Is film dead?

Film, like any camera which uses it, is a tool. As a tool one needs to use it for tasks which is it best suited to, and I honestly find it exceptionally tiring to deal with people who get overly hung up on their personal choice of tool because they tend to become one themselves. Film is a great tool, and I know I'll keep using it and exploring it for as long as I'm able to. (Even if it means scrounging together the funds and time to just make it myself.)


A hammer is great at driving nails, but rather crap at driving screws. An 8x10 camera shooting your choice of your favourite film is a beautiful thing to work with, but it is utter crap if you have hundreds of small cheap items to photograph and upload to a web store. It is also utter crap if you're photographing and reporting on an ongoing breaking news item, or trying to photograph a suspect in a crime you're witnessing. Film is especially crap if you're trying to deploy a 24/7 security surveillance system somewhere.

Film is less than ideal for casual shooting and sharing with your social circle through modern telecommunications. Sure, I could make a small print and mail it to a friend, and have them mail it to the next, and so on, or I could make a bunch of prints and mail them all out in one go... But for a fairly simple casual "Hey look at this cool place/event/thing you might find interesting..." it is rather hard to beat a digital image for the ease of use and speed.


The childish name calling and building a wall between "Us and them" is a great way to drive people away from film.

It is a tool, one of many in the photographic arts, and frankly I find the idea of 'purity' and 'one system or the other' to be foolish and down right idiotic.
Want to shoot on film, make contact prints on traditional paper, and hang on a wall? Awesome.
Want to shoot on film, make enlargements, do detailed post processing in a dark room, and then send stuff off to a printers to make books? Awesome.
Want to shoot film, develop the negatives, scan, post process on a computer, and print your art on a large format inkjet? Awesome.
Want to shoot digital, post process, digitally print a negative, and then contact print on light sensitive paper? Awesome.
Want to shoot digital, post process on a computer, and share with the world online? Awesome.
Want to do some other random combination to produce art which makes you happy while you keep exploring and growing? Awesome.

Do you want to belittle others and claim superiority over them based on your tools and methods to get to your end goals? ... Not awesome. Not remotely awesome, and anyone who does is an egoistical fool who is probably very tiring to be around, and is more likely to drive people away from artistic endeavors and isn't someone I wish to spend any amount of time with.

At times it honestly feels like the biggest enemy to the growth and future of film as an art medium are the users of film. Holier than Thou zealots gathering in groups, standing at the ready to drive off any who don't share their exact views with sticks and stones. It can be hard and tiring to find open and welcoming conversations in a middle ground where those involved are happy to give credit and keep an open mind about any and all processes... And, well, honestly digital is just 'easier'. So guess which way younger artists are likely to swing if all the groups they find keep pushing to one end or the other? Humans aren't really known for deliberately doing things the knowingly hard way.

Sirius Glass said:

See post #100. Evidently you do not retain the contents of the posts which you read.

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I'll take that as a yes.

Luckless said:

At times it honestly feels like the biggest enemy to the growth and future of film as an art medium are the users of film.

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+1 to your whole post sir....

Instead of engaging potential newcomers or those who would come back to film after a digital hiatus, they often alienate these folks who are otherwise very passionate about photography regardless of tools used. I used to really bash digital at any chance across several platforms when it finally dawned on me that I was likely pushing away potential customers with my self entitled sense of analog "purity".

I mean....think about this for a moment: If I have been using film for 41 years, shooting full time professionally for 28 years and 22 of those years with digital equipment...why on earth would I still be using film if it were totally outdated or why would I be OK with choosing a Leica, Nikon or Hasselblad digital component to arrive at a desired final photographic output if they were "Junk" or "Crap"?

Good tools are good tools, period and there are lots of incredibly good digital tools out there. So I happily shoot both for a variety of reasons. I get the passion behind those who want to stick with an all analog workflow, I feel that way too much of the time. But what I don't get is the nastiness towards what is now the current standard tool or workflow in modern photography...you do no one any favors by lashing out like this, including your selves.

