Why shoot analogue colour photos?

koraks said:

I remember the problems with dust back when I used a canon 20d. On my already geriatric Canon 7D, I've never suffered from dust problems. Its auto-cleaning mechanism seems to avoid whatever problems I would encounter otherwise. Don't all contemporary cameras have a similar feature?

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My cameras have that feature but yet I still have problem with sensor dust.

albireo said:

Absolutely, but I think OP was specifically asking for reasons to use colour negative film to generate pictures. Camera ergonomics and usability is a factor here for many.

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I shoot film for all the reason Koraks said and I use color film because I don't shoot B&W. I do like the ergonomics of old cameras better than modern ones but that's not the reason.

koraks said:

I remember the problems with dust back when I used a canon 20d. On my already geriatric Canon 7D, I've never suffered from dust problems. Its auto-cleaning mechanism seems to avoid whatever problems I would encounter otherwise. Don't all contemporary cameras have a similar feature?

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I don't know, my used Pentax K-1 came with some minor dust spots on the sensor that I've never been able to completely get rid of no matter how many times I've used the sensor clean feature or blower devices.

Taylor Nankervis said:

the clinical, sharp, sterile output of digital (I really cannot stand looking at digital images which have been so overly sharpened and falsely colourised that it tears the retina!).

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There once was a time.....when it was easy for me to buy a calendar. That point will be arriving soon, once again, with the year 2026 just around the corner. The problem is that every calendar nowadays -- even the Sierra Club calendars -- are painful to look at, Horrible, digital garbage. It looks like I'll have to finally bite the bullet -- and make my own. There is a "OFF-ramp!!!!

Pieter12 said:

The fuss and bother of doing a proper digital scan of color negative is about equal to that of adjusting a digital file to have a more film-like look.

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That hasn't been my experience at all. Perhaps it has to do with the particular scanner & built-in software, but as long as I have a clean negative, scanning is very quick. Not that the scanners don't give me trouble now and again -- just like printers -- but most of the time, they work great.

Pieter12 said:

The fuss and bother of doing a proper digital scan of color negative is about equal to that of adjusting a digital file to have a more film-like look. Both take time and skill to do well. A lot of what makes film photos have a certain look is the lenses. Adapters are available to use some of those on modern digital cameras. A lot of the appeal of film photography is about boasting rights, trendiness and stubbornness.

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"I am unable to take pictures I like via scanned film, so people who claim they are, are boasting and trying to be trendy and stubborn".

Not necessarily, and uncalled for. There are people out there who get better results from their digitized film than their digital camera.

They also find the process of digitizing film easier than shooting with a DSLR and photoshopping and/or the results more pleasant.

I don’t really shoot colour film these days because of the overheads of cost and processing. I shoot plenty of B&W film and process & print myself. It’s affordable which makes creative trial and error feasible.

But I feel I can always identify colour negative originated images whilst acknowledging that the best of slavish photoshopping might get past me.

In fact I think the idea that digital just ‘replaces’ what film does is highly questionable. Even more so than the distinction between vinyl and digital audio, Colour negative & digital sensors both produce images but they are quite different. Whilst digital has replaced film for most image production, it’s clearly not the same thing to educated eyes - a point of consensus on both sides of the partisan divide of digital / analog. Apart from the fact that they render images differently, there’s the other substantive fact i.e. that they ARE different. They are physically different materials with very different workflows. And in an age where A.I. Technology increasingly devours any last remnant of digital origination / acquisition, debatably the distinctions between digital and colour negative might in future become ever more significant as people loose faith their own capacity to believe in digital ‘photographs’ as factual vs synthetic.

Hold onto those cameras!

loccdor said:

I don't know, my used Pentax K-1 came with some minor dust spots on the sensor that I've never been able to completely get rid of no matter how many times I've used the sensor clean feature or blower devices.

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Some dust (or whatever it is) can be removed from the sensor only with contact cleaners. Swabs or adhesive rubber sticks. I had one spot in my old Canon 5D Mk II that I needed to use an adhesive rubber stick multiple times to get rid of it.

gbroadbridge said:

Each new roll of film is the same as putting a new sensor into a digital camera.

