This guy thinks film is dead

[lxdude]

Why suggest physical violence against somebody?

Just don't kick him in the ass. Could give him brain damage.

 

[wclark5179]

Film is dead.

In his world.

Not mine.

Today my wife & I took my Mom of 88 yrs. young to the Minnesota Arboretum. Lots of snappers. They looked at me quizzically as I would take out an oldie medium format camera and make some nice photographs. All B&W.

More to people photography than equipment.

I enjoyed the day. Made only 11 photographs. One was a blank as I tripped the shutter putting this 40 plus year old camera back into the bag I used. Ooops, didn't need any batteries or an LCD screen to see what I was doing.

I had fun.

My wife had fun.

So did my Mom.

 

[lxdude]

Analogue Vs Digital yet again! wow!! :rolleyes:


So what if he thinks film is dead!

Only because he puts himself up as somehow being knowledgeable enough to declare film dead, and he influences people who read his words.

 

[lxdude]

I bought a canon dslr recently and I will keep using it, but I'm also starting with film photography now. I have missed the whole film period because I am still young and grew up with digital photography.

See if you can find a couple rolls of Kodachrome. Looking at those slides will
be a revelation. Then you can always say you used one of the most iconic and influential films ever created.

 

[w9cae]

I find it interesting the mention of analog photography skill making a much better digital photographer. I am only recently new to photography in a serious way. Having many cameras over the years but not using them to there full capability. Then my buying of a DSLR & trying to understand the manual. Where I needed to get another manual & another manual. Then a class @ the local tafe college which made me pick my old film cameras back up. Now I am actually enjoying film more so then DIGITAL. Schools are dropping any teaching for film based photography. The new books dont tech the principals of photography & assume the user does not need these skills. Recently looking through the MCC library I found a book from 1941 by Ziff Davis called the "Manual of correct exposure" its not a thick book about 130 pages. But what it talks about I am finding to be the most valuable secrets to becoming a true photographer. The principles of photography have never changed & will never change. But the equipment dumbing up the subject has. It's like a person with a calculator hanging out a shingle I am a mathematician.

 

[lxdude]

It's like a person with a calculator hanging out a shingle I am a mathematician.

Ooo, I like that one.

 

[Yamaotoko]

Look at figures for film sales, lab closings, and new film camera sales.

Here's something I find a little amusing (at first, I misread your post, I read "Look at... new film and camera sales.", but I thought I'd still post out of interest), the processing prices at my regular pro-lab have gone down over the past few years. I'm still working off of their '06 lab price list, and always get a plesant surprise when I collect. E6 4x5's are advertised at $8.50, but are now only $6.50 (less my VIP discount, and they come in at just $5 ea). All round their processing prices have dropped... it made me wonder if there isn't a stronger resurgance than we expect? Although, this lab is situated in the 'trendy faunky arty' end of 'alternative' old Melbourne

 

[Wyno]

Hi Gary,
the article was in the "Geelong Business News". This person is passing himself as someone who is an expert at photography. The fact that he obviously only uses the camera on Auto proves that he isn't. In fact he actually says in the article "this ensures that the camera does all the work, identifying the correct exposure for each shot." It's not the fact that he likes digital cameras, it's the fact that he is posing as a professional and braying that film is dead without the slightest bit of evidence provided to back him up, and that easily led people will listen to him because his article is in a magazine.
I am formulating a reply to this article which I will send to the magazine.
Mike

 

[SchwinnParamount]

I just went through the digital vs. film debate in my head.

I could buy a new digicam like the EOS 550D for between $800 and $1,000.
Add in the cost of accessories. Then figure in the cost of consumables like paper and ink. (It costs over $50 to refill my printer!)

But, instead I bought TWO 35mm cameras and only paid approx. $60 for the lot. I bought an ENTIRE darkroom setup for $200. (Enlarger, tanks, trays, utensils & everything.) With approx. another $100 worth of consumables, I am already operational and making prints today.

For consumables, I can pay approx. $6.00 for each roll of film, about $40 for a pack of photographic paper and $50 for enough chemistry to process a whole boatload of film and prints, that comes out to just two refills of my inkjet printer, not including the paper I would buy.

Okay... So I can pay $460 for film or I can pay $1,000 for digital.

So, the way I look at it, I'm getting better quality for half the price. Once I added it up, it didn't take me long to decide.



There are still people who make Daguerreotypes! Those have been "dead" for over 100 years. Haven't they?