Luckless said:

At times it honestly feels like the biggest enemy to the growth and future of film as an art medium are the users of film. Holier than Thou zealots gathering in groups, standing at the ready to drive off any who don't share their exact views with sticks and stones.

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Amen. People on this board seem incapable of perceiving the fondness and enthusiasm for the medium in others, and instead present hierarchies of authenticity, with only people like themselves (technological xenophobes, halide recidivists, gelatine nostalgists, acetate totalitarians) worthy of status. Ranting about the true faith, clicking on their smartphones, scanning into pixeldom and sending their jeremiads into cyberspace without a hint of irony.

blockend said:

Amen. People on this board seem incapable of perceiving the fondness and enthusiasm for the medium in others, and instead present hierarchies of authenticity, with only people like themselves (technological xenophobes, halide recidivists, gelatine nostalgists, acetate totalitarians) worthy of status. Ranting about the true faith, clicking on their smartphones, scanning into pixeldom and sending their jeremiads into cyberspace without a hint of irony.

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Some people on this board.....

Yawn..

blockend said:

I'll take that as a yes.

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I neither agreed nor disagreed with you assertion. You have made as assumption and you know what that makes you.

Sirius Glass said:

I neither agreed nor disagreed with you assertion. You have made as assumption and you know what that makes you.

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If you believe digital cameras are "junk" as you stated, you must consider the photographs taken on them to also be junk, and if they're not, the photographers must be better for creating great images using bad materials. I believe neither is the case. Digital cameras are no better or worse than film cameras, and visionary photographers are as rare as they always were.

If you'd care to state an objective criterion of value or quality, vis a vis digital and film cameras and their output, the discussion might move past baseless pejoratives.

blockend said:

Amen. People on this board seem incapable of perceiving the fondness and enthusiasm for the medium in others, and instead present hierarchies of authenticity, with only people like themselves (technological xenophobes, halide recidivists, gelatine nostalgists, acetate totalitarians) worthy of status. Ranting about the true faith, clicking on their smartphones, scanning into pixeldom and sending their jeremiads into cyberspace without a hint of irony.

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Indeed. What an excellent signature that statement would make. But as Matt King later succinctly put it, only some people on APUG are like this. They know who they are.

blockend said:

Amen. People on this board seem incapable of perceiving the fondness and enthusiasm for the medium in others, and instead present hierarchies of authenticity, with only people like themselves (technological xenophobes, halide recidivists, gelatine nostalgists, acetate totalitarians) worthy of status. Ranting about the true faith, clicking on their smartphones, scanning into pixeldom and sending their jeremiads into cyberspace without a hint of irony.

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All of these things you demand we acknowledge and believe with the same deep fervor as you? They're off-topic on APUG. It's quite that simple, really. And no more involved than that. Just a lack of courtesy and respect for those who joined here for the very reason the site was originally created and continues to exist. And to prosper.

You see, people don't like being pushed around and called names in posts like the above quoted. Interesting is that I prefer film over digital, and yet have never once ventured onto DPUG (or any other digital site) and proceeded to beat up on the membership in an attempt to make them see the error of their ways. And truth be told, not doing that wasn't a difficult thing to not do.

This isn't rocket science...

Ken

Some people also forget it is a hobby for many

calebarchie said:

Some people also forget it is a hobby for many

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And most forget it is a full time life / career for a few.

I just went back to see when the digi-bashing started which was right about the time when some were really intent on saying film is on life support and things like a B&W optical print is an endangered species.......

People, please? Come on now, it is all fine for now and now is all we have, so how about knocking off the BS that makes this site look bad?

What a waste of time to speculate and or bash a photographic medium, we are truly lucky to have both.

Why would they waste their time on a forum, shoo go do that work for those client thingies

Ken Nadvornick said:

All of these things you demand we acknowledge and believe with the same deep fervor as you? They're off-topic on APUG. It's quite that simple, really. And no more involved than that. Just a lack of courtesy and respect for those who joined here for the very reason the site was originally created and continues to exist. And to prosper.

