Thread and Poll Regarding: Film Preference/What Film Do You Use

[rogueish]

In addition to the comments made by Ole, many of the B&W shooters that use color to some degree in their lives may not even discuss or have any questions or participation in the Color forums. Rich

That would be me. My only posting in the colour forums would be to ask which colour 120 does who, use for what.
98% B&W film (100%Ilford) and just enough colour to keep the girlfriend happy. I process my own B&W, but the colour (all 35mm*) goes to the local 1 hour photo.
So I clicked the B&W neg, and Colour neg selection in the poll.



* I had Bob Carnie process some rolls of colour 120 film for me, but it amounts to less than 1%.

 

[roteague]

Why not just compare number of posts in the b&w forums against the colour forums?

The poll isn't really for Rich and I to get an understanding of what people here use, as much as it is a way of getting the membership at large to understand the diversity of film types used here.

I've made a comment, numerious times, equating APUG to "Analog Black & White Photography Users Group" because of this total lack of awareness on the part of some here who only shoot/concentrate on B&W. I still remember the thread where someone asked for a suggestion, in the color film forum, what type of transparency film they should use in a particular circumstance, and the first response was Tri-X - it was a serious response, BTW. I know of at least one member, who has quit participating, because of a perceived bias towards B&W. This bias, also manifiests itself in the APUG Gallery (which I support, but don't participate in).

No, it is more a means of understanding the makeup of those who participate.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I agree with Ole's post above. There are lots of us who do color, myself included, but at the analog process end, consistency is more important than creativity, and there isn't as much to talk about until you get to techniques like contrast masking.

There have been a few threads about things like homebrew E-6 processing, but there aren't too many even here with the knowledge to do anything but sit on the sidelines and watch the chemistry experts figure it out.

There's been a little discussion of cross processing.

Once in a while the topic of the color rendition of various lenses comes up.

There have also been a couple threads on the Zone System for color or other approaches to contrast control through processing and exposure.

There was a recent thread on color meters.

The digital part of the process, for those who use it, is better discussed elsewhere.

There are other interesting aesthetic topics, like color in composition, that I haven't seen raised on APUG.

I think that if the predominantly color shooters have non-digital issues to talk about, then no one is preventing them from starting new threads, and I suspect those threads might bring out more of the folks who shoot color on APUG.

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

I mostly agree with the view put forward by Robert Teague. However, I think as someone else pointed out, that the people using B/W films generally have more to discuss, post more often, and some of them are much more vocal about their B/W film bias.

As David A. Goldfarb points out, there are indeed discussions of colour film usage. When I think that starts to fall apart is when colour film users mention getting prints from their films. So I don't necessarily see a problem, or bias against, those of us using colour film, but I do see a slight bias against the predominant methods available to getting prints from colour film. This printing issue tends to bring out the most vocal members of APUG. I am not suggesting that Sean nor the Moderators encourage discussions about printing methods for colour films, and I don't generally have much problem with such discussions being banned.

Surveys, Polls, or any general statistics will not change biases. The Alt. Process people get a forum about creating contact printing negatives using non-traditional methods, but should those of us using modern colour printing technologies (not inkjet) or labs get a separate forum? My feeling is no, because there are enough people on APUG this would anger that it would diminish this forum.

I look forward to the other forum Sean is working to create. As I have stated previously, I hope that it will be something like CPUG (Colour Photographers User Group), and biased towards colour film users. I also hope that could avoid inkjet discussions, since I think there are more than enough inkjet discussion group already on the internet.

Ciao!

Gordon

 

[George Papantoniou]

I think this whole story about separating colour and b&w photography (I mean photography, not digimaging) is ridiculous. They both have the same meaning to me, it's just a matter of aesthetics. I don't mind reading (or writing) more often about b&w, but this doesn't mean that I don't appreciate colour... Alt processes aren't discussed as much as silver halide traditional processes, but noone complains about that...

If we were to separate b&w and colour, then we should separate mono printing in colour (toning, lith prints) because it's different that simple gray-toned prints.

 

[naturephoto1]

I think this whole story about separating colour and b&w photography (I mean photography, not digimaging) is ridiculous. They both have the same meaning to me, it's just a matter of aesthetics. I don't mind reading (or writing) more often about b&w, but this doesn't mean that I don't appreciate colour... Alt processes aren't discussed as much as silver halide traditional processes, but noone complains about that...

If we were to separate b&w and colour, then we should separate mono printing in colour (toning, lith prints) because it's different that simple gray-toned prints.

Hi George,

If you think that this is ridiculous, that is fine. If you do not wish to participate in the poll that is also fine. You may however like to look at the results as things now stand to get a generalized trend in the results of what photographers here at APUG use to capture an image.

As to your comment about complaints, neither Robert, nor I were complaining, we just brought up a point. And we did want others here at APUG to know what were films and materials used by the membership for taking the image. And by the way the capture process through B&W and color can often be very different.

As to your comment "If we were to separate b&w and colour, then we should separate mono printing in colour (toning, lith prints) because it's different that simple gray-toned prints" this was addressed by Ole above. In addition, these techniques are used after the capture process.

Rich

 

[roteague]

I think this whole story about separating colour and b&w photography (I mean photography, not digimaging) is ridiculous.

It isn't about "us vs them", but more an understanding of the differences on APUG.

 

[George Papantoniou]

I am sorry Rich, but I don't understand your reasonning. It's all right, we might not work in the same wavelength. Things like that do happen, it's better then to leave things as they are.
I sincerely hope you'll find the results of the poll useful...

Cheers