The Reason for Film and Vintage Cameras

[blockend]

Let's go back to the original purpose of this thread which was to criticize my hypothesis of reductionism and minimalism.

That's what I've been doing. Please try and keep up. There are only so many ways of saying one prefers knobs and dials that are made of brass with milled ridges. The pictures won't be any different to a camera with an LCD readout and a plastic wheel with 12 different functions. The experience of using them will obviously be different, but the viewfinder in where the magic happens.

 

[4season]

My point was that there has been no fundamental change in how one computer connects to another halfway around the world, in the same way there has been a fundamental shift in how we create images.

If this were 1982, we might be having this discussion via a dialup connection, preferably via a local phone #. No IP networking for regular folks back in those days! In the days of dialup BBSes, the expense of calling outside of one's area code meant that most discussions were with people within in your area code. In those days, you'd also have found software being distributed in print form, either as printed text or some sort of optical data format.

 

[faberryman]

I did not choose film over digital. I used digital cameras when I programmed the science platform for Voyager I & II, well before any of you. I continued to use film for myself. I never choose to shoot digital for myself. Therefore I have always used film for myself. For work I used the tools that I was directed to use.

I was responding to keenmaster486's posts.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

...
Let's go back to the original purpose of this thread which was to criticize my hypothesis of reductionism and minimalism.
...

When I'm printing or looking at my images, then the equipment I used doesn't matter at all.

But when I'm walking about, making photos, I enjoy both finding something worth photographing plus using a camera with minimal controls. I can use an F4 manually just as well as an F, but knowing that the F has just basically 3 controls is more enjoyable to me than using my F4 and ignoring all the other stuff on it.

 

[removed account4]

Let's go back to the original purpose of this thread which was to criticize my hypothesis of reductionism and minimalism.

Question: Does my hypothesis really hold water when taken to the extreme (i.e., basically using a box camera and making your own film) ? Or was it never meant to be taken to the extreme? I don't know the answer to this, I'm still thinking about it myself. The whole thing was just a shower thought I had.

you don't even need to use film or a box camera if you want to take it to an extreme
when i am making the exposures, processing and printing none of it matters
i couldn't care less what camera i use or what film is in it &c
i just use it, put it on B take the exposure, close it again
then process the film and print it in the one developer i use
too much emphasis is put on the gear in photography forums, and
it is a huge waste of energy. everyone loves what they use
for whatever reasons ( real or imagined ) they have.
its just a distraction, and it really doesn't matter what is is as long as you
are comfortable using it. the point is to use it, steal time, make the print in whatever way you want.

 

[MattKing]

If this were 1982, we might be having this discussion via a dialup connection, preferably via a local phone #. No IP networking for regular folks back in those days! In the days of dialup BBSes, the expense of calling outside of one's area code meant that most discussions were with people within in your area code. In those days, you'd also have found software being distributed in print form, either as printed text or some sort of optical data format.

My only training in programming involved punch cards.
Dial up was way newer.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

... In those days, you'd also have found software being distributed in print form, either as printed text or some sort of optical data format.

5.25 inch floppy was very common in 1982

 

[Europan]

film is 2 dimensional.

It isn’t. If it were, chemical development couldn’t take place. The beauty of some films lays exactly in the depth of the coating(s). Digital sensors are 2-dimensional, at least the data gathered from them can only be made to represent two dimensions.

 

[blockend]

The beauty of some films lays exactly in the depth of the coating(s).

Hmm. That would mean some wavelengths being out of focus. The depth would be perceptible. To all intents film, even slide film, is flat.

 

[mdarnton]

For me it boils down to a couple of issues; solve those, and I"ll go digital:
--cost: film equipment is cheap as dirt and doesn't become obsolete. I can't buy a new digital Leica, but old film ones are plentiful and functonal
--dynamic range: relatively huge with film, and I use all of it
--image storage permanence: my 60 year old negs are still readable with no attention in the duration; my 20 year old digital files got lost in standards changes of the media.
--bulk and convenience: still waiting for a small full frame digital camera that doesn't run on batteries.

A lot of people seem philosophically opposed to digital, but I'm not one of them. Just give me something I can use AND afford.

 

[Europan]

That would mean some wavelengths being out of focus. The depth would be perceptible. To all intents film, even slide film, is flat.

Wrong again. Lens makers can leave a rest of longitudinal chromatic aberration up to the films, foremost colo(u)r films that have the different record and filter layers arranged in the order blue sensitive on top, green sensitive in the middle, and red sensitive deepest. It is not wrong to assume a thou package thickness, perhaps a tad less. Thing is, the package becomes thicker relative to the image area with decreasing formats, 8mm films being just the limit to it. Ektachrome actually had a too thick package, Kodachrome did better. KM had double layers for each colour. Thing is also how one works with lenses. Diaphragm wide open makes for better resolution but shallower depth of field, smaller stops yield stronger middle focus, green. Human eyes in general are most sensitive to greens. We can also see more different hues of green than different blues or reds. Evolution.