You see, people don't like being pushed around and called names in posts like the above quoted. Interesting is that I prefer film over digital, and yet have never once ventured onto DPUG (or any other digital site) and proceeded to beat up on the membership in an attempt to make them see the error of their ways. And truth be told, not doing that wasn't a difficult thing to not do.

This isn't rocket science...

Ken

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+1

If one was to take the time to read the original post for this thread, it could be seen that the OP was seeking information on an article or research on companies that make film, cameras, etc. that PROVE film is not dead. Perhaps the reason for the animosity that has been displayed on this thread is due to its title. If it was titled differently, say, "Information requested about film and camera manufacturers", would so many divisive comments have been included herein?

Since its inception I have read every post to this thread. I can understand how each side of the film/digital debate can become passionate about their opinions. I cannot, however, see any purpose or reason to belittle or berate the opposite side, for after all, these are only OPINIONS. The FACT is, that as of the commencement of this thread and inclusive of all posts to date, film and cameras continue to be manufactured. Consequently, film, as of this writing cannot be considered dead! Also, digital is used by many.

Frankly, after reading some of these posts, I agree that SOME of the comments do nothing to promote or support film photography (on both sides). Do I use a digital camera? No. Do I scan negatives or prints? No. I do not because it does not interest me in the least. Perhaps it is because I am "old school." Do I think that some film cameras are junk? Yes. Do I think all digital cameras are junk? No. Personally, I'd be hard pressed to call a $45,000 Hasselblad "junk." Do I think prints made in darkrooms are the only "real" photographs? No. Just as there is room on this earth for all of the different languages and cultures, their is room for all art mediums. We are all entitled to our opinion about what we feel is "best" and why. Just don't lose sight that it is only an opinion.

What! You are expecting us to act like mature adults??

Well, not necessarily mature adults, but perhaps just a wee tad more wee behaved.

Well behaved. Damon auto fill!!

But I am have-ing!

"I shot digital and I liked it..."

RalphLambrecht said:

maybe not dead but definately on its deathbed and dying.Every film photographer also owns a digital camera and sooner or laterappreciated the benefits of post processing.Yes, I be;ieve film photography is done and that's OK because the old must make room for the new in nature as well as in technology.

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Truzi said:

Umm... I don't own a digital camera

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Ken Nadvornick said:

Nor do I. I have never owned one.



Ken

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I do, BUT - it's a Nikon Coolpix 995 I bought in 2003 IIRC. 3mp. At the time quite capable as digitals go for the "affordable" price of about $600 and I paid another $285 I think it was for a 1GB (whopping! holds over 900 of those 3MP photos in jpg format, best quality...) CF Microdrive. Anyone remember those? When flash memory was so expensive Hitachi came out with a compact flash sized/compatible card that included a full miniature spinning platter hard drive. Not as fast or reliable as flash memory but then mine still works and is now 13 years old, and it causes no delay to the camera of its day, so it was fast enough and reliable enough.

At any rate, my point is that this hardly even counts compared to cameras today. And I almost never used it anymore because my iPhone 6 has a better camera. It doesn't have the manual override focus and exposure capabilities of the Nikon, but being able to tap the screen and focus on and expose for a given area mostly works around that. No custom white balance which the Nikon has but I can "fix that in post" easily enough.

However - I probably WILL buy a digital camera, and probably this year.

But my purpose is mainly for shooting snapshots/event photos where, as I put it before, I am not about to go into the darkroom and stumble out two weeks later with a couple of hundred 5x7 prints, even leaving aside the cost of that.

Bottom line is that when I take photographs for artistic expression and/or because I am engaging specifically in a hobby I enjoy, I will use film. When I am taking photographs, particularly a LOT of them, mainly to record memories of an event wherein I am mainly engaged in enjoying something else I may well shoot that digitally, especially if it involves very low light.

