Shanghai GP3 100 in 220 now available...

John Wiegerink · Nov 20, 2021

Oh, I agree with every

NortheastPhotographic said:
Except with digital the barrier to entry is basically non-existent so you have every wayward shutterbug with a Squarespace website nipping at your heels. It's very easy to create clear, nice looking images. It's very much more difficult to create a successful business that is sustainable long term.

Oh, I agree with everything you say. I shot my first two weddings in 35mm and it was only after much encouragement from the folks of the first two weddings and family/friends that I then took the big, big, big finical outlay to buy my medium format outfit. A Bronica S2A boomer camera. I moved to much lower decibel cameras after that. What I'm getting at is this.........with film cameras most pro folks at the time used medium format, which cost much, much more that any 35mm system. Yes, in film size matters very much and those bigger sized negatives were a pleasure to work with, but it cost you in $$$ to have them. Not everyone had the drive, desire or money to continue to pursue a business in photography. Mouths to feed, rent to pay, and all other living expenses need $$$ now and that "now" has killed more than one dreams. With digital the average person can have an outfit that is as good image-wise as the pro by just pinching a few pennies for a few pay days. It doesn't take any time at all to start shooting professional looking quality photos digital. I really like film, but to be honest I dreamt of something like what we have now when I was shooting weddings. I guess I was just born a little to early. JohnW

pentaxuser · Nov 20, 2021

Doesn't a film wedding photog have to compete strictly on price with his digital counterpart unless you believe that enough of prospective grooms and brides can see a major advantage in the quality of the analogue v digital shots. Is there enough who can see this? I'd have thought it unlikely on a mass wedding scale so if we are back to price as the sole determinant, is it possible for an analogue wedding photog to match or undercut his digital counterpart and if it is, can anyone give examples of how the maths work?

Thanks

pentaxuser

John Wiegerink · Nov 20, 2021

pentaxuser said:
Doesn't a film wedding photog have to compete strictly on price with his digital counterpart unless you believe that enough of prospective grooms and brides can see a major advantage in the quality of the analogue v digital shots. Is there enough who can see this? I'd have thought it unlikely on a mass wedding scale so if we are back to price as the sole determinant, is it possible for an analogue wedding photog to match or undercut his digital counterpart and if it is, can anyone give examples of how the maths work?

Thanks

pentaxuser

I think you are misunderstanding me a little as I'm coming from my years just in film when I talk of weddings. If I were shooting weddings today I could "only" compete if I shot digital. I'd be dead broke shooting film. My Idea of shooting weddings today would be all digital, my own post processing to some extend, and maybe a little printing. As a possible draw, at the customers expense, would be one or two formal shots with a 4X5 camera, B&W only. Probably at least 94% of the folks you shoot a wedding for now would never ever know the difference between analog and digital. So digital blows film away as far as the photographer is concerned. I know my life would have been easier had we had what we have now.
Oh, I forgot to answer your question about math. I was never that good in the field of math, but the answer surely has to be no way could you "undercut" or even match his digital counterpart. JohnW

pentaxuser · Nov 21, 2021

Thanks that covers it for me, John. I must have picked you up wrongly as I did wonder if there was at least a hint that analogue wedding photos could make a comeback. I couldn't see how, hence my questions and your answers have confirmed my views

Just as an aside it would seem to be that for anything "business related" analogue will never compete so any revival will by its nature remain small and thus a hobby only and like other hobbies are subject to fads, price shocks etc

pentaxuser

John Wiegerink · Nov 21, 2021

pentaxuser said:
Thanks that covers it for me, John. I must have picked you up wrongly as I did wonder if there was at least a hint that analogue wedding photos could make a comeback. I couldn't see how, hence my questions and your answers have confirmed my views

Just as an aside it would seem to be that for anything "business related" analogue will never compete so any revival will by its nature remain small and thus a hobby only and like other hobbies are subject to fads, price shocks etc

pentaxuser

I think you got it! Film is not dead, but it doesn't serve the same purpose anymore. As far as using film commercially? I think architecture photography might be one area where it could still be used do to needing camera movements, but that's about it. Most everything else could and can be done faster, easier and just as good, if not better, with digital. Of course when you are a little older like you and I film is not just in our blood, but in our DNA. It wasn't that many years back that it was just the opposite and digital in no way could compete with film. Not anymore that's for sure. JohnW

Cholentpot · Nov 21, 2021

John Wiegerink said:
I think you got it! Film is not dead, but it doesn't serve the same purpose anymore. As far as using film commercially? I think architecture photography might be one area where it could still be used do to needing camera movements, but that's about it. Most everything else could and can be done faster, easier and just as good, if not better, with digital. Of course when you are a little older like you and I film is not just in our blood, but in our DNA. It wasn't that many years back that it was just the opposite and digital in no way could compete with film. Not anymore that's for sure. JohnW

Film is the fountain pen in a word processor world. No way I'm going to pen a novel with a fountain pen but I'd write a nice letter with it.

