When Asked Why You Are Not Shooting Digital, What Do You Reply?

2F/2F · Apr 22, 2011

What the heck is a "film puller?"

N467RX · Apr 22, 2011

A retriever, leader puller, etc. You know, those round tweezers that let you pull the film out of a 35mm magazine, I do my best to be able to reuse disposable magazines.

fstop · Apr 22, 2011

When I did developing, one trick I picked up was to not crank the film all the way into the can, you can feel when the leader is free from the take up.
One area digital has over film is there are no smelly chemicals.

lxdude · Apr 22, 2011

fstop said:
One area digital has over film is there are no smelly chemicals.

Yeah, the images stink instead!

yulia_s_rey · Apr 22, 2011

lxdude said:
Yeah, the images stink instead!

haha!

Worker 11811 · Apr 22, 2011

fstop said:
One area digital has over film is there are no smelly chemicals.

Oh, there are smelly chemicals, all right. All the smelly chemicals are in China.

N467RX · Apr 22, 2011

My camera does the winding automatically. What I normally do is only expose up to frame 22-23 or 34-35, that way I don't ruin a photo if do the cut in the wrong location

rkbry · Apr 22, 2011

fstop said:
I agree, I shoot both media, I take lousy pictures with both.

Me too. High five!

zumbido · May 16, 2011

"Wanted to get back in the darkroom this week, was starting to miss the contact dermatitis."

zumbido · May 16, 2011

Or, "I prefer the potential image on an undeveloped negative to the potential image on a memory card that I haven't looked at, printed, or backed-up yet."

Diapositivo · May 16, 2011

Or even: "How would you feel if you were made of 0s and 1s rather than of solid touchable chemistry? Wouldn't you feel very bad? Well, I want to spare that ugly feeling to my beloved pictures!".

Uncle Bill · May 16, 2011

I have a standard answer, "But I do shoot digital now and again" and pull out my iPhone 4.

Ralph Javins · May 16, 2011

Good morning;

That answer is shown below with my name. And when you give that explanation to people, you get to see the most bewildered, not understanding expressions.

Russ - SVP · May 16, 2011

Ralph Javins said:
Good morning;

That answer is shown below with my name. And when you give that explanation to people, you get to see the most bewildered, not understanding expressions.

Sounds good to me Ralph.

2F/2F · May 16, 2011

I ran out of space on my CF cards.

maliha · May 16, 2011

Just a matter of preference?

It's the same reason why I like wearing a black shirt more than a white shirt.. most of the days...

Newt_on_Swings · May 17, 2011

I had the most fun reading this thread! thanks APUG lol

I usually forgo the smart comments, my usual reply is because it gives me something digital cant.

Though I do shoot digital on the side, as clients demand digital images instantly. Film is my personal time, to kick back and relax in the darkroom.

elekm · May 17, 2011

I don't think that I've ever been asked that. I guess my answer might range from thoughtful to sarcastic to combative, depending on who's doing the asking.

markbarendt · May 17, 2011

2F/2F said:
I ran out of space on my CF cards.

I had to giggle here an engineer friend of mine actually bought new cards every time they got full, did that for quite a while, much like a film shooter storing up rolls of film to develop later I guess.

tribalista000 · May 17, 2011

well, since i'm the only person in my area who shoots and develops his own films, i've pretty much diluted my answer down to i prefer it, theres actually a lot of reasons i could give out but i wouldn't to be drawn to a film vs. digital debate, the last time i almost gave a speech about it was when i was almost drunk with a close friend who shoots a canon 5d

mgbgt68 · May 17, 2011

Thanks for the negatives.

faustotesta said:
My best friend who is always updated (last version of i-phone, ipad,ieverything...) is continuously asking me why i don't switch to digital.
I try to explain my reasons but he's very sarcastic. Last time we went to a concert and i brought my trusty contax 167 with 4 rolls of fuji reala.
When we were approachig the security he told me "I hope you won't get imprisoned for dealing with hazardous chemical stuff (rolls of film...))".
To be honest i do not know why i still keep considering him a friend....

This is another story dealing with analog stuff.
My wife asked a neighbour (aged more than 80) if she had a picture of her marriage (That was 3 years ago. We were preparing a wedding exhibition...).
She told us she had only one picture and asked us to be very careful because it was the only copy she had....
She gave us a 6x9 cm negative... (she thought it was a picture).
We gave the negative to a professional lab who made a proper print which, obviously, was given to the Widow.
You can never imagine how happy she was...
Now she's died. But her negative and print is still here on this planet.
Can you imagine a TIFF file taking such a long journey in time ?
Guys. I'll never give up analog stuff.
There are very few nice things matching the sensation of seeing popping up a beautiful imagine from a FB paper into the tray....

Almost the same thing happend to me.
My good friend, a photographer, stepped out of this life 11 years ago. This was when the digital age was really coming up.
I found some 6x6 negatives, a few weeks ago, which I took a few months before he died.
Having given the prints to his relatives it was a joy to see him again after all these years, it brought tears to my eyes.

Paul Goutiere · May 17, 2011

mgbgt68 said:
Almost the same thing happend to me.
My good friend, a photographer, stepped out of this life 11 years ago. This was when the digital age was really coming up.
I found some 6x6 negatives, a few weeks ago, which I took a few months before he died.
Having given the prints to his relatives it was a joy to see him again after all these years, it brought tears to my eyes.

I have the negatives and prints of my family taken before I was born. I have negatives and prints of my parents and myself taken when I was an infant. Indeed I have negatives and prints all the while I was growing up to the time I became the Geezer I am now.

A young couple we know, shoot their family pictures entirely on digital equipment. Thousands of images reduced to what amounts to castles in the sand just before the tide. And then one day they won't have the perfectly exposed, perfectly focused memories they thought they would have.

Sirius Glass · May 17, 2011

Paul Goutiere said:
I have the negatives and prints of my family taken before I was born. I have negatives and prints of my parents and myself taken when I was an infant. Indeed I have negatives and prints all the while I was growing up to the time I became the Geezer I am now.

A young couple we know, shoot their family pictures entirely on digital equipment. Thousands of images reduced to what amounts to castles in the sand just before the tide. And then one day they won't have the perfectly exposed, perfectly focused memories they thought they would have.

They are one hard disk crash from loosing all the photographs of their children growing up.

wblynch · May 17, 2011

Sirius Glass said:
They are one hard disk crash from loosing all the photographs of their children growing up.

Or worse, 10 years from now when they pull out that treasured backup CD or DVD and find it has gone blank!

Paul Goutiere · May 17, 2011

wblynch said:
Or worse, 10 years from now when they pull out that treasured backup CD or DVD and find it has gone blank!

Or find they threw out the equipment needed to view that DVD or CD.

When Asked Why You Are Not Shooting Digital, What Do You Reply?

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