Some of the infrared converted digital cameras interest me too, because even though I have a fair stock of frozen Efke IR820 and it's "more infrared" than the remaining offerings, it sure isn't HIE, and even that was way slower than digital, AND there is no way I'm aware of to shoot false color infrared on film now. Maybe there's some of that left over aerial film available but I haven't even seen it mentioned in years.

Ken Nadvornick said:

I'm running away from using more computers. I'm determined not to surrender to ever greater levels of the abstract simulation of reality, and thus hasten the loss of my grip on true reality.

Ken

N.B. I do not refer here to the original photographic abstraction of reducing three dimensions to two, so drop your raised weapons everyone. I refer only to what comes after that...

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That's much of it for me too, though not all.

blockend said:

On the endangered species list are:
Optical C type prints
Colour transparencies
Black and white optical prints

Hybrid digitally scanned film for screen viewing is relatively healthy. The biggest boost for film would be a reasonably priced domestic scanner of drum scan quality.

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Black and white optical prints???

No way could anyone remotely consider those "endangered." We have a great choice now of some of the best papers ever, plenty of choices in pre-mixed chemicals, as well as sources for the mad scientists to mix their own, and the discussions here, the galleries here and on the Large Format forum and other places just give the lie to taht.

The others I see your point.

FujiLove said:

I have a flatbed scanner and a camera on my phone. You could argue that I therefore own a digital camera, but I didn't buy a digital camera, I bought a phone. It just happens to have a terrible camera inside. I use that for eBay or borrow the wife's D70.

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If it's a terrible camera then it's an older generation. The camera in my iPhone 6 is frankly amazing considering it's an afterthought add on to a portable computer with VOIP application native. It blows away my old Nikon mentioned above, and I have printed (full frame, no cropping, which would change this) those Nikon files on 8.5x11 glossy inkjet paper and got prints that look as good from a few feet away on the wall as similar sized prints from 35mm point and shoots printed by lab machines, at least. I've compared files from the iPhone projected from my Epson home theater projector with film slides shot with good 35mm gear (Pentax LX, Vivitar Series 1 lens) projected by my carousel to similar size and honestly could not pick one or the other as better from back at viewing location in the room. Walk up close and of course you can, but that's mostly the 1080p limit of the projector though if you enlarge enough of course a good slide, even in 35mm, will be superior. But as usually used, there just wasn't much to choose. I thought the iPhone shots were a tad over saturated but even that I could have fixed if I'd taken time to do so.

I enjoy using film. I enjoy the feeling of crafting something. I enjoy slowing down and not digi-snapping away (so much I shoot 4x5 some too.) And frankly I also like doing something now seen as odd and retro that not everyone does. But digital just isn't crap, or awful, or any of the various other pejoratives often thrown at it. The more we do that the more we turn off and turn away people who might like film for many other reasons but who can clearly see that digital results are far from bad these days. It just makes us sound like a bunch of grouchy old (mostly) farts ranting about how much better it was in the good old days.

Now granted, I often ENJOY being a grouchy old fart ranting about the good old days. I do it in advocating manual transmissions in my cars among other things as well. But mostly just to other grouchy old farts, or in cases like my decrying of "awfulmatic transmissions" that just aren't going to have any effect other than (correctly) making me look eccentric. Or weird I suppose. I don't have enough money to be eccentric so I have to settle for being weird.

For those that don't process/print at home, the various labs at the link provide these services. Those that want to investigate(do their own homework) can find traditional and other services offered. Don't let the link name scare you. Labs are mostly US based
http://www.digitaltruth.com/labs_services.php?doc=custom .

In an earlier post I referred to digital as being "junk" and got a roasting for expressing that opinion. It was written as a quick comment, without qualification. So here's a longer version.

Yes, there are digital cameras which are used for specialist applications such as CCTV, surgical probes, high volume product photography etc. Of course digital is more suited for those applications. It's not that film couldn't be used for some of them, but digital makes things much easier. However, that's not the kind of photography we are generally discussing here, and I think we all know that.