John Wiegerink · Nov 21, 2021

Cholentpot said:
Film is the fountain pen in a word processor world. No way I'm going to pen a novel with a fountain pen but I'd write a nice letter with it.

Excellent comparison and well said. JohnW

Cholentpot · Nov 21, 2021

John Wiegerink said:
Excellent comparison and well said. JohnW

Thanks!

I also don't take notes with my phone, I prefer a pen and note pad. Same goes for snapshots. And if I'm painting my house I'd rather use a sprayer but if I'm hanging a painting nothing beats an artisan painted scene.

Moose22 · Nov 21, 2021

Cholentpot said:
Film is the fountain pen in a word processor world. No way I'm going to pen a novel with a fountain pen but I'd write a nice letter with it.

At the risk of going too far off topic, some novelists do. Neal Stephenson, for instance, wrote the Baroque Cycle with a fountain pen. The manuscript is on display actually:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scwleung/4468121492/

Cholentpot · Nov 21, 2021

Moose22 said:
At the risk of going too far off topic, some novelists do. Neal Stephenson, for instance, wrote the Baroque Cycle with a fountain pen. The manuscript is on display actually:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scwleung/4468121492/

And some people still shoot entire weddings on medium format film. Or record direct to tape.

There's always someone.

faberryman · Nov 21, 2021

Cholentpot said:
And some people still shoot entire weddings on medium format film. Or record direct to tape.

There's always someone.

The thing I don't get is why anyone needs 1000 wedding photos, film or digital.

Moose22 · Nov 21, 2021

faberryman said:
The thing I don't get is why anyone needs 1000 wedding photos, film or digital.

With wedding photography, I don't think it's what anyone needs, it's what they'll pay for.

I am pretty sure the photographer at one of my sisters' weddings shot hundreds of frames.I was a kid but remember watching him as he had an autowinder on one which was cool to a nerdy child in 1980. He had at least 50-70 shots just of the kiss and throwing the bouquet. She didn't buy 500 individual prints, though. Her wedding album was the standard dozen crappy portraits of the wedding party, some nice ones of bride and groom, and a couple just of her in the dress, then several great shots of the bouquet and the toss, and maybe a dozen or score candids around the church and reception.

1000 frames didn't equal 1000 pictures sold. He got paid for his time and the portraits up front, he got extra for extra prints made, so those hundreds of frames were to sell a couple dozen really excellent shots that he wouldn't have sold if he'd only shot one or two frames each of the goings on.

Digital is worse, but also people used to have a dozen portraits of themselves over their lifetime. Millennials take a dozen "portraits" with their phones every damned week, so the perceived value of individual photos is less. And they're going to want to share on the onlines, so lots of digital copies for the face books and the insta grams are needed, even if they never get a decent print. They don't need them, but that's what they'll pay for, so that's what a wedding shooter does.

As a side note, had the Z7 out a couple weeks ago for a band I've done a little work for. Bad light, nothing worth getting, but they wanted candids. I gave them 8 or 9 images. I'm sure I deleted 250 or more. The light was genuinely low and crappy, but I was able to pull enough out by firing a burst and maybe one out of five the singer would not be moving to much for the exposure. So spray and pray, and I got paid. Art for commerce is sometimes way more commerce than art.

The point of 220 with weddings was simply to always be ready for that decisive moment. It made sense, and pre digital wedding people burned many rolls of film so minimal downtime loading or swapping backs mattered to them. World was a little different then regarding the value of photography, but if a wedding guy could do a 36 roll of medium format at 7 fps like the press guys shooting 35mm, some of them would have done it.

Cholentpot said:
And some people still shoot entire weddings on medium format film. Or record direct to tape.

There's always someone.

Of course there is.

I don't photograph professionally except on very rare occasion, but the last guy who asked me specifically wanted film. Whatever, he paid for it, but it has cachet for him.

I have recorded to tape. I learned on tape and some parts of the process I like better. I don't use it now and would not even if I was in a studio setting because maintaining a multitrack is way more intensive than people realize, but there are tangible differences. If it weren't too inconvenient to maintain I'd be fine working with an 8 track or 16 track tape deck.

