Tired of film-users bashing

[TheDreadPirateRobins]

When I had hiked for about 2 hours, I again met, two gentlemen I'd seen earlier taking digital pics of everything they could see. We got into a inevitable discussion about cameras...
...
They had each taken about 200 shots apparently,(in about 2 hours!) while on their way up this trail. I'd only taken 10 so far.
...
They were going back down "dammit". Two batteries had given out on one camera and that was it for him. The other camera had developed an issue with the autofocus...

<snicker> (kind of smug grin) <snicker>

 

[phenix]

My credo is stated below.

 

[kristopher_lawrence]

Kris, did you see Solaris (by Tarkovsky)? There’s another Kris there, others treat for a fool. Just joking, the matter is not there. The matter is you shouldn’t care about what salespersons are saying (in photography like in anything else). They are the morons of this world.

Although, while I consider digital as an evolution over film in print color photography (sorry, I have little experience with color slides, so no pertinent opinion about it), I also consider B&W as necessarily linked to film. The main distinctions (two of them) are in: grain vs. noise (for film vs. digital), and light and shadows (or volumes and textures) vs. colors (for B&W vs. color photography). SPs will tell you about CDs vs. vinyls, but these are only recording media, not expression means like film. The allegory is not pertinent, only manipulation (and what else would you expect from SPs?).

Again, a SP could tell you that B&W is death, so it is the film! Ha, ha, did sculpture died because of painting? How could it be: one looks to the world through light and shadows (or volumes and textures), while the other does it through colors. Or, more recently, did painting died because of photography? On the contrary, painting just reborn when photography took over on the figurative constrains. So, are B&W and film dying? Theoretically they should reborn, but there are these scams of the world (the SPs) who can artificially kill them (I would be a fool to denegate this risk).

Very good understanding. Parlez-vous français?

I believe that you are true, but photography is at graphic, or pictorial art, as pen and word processors to litterature. The vast majority of its users want the image, and like it as long as its meaninfull to them. Analogue photography as an art will need a ot of users to maintain itself in the future. The cost of coating film and paper is huge, and more complicated than producing ink for fountain pens.

However, I still believe that film will continue to be available, especially in dynamic cities. I see you are from montreal, I am too. I live in ottawa for my studies. I must say that there is still good film retailers in montreal, and a lot of supporters. I hope it will continue to be so!

Thanks,

Kris

 

[tim_walls]

My credo is stated below.

As someone who shoots E6 more than B&W, I have to say I don't think much of your credo .

 

[nsouto]

Analogue photography as an art will need a lot of users to maintain itself in the future.

Of course not! "need lot of users" is SP-speak for "no clue about a market".

Art does not survive on "need lot of users": got nothing to do with it.

Film will be available for a long time, one form or another. Even the big K has recently released a NEW super-8 movie film! Which has NOTHING to do with the motion picture industry.

Of course it won't be easy to find or handle or process in some backwater neck of the woods. Neither are the supplies for sculpture, painting or any other form of personal art. That's what mail order and online suppliers are for, have always been and will be. Not the slightest problem.

 

[nsouto]

As someone who shoots E6 more than B&W, I have to say I don't think much of your credo .

same here! although of course I'm doing the best I can to rectify that situation by shooting MORE b&w!

 

[xtolsniffer]

I work in a University. I recently picked up a load of recently delivered slides and was looking through them waiting for a meeting to start. My colleagues were amazed and exclaimed how old-fashioned I was. They didn't believe me when I explained that the little 35mm slide, costing about 20 pence to buy and process could resolve just as much detail as the most expensive digital SLR costing many thousands of pounds (I appreciate the economics depend on the volume you shoot, but I was trying to make a point here!). I was also warned not to use slides in lectures as it was old-fashioned, and I should use powerpoint instead. Modernism for modernism's sake....

 

[Kino]

Yeah, they'd laugh until the first slide came up and then...

A lot of people have no concept of what film is capable of and only regurgitate the techno party line they have been fed.

 

[Simplicius]

Digital is like shaved legs on a man - very smooth and clean but there is something acutely disconcerting about it. Digital fanaticism is for people whose depth can be measured in pixels.

This made me laugh and reminds me of that "Mile High, Inch Deep" slogan that is going around USA elections at moment, but I digress.

To save myself wasting 'valuable' pixels, this sums it up for me.

Just flip them the bird and move on.
Life's too short to be wasted and too sweat to be spoiled by assholes.

I must run as I'm skipping off work early to buy my first roll of 120 film for my "brand new! i.e. CLA'd"; 6''x9'' Zeiss Super Ikonta Folder and take my first medium format pictures ever.

Just to illustrate there is still new blood coming into photography and film: I didn't know what 120 film was 12 months ago and have been preaching the joys of film to all who'll listen in the last 12 months since I got my first 35mm SLR.

Film will never return to what it was but I suspect and hope film will become a strong niche market that will stay.

 

[Lee L]

I work in a University. ..... Modernism for modernism's sake....

Just tell them you're post post-modern, so you use film. They should understand.

Lee

 

[jmendez]

Went to a major discount chain the other day. Had them blow up a 35mm negative. While talking to the young man who waited on me, the subject of digital vs. film came up. I mentioned that I usually prefer to shoot medium format. I swear, he looked at me strangely and asked what is medium format! I said oh, that is 120 film and said that he had never heard of it. Unreal.