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More like the sensor In a modern digital camera is like having any number of rolls of different film on hand all the time.

koraks said:

What's the advantage of this, though?

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Well, as you know, many folks spend big bucks on attempting to simulate the look of films, whether by software, or by cameras which purport to achieve a look similar to that of film.
They miss the point in a way, because there is more than just the aesthetic, there is also the process which begins with a film choice though visualisation and photography, then to final printing whether by traditional or digital means.

A new roll of film, loaded with a particular subject set in mind, fresh and hopefully not degraded by dust or temperature variation works better for me at least, than taking my Fuji X-T3 and wandering around trying to make up my mind for each shot which sim to use, or even worse, shooting raw and then fiddling around in post trying to fit a simulation to an image.

A new roll of film locks everything in, the base film characteristics, the colour temperature, the speed - and it's a nice clean canvas upon which to imprint an image.

I guess a painter feels the same way, when preparing a new canvas set upon an easel.

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I can see what you mean, although I can't say I agree from my personal perspective. Things work differently for me.

gbroadbridge said:

A new roll of film locks everything in, the base film characteristics, the colour temperature, the speed - and it's a nice clean canvas upon which to imprint an image.

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Beautifully put!

I enjoy it. I did once think I'd only use film for B&W but once I started shooting colour film again I realised that I enjoy it more than digital. I do still shoot both digital and film. Sometimes of the same subject. I suspect that technically it is possible to make the digital shots look like the film shots but I like the inherent differences that occur in my workflow.

Sure, I can shoot a zillion digital photos at zero cost....except the cost is in sorting the wheat form the chaff and editing them. With film, I'll shoot a roll or two of any given subject or on any given day and often more than 50% are keepers. Less time editing/faffing. I am also in the enviable position of having a lab close to me that will process any format C41 and scan reasonably well for £6 which is a bargain. If they ever close, I shall probably learn C41 processing myself.

I would love to do ra4 printing, but I just don't have the time or energy. Have the equipment, keep it in therback of my mind, but don't think I will.
Personally I don't understand why anyone does film photography without doing printing, but people do.
I have no interest in digital photography and If I couldn't do darkroom work I wouldn't even own a camera, beyond the convenience of a phone camera.

ChrisGalway said:

This post was stimulated by https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...p-better-than-kodak-gold-or-colorplus.215894/ but rather than go off-topic on that thread, I'll make the comment here:

If you are going to digitally post-process colour photos (colour negatives or positives), why bother to shoot analogue rather than digital (RAW)?

I think I can be convinced that shooting analogue B&W and scanning might be worthwhile ... to give a distinctive "look" to the final retro image, but surely there is less of a case for colour?

Of course, one perfectly valid response is: because it's so much more fun shooting film! And I'm sure there are many other good reasons, but I'm curious to know them.

I love shooting film, and all my B&W work uses film which is scanned, but when it comes to colour for prints etc, I now use a digital camera. I should add that my main hobby is stereo transparencies, viewed in an optical viewer, and digital displays come nowhere near the quality of a transparency viewed optically or directly, so of course I use film.

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I'm convinced that all hybrid photography is largely for the birds. I let the final medium guide me. I the end product is a print on paper, I start with analog and stay there to the end. If'however, the final product or anywhere along the process is digital, "m best off starting with digital image taking. I've never seen a better way to achieve the best image quality. And if in doubt, digital is the way to go,because it's easier to go from digital to analog than the other way around.

Agulliver said:

Sure, I can shoot a zillion digital photos at zero cost....except the cost is in sorting the wheat form the chaff and editing them. With film, I'll shoot a roll or two of any given subject or on any given day and often more than 50% are keepers.

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+1

I found that as well. When photos are "free", your whole approach changes. I instinctively end up taking many redundant photos of the same thing in the hopes that one will be slightly better than the rest, and I end up paying in the form of tedium at the computer. With film, entirely aside from the monetary cost of film, there's the simple fact that I have a finite number of shots. That makes every shot precious, and worthy of thought and consideration.