The biggest difference is in how you record and when you make your decisions in the recording process. Not unlike film, where you might decide it will be b&w, you choose the film speed and then the film you want, maybe you use a red filter to pop clouds, or maybe you develop differently to get greater contrast, etc. All of that comes before you print or scan, and is unchangeable in the negative that results. With RAW you can change everything the camera could have changed so you put all the decisions off to the end. I'm liking deciding and committing as part of the process these days. It stops me from endlessly tweaking things that nobody else will notice and keeps me making more, new art.

Older analog processes might be slower, but as art for art's sake it's fine to use them. Even if the end product is subtly different, if the client wants that (or you, if you're just doing it for yourself) then sure, deal with the process. Like, if I had a choice maybe I'd record a small band on tape for "artistic" reasons, but no way in hell I'd bother with that for a radio commercial. You want product photography for your website? I'm definitely going digital.

But I write for me (and to friends and family), I take art photographs for me and only half a dozen people ever see them, and I only record myself and a few close friends, so we can work however the heck we want. I do it for the enjoyment of the process as much as anything else.

I also write with a fountain pen, so I'm really one of those "always someone" guys. I was even making my own from scratch at one point:

Cholentpot · Nov 21, 2021

faberryman said:
The thing I don't get is why anyone needs 1000 wedding photos, film or digital.

Sometimes there are 1000 people at a wedding. And if film isn't a factor why not?

Moose22 said:
With wedding photography, I don't think it's what anyone needs, it's what they'll pay for.

I am pretty sure the photographer at one of my sisters' weddings shot hundreds of frames.I was a kid but remember watching him as he had an autowinder on one which was cool to a nerdy child in 1980. He had at least 50-70 shots just of the kiss and throwing the bouquet. She didn't buy 500 individual prints, though. Her wedding album was the standard dozen crappy portraits of the wedding party, some nice ones of bride and groom, and a couple just of her in the dress, then several great shots of the bouquet and the toss, and maybe a dozen or score candids around the church and reception.

1000 frames didn't equal 1000 pictures sold. He got paid for his time and the portraits up front, he got extra for extra prints made, so those hundreds of frames were to sell a couple dozen really excellent shots that he wouldn't have sold if he'd only shot one or two frames each of the goings on.

Digital is worse, but also people used to have a dozen portraits of themselves over their lifetime. Millennials take a dozen "portraits" with their phones every damned week, so the perceived value of individual photos is less. And they're going to want to share on the onlines, so lots of digital copies for the face books and the insta grams are needed, even if they never get a decent print. They don't need them, but that's what they'll pay for, so that's what a wedding shooter does.

As a side note, had the Z7 out a couple weeks ago for a band I've done a little work for. Bad light, nothing worth getting, but they wanted candids. I gave them 8 or 9 images. I'm sure I deleted 250 or more. The light was genuinely low and crappy, but I was able to pull enough out by firing a burst and maybe one out of five the singer would not be moving to much for the exposure. So spray and pray, and I got paid. Art for commerce is sometimes way more commerce than art.

The point of 220 with weddings was simply to always be ready for that decisive moment. It made sense, and pre digital wedding people burned many rolls of film so minimal downtime loading or swapping backs mattered to them. World was a little different then regarding the value of photography, but if a wedding guy could do a 36 roll of medium format at 7 fps like the press guys shooting 35mm, some of them would have done it.

Of course there is.

I don't photograph professionally except on very rare occasion, but the last guy who asked me specifically wanted film. Whatever, he paid for it, but it has cachet for him.

I have recorded to tape. I learned on tape and some parts of the process I like better. I don't use it now and would not even if I was in a studio setting because maintaining a multitrack is way more intensive than people realize, but there are tangible differences. If it weren't too inconvenient to maintain I'd be fine working with an 8 track or 16 track tape deck.

The biggest difference is in how you record and when you make your decisions in the recording process. Not unlike film, where you might decide it will be b&w, you choose the film speed and then the film you want, maybe you use a red filter to pop clouds, or maybe you develop differently to get greater contrast, etc. All of that comes before you print or scan, and is unchangeable in the negative that results. With RAW you can change everything the camera could have changed so you put all the decisions off to the end. I'm liking deciding and committing as part of the process these days. It stops me from endlessly tweaking things that nobody else will notice and keeps me making more, new art.

Older analog processes might be slower, but as art for art's sake it's fine to use them. Even if the end product is subtly different, if the client wants that (or you, if you're just doing it for yourself) then sure, deal with the process. Like, if I had a choice maybe I'd record a small band on tape for "artistic" reasons, but no way in hell I'd bother with that for a radio commercial. You want product photography for your website? I'm definitely going digital.

But I write for me (and to friends and family), I take art photographs for me and only half a dozen people ever see them, and I only record myself and a few close friends, so we can work however the heck we want. I do it for the enjoyment of the process as much as anything else.

