Switching back to film

[spopepro]

So I have a D70s, and I've taken some very nice pictures with it:


But I've been becoming less satisfied with it... not there's anything wrong. But it's like Dura Ace 9 speed, and maybe time to change. So I went looking and to get something really legitimately better, and not just newer, I was looking at 2k for a body. So fuck that, I bought this:

camera.jpg

I figure I can shoot and develop a ton of film for the cost of a new body, pay someone else to scan it and still come out ahead, and probably get better pictures while I'm at it.

Anyone else go back to film?

[jitahs]

Not with Instagram around.

[Bobonli]

Yes, and then back to digital.

About 2 years ago I went waaay back: 4x5 large format and 35mm Leica M6, developing and scanning my own stuff. Color film went to a lab, but I taught myself how to do B&W in the kitchen. Very satisfying and there's nothing like looking at a large format negative or a print made from it. But it is a colossal time commitment unless it's your full time gig and I missed the immediacy of the LCD which let me know if I blew the shot. I got tired of sitting in front of the scanner, tweaking things over and over until I was happy. And then you also have double the storage issues, instead of a computer file you now have a negative and a file and maybe prints.

I still break out my Nikon FM every once in awhile, maybe once a year; otherwise, I'm content in the digital age.

[sonny]

So I went looking and to get something really legitimately better

different, not better. film is not better short of absolute resolution of 8x10 film. it's just got baked-in 'feel'. digi is more open-ended.

i shoot medium format film and sometimes make money with it. it's less flexible, requires more time in choosing exposure, making composition, dealing with backs, developing, making contacts, and finally printing. or you can scan it and have the same product as digi, but with way more effort.

i shoot digi when i want to fire from the hip or actually capture something in real time. that's 95% of the time atmo

in the end it's about what you value. process or product (not mutually exclusive). i dig film cuz the process. digi process i could give a fuck about, but i know how to use it to get what i want. just two ways to make an equivalent image (disregarding impact of process on valuation--"art" is all about the backstory).

images are made for many purposes by many different people. i get that.
the question we ask around here though is, 'what would a war shooter do?' they'd use the most flexible, the fastest, the highest resolution. it's digi bro

and you are deluding yourself if you think you need a 2k body
<$1000 prosumer shit has never been better. the pros use it-

[false_aesthetic]

Film is the shit. It teaches you to SEE. Digital teaches you to edit.

Instagram is the chinarello of the photography world.

Blahblahblah. I teach digital. I've printed for everyone from Nicholas Nixon to Dawoud Bey. There's a reason why they're still using film. There's a reason why I use film even though I teach Beginning-UberAdvanced digital photography.

While some dude is checking the LCD to make sure the shot is "OK" I've fired the next 5 because I know my shots are good.


----

and I totally disagree with Sonny. The short of it is that art directors, producers don't care about crappy quality. Fixing a photo in PS (I do not mean sewing it together with something else) is a sign of the photographer making a mistake. It's brazing a frame crooked and then bending it close to straight.

[maunahaole]

Interesting discussion. I sure like the convenience of digital. But I can say for sure that my film pics are better on the OM-2 that I bought at a yard sale for $10 (note that I shot print negatives not slides) as a result of a lot more exposure latitude with the film as opposed what I have shot on the Nikon D80.

[jitahs]

Film is the shit. It teaches you to SEE. Digital teaches you to edit.

Instagram is the chinarello of the photography world.

Blahblahblah. I teach digital. I've printed for everyone from Nicholas Nixon to Dawoud Bey. There's a reason why they're still using film. There's a reason why I use film even though I teach Beginning-UberAdvanced digital photography.

While some dude is checking the LCD to make sure the shot is "OK" I've fired the next 5 because I know my shots are good.


----

and I totally disagree with Sonny. The short of it is that art directors, producers don't care about crappy quality. Fixing a photo in PS (I do not mean sewing it together with something else) is a sign of the photographer making a mistake. It's brazing a frame crooked and then bending it close to straight.

Agree with all this, also agree with sonny go figure.