When photography was younger chromatic aberrations correction was not yet a real subject and hardly noticed because the plates measured about palm size and bigger. Wet plates can have rather thin coatings. I hope I don’t sound too much like a professor.

 

[jtk]

I don't think digital cameras are as much of an issue as is method of printing, and method of printing isn't as much of an issue as viewer response.

 

[michr]

I used mostly digital because I can get the results I like easily, and the turnaround time is short. I do continue to use film some of the time because I can't get the same look as easily using digital cameras and lenses I can afford. I barely use 35mm, except for the enjoyment of using a fine camera like the Kodak Retina IIIc or a workhorse like the Argus C3. But I use larger formats more, 6x6 and up. Larger formats, especially 4x5 and up allow you to get a relatively wide field of view while at the same time using a long lens. This gives a good amount of subject background separation, while still allowing you to stand at typical portrait distances (a 24mm f1.4 lens might give you the same on full frame digital, but I can't afford such things). What keeps me from using film more is that the convenience of color film is completely gone. I can't drop it off anywhere and get negatives to scan. Likewise, costs have risen and my budget of time and money has shrunk. I have 10 rolls of B&W 120 film waiting to be used since December 25th. I enjoy using the cameras, but I'd enjoy them more if I wasn't responsible for the whole develop and print process as well.

 

[jtk]

Likely it doesn't. But, for me at least, it's not entirely about making a "better" image - it's about enjoying the process and having fun. It's a hobby, and the manner in which it's pursued doesn't need to be justified to shareholders or anyone, it just needs to please me.

I would agree 100% except...except for the fact that I print hoping to stimulate viewers other than myself...somewhat more than for myself. I don't choose to call photography a "hobby" since, for me, it's a discipline and art form. Different strokes.

 

[jtk]

Likely it doesn't. But, for me at least, it's not entirely about making a "better" image - it's about enjoying the process and having fun. It's a hobby, and the manner in which it's pursued doesn't need to be justified to shareholders or anyone, it just needs to please me.

I would agree 100% except...except for the fact that I print hoping to stimulate viewers other than myself...somewhat more than for myself. I don't choose to call photography a "hobby" since, for me, it's a discipline and art form. Different strokes.

 

[removed account4]

5.25 inch floppy was very common in 1982

and they were .... floppy ... as opposed to their offspring, the 3.5" which were unfloppy, or is it a-floppy

 

[blockend]

I hope I don’t sound too much like a professor.

Not at all, especially when using subjective values like beauty. Photography is a two dimensional medium. Are you saying photography is not two-dimensional simulacrum of three dimension space? Colours can be saturated, de-saturated, nuanced, distorted, additive or subtractive, but three dimensional? Do you mean a hologram?

Even an uncorrected meniscus lens only shows chromatic aberration as a border of a different colour. It doesn't make the photograph 3-D.

 

[wyofilm]

Film is three dimensional as has been pointed out. Thin, yes, but 3D with important physical and chemical consequences. The perceived image on film (or paper) is a 2D product, which can be heavily manipulated via lenses, focal lengths, size, time, color, what have you.

I'm sorry if I made too much of the 3D nature of film, but I was trying to understand a previous post on the conflation of digital, brain function, and 2D film.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hmm. That would mean some wavelengths being out of focus. The depth would be perceptible. To all intents film, even slide film, is flat.

Not true, the wavelengths are in focus. Film is flat but it has a finite thickness.

 

[blockend]

Not true, the wavelengths are in focus. Film is flat but it has a finite thickness.

We're talking at cross purposes or this is getting into woo. Colour film is an additive or subtractive process. Early film was additive, modern films are subtractive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtractive_color

Take slide film. Each layer subtracts some wavelengths of light to create a full colour palate. This varies between manufacturers and differences in human perception, but creates a cohesive whole. It is monocular, that is to say it does not rely on parallax to view. If you perceived greens and reds as separate layers in the film it wouldn't hang together as an image, it would be like a blurry out of register litho print,. A lens can be poorly corrected and lead to wavelengths of light not being resolved in the same place, but that isn't three dimensional it's completely flat with an aberrant colour. You can't see colour layers in different planes in space in a subtractive photograph. If you believe you can, please provide examples I can see on my flat monitor.

 

[jtk]

It seems that many are unaware that digital cameras record information that can be brought out unique, extra ways with appropriate software (such as NIK). Not just common visual information seen in film...not just density/color/contrast....but also entire other phenomena such as different, otherwise unseen levels/altitudes of clouds in sky...film seems to record only one level.

 

[jtk]

Not true, the wavelengths are in focus. Film is flat but it has a finite thickness.

"Wavelengths" don't even exist. They aren't phenomena, they are only measurements...lengths.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Wavelengths are a bourgeois concept. We perceive different wavelengths of light as color. Except for magenta. For that you need the K-14 process.

 

[Sirius Glass]

And we all know that magenta is not a color.

 

[Europan]

Magenta is a town in northern Italy. Movie producer Carlo Ponti was born in Magenta. How that name came to use as a hue designation is unknown. Huế is a town in Vietnam.