I also write with a fountain pen, so I'm really one of those "always someone" guys. I was even making my own from scratch at one point:

I've recorded on tape, sounds nice, too much work. I've made quills from feathers. Writes nicely, too much work. My handwriting is horrible anyhow. I express my art with film, I can't draw nor write but I can take photos. And sometimes they look nice too.

faberryman · Nov 21, 2021

faberryman said:
The thing I don't get is why anyone needs 1000 wedding photos, film or digital.

Cholentpot said:
Sometimes there are 1000 people at a wedding. And if film isn't a factor why not?

My question was rhetorical, intended to express astonishment.

Cholentpot · Nov 21, 2021

faberryman said:
My question was rhetorical, intended to express astonishment.

My grandparents on one side had 8 photos taken at their wedding. My other grandparents had zero. Hard to find a photographer in a DP camp in France.

Moose22 · Nov 21, 2021

Cholentpot said:
Sometimes there are 1000 people at a wedding. And if film isn't a factor why not?

I've recorded on tape, sounds nice, too much work. I've made quills from feathers. Writes nicely, too much work. My handwriting is horrible anyhow. I express my art with film, I can't draw nor write but I can take photos. And sometimes they look nice too.

If you think a proper pen (fountain or dip) is the same as a feather quill, you don't understand. Or you are being deliberately obtuse, which I assume is the case by your dismissive next statement.

The point isn't that YOU have get better results out of a good pen (film, recording gear, etc...) it's that someone else does. I didn't have good handwriting until I learned to write better, which took practice, and during which I learned it is a lot easier to do with a fountain pen. I had my reasons for undertaking this practice, relating to how I learn and desire for legibility of older notes, but it isn't about how pretty the letters are. It's just a better tool, with which I can write endlessly without fatigue.

Your feather quill analogy is like a digital photographer saying "heh, I used a brownie camera once. Too much work, I'll stick to my cellphone."

When I started shooting film again I found FP4 got me a texture and tonality I was looking for (and working hard for) in monochrome digital, straight out of the gate. I don't expect to use it all the time, for everything, but it was a genuine discovery for me and part of the same sort of process. I shot some velvia and provia landscapes in medium format and the slides looked just like what I desperately wanted my digital shots to look like for years, and I didn't have to do anything in the photoshops to get there. Another discovery that came with trying different things.So the last couple years, after all this time, I'm learning something new about photography. And the only way to get better, to understand more, is to practice.

With that in mind, I would never be dismissive of someone who decided never to shoot digital, even if they're a wedding photographer. It's easy to see with a portrait shooter, like Platon who uses certain film stocks -- never digital -- and then drum scans the negatives, but just because i can't see why someone is still shooting MF doesn't mean they don't have a good reason. I just might not understand it.

Cholentpot · Nov 21, 2021

Moose22 said:
If you think a proper pen (fountain or dip) is the same as a feather quill, you don't understand. Or you are being deliberately obtuse, which I assume is the case by your dismissive next statement.

The point isn't that YOU have get better results out of a good pen (film, recording gear, etc...) it's that someone else does. I didn't have good handwriting until I learned to write better, which took practice, and during which I learned it is a lot easier to do with a fountain pen. I had my reasons for undertaking this practice, relating to how I learn and desire for legibility of older notes, but it isn't about how pretty the letters are. It's just a better tool, with which I can write endlessly without fatigue.

Your feather quill analogy is like a digital photographer saying "heh, I used a brownie camera once. Too much work, I'll stick to my cellphone."

When I started shooting film again I found FP4 got me a texture and tonality I was looking for (and working hard for) in monochrome digital, straight out of the gate. I don't expect to use it all the time, for everything, but it was a genuine discovery for me and part of the same sort of process. I shot some velvia and provia landscapes in medium format and the slides looked just like what I desperately wanted my digital shots to look like for years, and I didn't have to do anything in the photoshops to get there. Another discovery that came with trying different things.So the last couple years, after all this time, I'm learning something new about photography. And the only way to get better, to understand more, is to practice.

With that in mind, I would never be dismissive of someone who decided never to shoot digital, even if they're a wedding photographer. It's easy to see with a portrait shooter, like Platon who uses certain film stocks -- never digital -- and then drum scans the negatives, but just because i can't see why someone is still shooting MF doesn't mean they don't have a good reason. I just might not understand it.

I have a collection of calligraphy pens. Used them for years. Both cartridge type and the 'ol lever reservoir kind. Even have a few that I just dipped in the well. I haven't used them in a while though. Maybe some day, for now they sit.

flavio81 · Nov 22, 2021

We're straying too much off-topic...

markjwyatt · Nov 22, 2021

flavio81 said:
We're straying too much off-topic...