I don't have a phone, have a reluctant admiration of insta, something I spent way too much time in the ps edit room trying to emulate last decade. Destroy the digi copy, for there's too much rez., for the emotional hit. Quote the past through tech.

What's a photo, what's it's aim?

Film is great, film is good, film will bring back some of that emotion but not all. Those days are gone.

[Derek Raymond]

What are the differences environmentally between film and digital? I mean, I remember just the high school photo room being a great place to be if you didn't care much about your lungs. Nostalgia-wise, film is cool...practicality-wise... guess I'm missing the picture.

[sonny]

Film is the shit. It teaches you to SEE. Digital teaches you to edit.

Instagram is the chinarello of the photography world.

Blahblahblah. I teach digital. I've printed for everyone from Nicholas Nixon to Dawoud Bey. There's a reason why they're still using film. There's a reason why I use film even though I teach Beginning-UberAdvanced digital photography.

While some dude is checking the LCD to make sure the shot is "OK" I've fired the next 5 because I know my shots are good.


----

and I totally disagree with Sonny. The short of it is that art directors, producers don't care about crappy quality. Fixing a photo in PS (I do not mean sewing it together with something else) is a sign of the photographer making a mistake. It's brazing a frame crooked and then bending it close to straight.

i think we're talking about two different things. digi nor film automatically creates a good image. i can take shitty pics with either one. it's how we utilize the medium. film demands attention and deliberation if you actually want some results, i agree. there is certainly less latitude in darkroom to correct mistakes. one can 'walk' the exposure and frame while chimping like an idiot towards something acceptable with digi and have leeway to fix further fuckups in post-process. this does not mean it is acceptable to do so. before the mystery of film was a barrier to entry for the masses, now they can fire away in ignorance.

i approach picture taking largely the same regardless of medium. i was taught on film and my old man has slapped me before for being an idiot with the 1 & 0s.

if you are going to make a formal sort of image on anything, the skills you will use originated and were perfected long ago..


*digital does allow me to take and share snaps in places i wouldn't otherwise (my sweat soaked, dead lcd snap camera makes the weekend ride threads ;) ). and as such i am usually pretty casual with it. no different than using an old olympus compact

[spopepro]

and you are deluding yourself if you think you need a 2k body
<$1000 prosumer shit has never been better. the pros use it-

The one legit frustration I've run into with the D70s is low light situations. Unless someone's holding out on me, 2k is about what it takes for a full frame sensor; the prosumer stuff is all APS-C, which is awesome, but is ultimately the same as what I have. Maybe canon is cheaper, but I have nice nikon glass.

The only "pro" thing I do is take portfolio photos of my wife's lighting designs:

So, yeah, color reproduction is key, we don't always get the luxury of the actors stopping, and increasing the light available kind of defeats the purpose. But maybe the pros here have some magic they can share.

[Ben]

From my perspective as a decidedly self-taught amateur, digital has one massive advantage: it's soooooo much cheaper to take the thousands upon thousands of pictures it takes (or took me, anyway) to get better. I take probably 10-20 times as many pics with digital as I did with my old film SLR, simply because I can afford to.

I realize this isn't exactly relevant to the conversation y'all are having, but for the 99% of us hamfists out there, it's a revelatory difference.

[sonny]

The one legit frustration I've run into with the D70s is low light situations. Unless someone's holding out on me, 2k is about what it takes for a full frame sensor; the prosumer stuff is all APS-C, which is awesome, but is ultimately the same as what I have. Maybe canon is cheaper, but I have nice nikon glass.

the image processing has come a long way since the d70 (had one), opening up the iso range w/ acceptable noise for better low-lighting situations. more resolution helps out too.

what films are you shooting? are you pushing them? i love film v. digital discussions. pile on!


disclaimer: i am helping to build a private darkroom with salthill and lecia enlargers, jobo film processor and all the latest and greatest from the last century--film is fun

[xjoex]

I have a Nikon FA, takes great shots... although I rarely use it these days.


I had an M6 for a while. In about 2004 everyone was saying Leica was dieing. They would only rebadge Panasonic digitals and the world had moved on. So the M6 and lenses hit rock bottom prices.


