I hate when people assume.

[John Austin]

Let's not forget that this stuff didn't just magically appear out of nowhere--film camera makers were already introducing more and more electronics and automation into their products long before digital came along. You could very easily shoot lots of film without knowing a damn thing about how the settings worked. Assuming they weren't using some crappy instamatic. Then you could (and most people did) take their camera to a 1-hr place to get prints back. And eventually they lost the negatives. Only a tiny percentage did their own processing. Now a lot of us like doing things "the hard way"--fully manual controls, darkroom work, etc. But that's not because we use film. That's just us.

OK, given this truth - I gave up on new Nikons when the F2 was replaced by the F3, that camera was so far beyond my understanding I promptly rushed back to the comfort blanket of my fleet of Fs, which I still use for process documentation in my no longer retirement - The current work is all large silver jelly prints from 10x8" and 5x4" BW neg, something I can understand, and I had to sense to find a place in the forest where my commercial darkroom could be inserted in the shed, 10x8" DeVere included

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

^^^ Why, oh WHY!!... didn't Nikon ever make the FM2 in 4x5 format???

[lamenting never-wuz-es-es]

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I assumed something once.... but since I'm always right... I never worried about it.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I'm a little bit analog,

and I'm a little bit digital,

I'm a little bit of Memphis and Nashville,

with a little bit of Motown in my soul,

I don't know if it's good or bad,

but I know I love it so!!

I'm a little bit analog,

and I'm a little bit digital.​

-------------------
Tip o' the hat the the Osmonds.

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

I got a call today in response to some misc darkroom equipment I posted on CraigsList. It was a guy who said he was almost sixty and wanting to get back in the darkroom again. We talked for a while and I discover that he owns a Leaf Aptus 75 (oh, how that hurt$$$$) which he uses for everyday shoots, but he wants to get back into black and white film and darkroom work.(!)

I figure if this guy with his $30K digital back can still find the desire to shoot film...

Rumors of film's demise are greatly exaggerated!

 

[removed account4]

i don't think digital photographers are any more defensive than film photographers.
i think what happens is that people who shoot film have to defend themselves for not wanting to shoot digital
( and they make up all sorts of crap like you have to upgrade everything every 2 months or year or some BS )
just like their lame excuses for pouring their chemistry down the drain ...
and digital photographers have to explain that it isn't over when you push the button, just like with film
there is some sort of process that takes place between exposure and printing, and since they don't upgrade often
they have virtually no waste ...

it is kind of funny that a lot of film photographers think digital photographers are talentless,
just as digital photographers think the same thing about film photographers.

i bet somewhere there is a digital website with someone saying: this guy who lives next to me who shoots film
thinks i am a sell out and a fool because i bought another digital camera. to get him off my back, i told him ( again ) that i like digital because i am allergic
to metol and get sick from fixer fumes, and one my brother died from wet plate chemicals ( first an explosion then cyanide poisoning )
and i like printing my own vivid 20 foot murals, and i can make my photographs look like anything i like without risk of death or exotic chemicals or processes.
my annoying neighbor shoots vintage rolleis and an 8x10 camera, and enlarges or makes contact prints ... his prints look ok ... but not that nice ...
he dumps all his chemistry down the drain and doesn't want to hear it ....... he thinks its his house and he can do whatever he wants there ...

 

[Chan Tran]

it is kind of funny that a lot of film photographers think digital photographers are talentless,
just as digital photographers think the same thing about film photographers.

Although there are a number of film photographers think that digital photographers are talentless I doubt that the reverse is true. I don't think any digital photographer thinks film photographer as talentless.

 

[Worker 11811]

I don't think digital photographers lack talent. I think the majority of digital users are pracicing a false economy which sabotages their existing talent.

Digital is quicker and easier. It's fun to play around with comptuers. You can share pictures via the internet. You get to buy the latest and greatest stuff.

Problems:
Shooting digital is quicker and easier at the expense of automatic features that are difficult or impossible to override, which sacrifice control in the name of "getting the shot." Yes, sometimes full-auto/program modes are convenient and, in the case of fast action or quickly changing subjects, necessary for getting the shot.

If you really want to make good photography, you'll probably spend as much time in the darkroom as you would spend sitting in front of a comptuer screen digitally editing, proofing and printing.

Computer ink and paper is WAY more expensive than chemistry and film.

I experience technical mistakes and flaws that sacrifice images about as often on film as with digital.
Yes, I screw up developing once in a while but I also have memory cards crash or stop working.
It's not often but it does happen.

Quality: For the average user, it's a wash. One is as good as the other, these days. They won't notice even if you show them.
For the advanced user, again, he would probably spend as much time tweaking equipment and editing digital pictues to perfection as he would with film. It's the nature of the artistic photographer to work hard to make great images.

The problem is that the illusion of ease creates a false sense of security that lulls the digital photographer to take shortcuts, to stop thinking and let comptuers do the work he should be doing. All to the detriment of his work. Not to mention the detriment to his wallet!