MAybe someone should pen a new thread...

John Wiegerink · Nov 22, 2021

flavio81 said:
We're straying too much off-topic...

I'm guilty as charged and ready for 20 lashes with a wet noodle. JohnW

Huss · Nov 22, 2021

Moose22 said:
With wedding photography, I don't think it's what anyone needs, it's what they'll pay for.

I am pretty sure the photographer at one of my sisters' weddings shot hundreds of frames.I was a kid but remember watching him as he had an autowinder on one which was cool to a nerdy child in 1980. He had at least 50-70 shots just of the kiss and throwing the bouquet. She didn't buy 500 individual prints, though. Her wedding album was the standard dozen crappy portraits of the wedding party, some nice ones of bride and groom, and a couple just of her in the dress, then several great shots of the bouquet and the toss, and maybe a dozen or score candids around the church and reception.

1000 frames didn't equal 1000 pictures sold. He got paid for his time and the portraits up front, he got extra for extra prints made, so those hundreds of frames were to sell a couple dozen really excellent shots that he wouldn't have sold if he'd only shot one or two frames each of the goings on.

Digital is worse, but also people used to have a dozen portraits of themselves over their lifetime. Millennials take a dozen "portraits" with their phones every damned week, so the perceived value of individual photos is less. And they're going to want to share on the onlines, so lots of digital copies for the face books and the insta grams are needed, even if they never get a decent print. They don't need them, but that's what they'll pay for, so that's what a wedding shooter does.

As a side note, had the Z7 out a couple weeks ago for a band I've done a little work for. Bad light, nothing worth getting, but they wanted candids. I gave them 8 or 9 images. I'm sure I deleted 250 or more. The light was genuinely low and crappy, but I was able to pull enough out by firing a burst and maybe one out of five the singer would not be moving to much for the exposure. So spray and pray, and I got paid. Art for commerce is sometimes way more commerce than art.

The point of 220 with weddings was simply to always be ready for that decisive moment. It made sense, and pre digital wedding people burned many rolls of film so minimal downtime loading or swapping backs mattered to them. World was a little different then regarding the value of photography, but if a wedding guy could do a 36 roll of medium format at 7 fps like the press guys shooting 35mm, some of them would have done it.

Of course there is.

I don't photograph professionally except on very rare occasion, but the last guy who asked me specifically wanted film. Whatever, he paid for it, but it has cachet for him.

I have recorded to tape. I learned on tape and some parts of the process I like better. I don't use it now and would not even if I was in a studio setting because maintaining a multitrack is way more intensive than people realize, but there are tangible differences. If it weren't too inconvenient to maintain I'd be fine working with an 8 track or 16 track tape deck.

The biggest difference is in how you record and when you make your decisions in the recording process. Not unlike film, where you might decide it will be b&w, you choose the film speed and then the film you want, maybe you use a red filter to pop clouds, or maybe you develop differently to get greater contrast, etc. All of that comes before you print or scan, and is unchangeable in the negative that results. With RAW you can change everything the camera could have changed so you put all the decisions off to the end. I'm liking deciding and committing as part of the process these days. It stops me from endlessly tweaking things that nobody else will notice and keeps me making more, new art.

Older analog processes might be slower, but as art for art's sake it's fine to use them. Even if the end product is subtly different, if the client wants that (or you, if you're just doing it for yourself) then sure, deal with the process. Like, if I had a choice maybe I'd record a small band on tape for "artistic" reasons, but no way in hell I'd bother with that for a radio commercial. You want product photography for your website? I'm definitely going digital.

But I write for me (and to friends and family), I take art photographs for me and only half a dozen people ever see them, and I only record myself and a few close friends, so we can work however the heck we want. I do it for the enjoyment of the process as much as anything else.

I also write with a fountain pen, so I'm really one of those "always someone" guys. I was even making my own from scratch at one point:

That is so sweet!

Huss · Nov 22, 2021

I still have not yet received my sample GP3 220 rolls. I know it's been shipped, just taking the scenic route.

Cholentpot · Nov 22, 2021

Huss said:
I still have not yet received my sample GP3 220 rolls. I know it's been shipped, just taking the scenic route.

I'd like to report the same Officers.

I think it's stuck off the coast with my Lomo Instax back.

Huss · Dec 1, 2021

Still not received it... one month now.. hoping for any day now!

Cholentpot · Dec 1, 2021

Huss said:
Still not received it... one month now.. hoping for any day now!

Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.

Shanghai GP3 100 in 220 now available...

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