Why only just shoot film?

kb3lms · Feb 26, 2014

If you want the look of film, why not just shoot film? Film and digital are two very different mediums. If you like one or the other, use it, but it bugs me how much time is spent with digital files to get them 'film-like'.

+1 to this!

For the record, I am also tired of these plugin suites showing "film" images with wacked out color balance, obnoxioius grain, etc. and the "imperfections of film". I have never seen a properly processed color or b/w film that looks like that unless somebody wanted it to look that way, aka the lomo crowd.

Wacky colors and grain can be a creative choice and I have no problem with that but to represent those kinds of images as "film" is really almost insulting.

No problem with digital here, it is another tool in the box. Just feel that if you want the look of film, then use film. Simplest and best way to get "the look."

Besides, with film there are all those little yellow and white and green boxes to collect and play with. Digital doesn't have that.

-- jason

Poisson Du Jour · Feb 26, 2014

Both analogue and digital have their rightful place in photography.

Poisson Du Jour · Feb 26, 2014

benjiboy said:
Because I've spent a lifetime from my youth to my old age trying to understand the art and science of film photography, and don't have the time or patience left to take up another medium.

There is time to learn whatever you want in life. And gain patience and contentment along the way.

fretlessdavis · Feb 26, 2014

kb3lms said:
+1 to this!

For the record, I am also tired of these plugin suites showing "film" images with wacked out color balance, obnoxioius grain, etc. and the "imperfections of film". I have never seen a properly processed color or b/w film that looks like that unless somebody wanted it to look that way, aka the lomo crowd.

Wacky colors and grain can be a creative choice and I have no problem with that but to represent those kinds of images as "film" is really almost insulting.

No problem with digital here, just feel if you want the look of film, then use film. Simplest and best way to get "the look."

-- jason

I think it's part of their continued 'digital is better no matter what' attitude that so many people have these days. I have yet to see any digital photographer claim superiority over film in ANYTHING but resolution. The only comparisons out there are really just tiny crops showing that at 16MP holds more detail than 35mm film. Who cares? Both will make a stellar print in the right hands. I want to hear more about dynamic range (or the lack there-of) comparisons between digital and C-41, color comparisons between E-6 and digital, and when they can make a digital sensor that will actually match the spectral sensitivity of B&W film, and actually respond to colored filters. Until then, you cannot claim digital 'has won' or 'is better'

/rant

frank · Feb 26, 2014

pdeeh said:
"Duh" ?

Please don't be rude, it's unnecessary and makes you seem like an arse.

But then that seem to be the way people prefer to interact on APUG.

I replied in kind to your snarky remark. With me, you're going to get back what you give.

Jaf-Photo · Feb 26, 2014

This war of words seems unnessesary. I think we are all here because of a shared interest in photography. That means that we have more in common than separate us.

And, speaking from experience, nothing will get you into trouble like ego does.

Maris · Feb 26, 2014

Film is only a small part of the grander principle of photography: making pictures out of light sensitive substances by having those substances physically interact with subject matter.

The authority of a photograph to describe subject matter comes not from resemblance but from direct causation. Nothing else works like this, not paintings, not drawings, not digital.

That's why I make photographs instead of doing the other things.

Chan Tran · Feb 26, 2014

I've been shooting film for a long time and just recently shoot digital. I want my pictures to look realistic not to look like it was shot with film nor digital. The film look is a defect of the media which is fine but not something I am long for. Digital has its own look and I am not seeking that look either.

Dr Croubie · Feb 26, 2014

Horses for courses.
I took my 7D and 70-300L to the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore and filled my 8+16gb cards with over 1000 images. Not really possible with film without doubling the size of my backpack and halving my bank balance.
(although, I did just burn through a few rolls of TX at the cricket with my EOS3, only for fun and because the rolls were cheap).

For anything else (which is pretty much everything else but birds these days) I mostly shoot film. When I can get a 4x5" digital sensor to fit on my Toyo for under $1000 then I might consider going (back to) digital. But 4x5" Velvia still has the best quality/price ratio for landscapes for me.
For macros with weird lighting setups I also chimp on digital even if the final shot is made on film (I'm gradually learning manual lighting, but still don't have a proper flashmeter)

Meanwhile, I still can't figure out what the OP website is, or what it has to do with anything.