I know a couple of great photographers, pros, who can (and do) take great pictues with anything you hand them. Hand him a digicam or a Rollex and he'll bring you back great photos. Give him and empty beer can and he'll bring you back a great photo.

The good photographers think about their work, no matter what the medium. The "digital hacks" are probably hacks because they got suckered in by flashy, whiz-bang technology that gives them a false sense of security and makes them stop thinking about their work.

This is the reason why I always advise people to learn how to use film. I dont' care if their goal is to shoot digital forever. I want them to take one course, spend one sememster or one summer shooting with film and nothing but. By the end of their course, their semester or the summer, their skills will have progressed by orders of magnitude, precisely because using film with little or not help from computers has taught them to THINK.

It's not digital users who are hacks. There are also film-shooting hacks. It's non-thinkers who are hacks. However, with the majority of people using digital, the vast majority of non-thinking, hack photographers are digital photographers.

Being a film photographer means that there is a greater likelihood that you think about your work. Therefore the likelihood of being a hack is much lower if he shoots film.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Assumptions are short cuts for thinking. If you're skilled at it, you'll do fine. But for most people including me, I'm not good at it and I prove to myself how little I know and how small my world is. The danger of assumptions for some is when one think it's the only reality.

 

[Roger Cole]

i don't think digital photographers are any more defensive than film photographers.
i think what happens is that people who shoot film have to defend themselves for not wanting to shoot digital
( and they make up all sorts of crap like you have to upgrade everything every 2 months or year or some BS )
just like their lame excuses for pouring their chemistry down the drain ...

he dumps all his chemistry down the drain and doesn't want to hear it ....... he thinks its his house and he can do whatever he wants there ...

What on earth are you on about? The vast majority of black and white chems and many color ARE perfectly safe to dump down the drain in hobbyist quantities.

 

[Steve Smith]

Hand him a digicam or a Rollex and he'll bring you back great photos.

Or tell you the time!


Steve.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

i know exactly what ou guys mean .they treat us like dinosaurs,film dinosaurs.

 

[Moopheus]

George Eastman built his empire on the belief that people are inheirantly lazy. His motto:"you push the button, we'll do the rest". People want machines to do it all for them, that way they can pat themselves on the back for the little effort they put into life.

And I'm sure artists said that when cameras where introduced too. Do you not have any machines at home that do things for you? Most people do not really care that much about how the little box works, all they want is the pictures.

 

[removed account4]

What on earth are you on about? The vast majority of black and white chems and many color ARE perfectly safe to dump down the drain in hobbyist quantities.

roger

people say+do dopy things on both sides of the street ...
(and you can read it here on apug or anywhere else )
THAT is what i am talking about .

 

[derwent]

Digital has made it easier for idiots to blast away and produce lots of mediocre rubbish at little cost.
Also most people who don't care and just want a snapshot have gone digital leaving a much higher proportion of film users in the real photographer category.
There are however lots of damn good photographers out there shooting digi and putting just as much effort in as film shooters.

I've had one or two smart comments out shooting film 35mm SLRs but if I'm shooting one of my EOS Canons people assume its a DSLR till I change rolls and if I'm using the Rollei I get lots of "cool camera" and "can you still get film for it?" (well hello, I'm taking photos with it!!!!) or "my dad had one like that" or from older folks "I used to use one of those..." and the odd "got one in the cupboard, thought you couldn't get the film anymore!".
Only negative reaction I have had was from a drunk who thought it was a tv camera and when I said it wasn't he thought it was a speed camera (I was taking traffic light trail shots on a tripod) then he eventually lost interest and walked away.

Most people I know are aware that I like old stuff.
I drive a '70s car, shoot film, shoot a 1950s target pistol, scour markets for vinyl records, listen to classic rock and jazz, and buy new gadgets only after everybody else has them and they're no longer fashionable.
They take it as part of my nature and leave it alone.
I do shoot digital, but not all that often.
When I'm at work driving buses there is always a pocket digi with me and often I come across something worth shooting. I just don't want to subject the Rollei to being carted around all day in the locker of a bus...although sometimes I will take a rangefinder along in my lunch bag.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Or tell you the time!


Steve.

No, that would be a Rolex. With a Rollex he'd probably have overlapping frames with modern films, but the later Super Rollex backs avoid this problem.

 

[removed-user-1]

This is really nothing new... in the early 90s, pre-digital, I got into an argument with a fellow photo student over whether her Minolta Maxxum camera could make "better portraits" than my Nikon because hers had a "Portrait Card" installed. I understand the OP's frustration. I've got a Master's in Graphic Arts that entails a lot of experience with Adobe Photoshop and lots of other digital imaging equipment and software. Many people are surprised to learn that I use film.

 

[Worker 11811]

Hand him a digicam or a Rollex and he'll bring you back great photos.

Or tell you the time!

Oops!
But, the one guy I know, could probably STILL takes pictures with it!

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Here's my take on digital...

