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- Oct 17, 2008
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- 23
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- 35mm
???
Ian,
This is a rather provocative statement.
Could you expand on this?
What Ilford products demonstrates what you say?
In the absence of a product to product comparison, on what do you base the claim of Ilford's superiority?
Ray
I use them myself Paul, but I have no proof that they are better or technologically superior to similar Kodak products.
PE
I don't know about Ian, but I have preferred Ilford products for many years.....
Not sure when I last saw a properly projected 35mm slide, but consumers don't project anymore, they share online or sit in front of their tvs. Do pros project? I'm in no position to argue, but I'd be surprised.
More generally, I'm not saying film is dead. To replicate or exceed MF is expensive and to replicate or exceed LF is enormously expensive. It's specifically the 35mm format for which I can't imagine a future, for the reasons I stated in my original post.
(Would any pro use 35mm film over a Canon 5D? I now several who don't, who have given up even MF format for full-frame 35mm digital.)
There are advantages to film, I know, but the 35mm film is just too small, I would think, to justify it's use for most pros or enthusiasts only because either MF film or 35mm digital, or both, will dominate for almost any use.
And, while I have the floor, I would implore everyone reading this to shoot at least one roll of Kodachrome this year. It's an emulsion that doesn't deserve to fade away.
No new 35mm cameras? How about the new Blackbird, Fly???!
The survival of 35mm film has nothing to do with whether or not digital SLRs are any "better" or "worse" (stupid subjective overblown words anyhow), so let us shitcan this argument right now, since it is making this into another stupid post like so many others in which the techies come in to this nice Website and make their stupid arguments that belong on Photo.net or in some photo rag. It has everything to do with use, notably in Hollywood, and will definitely be affected by college (and perhaps high school) educational programs and individual instructors. Without a new generation of smart, devoted film users, film is dead, and nobody will even miss it because we'll all be dead too. Nobody is getting together and conspiring to do away with 35mm film. It will go away when people give up on using it in sustainable quantities, and not before. People who have given up on 35mm film 100% in favor of digital are not going to come back, because we already know they are stupid, technically and/or monetarily obsessed short-sighted people. Those who still shoot film are holdouts doing it because they do not need or want digital, and probably will never stop shooting 35 until it is pried from their hands. The number of smart people who use both must be very small. In other words, we smart people have no control over what happens with 35mm. All we can do is keep shooting and pray, and arrogantly keep telling the argumentative digital idiots that they *are* idiots and they can lick our Royal boots. It has NOTHING to do with what whiz-bang digital Game Boys are now available, and everything to do with profits. If Kodak and Fuji cannot spend the effort trying to convince people to use their own products, then they deserve to die.
Ian;
I'm not sure of your figures either regarding technical expertise. But lets agree to disagree. Kodak has a larger staff in analog than Ilford. That I am pretty sure of.
PE
???
Ian,
This is a rather provocative statement.
Could you expand on this?
What Ilford products demonstrates what you say?
In the absence of a product to product comparison, on what do you base the claim of Ilford's superiority?
Ray
Don't be so sure that people who move to 100% digital are not coming back, I am proof, I went from 100% film, to 100% digital, and am now moving back to film, because film, and I mean 35mm film here, has certain qualities that are missing in digital images. Heck I am even thinking of finding a way to set up the old enlarger and doing some B&W printing again. Will I go back 100%, probably not, there are some things were digital works just as well.
Now as to the death of film, every technology sea change goes through the same process, everyone adopts the new technology except a few retro grouches, many see that it's not worth the hype, that was attached to it. Many figure they are there already and stay with the new, a small portion go back to the old technology exclusively and some will use both the old and new. Film photography has come full circle in that it's been on both ends and in the middle of this sea change.
In the 1800's B&W film photography was the new kid, predicted to replace painting and drawing in a few short years, over 100 years later the fact you can buy canvas and paints and various drawing tools means this prophecy was not true. In the 1940's it was predicted that the new colour photography technology would replace B&W entirely within a few short years. Over 50 years later, you can still buy B&W materials, so that prophecy was wrong too.
The current prophetic word in all this is that film is dead and that digital will completely eliminate it in a few short years, Where have we heard this kind of thing before? I expect over 50 years from now, you will still be able to get film, someone will still be making film cameras, the market will have settled into it's niche and still be important.