Sirius Glass · Feb 26, 2014

Why do I shoot film?
1) I do not shoot digital because I could never learn chimpin'.
2) Digital black & white is flat. It has no soul.
3) I do not have a gun.

doughowk · Feb 26, 2014

There are many media to choose from; so why restrict oneself to two mediums that have so little in common. There is very little actual cross-training skills between the two. Most of the apparent similarities are superficial and due to marketing, eg Adobe. If you want to learn another media, might as well be something like pen & ink sketching. Far more useful than learning digital.

Poisson Du Jour · Feb 26, 2014

/ - / - - / + / ++ / ++ Alt / +++ /

What on earth is this 'shorthand' repeated in film descriptions? :confused:

eddie · Feb 26, 2014

I shoot film because I enjoy the entire process, from developing the negatives to making the prints. The darkroom is a place of refuge. There's a tactile component to making a print. My extremely brief foray into digital didn't give me the same feeling.
That being said, if I were still doing commercial work, I'd be doing it digitally (I'd have to buy a camera, though). Business considerations would trump my personal preferences.
Digital bashing makes no sense, these days. It is improving rapidly. At one time, yeah, it was vastly inferior. Those days are gone. Many people are producing fine work with their digital tools. Bashing makes those of us who choose to do our work in a darkroom look petty, as if we need justification for our personal choices.

Dr Croubie · Feb 26, 2014

Poisson Du Jour said:
/ - / - - / + / ++ / ++ Alt / +++ /

What on earth is this 'shorthand' repeated in film descriptions? :confused:

Just a guess, but something to do with pull-/push-ability? 2-stops under to 3 stops over?

Thomas Bertilsson · Feb 26, 2014

eddie said:
I shoot film because I enjoy the entire process, from developing the negatives to making the prints. The darkroom is a place of refuge. There's a tactile component to making a print. My extremely brief foray into digital didn't give me the same feeling.
That being said, if I were still doing commercial work, I'd be doing it digitally (I'd have to buy a camera, though). Business considerations would trump my personal preferences.
Digital bashing makes no sense, these days. It is improving rapidly. At one time, yeah, it was vastly inferior. Those days are gone. Many people are producing fine work with their digital tools. Bashing makes those of us who choose to do our work in a darkroom look petty, as if we need justification for our personal choices.

Fully agree, Eddie. Darkroom is a choice, and if we love what we do it will show in our work. The rest is just academic and in the grand scheme of things completely unimportant.

Bashing doesn't do film any favors, and I agree it makes for a petty display. And the whole argument about digital having 'no soul' is just a bunch of BS. If you have ever witnessed what some of the best people printing in digital and hybrid technology can muster today, you know what I'm talking about.

Xmas · Feb 26, 2014

I thought Forma still did plates?

Nuff · Feb 26, 2014

I use both for what they are. Which do I prefer? Film, but digital has it's place, from my iphone to my dslr. I usually use my dslr for posting stuff to ebay or checking flash light setup, kind of like polaroid. Maybe only 1% of the digital shots are something that I would consider final image. Another use is high iso colour.

Otherwise, my hasselblad and 35mm pentax SLR go with me everywhere. Even overseas. The dslr usually stays behind back home...

Poisson Du Jour · Feb 26, 2014

Thomas Bertilsson said:
[...]And the whole argument about digital having 'no soul' is just a bunch of BS. If you have ever witnessed what some of the best people printing in digital and hybrid technology can muster today, you know what I'm talking about.

Absolutely!!

BradS · Feb 27, 2014

I didn't click on the link in the OP but, as I told the little old lady who asked me "why are you still using film?!?!?", because a camera without film is kinda useless. I guess it could be useful for beating somebody over the head....

mauro35 · Feb 27, 2014

I would like to add a comment to the discussion, nothing to do with what I prefer or which is better than which, but I just find it amusing to see plug-ins to make digital images look like film, black and white films with some rocket science type of grain, so it is so fine it almost looks like a digital image, again black and white film that is black and white but it´s developed in C-41 and does not have any silver in the final image, C-41 color films that have totally random colors (redbird and the like...), cameras with plastic lenses instead of glass. It just appears to me that in photography people value very much the purity and the craft of of their processes, but at the same time we really can´t keep what we have in a simple state. For some reason we have to shuffle everything up and make a mix. Honestly at times it gets very confusing, especially for somebody who is starting and wants to find its own way, but again, this is only a feeling I have, not a preference or prejudice of any sort. I think the fewer, simpler tools we have, the more we can concentrate on the originality of our creations.

ntenny · Feb 27, 2014

mauro35 said:
It just appears to me that in photography people value very much the purity and the craft of of their processes, but at the same time we really can´t keep what we have in a simple state. For some reason we have to shuffle everything up and make a mix.

