outnumber girls 10-to-1 with any mechanical pursuit. It's a matter of interest rather than a matter of ability.

I saw more young women than men with film cameras lately.

But as said one may doubt any statiscal relevance.

 

[Cholentpot]

I haven't seen anyone around here with a film camera, yet. I'm not sure I've even seen anyone with a digital camera out and about. Everyone I see is taking pix with their phone.

Film is a fad. It will come and go like a lot of other things. I'm enjoying it while I can.

I think men will always outnumber girls 10-to-1 with any mechanical pursuit. It's a matter of interest rather than a matter of ability.

I've made friends over the past few years striking up conversations with randos with film gear. I'm always strapped so I've had people come up and schmooze with me about cameras. Caught a few gems like that.