1. As others stated, people like George Eastman understood that the vast majority of people just want an easy solution to a mediocre end. Most folks don't care about all the technical stuff... they just want a picture.

2. The good thing about digital technology making it super-easy to take some very decent photos... and occasionally a great one without ever having to think about the technical stuff is that this raises the bar for all those who do still care about the technical stuff. To stay ahead of the game we must become technically better and more creative at what we do. That's a good thing.

That's just my 2 cents.

 

[Darkroom317]

i don't think digital photographers are any more defensive than film photographers.
i think what happens is that people who shoot film have to defend themselves for not wanting to shoot digital
( and they make up all sorts of crap like you have to upgrade everything every 2 months or year or some BS )
just like their lame excuses for pouring their chemistry down the drain ...
and digital photographers have to explain that it isn't over when you push the button, just like with film
there is some sort of process that takes place between exposure and printing, and since they don't upgrade often
they have virtually no waste ...

At every photo club meeting or workshop I go to, they always talk about when they shot film. They then proceed to talk about the greatness of digital over the film that they shot. I find it funny that even years after they have stopped shooting film they still find it necessary to mention it and how "awful" it was.
Tim Ernst during a lecture in 2010 said that Kodak had just killed Kodachrome and how happy he was when he stopped shooting that "awful" film. There I end having to defend my choice to shoot on a near monthly basis even though they all know that I also shoot a lot of digital, I work for my University student newspaper. So, I certainly know my way around my DSLR as well as my Rolleicord or A-1

 

[Worker 11811]

Tim Ernst during a lecture in 2010 said that Kodak had just killed Kodachrome and how happy he was when he stopped shooting that "awful" film.

Film : Awful :: Digital : Lazy

What? Does he want somebody to wipe his butt when he goes to the bathroom, too?

To be serious, there is a certain amount of work overhead in any task you do, from getting up in the morning to, yes, going to the bathroom. That is life.

Yes, I like the convenience of shooting digital pictures but convenience should not equate to "avoidance of work."

Developing film and all of the other chores involved in traditional photography can, sometimes, be boring and tedious but, if film is your choice you have to accept that.

Personally, I find recharging batteries and downloading data from flash cards to be tedious and boring. And, YES, when I shoot digital, I probably spend as much time recharging batteries, hooking up cables, downloading files and editing them as I spend developing and proofing in the darkroom. Much as I don't like it, I accept that as part of the work I have to do in order to shoot digital pictures.

When somebody says film is "awful" or when I hear people reminisce about how they took a photography course in college where they had to D-E-V-E-L-O-P their F-I-L-M it says to me that they don't understand their craft and that they are either too lazy or too stupid to try to understand it.

 

[Darkroom317]

The darkroom is a pleasure but loading hundreds of images off a card, sorting them and then editing them is a chore. I have dozens of files that I haven't sorted. I just load the entire card into a older no matter what the images are of. I truly dread working with my commuter on photos mainly organization issues and disappointment with some inkjet prints. Yet, I don't mind spending 11 hours in the darkroom like I did yesterday.

 

[ME Super]

You're not the only one that doesn't like organizing digital photos. I do the same thing - download the photos from the camera to the computer in a folder with starting and ending dates, and organize later. I much prefer putting the slides into a tray, then setting up screen and projector and turning off the lights.

The Slide Curmudgeon

 

[mikendawn]

I prefer to shoot film. A co-worker said I should throw away one of my MUCH older cameras (a Kalimar A "Welmy 2") because it was not digital, and said.. "It's garbage!"...
I kindly pointed out that I can do much more with a film image than you can with a digital image. Sure, digital is easy, convenient and clinical. But that's the problem. I mean, when you have a camera that can take a photo, instantly show the results (much to the demise of Polaroid) and let the "Faux-Tographer" see what DoF they got without having to think about it? yeah... that's just laziness..
I take a look at the Av mark on my lens, and figure out. Okay, the subject is currently 10' away... I need it sharp, but what if it moves forward a bit, or backwards a bit?? (animal or person).. well, I peek at the DoF scale on the lens (ask a digital photographer if they even KNOW what one of those are) and figure out..okay, I've got 3 feet to play with either way.. GREAT!
Take the photo...

If it's stationary and I want a full separation, well, just adjust the aperture to get the result.. I know how to do this with film, why the hell wouldn't I know how to apply it to my EOS 40D or 1000D??

Heck, I have taken shallow DoF shots with a 2003 POS P&S camera that doesn't have autofocus. It's, literally, a semi-smart box camera. It'll adjust the shutter speed and "aperture" to shoot, but to get close focusing? yeah, flip a switch to MOVE the sensor in or out from the lens.
2.1MP fun...

Next time someone figures you can't use a digital camera, just ask them.. "can you read a DoF scale?"

Cheers

-----------------------------------------------------------------

APS, 35mm, 120, 4x5 and a Deardorff & Sons 8x10 under restoration.

I don't care the format, as long as it's film!

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Depth of field? That hasn't existed since the stone ages. Modern technology has eliminated such mundane things.