What makes digital 'better' for those specialist applications often isn't that the final image is higher quality or more pleasing, but that it's easier. Simple as that. And I think that ease of use is the sole reason why most people think digital is better in the context of general, personal photography. Quite often it's simply laziness. People can't be bothered crafting an image, putting effort into physically processing it etc. when it's easier to click buttons on a computer. Why learn about exposure when the camera already knows? Why try and get things right in camera when you can feed a raw file into Photoshop and have it automatically fixed? Why bother even trying to frame a shot when you can shoot 500 images at 24 per second and pick the best one on your monitor later? Why even bother taking a photo? Just shoot Mega-HD video (TM) 24 hours a day with a 3D panoramic camera and you can scroll back to any point in your life at the flick of a scroll wheel!

The amount of automated processing that goes on with digital these days means there's hardly any need for human skill at all. There are examples of this happening in other media, such as computer generated music. I'm referring to a computer stringing notes together, not computer generated sounds. Ever listened to any? Guess what? It's junk!

To my eyes, that kind of automated process looks awful. But more importantly to me, it's an awful process with generally unsatisfying results. I would describe it as junk, crap, tat, garbage or my personal favourite, "Kak".

I've never used a £45,000 Hasselblad and I'm never likely to. Are they junk? That depends how you define junk. They're not junk like a rusting pushbike with one wheel that you find down by the river. But they are hugely over-priced, plastic, fast-depreciating and largely doing the same job as equipment you could buy for 1/50th of the price. When you say it like that, they do sound sort of rubbish, no?

I have a Rolleicord that's fifty years old and cost me about the same as a decent SD card. It would give that Hasselblad a run for its money if both cameras were being used by me for my general photography. I.e. Pottering around on holiday or something. For a fast paced fashion shoot where you're paying the models ten grand a day? The Rollei would have no chance, and in that context it would also be junk.

I've used modern digital systems, Fuji, Nikon etc. Either my own or borrowed from friends and honestly, they just seem like plastic toys. They are hugely fun for a while, but ultimately something to be consumed, played with, then tossed onto eBay when the next shiny upgrade comes along. Junk.

I mentioned using the wife's D70 earlier, but I forgot that I no longer can, since it died last week. The sensor is kaput and the repair costs are more than the camera is worth. It's junk. I've been putting off updating my iPhone to the latest software version because I know from experience it will slow it down so badly that it will be unusable. Because fundamentally, it's also junk.

So off you go with your replies about, "it's all in the results", "the camera is just a tool", and my favourite, "side by side, you can't tell any difference between the prints"!

In my opinion it quite simply isn't any of that. You can produce results with almost no work that look superior, to me, to the results that equally un-technical people can get out of a 35mm point and shoot with the former minilab processing, and that could actually look pretty good. And a careful worker with digital can produce results every bit as technically good as with film.

I just don't buy the "it's easier but just doesn't ever look nearly as good" thing because I've seen WAY too much stuff with my own eyes to refute that.

Sure when you get into producing professional quality results the digital equipment costs more, mainly because it's much newer, and isn't as durable, because it's not mechanical. That's just the nature of it, but it doesn't make it junk. And for my purposes as well as yours a medium format digital makes no sense at all in a price to performance comparison with medium format film. But for a professional who needs that level of quality (and full frame 35mm sized digital can be REALLY good so not that many need medium format) it could be justifiable expense if it enables them to work much faster and do more work, or even achieve a quality that they couldn't with medium format film. My own admittedly subjective view based on a lot of results I've seen is that full frame 35mm sized sensor digital cameras easily compete, when used equally carefully, with top quality medium format film, and medium format digital with large format film. Sure, if you're going to print a billboard and then view it from five feet away maybe an 8x10 chrome will beat a digitally captured image from any source, even a large format scanning back. But even then, at that size you can bet it will be digitally outputted.

I like film. And I DON'T think "it's all in the results" because, for me, it's mostly in the process.