Agulliver said:

Less time editing/faffing. I am also in the enviable position of having a lab close to me that will process any format C41 and scan reasonably well for £6 which is a bargain. If they ever close, I shall probably learn C41 processing myself.

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Ha. I envy you. For me, I've been having to mail my film to labs. With shipping included, I've been paying $14 to develop a roll that I purchased for $9. --- So... yeah... I purchased a C-41 kit. When I finish the roll of Color Plus that's in my camera right now, I'll have enough color film to crack open the kit and try my hand at C-41.

RalphLambrecht said:

it's easier to go from digital to analog than the other way around.

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Could you elaborate that final point, please?

This thread has been really interesting for me and has me reflecting on my own relationship with film and digital photography. I’ll try to keep it short but no promises.

I started photography in 2007 while graduating high school, it was the height of the digital armageddon and the internet taught me everything. I got my hands on a 5 megapixel Pentax dslr and hit the ground running. I didn’t understand or care to learn about film. I wanted to make pictures and sell them. And I did. But a few years in I started to have the realization that most of the images I gravitated to were actually shot on film, so I picked up a film camera and had decent results. The lab scans were close to what I was looking for. But it was costly and I didn’t understand how different exposing color negative film was compared to digital. Lots of weak shadows and bad scans. And wow, this was expensive. A few more years go by where I’m playing with film occasionally but mostly shooting digital.

It’s now 2017 and I’ve been a working photographer for a decade. I’m tired and a little bored. So I deep dive into a Contax G2 and color film for the better part of 6 months and get results that are closer to what I’ve wanted. The scanning part still sucks though. Fast forward another year and I’m shooting black and white film and developing it in my kitchen sink. My scanning has gotten better and I’m generally happy with the results. I’m hooked. So I take a black and white printing class at a community darkroom and all of a sudden I’m holding a print that feels like something that was on my mood boards a decade earlier. I finally found that result after messing around for the better part of 13 years with digital. Turns out I just needed to keep it simple and get in the darkroom.

So these days I shoot digitally for commercial clients that don’t have the budget or timeline. And I can get close, the digital looks great and can stand its own next to film work made on the same shoot. But different is not the same. Film and digital are two different mediums that arrive at similar, but different results. For personal work, it has to be on film printed in the darkroom.

For what it's worth, digital photos aren't free. You don't get prints from digital files for free. And while it's swell to look at photos on a screen, you're likely not going to want to peruse 100000 photos. So you whittle it down. Then, at the very least, those "keepers" divide into the cost of their existence - camera, whatever infrastructure you require for editing and viewing them - and will not be free at all.

The ones you delete are free.

ChrisGalway said:

If you are going to digitally post-process colour photos (colour negatives or positives), why bother to shoot analogue rather than digital (RAW)?

I think I can be convinced that shooting analogue B&W and scanning might be worthwhile ... to give a distinctive "look" to the final retro image, but surely there is less of a case for colour?

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I went through a similar thought process, and came to a similar conclusion. For the past 6 or 7 years, I have chosen to make nearly all of my b&w photos on film, and nearly all of my color photos with a digital camera. I decide beforehand if the photo is going to be b&w or color, and that determines which camera I use. Honestly, I have seen digital photos processed as b&w which I like very much (including a few of my own). But what I didn't like was getting back home with an SD card full of RAW files and agonizing over every shot whether it should be color or b&w. For me it was better to make that decision in the field, and burn my bridges behind me.

The real reason I continue to shoot b&w film has less to do with the "distinctive look" of my results and more to do with enjoying the experience of using my analog cameras. The view through the big bright viewfinder of my Pentax MX is much prettier than what I see in the EVF of my mirrorless digital camera. And while the viewfinder of my Rolleicord is not as bright, it is big.

Unlike many who don't like the computer part, I actually enjoy the digital darkroom (Lightroom) a lot more than I enjoy working in a wet darkroom. I don't have a darkroom at home, but since 2019 I have taken two semesters of photography classes which gave me access to a well-equipped university darkroom. I discovered I don't care that much about prints. I have made few nice looking photography books on my computer and had them printed by Blurb, but otherwise, I am content for my photos to be viewed on a screen.