It's probably not the same people using all those divergent tools, though. At a guess, most people with film in their toolbox will use real film by preference over faux-film digital processes; and I bet there aren't too many people working seriously with both ultra-fine-grain b&w films and the "redscale" stuff.

I think the fewer, simpler tools we have, the more we can concentrate on the originality of our creations.

I'm of two minds. A diversity of tools can be a distraction, sure, but on the other hand, tools are fun. And somebody else having access to some wacky tool or process, even if it's one that I think is kind of stupid, doesn't actually hurt me any.

I think I'd rather have a rich ecosystem of analog and digital and hybrid stuff, and have to exercise some self-discipline to keep myself focussed, than be more tightly constrained by the marketplace.

-NT

mauro35 · Feb 27, 2014

#I think I'd rather have a rich ecosystem of analog and digital and hybrid stuff, and have to exercise some self-discipline to keep myself focussed, than be more tightly constrained by the marketplace.#

Completely agree that we need to exercise self-discipline, absolutely an essential step for an artistic creation. In my personal artistic growth (hopefully I' ll keep growing) I find that I can force myself to be very creative when somehow contrained (as my own choice) by few, simple and straightforward tools. Limitations can make imagination flourish. In the beginning it was all about trying all kinds of lenses, films, apertures, settings. Now I'm sometimes surprised how much I can improve using the same classic tools everytime. I guess it's part of a process and seeing so many alternatives and options of all sorts can be an initial load of positive stimuli to try and find out what we really like, if we can stay focused.

ntenny · Feb 27, 2014

In my youth I discovered the Oulipo, a group of mostly French (inevitably) writers, the marquee members being Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, and Italo Calvino, who did a lot of experimentation with highly constrained creative work. The signal example is Perec's _La Disparition_, an entire novel written without using the letter 'e'---in FRENCH! (There's an English translation under the title _A Void_; it's not *the* most readable book in the world, but it must be easily the most readable book in the world that omits the most common letter.) A lot of their ideas about constraints apply just as well to photography, and many of them are actually pretty normal practices; how many people shoot all their landscapes without people in the frame, or preach "one camera one lens one film", for instance?

Without meaning to get *too* goofy and philosophical, I think those folks are onto something, in that working within constraints is a good way to find things you didn't know you could do. So I think it's valuable to *have* the letter 'e' available, so to speak, but that doesn't mean you always have to use it, or even that everybody has to use it at all. (I think serious wildlife photography without digital is just about the equivalent of writing without the letter 'e'---and there are people who do a terrific job at it, but man, I lose my analog principles in a hurry when trying to chase hummingbirds around.)

As a classmate of mine rather wonderfully said once, "It's not an either/and, it's a both/or."

-NT

Chan Tran · Feb 27, 2014

I saw this post over Photo.net and found it very funny

"I'm taking a photography class in HS and I'm really into it, especially film. My pictures, however, when they're printed traditionally on B&W photo paper don't appear have the 'film look' to them, or at least that's what it looks like.
Is it something that has to do with the contrast? or possibly the (cheapy) film and/or paper? The Exposure?

I'm using a Konica Autoreflex TC with the Standard Hexanon 50mm f1.7 lens. The film is both 100 and 400 ASA Arista EDU Ultra. The Paper is RC VC Arista as well.

Thanks in advance for the help."

So it looks like we have to define the film look.

Thomas Bertilsson · Feb 27, 2014

Chan Tran said:
I saw this post over Photo.net and found it very funny

"I'm taking a photography class in HS and I'm really into it, especially film. My pictures, however, when they're printed traditionally on B&W photo paper don't appear have the 'film look' to them, or at least that's what it looks like.
Is it something that has to do with the contrast? or possibly the (cheapy) film and/or paper? The Exposure?

I'm using a Konica Autoreflex TC with the Standard Hexanon 50mm f1.7 lens. The film is both 100 and 400 ASA Arista EDU Ultra. The Paper is RC VC Arista as well.

Thanks in advance for the help."

So it looks like we have to define the film look.

Sounds like a wildly misguided person, focusing on completely the wrong things.

Why only just shoot film?

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