What, I think will save film is, in 20 years you will get kids with their fancy auto everything digital cameras looking at the works of the great film photographers and comparing those wonderful works to the flat, toneless crap of their own overly computer processed work, and they will go looking for the then 70 and 80 year old film guys, who will be willing to sit back and tell them about the wonders of the old films we use and used, and how you can play with processing to get different results the smells of the different chemistries, the wonderment of opening the tank and pulling out a wet roll of negatives. and watching a white piece of exposed paper turn into a photograph under a safe light. Film will then go through an amazing renaissance. What I think will die is colour film, partly because it's designed for the high volume use that it has seen over the last 50 years, B&W settled into a niche years ago, and while it had some pain in the early digital process, I think it's less then it is for colour, digital B&W doesn't give quite the same effect, so a lot of B&W guys will think, hmmm is it worth, spending an couple of hours on a computer to make a digital image look like B&W or better to shoot and process film in the first place.
Some good points, but the main point is still being ignored: What you or I do does not matter. You may have come back to film, but not the people who provided Kodak with a lot of their income. Also, the fact that you had to "come back" in the first place means that you may just as likely jump ship again. This is up to Hollywood and commercial photographers, not hobbyists and "artists". Our volume is simply too low to make a large dent. As for "quality" swaying people, don't count on that! People in general are STUPID, greedy, cheap, and lazy above all. Those who are not are such a small number, I don't know what they can do to change things for film.
When I said early days I was referring to the 1890's early 1900's when Kodak began an acquiring other companies for their products & technologies. They approached Ilford with a view to merging with them, and later taking them over.
Remember that the first Manual of Photography (later called the Ilford Manual of Photography) was published in 1890, before Eastman Kodak was founded.
Later Kodak was always envious of the Ilford range of B&W films and papers which were widely regarded as being superior by users to comparable Kodak products.
Ian
You forgot the biggest "thrill" to digital for the common man, what I like to call bling factor. It doesn't matter if your photographic abilities are fewer then Stevie Wonders, IF you have the latest model of Canon or Nikon digital around your neck with the fancy neck strap, with the biggest bazooka of a lens attached.
There will always be some people who will want film, considering that we now have a global marketplace, someone, somewhere will be supplying it. They may not have a massively huge market, but there will be a market there.
Ian;
I was there, remember?
. . . . . . . . The T-grains were put into both types of products at about the same time, but IDK if they were released at the same time. So, it really depends on time frame as the product sales weighted for ROI determined part of this.
PE
T-grain films were first introduced in 1982 with Kodacolor VR 100. But Tmax films weren't released to the public until considerably later around 1986, John Sexton began working with Kodak testing early versions in about 1984.
Ian
Some good points, but the main point is still being ignored: What you or I do does not matter. You may have come back to film, but not the people who provided Kodak with a lot of their income. Also, the fact that you had to "come back" in the first place means that you may just as likely jump ship again. This is up to Hollywood and commercial photographers, not hobbyists and "artists". Our volume is simply too low to make a large dent. As for "quality" swaying people, don't count on that! People in general are STUPID, greedy, cheap, and lazy above all. Those who are not are such a small number, I don't know what they can do to change things for film.
I think in 50 years, one can buy 35mm B&W and color films. Cheaply too, and perhaps all made in India or China :-( But at least film will be around. I do think that what influences the big companies to make film is be far the number of people shooting film and not the number of film cameras being made. Film is slowly losing it's charm in high school and college curriculums, and as film usage dies in the schools, so will film, because for film to thrive, new shooters need to be introduced into it. All of us old film nuts will be dead "soon" (relative to teenaged years).
As to "stupid" digital users, well if you look all over the internet, one will find amazing fantastic work done by "stupid" digital users, and I mean awesome work at the very top of the craft, from nearly ALL the big photographer names in most genres.
While I share your fervor for film, calling digital shooters "idiots" is not going to benefit anyone, nor change anything except to make one look like one more interested in cameras and media then the prime directive: The Picture.
I think you will find "stupid", "greedy", and "cheap" people shooting both film and digital, and to demonize one or the other is...well, it's stupid! ;-)
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