Taylor Nankervis said:

Film in colour has a very distinctive look about it (especially films like Velvia, Provia and Ektachrome 100, among others in the past), very much different to the clinical, sharp, sterile output of digital

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It seems funny to me that "clinical" "sharp" and "sterile" have become dirty words. ;-)

During the entire history of analog photography, every lens designer, camera maker, and film manufacturer worked diligently towards the goal of making photographs that were as sharp and accurate as humanly possible. Sure there were a few exceptions, some special purpose lenses that were designed to be soft for portraiture, but generally speaking sharp was the goal. As near as I can tell, to say a photograph is "clinical" is to say the photograph is accurate. And people who don't like clinical photographs, seem to like some degree of "character" -- aka vignetting, distortion, flair, coloration, etc. -- all defects that the photo industry worked so long and hard to eliminate. These photographers are a hard lot to please. ;-)

albireo said:

"I am unable to take pictures I like via scanned film, so people who claim they are, are boasting and trying to be trendy and stubborn".

Not necessarily, and uncalled for. There are people out there who get better results from their digitized film than their digital camera.

They also find the process of digitizing film easier than shooting with a DSLR and photoshopping and/or the results more pleasant.

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Your reinterpretation of my statement is totally uncalled for. Speak for yourself.

ChrisGalway said:

This post was stimulated by https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...p-better-than-kodak-gold-or-colorplus.215894/ but rather than go off-topic on that thread, I'll make the comment here:

If you are going to digitally post-process colour photos (colour negatives or positives), why bother to shoot analogue rather than digital (RAW)?

I think I can be convinced that shooting analogue B&W and scanning might be worthwhile ... to give a distinctive "look" to the final retro image, but surely there is less of a case for colour?

Of course, one perfectly valid response is: because it's so much more fun shooting film! And I'm sure there are many other good reasons, but I'm curious to know them.

I love shooting film, and all my B&W work uses film which is scanned, but when it comes to colour for prints etc, I now use a digital camera. I should add that my main hobby is stereo transparencies, viewed in an optical viewer, and digital displays come nowhere near the quality of a transparency viewed optically or directly, so of course I use film.

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Shooting film is "fun" in a way that driving a car with non-power-assisted steering, and drum brakes is fun. There is a reason why Austin Healeys have a loyal fan base, or the early Mini Coopers.

I use both, and I shoot b/w as well as colour film, and I sometimes heavily post-process it, and sometimes I just take jpgs out of the digital camera, and some film negatives and digital files will be printed, some will only live digitally. I also use very old lenses, and more "clinical" newer ones. It is all dependent on my mood, and sometimes its just random.

Yes, I like the act of putting a new roll of film into a camera body, like stuffing a Vauen pipe with Navy Flake. Or what ever the equivalent it. But I am not religious about it, and, yes, putting a "new" (formatted) SD card into my M240 is maybe not the same,

So for me, there is no "Them or Us" (FZ), no "camp" to "belong to". Leica M is a wonderful system in which these boundaries blur wonderfully.

Taylor Nankervis said:

Film in colour has a very distinctive look about it (especially films like Velvia, Provia and Ektachrome 100, among others in the past), very much different .....

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In the OP I deliberately referred to colour negative film, partly because indeed taking colour transparencies is another world ... particularly if you view them optically as I do.

awty said:

Personally I don't understand why anyone does film photography without doing printing, but people do.

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Make that "most" people do.

Come on, there are lots of reasons. Some people love film and/or their film camera, but don't have the time and/or space for a darkroom -- processing and an enlarger.

There's even been a few times when I've let a lab do the "hard" work for me --because it was more convenient.

Pieter12 said:

Your reinterpretation of my statement is totally uncalled for. Speak for yourself.

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You say

A lot of the appeal of film photography is about boasting rights, trendiness and stubbornness.

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I will let this petty little sentence speak for itself, then.