What would you do ?

[digiconvert]

Just imaginre the following scenario, not an impossible one.
- In about 10-15 years time CCD technology is such that all of the qualities of film (tonal range, latitude, 'feel' etc.) are capable of emulation by affordable digital cameras. The processing of images using digital/analogue conversion enlargers (as in colour labs) is also affordable by those on median incomes.
In other words you can still print in the same way as you would now but the capture medium is now digital but the output is analogue.

-I assume that you have not become the latest inhabitant of some 'retirement manor' or gone to whatever destination fits with your beliefs (ironic PC in case you hadn't noticed )

Would you still be an enthusiastic printer, would you give up and take up some other means of spending money or another choice ? Just interested to know .

 

[Sean]

I can't imagine it ever happening, but voted for making my own plates if it does. CCD & software might be able to emulate film to a high degree but it can't provide 1 important feature, and that's a tangible object that was burned by the light of that exact moment. That's one thing I love about film capture, just seems more real to me than something that is converted to 1's & 0's vanishing into a virtual existence.

 

[DeBone 75]

Personaly I can't imagine not being able to go into a darkroom, smell the chemicals, feel them at my fingertips and see the image apeer as if by magic. And the thought that I had some small part of it getting there. When this is no longer possible then whats the point. For me it's the prosses. Film is the only way I prefer to get it there.

 

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

I'm with Sean, I'd just find a way to do things my own way if something like that ever happened. I've been around computers since I was 2, and I dont trust them as far as I can throw them.

 

[copake_ham]

I thought film photography was already a niche market supported by afficianados of the medium who simply prefer it for many reasons?

If not - it soon will be.

 

[Jim Noel]

Since my pleasure comes from the craft, I would make my own film and paper, or do wet plate. I have used digital cameras, and print3ed digitally - neither of which interests me in the least.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

They managed to do some great photography in the 19th century before the commercial manufacture of film and paper. There's no reason we can't do it in the 21st century.

 

[jovo]

Even though you are postulating complete analog emulation, just knowing that I'd be using a software designer's algorithm would send me headlong into making my own plates. People like Ron Mowry are going to end up being heroes to those of us who just won't go down that road. My wife and I are headed in the direction of solar plate photogravure anyway (we already have the intaglio press which is 'hard' part) and that will open up a host of interesting explorations that I can't wait to delve into.

If your scenario were to come to pass, it'd be fun to imagine the ad slogans:

"Just like the real thing!" "Photography's Golden Age can now be yours to recreate effortlessly in your study or family room!" "You too can be Ansel Adams with just a few mouse clicks!"

YIKES!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Anyone who's tried one of those "Tri-X plugins" for Photoshop or a software tube amp emulator knows it ain't happening anytime soon.

 

[Curt]

I have such a back log of negatives that I could spend the rest of my life just printing.

 

[Ed Sukach]

If sketching with charcoal dies, will you mix your own oils?

 

[arigram]

I would kill myself with a spoon

 

[reellis67]

A spoon? - Ouch!

The process itself is what I enjoy, and if film ever disappeared while I was alive (unlikely) I would simply switch to a historical process like Calotype, or learn to coat my own plates. I have no interest in digital photography, or in working digital into my work flow, nor I am not at all concerned about film going away before I do.

- Randy

 

[Craig Griffiths]

Speaking as someone who started with film a few years ago, switched completely to digital, and has now abandoned digital in favour of film, I would probably look at the historic processes and work with those. I sit in front of a pc all day, I dont want to look at a screen when I relax.

Coating my own plates sounds like a good option. Or there is always Ari's spoon.

 

[Vaughn]

I love Curt's responce!

I am in the same boat -- I have too many negatives in boxes that are getting ignored because of the ones in the holders that are waiting development and printing!

Supposively there is a camera-speed cyanotype process out there, though what to do with a blue negative is a head-scratcher. Photographers have been inventors in the past, so would continue to invent (are still doing so) given a need.

vaughn

 

[Jojje]

Isn't anybody at all worried about archival permanence?

 

[Mark Pope]

I think (hope) that there will will always be a demand for silver-halide materials. There are enough of us around to keep the medium going IMHO. Whilst I could go completely digital and have the requisite equipment, I much prefer the darkroom.

 

[fparnold]

The only problem I see in the DIY approach is going to be getting autochrome plates rolled onto spools to use in the TLR.

 

[Maris]

If electronic picture making was the only thing known most folks could not care less; except at APUG it seems!

Sean is right. There is something unique and special happening when something that was part of the subject leaves it, travels across space, goes through a lens, and makes a picture of itself on an actual sensitive physical surface.

That this happens directly and only from the energy donated by the subject matter and without anything entering and re-emerging from cyberspace is sublimely wonderful.

If photography had never been invented we would have to invent it.

 

[Vaughn]

Less and less...

Isn't anybody at all worried about archival permanence?

Generally speaking, no. Speaking to a professor friend of mine, she said that for an assignment, a student showed her a digital image that had been way over-sharpened. She suggested that he go back to the original file and correct it -- but he said he had already deleted it. Hmmmmmmm.

Another example...someone took a snap of a child with his digital camera and showed the child the image on the camera's screen. The kid was thrilled, but when the fellow offered to print it for the child, the child said, "Why? I've already seen it."

A society flooded with images (and the flood just's starting) tends not to see the need to save any of them.

My prints will last a half millinium or two -- as long as the paper they are on doesn't fall apart. Kinda of scary -- a bad print of mine could be looked at mid-millinium and I can almost hear them say, "This carbon print from the early days of photography is a classic example of work that should have been tossed out centuries ago. But we keep it because it is old."

vaughn

 

[Woolliscroft]

Isn't anybody at all worried about archival permanence?

Me, but then it reather goes with the job. David.

 

[Andy K]

If digital gets to emulate film so well that it gives you a roll of negatives after every 12, 24 0r 36 shots, I might consider using it. If it doesn't I would give up photography.

 

[Jennifer]

Hi,
A person told me a year ago, that film is on it's way out. I won't get it, or it will cost a fortune in the future. It will cost a bit more, but I don't think it will be expensive. I said to this person you are telling me that if the demand dwindles to say 1/4 of its current demand that there is not enough
demand to keep at least one company going full time, people working 40 hrs a week. I say it won't go away, just too hard to beleive.

Happy New Year,

Jennifer

 

[Daniel_OB]

"In other words you can still print in the same way as you would now but the capture medium is now digital but the output is analogue."

you are making a girl from a grandmother. it si not possible.

And to all folks thinking about disappering films. Many times I said that photography is not in trouble. It just got normal. Some freaken manufacturers of equipment intersted to make money out of photographers (like kodak, agfa, ... and whoever else) are gone, so what. Photography will be around as long photographers are.

To answer the Q.: I would make my own films.

 

[Snapshot]

I would prefer to think that film will be around for as long as I desire to work in the the darkroom. As a person that has just recently had their interest rekindled in film photography, I would hate to think otherwise.