Don't forget to account for the cost of a fancy ink blurt printer capable of making black and white prints as good as a real print... Oh wait, there is no such thing at ANY price.

 

[removed account4]

hi mike

sorry to ask this, but what does shooting with your camera on auto have to do with anything ?

john

 

[Darkroom317]

Don't forget to account for the cost of a fancy ink blurt printer capable of making black and white prints as good as a real print... Oh wait, there is no such thing at ANY price.

I have one that when used with certain paper comes really close. But, both the ink and the paper are highly expensive. However, it has issues with gloss paper. So, into the darkroom I go.

 

[Worker 11811]

Don't forget to account for the cost of a fancy ink blurt printer capable of making black and white prints as good as a real print... Oh wait, there is no such thing at ANY price.

LOL

 

[Wyno]

Hi John,
it seems to me that he's never even considered that he might get something special and maybe better if he turned the auto mode off and used his brain to decide what he wants and how he wants the result to look like. I know that you can get really good results just leaving the camera on auto, but sometimes if you are willing to experiment and set the aperture and shutter speed yourself, you can get a magic result. Not always, but sometimes, and for me that makes it worthwhile because if I do that, I've learned something.
Mike

 

[alexmacphee]

See if you can find a couple rolls of Kodachrome. Looking at those slides will
be a revelation.

On Saturday I was given a huge cardboard box containing loads of boxed slides, made by my wife's parents. My job is to scan them and put them on disks so that all the sisters can have a copy.

The Kodachromes go back to 1965, possibly earlier when I get to the other boxes. The colours and saturations are as vibrant as if they were taken last Tuesday. Other makes, like the Orwochromes, have faded to near monochrome.

Revelation is the word. Use it, because you're going to lose it.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Hi Gary,
the article was in the "Geelong Business News". This person is passing himself as someone who is an expert at photography. The fact that he obviously only uses the camera on Auto proves that he isn't. In fact he actually says in the article "this ensures that the camera does all the work, identifying the correct exposure for each shot." It's not the fact that he likes digital cameras, it's the fact that he is posing as a professional and braying that film is dead without the slightest bit of evidence provided to back him up, and that easily led people will listen to him because his article is in a magazine.
I am formulating a reply to this article which I will send to the magazine.
Mike

Thanks Mike.
I was considering submitting the page to Media Watch (first mooted earlier by Ross Chambers) but it is not likely I don't think to fall within that program's usual focii. I might be wrong and will message his PA to see if there's any interest.

I hope he wasn't paid for his "expert opining" of something that we've collectively discovered he doesn't have a professional grasp of. That would be astonishing.

Good on you for picking up the baton and giving him a belting . Fancy an "expert" like that writing about everything being done by the camera (speaking of which, honestly, I don't even know if 'Brutus' my production camera, has an "auto" mode, LOL!!!)

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Here's something I find a little amusing (at first, I misread your post, I read "Look at... new film and camera sales.", but I thought I'd still post out of interest), the processing prices at my regular pro-lab have gone down over the past few years. I'm still working off of their '06 lab price list, and always get a plesant surprise when I collect. E6 4x5's are advertised at $8.50, but are now only $6.50 (less my VIP discount, and they come in at just $5 ea). All round their processing prices have dropped... it made me wonder if there isn't a stronger resurgance than we expect? Although, this lab is situated in the 'trendy faunky arty' end of 'alternative' old Melbourne

<giggles> Sounds like PRISM in Norda Melabun, processing of which is cheerfully cheap even by post! I just luuuuv the trendy, funky, arty-farty, macramè-knickered, hairy-armpitted, paint-daubed "high" end of town. Used to live very close by until the trendies booted me out <sigh>.

Students at RMIT and Melb. Uni are still regularly into film and wet techniques. Traditional arts degrees with applied photography streams still deal with time-honoured imaging techniques usually now with electives crossing to the digital bits so it's not all 100% digi-aligned (but it undoubtedly working toward that end).

 

[Chris Nielsen]

That article just makes my blood boil... Not only the fact he TWICE says 'the camera does all the work' but the fact that that comes in the same article as the word 'prosumer'. I detest that word, especially when it's applied to a cheap nasty plastic crap digicam. The whole idea of the word 'prosumer' irritates me no end. Either you are a pro or you're an amateur, and I'm sure a pro will use whatever gear he wants to. Just because a pro decides to use a particular camera doesn't make the other users of the same equipment magically transform into 'prosumers'. What's a 'prosumer' doing with an entry level crappy camera on auto anyway? Grrrrr.. I'm grinding my teeth just thinking about how much I hate that whole 'prosumer' thing.