I loved that camera, in theory. I liked it for landscape, but people picture were bad for me. It took me too long to focus, set exposure and snap away. Also, this was just me. But the rangefinder gets out of adjustment easily if bumped around (i.e. hiking and riding). So I had that fixed once for $100 and sold it.

Anyhow, some of my favorite pics ever were from the FA. But developing, scanning and processing just got to be a bit too much of a headache and I went back to digital.

Now I just have really been digging the OM-D EM5 digital (thanks for the tip Billrick).

Photography is really fun no matter what you shoot.

-Joe

[j44ke]

Film is nice for all the reasons mentioned here. For black and white. Digital doesn't get black and white at all. And there is no digital printer that can recreate the tones of a nice rag paper silver print made in a darkroom.

I say this with the utmost tenderness and love for my fellow man, but you have to be a masochist to shoot 35mm color print or slide film these days.

When you compare costs, ALWAYS figure in time & waste. If you aren't going to develop your own stuff, figure in developing costs & waste. Waste meaning all those opportunities with film to spend a whole day shooting and not get a single thing. Or take it to the developer and get trashed scratched negatives they boiled twice in the developer. Or develop yourself and watch the emulsion go down the drain (WTF?)

And you are probably going to scan things (film scanner? flatbed? rental?) and then you'll be dealing with color profile conflicts between the scanner and the monitor and the printer (own/rent?) etc. Hours and days and weeks you will never get back.

Go get a full-frame Nikon Dwhatsit. They are great, accurate, fast and that's why pros use them.

[Nierman]

Instagram is gonna fall hard here soon as people get sick of looking at each other in purple and green hues. Though that makes me yearn for my old Trek 930. Maybe I'll dig the old Pentax K1000 out just to watch the meter bounce around in the viewfinder.

[maunahaole]

Face it. Film SLRs have way nicer index clicks on them than digitalis do.

[TomW]

Instagram is gonna fall hard here soon as people get sick of looking at each other in purple and green hues. Though that makes me yearn for my old Trek 930. Maybe I'll dig the old Pentax K1000 out just to watch the meter bounce around in the viewfinder.

I think you are thinking about IG wrongly. IG is not there to replace film but to work alongside it. I carry my iPhone with me all the time. I sure as hell don't hike around my 5Dmk3. And you don't have to use filters. A lot of the people I follow don't use them and just take nice shots and use them to share the pictures.

Moreover, IG is primarily a way to share pictures when pre-internet you were confined to going to galleries. Now I can find a subject I am interested in or a photographer instantly. The pictures can be iPhone or 5Dmk3 or old medium format scanned in... they are just hosted on IG. If someone uses a shit filter their shots suck. If someone couldn't focus on an old film camera; their shots sucked.

[Bob Ross]

Anyone else go back to film?

I haven't exactly "gone" back to film; I've simply decided to stop being a photography enthusiast until I can go back to film.

My 35mm film camera (an early 1970s Nikkormat something-or-other) was starting to exhibit some problems just about the time digital photography became common, so I shelved the Nikkormat and embraced a number of semi-swanky digital cameras

...and ever since I've never been nearly as happy with either the results or the very act of composing/shooting pictures. The pics don't look nearly as good, and the process just isn't as much fun.
But I can't afford to have my Nikkormat fixed or replaced, so I'm just biding my time (probably until retirement, which is a good ways away, or until my Dad dies & I inherit his badass 35mm rig, which hopefully is also a good ways away).

[Jonathan]

A year or so ago as a challenge I almost bought a cheap Russian rangefinder Leica copy to see if I could learn to snap decent pics with it. I like the idea of b&w film. It's the only real part of film I miss.

[coolberto hipsterdor]

Printing your own b&w is worth it but color prints are one area where digital is so much better that you can't ignore it IMO. I used to use a canon eos-1 with my dslr lenses and got great results from it, I would highly suggest a 'modern' film camera if you are already familiar with modern cameras because the better autofocus and exposure modes mean you'll waste a lot less material. Likewise for vintagey fun you can adapt manual focus m42 mount lenses to dslr's and be out nothing while you go nuts with the mf.