 

[3Dfan]

I guess they wouldn't think much of my lectures. I've been known to show old super-8 films in my classes when the need arises.

I was also warned not to use slides in lectures as it was old-fashioned, and I should use powerpoint instead. Modernism for modernism's sake....

 

[36cm2]

I mentioned that I usually prefer to shoot medium format. I swear, he looked at me strangely and asked what is medium format! I said oh, that is 120 film and said that he had never heard of it. Unreal.

Not his fault really. Next time you get a look like that, just tell the person that your film goes to 11. I find the second blank stare much more satisfying than the first.

 

[Aurum]

Especially if you do it in a flat nasal cockney accent

 

[JBrunner]

Especially if you do it in a flat nasal cockney accent

I need to have a camera that I don't touch, or even look at.. Wait I do... My Kiev...

 

[Uncle Bill]

Maybe it's time to move down to Toronto, we have options down here with Aden, Eight Elm, Vistek (downtown) Henry's Super Store, Downtown Camera, Film Plus, Burlington Camera out in the western Suburbs and Camtech out in Hamilton.

I would start mail ordering from Photoco, Freestyle and Big Camera Workshops if the local store clerks are being idiots.

 

[ny_photog]

Just tell them their shop will be dead long before film is dead. With online shops able to undercut their markups by 70% their days are numbered..

In addition, what is also killing off the retail photo stores is that they don't have tons of film buyers coming in anymore. You cannot make a living just selling digital cameras. Used to be that photographers came regularly into a store to buy film and while they were there they'd start looking at gear, gadgets, bags, accessories etc.

That's where the $ was.

Now, you can go to a Staples or a drug store or even a convenience store to get new batteries (and even a new flash card) for your digi. Heck, why bother going to a "photography store" any more except if you need some pro film? Oh, but that's right - they don't want to sell that anymore.

Go figure.

 

[cmacd123]

I was also warned not to use slides in lectures as it was old-fashioned, and I should use powerpoint instead. Modernism for modernism's sake....

last time I gave a talk at a radio club, I made it a point to make my slides by shooting Fuji Motion Picture film and having the sliades made my Dale Labs in Florida on Kodak Vision Stock. After all should one not be able to make a point in "Vista-Vison"

(note that your projector needs a flat field (Ektagraphic) lens if you do this as the slides from Dale have the emusion on the wrong side because of them being "prints". Dale seems to be the only source of slides from Motion Picture Film anymore.

 

[paulie]

last time i was given grief at a photo shop from a sales boy, i told the c*** too f*** off and f*** his mother, i also have the same comment to anyone who wants to take such a a arrogant approach with me whilst im shooting.

if i didnt do so then i would probably kick there f****** faces in with my big size 10's

 

[Prest_400]

There's a lot of ignorance about our medium. I've only have to look a year and half in the past to get into a consumer mind. Myself before getting seriously into photography.

In a year of shooting; I've completely switched to a more photographic way of thinking. Before all my focus was on camera, now it's on technique and aesthetics (lighting control, developing, composition, tones, color...)

The future is in online stores. I can order a brick of 20 rolls of film of all kinds. But my local store only has a bit of ilford and consumer color print film. Price is not the same, too.
There are another advantadge that I like. I don't see a clerk that may be ignorant, angry, antipathetic and I can take my time to check the variety they have, all the prices, and do math about this and that.

 

[Dali]

Prest_400, I second you. Sadly, online stores are the future as most of the regular stores dig their grave with their condescending attitude. I would favor local stores when they won't consider me anymore as a bloody nuisance each time I ask for any analog product (film, lab gear, chemicals,...).

Ironically, the only store I like to go is B&H in NYC: choice and sellers competency, light-year away to what I can experience at my local stores...

Take care.

 

[MattKing]

I've said this before.

There needs to be some experimentation with other models.

Some combination of central, online suppliers and local, smaller overhead store-fronts could make a real difference.

If expertise could be pooled, and shipping (from online source to store-front) streamlined, I think it could work.

Matt

 

[EASmithV]

Hit them with a speed graphic. Then point and shoot their point and shoot.

 

[Uncle Bill]

I've said this before.

There needs to be some experimentation with other models.

Some combination of central, online suppliers and local, smaller overhead store-fronts could make a real difference.

If expertise could be pooled, and shipping (from online source to store-front) streamlined, I think it could work.

Matt

I agree, I think this model could be workable.

 

[Darkroom317]

This happened to me when I went to apply at Brooks Institute. They have gone all digital. The person I talked to said that film was dead and that she didn't understand why I was using it.

My local camera store is fairly supportive and if they don't have the film I need, I can drive about 18 miles and go to a store that carries mostly film and used equipment.

The camera clubs around here are also supportive. One of the best things about shooting film is the people who have gone digital giving you film and equipment.

Every time I walk around with my Rollei, I get asked about it. I am 19 and most of my friends applaud my use of film. At the local colleges and among the art community film has high regard and people are blown away by my prints, which at the moment are scan and inkjet. I don't have my darkroom fully set up yet.

Kristoffer