 

[alexmacphee]

I'm grinding my teeth just thinking about how much I hate that whole 'prosumer' thing.

I think of 'prosumer' as being an adman's less-obvious adspeak for 'wannabe', but like many portmanteau words ('infomercial'), just naff.

Our 'expert-at-not-doing-anything' can have his digital do-it-all, and read his two hundred page manual to find out where the shutter button is. I'm going to continue to relish my good old fashioned steam photography.

 

[Yamaotoko]

Used to live very close by until the trendies booted me out <sigh>. .

Ha ha! Well, that's my story right now My partner has been in our new house down your way for the past three weeks, I'm stuck up here 'till I can find work down there... heck, I'd be happy to shovel horse crap at the moment as long as it paid well and gave me a few days off to photograph the coastline!

 

[Tony Egan]

I am formulating a reply to this article which I will send to the magazine.
Mike

He's on FB and Linkedin if you'd like to respond to him directly!

He has a marketing background and seems to be a bit of a mover and shaker in the Geelong business community. Can't see any reference to a photo website or any other technology interests. I wouldn't be too hard on the guy. Probably got a request to fill space in the local rag and lifted most of the copy from Canon promotional material.

The "camera does it all" sounds a bit like Kodak's "you press the button, we do the rest". It's always been pretty much the same pitch at that end of the market. Although, I am fascinated by the camera that can recognise each face and adjust the exposure accordingly. Now that's an algorithm!

 

[lxdude]

I am fascinated by the camera that can recognise each face and adjust the exposure accordingly. Now that's an algorithm!

Al Gore's involved with that, too?

 

[removed account4]

Hi John,
it seems to me that he's never even considered that he might get something special and maybe better if he turned the auto mode off and used his brain to decide what he wants and how he wants the result to look like. I know that you can get really good results just leaving the camera on auto, but sometimes if you are willing to experiment and set the aperture and shutter speed yourself, you can get a magic result. Not always, but sometimes, and for me that makes it worthwhile because if I do that, I've learned something.
Mike

hi mike

thanks for that ...
i asked because i have been shooting professionally since the 1980s ...
annual reports, magazines, newspapers, archival documentation, portraits ...
and i have often left my camera on "auto" if given the opportunity.
granted, i know how to over ride things if necessary, and i know my
equipment well enough to know its limitations ...
that said, i still don't really know why it matters if someone leaves they camera
on auto / program mode, or not, it doesn't make them a better or worse photographer ...
seeing there are plenty of people who don't use the auto function and take poor photographs ...
it is for the same reason why i don't think one needs to be a densitometrist
to know how to use black and white or color film.

for all intents and purposes the guy is telling the truth,
the use of film in the main stream is pretty much dead.
there are only a few manufacturers of film and paper,
there are fewer and fewer places to get them processed
( 1 lab left in a 50 mile radius of where live that can process bigger than 120 film )
and there are fewer and fewer people using film cameras.
unfortunately for us folks at apug, it is hard for us to see the forest through the trees

 

[PhotoJim]

...i still don't really know why it matters if someone leaves they camera on auto / program mode, or not, it doesn't make them a better or worse photographer ...

How can any automatic device know what you want?

Certainly, such devices can be programmed to make a pretty good guess... but that's all it is.

For the same reason an automatic transmission in a car will often decide to shift up a gear while you are accelerating as you hit the bottom of a hill (and would stay in the same gear or maybe even go down a gear) - it can't see the hill - only you know what you want in terms of exaggeration or elimination of subject motion, and restriction or expansion of depth of field.

To be sure, program mode has its uses (better to get a properly-exposed photo with imperfect depth-of-field quickly than to miss taking a photo at all) but any photographer worth his (or her) salt knows that good photography is about making choices - focal length, aperture, shutter speed, film or sensor speed, colour rendition, and so on. This is what separates photography from simple picture-taking.

 

[removed account4]

jim,

the general public doesn't really care much about the things you mention,
they just want to push the button, and share images with their friends and family ...

i still don't understand why someone can't be a "professional" and use a camera with auto functions.
it makes no sense ... sorry.

unfortunately this morning i have a roll of 120 c41 film, and no way to have it
processed ... i guess film is alive and well ... :confused:

 

[PhotoJim]

the general public doesn't really care much about the things you mention, they just want to push the button, and share images with their friends and family ...

And that's why I don't pay that sort of person to take photographs.